i am not smart enough to have the answers, but one gets the impression the obama heirarchy thinks their shit does not stink like the rest of us poor souls,

They already worry excessively about the smell of their own stink.  Now they are worried about Obama's stink, and whether it is being over or underappreciated.

rhetoric to the contrary, expectations to the contrary, emotions to the contrary.  No one serious bought into the landslide talk, that was primary chatter for the rubes.  On our best day, it will be 52 / 48 (although if uniformally that in larger states, it could be an electoral college landslide).

I wonder when the Obamanauts are going to get out of denial.

For weeks Obama has been kicking McCain's ass. Now they have a tough new team, and the race is getting close. Surely you didn't expect 12 point leads all the way to Election day? We have good electoral maps, and from what I understand a great ground game. Not everything is going to play out on the Today show.

As far as Bill, I'm not sure he would help at this point. If McCain is jumping over something so trivial as a gas gauge, the GOP is just waiting for openings. Today's Bill is not the one who won 2 elections. He's done his bit, let him enjoy his life.

Gore probably would have won. So your premise is flawed. He did fine, up until the recount fiasco.

The right to guide the course of world history is the noblest prize of victory. We are still toiling up the hill; we have not yet reached the crest-line of it; we cannot survey the landscape or even imagine what its condition will be when that longed-for morning comes. The task which lies before us immediately is at once more practical, more simple and more stern.... For the rest, we have to gain the victory. That is our task.

To answer your question, the race is close because America has more racist morons per capita...by far...than any other industrialized nation.  My disgust at this fact, my shame at being associated with it and being forced to pay taxes to support the death and destruction we rain down on the planet is something with which I struggle daily.  

People need to stop thinking that because Bush is weak, that equates to McCain. I believe McCain is, but he has 62% favorable rating in the same gallup polls that have been close, for some reason that has been ignored here when stressing the polling. The need right now is to better define him.

The first memory about politics I have is being in the second grade and being one of three kids who voted for McGovern in a mock election (because my parents were supporting him, of course).  In the first election where I could vote I still remember my friend, Monica, yelling at the tv set, and wondering how people could be so stupid to vote for Reagan over Mondale.

To paraphrase Vito Corleone, this is the party we've chosen.  We've had ample demonstration that the public is willing to vote for Republicans.  Why?  Partly because Americans buy into their anti-tax libertarian message.  Also because during times of uncertainty many find the GOP pitch of toughness, nativism, and certitude reassuring.

I think Obama still has a decent chance of winning by 10 points or so.  Approx. 3/4 of Americans seem to think the country is on the wrong track.  The % of voters who haven't made up their minds yet seems to be around 10-15%.  There's no rule which says these undecided voters have to break evenly.

More dispiriting to me than the low roadism of Republicans, or the fickleness of independents, though, is the lack of confidence which the many Dems seem to have this year.  It's an old story, really.  If you don't believe in your product your chances of making a sale plummet.

And right now many Dems, I think, are awash in this sea of semi-detached irony.  Many who supported Clinton find Obama to be a candidate who was foisted upon them (and if Clinton had won, to be fair, it would have been the same in reverse).

But another culprit, I think, is this weakness (or perhaps fondness) Dems have for constant perspective taking.  Think about it.  That's just who we are.  Say that something is X and we'll immediately start the search for those occasions where it's really Y.  We're suckers for asterisks and exceptions to the rule.

And it's this trait, I'll suggest, which the public doesn't really like so much.  During uncertain times people appreciate certitude.  The less power they have the more likely they are to be pulled by its gravity.

Not exempting Obama from criticism.  The best evidence that he's a true-blue Democrat, actually, is his tendency to engage in the same sorts of rhetoric.  At this point his campaign should be coming up with the three or four slogans they'll use to pound McCain during the next three months (and with some real understanding that any message which is more complex will probably get lost).

It might turn out that this is the sort of strategy they're preparing, and they'll unveil it at the convention, and what we're seeing now is prologue.  If they don't do this, though, that's when I'd start to worry.

But for rank and file Dems, our job at this point is to do something similar.  Because what difference does it make, really, if Obama is ten points ahead, tied, or ten points behind?  If you're a spectator it counts for a lot.  So don't be one.  
   

Democrats have a tough time winning any open seat presidential election. They have lost the last three and the last 12 of 14. If this were the NFC, the Republicans would have clinched home field advantage through out the playoffs.

This election is a lot like the 1960 election. The Republicans have controlled the White House for eight years, and like 1960, the economy appears to be in recession. In 1960, JFK won a close election. I suspect that we are going to see a similar result in 2008.