Late on this today, but - as always - worth the wait.  Enjoy.

• "I yearn to wake up one day and not be afraid to learn what my government has done in my name," says campaignmonitor in What Will This Election Say About Us?
• Project Vote returns with How To Keep People From Voting: Make The System As Complicated As Possible.
• Words McCain never mentioned: Afghanistan, Climate, Torture, Pakistan, Abortion, Osama...
• Thezzyzx has Some Optimism, Post RNC.
• JoelSHirschhorn goes after contractors and More Republican Wasteful Spending.
• Andrewalker08: I'm Feeling A Little Uppity...
• Stopping a Scalia Fan Running for Judge in Brooklyn. (mole333)
• George Bush Had 8 Years Executive Experience and Look Where That Got Us! (bacalove)
• Odinseye2k previews the GA-Sen: The Coming Air War, Part Two.
• The Nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (auronrenouille)
• Rob in Vermont discovers Mixed Messages at the RNC. (decatur)

I just want to put this out there to have for matching up with polls that come out, that people might want to hotlist to refer to in the future (these are through the CNN website):

In terms of the Age Demographic:

         18-29     30-44     45-64     65+

2000     17        33        36        14    
2004     17        29        38        16
2006     12        24        44        19



         18-29     30-44     45-59    60+
 
2000     17        33        28       22
2004     17        29        30       24
2006     12        24        34       29

And in terms of Voter ID:

               06     04     00

Democratic     38     37     39      
Republican     36     37     35
Independent    26     26     27

I'd adjust any poll that's put out to reflect the '04 exit polling before I bet on its findings. It might turn out to be much better in '08 for Democrats and younger voters, but that's a conservative prediction. VNC screwed up in '02 (though I do recall some sort of reconstruction of the exit polling being done), so I don't have those numbers-- my guess is that it was a strong Republican year with age demographics within the trend.

The aging of the voter population is something to note in particular. Readers here know I think alot of the book Millenial Makeoever, but one thing it doesn't take into account is that people are living longer and voting more often as they age (or at least becoming a larger slice of the pie).

There's nothing that tells you more about which states are being targeted as 'high priority' than where the Presidential candidate is going. I'm going to continue to focus solely upon the Presidential candidates, and not the VP's in their visits (on that VP note, news out that Palin plans on doing 30 fundraisers over the next 60 days, and McCain only doing 4). That's probably then not going to give the full picture, but it'll do the job. Also, because the WaPosts candidate tracker is only doing the Pres. candidates.

Here's the third installment (previous) of looking at where the candidate have spent their days in the last months (where they do public events):

Here was 6/5-7/5
Obama
2 visits: MO, OH, MI, NH
1 visit: CO, ND, MT, MN, NV, NM, FL, WI, VA, PA

McCain
3 visits: FL, PA
2 visits: LA, VA, OH
1 visit: NH, CT, NJ, MO, MN, NV

Here was 7/5-8/5            

Obama:

3 visits: MO
2 visits: OH, VA, NY, GA  
1 visit: MI, FL, IA, NC, CA, IN

McCain:

3 visits: OH, CO, WI
2 visits: PA, NH, MO, CA, ME  
1 visit: SD, FL, VA, MI, NV, NM, LA, NY

Here is 8/5-9/5

Obama:

2 visits: CO, PA, VA
1 visit: HI, MN, IN, WI, OH, MN, MT, MO, IA, IL, FL, NC, NM, NV, CA

McCain:

4 visits: OH, PA
2 visits: MI, CA, MN
1 visit: IA, CO, FL, LA, NM, MO, AZ, WI

The main reason for the disparity between Obama and McCain, is that Obama went 9 days, from visiting MN on 7/7 to NV on 7/17, without visiting a battleground state. Meanwhile, McCain camped out in OH and PA. Similarly, during the previous month, Obama had 10 days less, due to his global trip and a short vacation. But Obama also has campaigned harder when he's on the trail, while McCain consistently takes time off during the week, so it pretty much evens out.

Over the past month, Obama had 13 visits in '04 red states and 7 visits to blue states. That 13:7 ratio is off the aggressive one done last month, at 13:4, but better than the 11:7 ratio in the month prior.

Obama remains consistent in being able to be more aggressive in campaign visits. In fact, he had public visits to 18 states, vs the 13 for McCain, even though he had one less visit over all in the past month, 21, vs 22 for McCain.

McCain had 9 visits to '04 blue states and 13 to red states. A 9:13 ratio that is his least aggressive of the past three months (13:14 and 7:11 for the prior two months).

McCain remains on the defense. What jumps out is that he didn't visit New Hampshire at all during the last month. He's very much narrowed his focus of blue states to the midwest, and specifically to Pennsylvania and Michigan.  McCain still doesn't act as if he's overly concerned about VA or FL flipping to Obama, though he has started buying TV ads in the latter state this week.

It seems to really be coming down to Michigan in the midwest. If McCain can't win there, he has to run the table of the other  6 battleground states (CO, NV, OH, IN, VA, FL), assuming that IA & NM are safely for Obama, and NH is off the table. And there's been a lot happening in MI this week, for another post.

Sorry for the light posting today. What's on your minds tonight?

Update [2008-9-6 1:28:43 by Todd Beeton]:Go, Joe!

Talking Points Memo has been on this story from the start. It began with an inquiry into just what the McCain campaign was thinking when they had him stand in front of a giant lime green backdrop for his speech last night...again. Turned out the green was actually from the grass in front of what appeared to be a huge mansion, which, again, seemed an odd choice, optics-wise. But TPM kept digging and figured out that the image was of Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, CA.

An odd choice, no? Why ever would they use that as the backdrop for McCain's nomination acceptance speech I wonder? Hmm. Could it be...

...several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead.

Pretty much says it all, doesn't it? To their credit The California Democratic Party is on it and the message is clear (from a CDP press release):

Today, John Heaner, [Region 13 Director, and Walter Reed Middle School PTA Board member], will be in front of Walter Reed Middle School to underscore how out of touch John McCain is.  Thursday night's convention photo op disaster illustrates that McCain and Bush have ignored the wounded troops at Walter Reed Hospital for so long they can't even tell the difference between the hospital and the school in North Hollywood.

I just got off the phone with John who told me the this was about the hypocrisy of John McCain and Republicans who

"...claim to care about wounded soldiers but no one in his campaign could spot the difference between the hospital where we send our wounded soldiers and the middle school where I send my little girls."

He said that John McCain "took ownership" of that image the second he walked out on that stage

"...during the biggest night of his life, for the biggest speech of his life."

So far, the McCain campaign is refusing comment, for obvious reasons, but they may not be able to for long. John told me the media interest in this is out of control. He'd already spoken to NBC, ABC, NPR among others and had to go because The New York Times was calling on the other line.

As if it couldn't get better, the school's principal, Donna Tobin, has released this statement:

"It has been brought to the school's attention that a picture of the front of our school, Walter Reed Middle School, was used as a backdrop at the Republican National Convention. Permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school's picture an endorsement of any political party or view."

TPM deserves a lot of credit for staying on this story and props to CDP for its rapid response today.

Steve Lombardo over on Pollster has a real good birds eye view of whats happened in the past month of so of the campaign.

There are now three tracking polls.

Hotline has it at 46-40, Obama over McCain. That's a combined movement of 3 percent, from 48-39, in their poll prior to the tracking poll's beginning.

Gallup has it at 48-44 today, Obama ahead, a combined movement of 3 percent since yesterdays.  Rasmussen has it at 48-46, Obama ahead, also a  combined movement of 3 percent since yesterdays.

We'll have to wait till Monday's results to have the full post-convention picture. Obama met the bounce he needed imo, going from 45% to 49% in the poll of polls on RCP, a solid 4% bounce that put him higher than he's ever been.

Nevertheless, the poll of polls has closed quickly thus far, with 3% being shaved off Obama's lead in the past two days, now with a lead of 2.6 percent.

For John McCain to meet Obama's bounce, he'd need to exceed 47 percent, which would mean a similar 4% bounce from where he started at 43 percent. Right now, he's at 44% for a 1% bounce thus far.

He can't complain that they didn't see him speak. The news out today is that 500K more people watched McCain speak than did Obama.

The RNC comes out with a second attack ad that starts by mocking Obama for addressing a large group - this time at Mile High stadium (the first mocked Berlin).

It runs in 12 states.

But what's more interesting is the weak choice of "liberal boogeymen" used in the ad. The two usuals, Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, are unavailable for obvious reasons. So who's used to symbolize Obama's "liberal allies?"

Watch:

Byron Dorgan! Be afraid!

I'm sure his family is flattered, but they're probably the only ones outside Washington who recognize him (apologies, Senator).

And don't mess with Pat Leahy. He's in Batman.

Update [2008-9-5 19:10:13 by Josh Orton]: Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but wouldn't the obvious target here be Pelosi? And if so, why wouldn't they use her? (That's a leading question...)

As was discussed on Meet The Bloggers today, Fox News has taken to attacking Barack Obama this cycle with virtually identical lines of attack as they used against John Kerry in 2004. It's actually pretty pathetic and really shameless. Brave New Films has released the latest in their excellent series of "Fox Attacks" videos to document it.

Watch it:

What's the likelihood that this crap is going to end now that Barack has gone on O'Reilly and they've come to some "truce." I won't hold my breath.