MSNBC just flashed that the Obama car is driving to the Pepsi Center.

Who has been your favorite speaker so far tonight? And how do the speakers compare to last night?

Yesterday Bob Casey had one of the best lines of the night:

John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush more than 90% of the time...that's not a maverick, that's a sidekick.

Tonight he is relaxing and enjoying the show.

I'm speechless.

John Kerry just explained not only why I'm a Democrat, but why I don't trust Republicans on ANYTHING -- including their so-called strength: "national security".

From Kagro X, reporting from the Pepsi Center...convention goers watching Bill Clinton on TV. Remember, these folks are all about ten steps away from seeing it live. But rather than miss a word during the ten foot walk, they stayed glued to the screens.

Nearly everyone agrees Hillary Clinton gave the speech of her political life last night, magnanimously urging her diehard supporters to back Senator Obama for president. She emphasized what all democrats know: it is in their best interests and America's to see Barack Obama elected. As her reference to the Supreme Court suggests, a McCain presidency has negative long-term ramifications and will spiral America further downward.

Last night, Clinton earned figurative pats on the back for singing harmony. This is like praising the virtue of someone who kicked you in the head but was kind enough to give you an ice pack for the headache. Had it not been for Clinton's near-Rovian performance those last months of the primary, this disunity would be a background mumble rather than a ferocious roar reverberating daily in every media outlet.

Last night, following Hillary's wonderful speech, I wrote a diary with this very same title, noting that the one element that was unfortunately missing from Hillary's otherwise perfect speech was a full on endorsement of Obama's readiness and leadership ability.

Well, folks. Bill Clinton did it. And if this doesn't reassure Democrats, then nothing will. Bill and Hillary delivered a one-two punch.  Hillary set the stage. She urged her supporters to reject John McCain and support the party. Bill followed up by showing us why Obama is the one who needs to be President.

I'm not sure to what extent this was the plan. I suspect it was all along. Hillary and Bill would work together to reunite the party. And what an incredible job they did.

I think the most interesting thing about these last to nights is how effectively the Clintons united this party. Now, I think a lot of us Obama supporters were thinking, "boy, the Clintons really need to fix what they broke."

I just watched Bill's address to the Democratic National Convention. Yeah, there were things I didn't like, but overall, he did what he needed to do. I don't doubt he didn't like some of what he did, but that's what makes him qualified for any number of jobs that I'd get fired from, just after lunch on my first day. The Big Dog's a pro.

And, of course, there were parts that I liked. "And second; I'm here to warm up the crowd for Joe Biden." Okay, so even if he's not totally happy, he can be funny. And, "the power of our example, than by the example of our power."; "Katrina and cronyism..." May G-d bless the Big Dog. "Thanks, but no thanks."

America can do better than that and Barack Obama will do better than that.

Clinton just laid some branding on the Democrats and made the Republicans own the last eight years as we saw their ideology in practice.

They want us to reward them for the failures of the last four years with four more years.

The third time is not the charm.

The Big Dog is up. Prepare for media tears as Bill Clinton endorses Barack Obama. Says Bill:

I am honored to be here tonight...[crowd going nuts]...I am here, first to support Barack Obama and second I'm here to warm up the crowd for Joe Biden.

People have been jumping all over John McCain's forgetting of how many homes he owns, and rightfully so - the idea of a man who can't even remember his own assets being the guy who'll fix the American economy is just outright laughable. I'm all for ripping on McCain on this front, or really on any front. But while it's good to take from this a sense of just how out of touch McCain is about the real conditions of the economy, there's another thing we should take away from this - and a disturbing pattern that raises questions about whether this man is fit to hold the office of leader of the free world.

"We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop."

Martin Luther King
April 3, 1968

Readers of my old blog, the Whiskey Bar, probably know I have had a long and conflicted relationship with the Democratic Party -- one that generally ranges between reluctantly supportive (on the really good days) to utterly disgusted (most days).

To compare it to a bad marriage would be an insult to unhappy couples everywhere.

...and found me crying about half an hour ago.

I stood in the middle of our living room with tears in my eyes and running down my face.

(continued)

It's official:  Nancy Pelosi entered a motion to nominate Barack Obama by acclamation, it was seconded and carried. Discuss.

Whoo-Hooo!

Marc Ambinder (whose reporting has been must-read) and Mark Blumenthal offer nuggets from an on-the-record briefing by David Plouffe.

From Ambinder:

Barack Obama's margin among independent swing-voting women and sporadically voting Democrats are two of the main metrics his campaign is closely monitoring, Obama's election manager, David Plouffe, said today.

Plouffe, speaking to reporters, editors and executives of the Atlantic Media company in a throwback conference room in downtown Denver, said that Obama's internal polling suggests that McCain runs a double-digit deficit with this group runs into the double digits in some swing states. "And that's before they know about his position on choice and that he's against equal pay," Plouffe said.

Voters, he said, were treated to an "a ha!" moment last week when McCain couldn't recall the number of houses he owned and suggested that earning $5 million a year would not make a person rich.

"The development on the out of touch argument is an actually critical development of the campaign," he said, because "[s]ome of the voters images of McCain don't jibe with reality."

From Blumenthal, focusing on polling:

Plouffe also emphasized that the internal polling the campaign does is focused on those same 18 states, and that their real concern is not the horse race results but the "data underneath." Later, he added, "the top-line [polling data] doesn't tell you anything." Rather, they focus on who the "true undecideds" are, "how they are going to break," and what messages will best persuade them.

The Gallup Daily tracking poll is apparently a particular sore point. When asked whether they were unhappy that the Biden announcement had not produced a bounce in national polls, Plouffe shot back: "How would we know . . . from the Gallup Daily?" The Gallup Daily is "something we don't pay attention to," he said again.

Communications director Dan Pfieffer later put it more bluntly, expressing unhappiness with the "inordinate focus on bad polling" by the media and also in the routine misinterpretation of sampling noise in the Gallup Daily poll. "The Gallup Daily is the worst thing that's happened in journalism in 20 years," he said.

Meanwhile, the worst thing that's happened in journalism in 20 years has Obama back on top by 1.

As mentioned, interviewing by Gallup on Tuesday night showed a stronger Obama performance, which could augur the beginnings of a bounce for Obama, as is evident more often than not immediately after a candidate's convention. Gallup's official "post-convention bounce" reading on Obama's support will be based on interviewing conducted Friday through Sunday.

Atlantic Media should have more later on the briefing. For example:

"If he does pick Romney, what a duo! It's the greatest job killing machine in the history of American politics. Mitt Romney is an expert on Cayman Island tax shelters. You couldn't have a more out of touch ticket."

Time/CNN has just released new battelground polls and it shows good news for Obama!

Colorado:  McCain 47, Obama 46

Nevada:  Obama 49, McCain 44

New Mexico:  Obama 53, McCain 40

Pennsylvania:  Obama 48 McCain 44

http://www.time.com/...

I thought, with Labor Day weekend coming up, what better time to share this clip of John McCain?

In this video, Senator McCain verbally attacks a construction worker who dares to question McCain's claim that migrant workers earn $50 per hour picking lettuce.