[McCain has spent less time in "real" Virginia than Obama.]

As someone pointed out the other day, "unreal" Virginia is where the Pentagon is located, so the victims of 9/11 there weren't, it appears, "real Americans."

Another sad comment on the Fibber McCain campaign.

Ed

I feel like the roundup became shorter after the move. just a thought.

GP,

I think any brevity in the round-up is due to the increased volume of posting in general. Steve seems compelled to elevate most news items to posts of their own these days, so there is less fodder for the drive-by compilation.

* If you haven't seen pictures from Obama's record-breaking crowd in St. Louis on Saturday, it was an impressive showing. -- Steve Benen

McCain's supposed to be in St Louis (and Kansas City) today; it would be interesting to see what kind of crowds he will draw...

Ed: New York, too. 9/11 killed very few real Americans, it seems.

The people in the front of the crowd at St. Louis all appear to be giving Obama a Sieg Heil salute. Fortunately, they are all just trying to take his picture with cell phones & digital cameras. That's change we can be very glad about.

Steve, you might want to re-read the TPM piece. They reported that the Dems appear ahead in all those states _except_ FL.

The SNL sketches were funny, but not because of Sarah Palin. She grimaced and clenched her jaws through the whole thing, looking totally not amused and barely restraining herself from punching somebody.

The Amy Poehler rap bit was hysterical and Tina Fey was gorgeous and spot on as Palin...as always.
But the candidate herself came off as dull, quite frankly, and almost certainly did herself no favors by showing up.

In Minnesota, a Star Tribune poll shows Obama leading McCain by 11, 52% to 41%, Research 2000 shows Obama ahead by 13, 52% to 39%, and SurveyUSA shows Obama up by six, 50% to 44%.

May his coattails be big enough to kick Michelle "Troglodyte" Bachmann to the curb once and for all.

That's just wonderful that Palin was on SNL in 2 amusing skits. How low has American politics gone? Here's a candidate for the Vice Presidency of the United States who will appear on a comedy sketch show but will not hold a serious news conference.

Obama’s potential cabinet is shaping up, with Clinton retreads, senatorial retreads, and even the obligatory “post-partisan� Republican. Yucck.

* Sarah Palin appeared on "Saturday Night Live" over the weekend, and was in two amusing skits.

Just as Nixon never understood (or did and couldn't help himself) that when appearing on Laugh In we weren't laughing with him, Palin did not raise her standing with anyone by appearing on SNL. In fact, you gotta wonder what the base was thinking? Have they finally figured out that they go under the bus if she makes her way to FOX?

Al Gore's hilarious bit from a couple years back notwithstanding, appearing on SNL is not "presidential" or even dignified if you're to be taken seriously as an elected official.

McCain's supposed to be in St Louis (and Kansas City) today; it would be interesting to see what kind of crowds he will draw...

Oh, dozens, easily.

-Z

Sometimes it seems that more than anything else, Palin is just a beauty queen trying to make the most of her time in the spotlight.

May his coattails be big enough to kick Michelle "Troglodyte" Bachmann to the curb once and for all.

Hey, that is an insult to troglodytes! Michelle Bachman is only a relative by marriage!

Looks like North Carolina, Georgia and Florida in the east, Ohio, Missouri and Indiana in the midwest and Nevada, Montana and the Dakotas in the west.

That's quite a long list of "close race" states considering how close we are to election day. Is that normal?

I thought early votes are not counted until election night.

And even if they were, nobody's releasing who's ahead and who's behind.

"Obama expects the presidential race to get tighter in the remaining 15 days."

Lawrence O'Donnell was on MSNBC this afternoon, and he said something pretty interesting; yes, polls do tend to tighten up as election day gets closer, and sometimes that is because the race itself it getting closer. But sometimes, it is because the pollsters get nervous about "being out there", so they fudge their "weight values" of the overall electorate, so that they lessen the chances of coming up "wrong" on election day.

So, is the race realy tightening? Or are pollsters getting nervous about being further "out there" this year than pretty much any year in memory?