So much for conceding tonight. And, by the way, that was one hell of a speech. It’s been said before, but if she had campaigned from the beginning the way she’s campaigned these past few months (minus the occasional gratuitous reference to winning the votes of “white people”), she would have done better. Which means [...]

John McCain simply can not give a formal speech–especially one with a rhetorical conceit (“And that’s not change you can believe in”)–in a manner that is even vaguely convincing. Everything about him screams: I. Am. Reading. A. Speech. His weird ghostly grins and false chuckling whenever the rhetoric device came around were totally distracting…and they [...]

So what do you think about that green background for McCain’s speech? What about his claim that Barack Obama has never taken the hard step to challenge his own party? My read: The McCain speech was better written than it was delivered. But it also laid out the battle lines for the summer. The refrain [...]

Not at the presidential level, where any sober analysis of the electoral map at this point suggests John McCain and Barack Obama are in a race that will be decided by one or two states. But the congressional map is something else altogether. The latest battleground poll and strategy memo from Democrats Stan Greenberg, Ana [...]

Matt Duss has some good thoughts about the growing sense that Al Qaeda seems near defeat in Iraq, and is losing the hearts-and-minds battle in the greater Middle East. As Duss says, this is something that happened despite the Bush Administration’s war in Iraq…which was, initially, a major recruiting tool for the terrorists. But, as [...]

The Drudge siren is whirring, and the Associated Press is reporting: Barack Obama has done it. The primaries are over. Hillary Clinton’s 2008 dreams are dead! Long live her 2008 dreams! More importantly, the endless national saga of recurring CNN election night panels, with all those wall screens and too many laptops, is nearly over. [...]

This just moved: WASHINGTON – Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, based on an Associated Press tally of convention delegates, becoming the first black candidate ever to lead his party into a fall campaign for the White House. Campaigning on an insistent call for change, Obama outlasted former first lady Hillary Rodham [...]