Some people say “a vice president is just a vice president,” that a visit from a #2 isn’t all that big a deal. However, it seems that Vice President Biden’s current trip has important meanings for all involved. While it may not be as big a deal as a visit from Obama himself, sending the [...]

The Democrat’s dream of a supermajority is dead, at least until 2010.
Also, Saxby Chambliss has the world’s biggest left hand.
From CNN:
Chambliss, a freshman Republican senator, was projected to win more than 50 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s rematch against Democrat Jim Martin.
The election is playing off the results of November 4, when Chambliss failed [...]

Keep in mind that the following is coming from a critic of the Georgian administration, but he was an insider and he also went before his own government to give his assessment of the situation.
From BBC:
Erosi Kitsmarishvili, a former envoy to Russia, was testifying at a parliamentary commission hearing into the war the breakaway Georgian [...]

No surprises here, although Georgia was seen as a possible landslide indicator for Obama.
Georgia has 15 electoral votes.
Alabama has 9.

This from FiveThirtyEight…
If there is one shocker on election night in the presidential race, cast your eyes to Georgia. 1,994,990 people voted early in Georgia. 3,301,875 total voted in Georgia’s presidential race in 2004.
We may be headed for something completely unexpected tonight.

More trend lines from Pollster.com, and it looks like McCain will be able to hold onto this state barely.

Here’s Chuck Todd’s take…
Has this state really slipped into the toss-up category? Possibly. A few years ago, I asked a smart Democratic demographer which states could become competitive if the party could maximize voter registration and turnout [...]

The big news here is that Colorado is really starting to turn blue, and nearly every news organization has changed it to lean Obama.
Because while wins in Georgia and Missouri would be nice, Obama doesn’t need them. But he does need wins in Colorado, Virginia and Nevada if he doesn’t want to worry about Ohio, [...]

Is Barr this year’s Nader? Probably not because this doesn’t appear to be a close call.
However, he could definitely siphon off crucial votes in New Hampshire and Georgia.

So, will Barr help bring about an Obama landslide?

Mason/Dixon
McCain – 49%
Obama – 43%
It’s pretty astonishing that Georgia is even in leaners column at this point. This state hasn’t gone blue since 1976.
And with early voting seemingly favoring Dems, McCain has a fight on his hands that he most likely never anticipated.
In fact, a recent poll showed Obama with a 1 point advantage.
Long [...]

“Senator John McCain will not win Georgia.”
- Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr
That’s certainly a bold prediction, but let’s remember that Barr represented Georgia’s 7th district from 1995 to 2003, so he may pull support from fiscal conservatives in the state.
What’s more, at least one recent poll has shown Obama up by one.
What do [...]

Obama: 48%
McCain: 47%
Other: 2%
Undec’d: 3%
Alright folks, because of massive turnout by African Americans in early voting, I think Georgia may actually be in the mix this year.
Let’s remember that Obama “routed” (per Alan’s hilarious scale) Hillary in the primary season by 35 points, so he’s certainly a popular figure in the state.
Here’s more…
“Obama is doing [...]

TIME has the numbers.
In Nevada and North Carolina it favors Obama…
Cumulative early-vote totals in the Las Vegas area show ballots were cast by 31,875 Democrats and 13,371 Republicans through midday Monday. Republicans had the advantage in absentee balloting, 6,616 to 6,161 through noon Monday.
In the Reno area, a similar pattern occurred twice as many Democrats [...]

It’s overwhelmingly favoring Obama…
Across the state, Democrats showed the most first-day enthusiasm. Of the nearly 114,000 first-day voters, 64 percent were Democrats, 21 percent Republicans and 15 percent were unaffiliated.
African-American turnout was up significantly. Black voters, who make up about 22 percent of registered voters, were 36 percent of Thursday’s early voters.
In 2004, [...]

McCain – 49%
Obama – 46%
MOE: +/-4
Is this an outlier? Well, FiveThirtyEight gives the poll a weight of 0.89, and that means it’s not nearly as reliable as other polls like Gallup’s daily, which carries a weight of 1.76.
Still…any poll numbers that show a lead this small for McCain at this point in the race has [...]

I don’t think anybody believes Georgia is in play, but if the turnout is this high in a non-swing state, imagine what it’ll be in competitive locales.
From AJC:
A disproportionate number of Georgia’s 194,138 early voters are African-American, in what could be an encouraging sign for Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
As of Wednesday, about 39 percent [...]

This podcast discusses the proposed legislation to bailout Wall Street, McCain suspending his campaign to return to Washington and his call to postpone this Friday’s debate, a debate preview and a discussion of foreign policy issues (both obvious and not so obvious), and more…
[Listen Online] or [Download]
[Subscribe to 2008Central.net's Presidential Election Podcast]
Feel free to email [...]

I watched part of CNN’s “The Next President: A World of Challenges” forum on Sunday, but I missed this bit that reveals Colin Powell not only saying that Georgia started it, but it also appears that he backs away a bit from McCain’s response to the crisis.

As I’ve said before, Colin Powell’s endorsement could be [...]

This is just odd…
McCain is traveling with the U.N.’s World Food Programme, whose work she monitored in Southeast Asia and Africa this spring and summer. McCain plans to meet with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and to visit wounded Georgian soldiers. She would also visit representatives of the HALO Trust, which works to remove land mines [...]

To me, Joe Biden as VP makes a lot of sense for the younger Obama, and his latest overseas trip to Georgia definitely puts him at the top of the list.
From CNN:
(CNN) – When Joe Biden returns to Capitol Hill Monday from his two-day trip to embattled Georgia, vice presidential speculation will rest squarely on [...]