Summer argy-bargy
Reading your responses and talking to Tad Devine, the former chief consultant to Al Gore and adviser to the Kerry campaign, I think the most reasonable take is that Obama is probably doing just fine.
Remember the autumn of 2007 when he was dismissed by many as a man incapable of hitting the mark when it mattered? Well, what he knew was that it didn't actually matter then; it mattered a few months later in the snow in Iowa, and his people had been preparing for that moment all along.
It's the same deal now. Devine told me one of the biggest mistakes with Kerry was not to let the man take a break (I didn't mention the windsurfing debacle but I suppose that was a sign of a holidaymaker manque frustrated by being kept too long on the campaign trail) and some of the candidates biggest mistakes stemmed from that error.
A rested Obama and a whose greatest applause will come when he corrects himself and says he DOES think Obama is ready, will set the scene for victory.
But I do think the line "is the biggest celebrity in the World ready to help your family" (running now in around a dozen states) is a good one: you can see how this man could lose and it not be the fault of racists or warmongers or ignoramuses.
In the meantime, it is time to chill - rather in the manner of this who watched a non-event come and go down in Texas.
The real storm will come, but this summer argy-bargy is not it .......
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