MEGAN: Oh, God, I seriously considered propping my eyelids open with toothpicks this morning. Why are Wednesdays worse than even Thursdays and Fridays in that regard?

SPENCER: You know what will wake you up? The brand-new Gaslight Anthem record The '59 Sound. I've been listening to this all morning — it came out yesterday. Bruce fronting 1979-era Clash. Benny, you made a great fucking record! I remember when their drummer put on shows at the Manville Elks Lodge in central Jersey that I'd take the bus from fucking Brooklyn for. Holy shit is this record good. Christ that was TWELVE YEARS AGO.

MEGAN: You'll have to play it for me sometime, but I don't think even punk is going to pop my eyes open this morning if the news that our boy Toby is praising Obama didn't. It's hard to type with your eyes closed, I'm just putting it out there.

SPENCER: See this is the kind of shit that I can't put up with. Fine, Toby Keith, you're a Democrat. So are lots of assholes. Call me when you're a hardcore hang-them-from-telephone-poles liberal. all me when you write the theme tune to RACHEL MADDOW'S NEW MSNBC SHOW. This is a racially-backhanded compliment currrtesssy u'da redwhitenbloo:

"So I thought it was beautiful the other day when Obama went to Afghanistan and got educated about Afghanistan and Iraq..."

Educated, eh, Toby?

MEGAN: You know I'm excited about Rachel Maddow. Even the WaPo's Howie Kurtz sounds enthused and he never sounds enthused.

SPENCER: Let's pause to reflect here. This shit doesn't happen. Phil Donahue got fired from MSNBC for opposing the Iraq war. In the intervening years, this country has become a ceaseless nightmare and progressivism has had something of a rebirth with a new style. The idea that that rebirth might actually be represented behind a cable newsanchor's desk is mindblowing. Liberals on the TV!Rachel Maddow is the TV version of the GASLIGHT ANTHEM.

MEGAN: I mean, the real question for us — and for MSNBC and Rachel Maddow — is whether this new progressivism is as much of a fad as the old patriotism was, and whether it ends after the election, or if we get attacked again or whatever. That's my big concern. Flags are still relatively cheap, and you can pull off the tags that let people know they're Made in China.

SPENCER: This isn't going away. Do you think Atrios is going to switch his style up if all of a sudden there's another attack? I've been to Netroots Nation. I see what we've built over these years. What happens if we're attacked is that there'll be in an infrastructure in place to point out that the attacks are bin Laden's fault, but with a special assist from George Bush. Having Rachel on TV will amplify it all. But you have a good point — she's going to be scrutinized by the MSNBC bigs in a way that Joe Scarborough will never be.

MEGAN: Although he should be, because sometimes he's really dumb.

SPENCER: But Joe Scarborough is Foreigner and Rachel Maddow is Black Flag. Rise above. Oh fuck i just accidentally called that guy Sozi we met in Philadelphia on primary night. Kids, always lock your BlackBerrys.

MEGAN: Wait, the guy with the beard? Do you guys still talk? I remember him being pretty cool, but by the end of that I pretty much thought everyone was pretty cool.

SPENCER: Anyway, before we get caught up in this whole promise-of-the-progressive-moment shit, let's point out that the latest LAT poll shows McCain's summer of disreputable attacks on Obama have really done some damage. (and no, the tall guy, Farah's friend.)

Overall, Obama holds a narrow edge over the Arizona senator, 45% to 43%, which falls within the poll's margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. In June, Obama was ahead by 12 points. Other polls at that time showed him with a narrower lead.

MEGAN: (Well, I'm sure I hugged him, too)

SPENCER: But the guts of the poll has the significant stuff:

Obama's favorable rating has sunk to 48% from 59% since the last Times/Bloomberg poll in June. At the same time, his negative rating has risen to 35% from 27%.

By comparison, McCain's ratings have hardly budged during the same period: 46% of voters have a positive feeling about him; 38% give him negative ratings.

That negative rating is still low, but the upward trajectory is steep and could get much steeper still, particularly because this shows the track McCain's on is working. It's not working well enough to give people a reason to vote for McCain — stuck at 46 pos/38 neg? — but the GOP convention clearly has a map laid out in front of it to give people that reason. Actually let me qualify that, and not just because it's bad writing. Everyone knows McCain and his bio, and it's not driving to people cross over. But if he starts introducing new arguments, there's enough reason to believe from this poll that he could draw people to him, not just away from Obama.

MEGAN: Man, Bob Barr needs to ramp up his efforts. Where are the Dems to start giving him money, the way Republicans gave money to Nader in 2000? But, I thought this part was interesting:

Less than half of the registered voters polled think the first-term Illinois senator has the "right" experience to be president, while 80% believe McCain, a four-term senator, does.

When I went to those DNC protests back in the day, that's all anyone could talk about. This is why people were telling Hillary to lay off the negative attacks at the end, because they figured they would outlast her campaign and they did.

SPENCER: Yeah, that's really worrisome. As is this:

The poll also illustrates some racial undercurrents that confront Obama as he strives to become the first African American president. Nine percent of voters say they would feel uncomfortable voting for a black candidate. Most voters say they know people who feel that way. About one in six say the country is not ready to elect a black president.

MEGAN: "Most voters say they know people who feel that way." Dude, when are people going to learn that when you say you "have a friend" who did something bad, everyone knows you're talking about yourself.

SPENCER: My understanding is that the way pollsters get around respondents' reluctance to say THEY wouldn't vote for a black candidate is to ask if you know someone who wouldn't. It's very junior-high but apparently it works, from a statistical perspective. But, yeah.

MEGAN: One in 6 says "the country" isn't ready for a black President? So we'll elect my grandpa instead?

SPENCER: And let me say: over the last several weeks, I've been privvy to a massive amount of netroots fear/anxiety/antipathy to Obama, intensifying since he got the nomination. People think he's fucking this up, and I'm not talking about HRC supports, I'm talking about his people. Liberals are never satisfied, it's true, but the fear is palpable.

MEGAN: Well, but, like fucking it up how? Are we talking FISA and the Bayh flirtation? Not attacking McCain enough?

SPENCER: By not aiming a Howitzer at McCain's balls, as Roger Sterling would say. They don't want him to say things like "McCain is a patriot" — not give him any quarter at all. Just endless, ceaseless attacks. I'm of two minds. It's not really a policy issue, though the policy stuff doesn't help. They think he should have been talking about how Maliki endorsed his plan as a game-ender on Iraq, which remains McCain's central issue. THAT I agree with 1000 percent. One percentage point for each year McCain wants us in Iraq.

MEGAN: I mean, I agree with you that Obama's camp hasn't been great at taking full advantage of even the positive opportunities that have presented themselves, it seems like they need to be able to improvise better — which could be a result of their very top-down, locked-down structure. But I'm of two minds of seeing him as an attack dog. I think it undermines his overarching Hopey message, which is why he's been leaving some of it to the Netroots. And why he should've gotten off his ass and picked a VP by now.

SPENCER: Like why is the campaign alienating Wesley Clark? You want a guy with stars on his shoulders who actually has connections to enlisted dudes/junior officers who can aim the Howitzer at McCain

MEGAN: But he also needs to work on his ability to draw attention to what the 'roots are saying without endorsing it. McCain and Clinton are much, much better at that.

SPENCER: Yeah, I agree with that entirely.

MEGAN: Meh. I think Wesley Clark isn't helpful except to you guys that already like Obama that love him, too.

SPENCER: Why do you think that? Clark commands a bank of cameras wherever he goes, his credibility on national security is automatic, he can answer McCain in a second by saying, truthfully, you know, I've actually won a war... Even if he's not the asset I think he is, what's the upside to alienating him?

MEGAN: Oh, I didn't say tell him to go fuck himself, I just mean, I don't see him being a keynote convention speaker. He's not that eloquent a speaker, which is fine in small settings but with an already overcrowded speaking schedule, I can see why they didn't award him a speaking slot.

SPENCER: Anyway, one of my old boss' interlocutors says liberals should calm down:

I think we'll look back on August as when Obama won the election. August was when John McCain had the chance to define Obama and so cement a negative view of him that he could never recover. Now his time is almost up, the conventions are about to begin and we get into the full swing of the campaign. And what did McCain get out of his month? The Gallup tracking poll barely budged; most polls show Obama still with a modest lead, only slightly less than where he started a month or so ago. Obama's negatives are up somewhat — no surprise after the pummeling he took — but hardly up to critical levels.

MEGAN: Oh, I disagree with the idea that we'll see this as when Obama won. It's maybe when Obama didn't lose, but what has he done this month to win?

SPENCER: He's been on vacation, McCain's most potent opportunity to cement a narrative, and McCain didn't do all the damage he needed to, is the point. But to a more important question: which of these young Republicans would you bone? You ponder that while I go to the bathroom

MEGAN: Man, you and your incredibly small bladder. First off, I don't understand how "young" Republicans include people in their 40s, only I do because it just makes the point that most Republicans are really, really old. Also, not that I've never had sex with a Republican, but there's not one in the group that I'd nail even drunk and having gone two months without sex.

SPENCER: It's just a lazy, cheap glossymag cliche. young people in America are SUPPOSSSSSSSED to be Obama supporters, according to something my editor mused about at the story conference, but here's a bunch of non-Obama supporters that we should gawk at like zoo creatures... I'm a fan of Aliciamarie Falcetta, 40, of White Plains: "After 9/11, I was happy that [Bush] stood up and let the terrorists know that he wasn't going to let it happen again." Yeah baby they got that message got that message loud and clear.

MEGAN: I mean, that's the thing. It's like, there are plenty of very religious young people who feel very strongly about things like abortion and gay marriage. There are (strangely, to me) plenty of young people who feel very strongly about taxes — though all of them might already work in D.C., I can't say. I think it's insulting to them to think that all young people must be liberals, and insulting to liberals that we're all liberals just because we're too young to know better.

SPENCER: It's also retarded that Esquire decided to use Republicans as a surrogate for conservatives, but that would probably undermine the conceit of the piece, for the reasons you point out.

MEGAN: Not that that ever stopped a glossy magazine.

SPENCER: Because you know what Republicans really want? They want not to be investigated! Scott McClellan to Politico:

[W]hen asked what advice he would give to a President Barack Obama or Democratic Congress on the matter of handling former Bush officials, McClellan speaks now of the perils of probing the past.

“If Obama were to win,” he said last week, “that would be an issue his administration would have to face early ... because he’s pledging to be a uniter, not a divider — without saying those exact words we campaigned on in 2000. He’s pledging to change the way Washington works, and if Congress were to pursue that, it would be very divisive.”

MEGAN: Oh, sure, this is like the House Republicans bitching and moaning that Pelosi wanted to start a new kind of bipartisanship and work with them but she's so meeeeeean and never lets them get their waaaaaaaay.

SPENCER: Yeah sure Obama might not be able to do it. But he could just, say, order declassifications of torture/rendition/GTMO/US attorney firings/WMD as, oh, let's say, a "broad policy review." And then turn the prospect of empaneling grand juries over to Attorney General Patrick Leahy or better yet Attorney General Russ Feingold. Meanwhile the Senate Democrats call investigation after investigation

MEGAN: Well, don't piss on Waxman's lawn too soon, he's been doing a fine job keeping malfeasance in the headlines.

SPENCER: Make the GOP infrastructure too busy worrying about being INDICTED to block health care reform or ending the war.

MEGAN: Probably if less of them were indictable, they wouldn't be quite so worried.

SPENCER: The GOP can defend itself on Rachel Maddow's show. Bring on the witch hunts. Reconciliation is nice, but not as nice as retribution.

MOE: So should we slog through the Veeps today? is anything else happening?
MEGAN: Yeah, we can start with veeps, want to go Dem or Republican firsties?
MOE: I'm sending you TNR. I will admit to having not read long past Ed Rendell, but I'm calling it up again.

MEGAN: Yeah, I sadly read all of those this weekend, including David Frum's bullshit piece on "how" McCain should choose a Veep (hint: even the ones that don't win go on to be President some day, what a terrible thought) and that ends with this gem:

I have my own personal nomination for vice president for McCain. It's Rudy Giuliani, precisely because he shares the vision of a practical, reforming, war- winning Republican Party that inspires John McCain, plus the stronger-than- usual grounds for hoping that he might be the rare candidate who can make a difference in an essential state—in this case, New Jersey.

MEGAN: The fact that I continued reading the rest of the profiles after that is a sign of my dedication to our readers, for real. Wetlands was less perverse.
MOE: I'm actually reading Frum's piece now. Uhhhh, news you can't use: Garrett Hobart was William McKinley's VP…something something C-Span, VP candidates never deliver voters…blah.

MEGAN: Right. And let's get that Giuliani guy back. Barf.
MOE: Also, how did Mike Bloomberg get on "both Barack Obama and John McCain's vice-presidential shortlists"? Is this true?
MEGAN: I think that's bullshit.
MEGAN: Obama needs a New Yorker? Please. I mean, Bloomie spent 5 minths trying to gin up enough national press to get enough name recognition to make a run at it and couldn't manage. The last thing McCain needs with social conservations already starting to defect is to put a non-Zell Miller, non-Joe Lieberman former Democrat from New York City on the ticket.
MOE: I like this lede re Huck Yeah:

If the first rule of picking a running mate is to risk as little harm to the ticket as possible, then Mike Huckabee shouldn't be John McCain's first choice for veep—or his second, third, or fourth, for that matter.

He is the GOP equivalent of Ed Rendell! Although Ed could probs use some of his dieting tips. And you can file the rest of this piece into "Quirky pol derangedly beloved by numerous members of the media, who have filed away several hundred thousand words of anecdote — and travel expenses — that will go to waste if editors don't redeem this "possible VP" angle in critical pre-Convention window of time.

MEGAN: But didn't you hear? He saved someone's life this weekend. He's obviously ordained by God or something. He's the actual Messiah. What has Obama ever done?
MOE: Um

“I’m glad that Mike was in the right place at the right time and continued to lead by example,” former South Carolina Lt. Gov. candidate Mike Campbell told The Palmetto Scoop. “We all know that [Huckabee] is pro-life, and once again he has lived up to it.”
The newspaper noted that Pittenger apparently suffers from acid reflux, which likely caused the incident to occur. It added that Huckabee, who is also known for losing 110 pounds and promoting healthy living, was trained as an EMT in college and this may not be the first time he’s sprung to action when needed.

Are they subtly suggesting a little experience with bulimia might have saved a life?

MOE: Also, Pawlenty. The thing is called "Extreme Makeover," it addresses his "proletarian chic," and you can't see it on the site, but in print it's adorned by a picture that just makes you think: that is a rather aristocratic nose on that guy.
MOE: But genes can be so deceiving! He likes to perform "headlocks" and go to bars and such.

Pawlenty will be the first presidential running mate to have worn a mullet into middle age.

MOE: Oh my god, and more on the hair.

At 47, he is lean and vigorous, with plush brown hair.

MOE: Plush?
MEGAN: Dude, it's Minnesota. Of course he's all down home like. I love, however, where he's drinking: at an American Legion Hall. The first bar I ever spent any time at at the tender age of 16 was a VFW bar and I am pretty sure they would've served me but I didn't drink and I had to drive home from there but it was shady, dude.
MEGAN: Anyone else think Noam has a man crush on Pawlenty?
MOE: Did you read the Vanity Fair man crush piece? I was going to post on it later. I hate trend pieces that are accurate.
MEGAN: I didn't, but if we're gonna talk man crushes, we should probably talk about Jim Webb now.
MEGAN: Except that the TNR piece is written by a woman. Goddammit, ruins my joke. Oh, well.
MOE: One thing, btw, I totally do not understand is how the "Axis of Arugula" enemies over at Fox News have remained so oblivious to how thorougly their beloved blue collar culture has totally been co-opted by the elite. The American Legion is like, the epicenter of the scene!

MEGAN: Because the Enemies of Arugula are too busy dining at [insert name of trendy NYC eatery here] to bother checking out the American Legion or VFW bar, not that they could get in because you generally have to be a vet or a friend of a vet and, well, you know. Fox News.
MOE: Like right wing blogger Dorothy King re her Obamaconservatism, who is referenced in a Bartlett piece:

Do I now, as a newly minted Obamaphile liberal elitist, have to serve my guests Chablis? Or would any old chardonnay do? Must it be arugula for the salad; or would lamb's lettuce, dandelion and little gems in hazelnut oil be okay? What about desert? I had planned to make a chocolate soufflé cake. But baking ... are Obamacons allowed to bake, or is that too conservative?

Um, Dorothy: if you really want to pass for bleeding-heart, cupcakes and Pabst! Pretend like you're in Kansas. Ohhhhh, bad pun. Srsly though.

MOE: I didn't even know chablis was supposedly nicer than chardonnay. I just buy this shit by the price point.
MEGAN: Also, wait, isn't Hillary the feminist candidate? Isn't Hillary the one who doesn't bake?
MEGAN: Chablis is like what people drank in the 70s. And it's sweeter. Chardonnay is the new Chablis, it's what people buy when they don't know what to buy or drink or even what they like.
MEGAN: It's 90% mass market, dumbed down, oaked-up crap that people think they're supposed to like.
MEGAN: Wow, I think I might have stronger opinions about wine than I do about VPs. Especially if that VP is Sam Nunn. Boooring. Also not gonna happen.
MOE: That's totes what I thought. Like, chablis was advertised in all those old Cosmos Anna got for us this one time. Regardless, you notice how the last desperate shreds of this phony elitism-populism thing are sort of a theme of this issue? Hence the Jim Webb hardon:

He embodies the liberal fantasy laid out by Thomas Frank in What's the Matter With Kansas?: that blue-collar whites will stop being mad at liberals for frowning at their guns and start being mad at conservatives for raping their pocketbooks.

MOE: Here's the link.

MEGAN: Blue collar white semi-conservatives might well get mad about their pocketbooks, but they vote with our uteri. I mean, they don't vote with their own because they don't have them or would totes never get an abortion, not that they would talk about, anyway. Guns for all, abortions for none! And fuck the economy, that's the Democrats' fault.
MOE: Like, personally, I am liberal as fuck, and my dad is a conservative, and he has fine tastes and reads the classics and knows about wine and shit, and I am the one who clocks in at 7:30 after grabbing an egg sandwich and a Post, and I guess that's how it should be?
MEGAN: Well, I'm not quite as liberal as you I'd say, but I know about wine! And I read the classics. Sometimes. The last book I read the whole way through was The Master and Marguerita and I swear I'm gonna finish Crime and Punishment and Baal and Amerika and Tropic of Cancer this year. I swear. But I won't be voting for McCain, that's for sure.
MOE: Oh my god I just saw that joke in the Gchat screen lolol. Readers, why don't you decide?

Megan: dude. i need an opinion whether I should write this.: Wait, dude, there's an even more horrible takeaway joke from Dorothy: She's trying to say that a world with Obama is a world without chocolate. is that past the line?

No lady, I'm just drooling right now and I'm not sure why…
MEGAN: Fine, I'll bake cupcakes next time I visit. Chocolate ones. Soufflé doesn't travel well.

MEGAN: Ok, we keep getting distracted by other stuff, so let me give the run down on VP as I see it and I'm sure I'll be wrong because I always am about these things, but whatever.
MOE: Um, I'm interrupting the veepstakes magic 8 ball chat just a sec for an obligatory moment in Geraldine Ferraro, oy she is nuts.

Geraldine Ferraro dismissed the idea in a conversation with me last week - noting that these voters had already voted for an anti-abortion rights Republican before: Ronald Reagan. More, she said, these sophisticated voters know that Democrats will keep control of Congress no matter what, blocking any extremist nominees for the Supreme Court.

Oh yes that is some very sophisticated reasoning Ferraro! If by "sophisticated" you mean impenetrably self-sabotagingly warped!
MEGAN: Oh, right, like how the Dems blocked Alito and Roberts? Fucking a, like, she's literally trying out reasons for them not to vote Obama. WTF is wrong with her. Ok, back to veeps.

MEGAN: Republican: It's not going to be Huckabee, I'll bet he annoys McCain and he's no upside with the fiscal conservatives. McCain might swallow it and pick Romney. He won't take Crist (gay), he won't take Jindal (won't pass vetting, I'd bet), he can't take Rice (those naughty lesbian rumors and all).
MEGAN: Side note: John McCain's campaign has the most high-level gay staff and advisers of any campaign so far this year. Oh, and the Log Cabin Republicans who declined to endorse Bush twice, I have it on good authority, will endorse McCain despite his record on gay issues because he once voted against the federal marriage amendment. But he's still not going to take Crist.
MOE: Don't you think Rice's bigger problem is being, um, friends with Bush?
MEGAN: Not when he needs to appeal to Bush's voters. What, like she and he disagree on Iraq?
MOE: No, see: Bush doesn't have any more voters.
MOE: Seriously, I don't think Tom Davis was hyperbolizing.
MEGAN: Anyway, so I think Pawlenty's definitely on the short list. I think he's vetting Carly Fiorina in the press the way he did Rice.
MEGAN: I don't think he was hyperbolizing, either, but I think McCain's going to have to tack right now that Bob Barr's the libertarian, he's going to pick up $$ and voters.
MOE: And even if he did, it is not a prim black brainy Ferragamo-clad warmonger they were voting for.
MEGAN: And who's left on the right? The 27% of people or so that still actually support Bush, and you gotta know those people are not big McCainiacs.

MEGAN: Anyway, so the other thing that Attackerman were talking about this weekend that would probs make sense in McCain's warped mind was Lieberman. And that would be a pro-war, all-war ticket with this semblance of bipartisanship that I think would totally lose and Liebarman's a shitty VP candidate so that's the one I'm sort of rooting for.

MOE: You know, we never hit Rendell, but the lede is all you need. Rendell is appearing at a rally with Louis Farrakhan. Buzz Bissinger is a city hall reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer following Rendell for six years because he thinks municipal politicians will actually be able to learn something from the experience of Philadelphia or something.

I was writing a book on Rendell at the time. Allowed into his inner sanctum for close to six years, I found Rendell's stance on Farrakhan important and was eager to hear what he had been thinking during the rally. He did not disappoint: "As I sat there, I said to myself, 'Wouldn't it be great if someone burst in and gunned me down, because then Buzz would at least have an ending to his book.'"

MEGAN: Oh, great, just with this campaign needs, two people who the Republicans can associate with Louis Farrakhan. Also, Rendell got on TV last week and said unequivocally (unlike the rest of the Veepstakes candidates) that he doesn't want the gig because he doesn't like working for other people or trying to spin shit.
MOE: So dude, do you think it will be Jim Webb? And if so, does that mean we have to read his books?
MEGAN: I think if it is, we do, but I don't think it will be. I'm sure he's on the short list, but how do they take a 1st term Senator (from a state where the seat might swing back) with no domestic policy experience who is a former Republican with a shitty record on women's issues and make him Obama's VP in this climate?
MOE: Little known fact: Anna's dad is apparently obsessed with Scot-Irish history. And all I know of the climate is that it is hot. And that fucking Geraldine Ferraro is voting for McCain anyway.
MEGAN: A month ago, sure, I can see him topping out the list, no doubt, but I think the surging supposed feminists (I'm sorry, I ain't calling anyone who is threatening to vote for McCain or write-in Hillary to turn the election over to him an actual feminist) who are pissed at Obama over sexism in the media and among some of his supposed supporters makes it much less likely.
MEGAN: But I think he's on the short list. I know Clinton is, though I'm on record as being confused why she'd give up power in the Senate for what is basically a powerless ceremonial role (And HRC-as-VP people, don't give me "VP is head of the Senate" crap, because that's not how it works, Cheney casts a tie-breaking vote once in a blue and doesn't have any actual power in the institution, look it up, thanks).
MEGAN: McCaskill's seat could go red, my Steve mentioned Landrieu but that's the same deal, ditto Klobuchar. Napolitano hates McCain and would totally attack him, which is good, Sebelius for sure. I'm still feeling like Feingold could be a dark horse but am constantly told that he's too liberal (which is actually the point of taking him), Tim Kaine wants it but he has weird eyebrows. Edwards doesn't, Richardson is grabby with the ladies and, fuck it, he really should just announce a shadow cabinet because there's be someone in there for everyone in the Democratic party and no one would be able to vote against every major Democratic figure.