Richard Hanley, a Quinnipiac University professor who follows elections, said the Western appeal at the convention was flimsy, but the party did sign up battalions of new volunteers - especially in Colorado - who can go out and proselytize and organize at the grass-roots level.

But the Palin pick sucked a lot of the energy out of the Obama bounce, he said.

"It was a brilliant tactic by McCain," Hanley said. "Basically what this does is put a completely different spin on each race in each state, because now you do have a Westerner [on the ticket]."

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said the Democrats made a pitch for Westerners, but Republicans have two Westerners on the ticket - a senator from Arizona and governor from Alaska.

"The McCain-Palin ticket is as Western [of] a ticket in American political history," Huntsman said. "As a Westerner, I couldn't be happier."

Erwin said it is a big advantage to have candidates who understand the West and can speak with authority about issues like energy, water and property rights.

"It is clearly an uphill battle for the Obama campaign in the West," said Kemmis, who was the Democratic House speaker in Montana.

Reference: Palin pick may have torpedoed Dems' strategy - Salt Lake Tribune

We know he's a Harvard graduate and was editor of the Harvard Law Review. Less known is the story of how he got into the prestigious Ivy League university. As Newsmax's Kenneth Timmerman reports, he was helped by a letter written by Percy Sutton, former Manhattan borough president and a credible candidate for mayor of New York in 1977.

In an interview earlier this year on New York's all-news cable channel NY1, the 88-year-old Sutton made some interesting revelations about his relationship with the young Obama. He told NY1 reporter Dominic Carter on "Inside City Hall" that he was introduced to Obama by a friend raising money for him. The friend asked Sutton to write a letter in support of Obama's application to Harvard law school.

"The friend's name is Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, from Texas," Sutton said. "He is the principal adviser to one of the world's richest men. He told me about Obama."

...... Reference: IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Barack Obama %u2014 Magna Cum Saudi?

Obama's hackles were clearly raised by Palin's dismissal of his community organizing --a response to his earlier dismissal of her record as a small-town mayor. "Why would that kind of work be ridiculed?" Obama said. "Who are they fighting for?" The idea that community organizing is not relevant to the presidency, he said, just shows why Republicans "are out of touch and don't get it."

The Obama campaign was clearly on the defensive today, acknowledging how appealing Palin came across, and sending out surrogates hitting their talking points that Republicans have spent their time on attacks rather than substance.

Palin nearly hit Obama's record 38.4 million viewers for his Denver acceptance speech. The Nielsen ratings show she drew 37.2 million viewers, despite being shown on six networks to Obama's 10.

Reference: SFGate: Politics Blog : Obama Suddenly Riled

In Artful Dodger style, Barack Obama, plays down his mentorship with Communist author Saul Alinsky. But Alinsky's son, L. David Alinsky, credits Obama for "learning his lesson well" from the Communist guru.

Indeed, Alinsky Jr. who credits his late father for the success of last week's Democratic National Convention, may have done something that Obama's detractors couldn't: blown the cover on the presidential hopeful's communist leanings.

No one can blame Alinsky for the pretentiousness of the Ancient Greek Temple from which Obama addressed plebes, or for the tacky neon colours on display at the Pepsi Centre, but it was Alinsky who wrote Rules for Radicals, the bible of the far left.

Reference: CFP: Saul Alinsky%u2019s son: %u201CObama learned his lesson well%u201D

Barack Obama%u2019s post-Democratic National Convention bounce in the polls appears to be slightly smaller than the norm of past conventions, and it's gradually depreciating.

The Gallup daily tracking poll has found that since the conclusion of the convention, Obama has risen 4 percentage points in the polls, to lead McCain 49 percent to 43 percent today. That's a slightly smaller uptick in the polls than the 5- to 6-point bounce earned by a typical party nominee, by Gallup%u2019s measure, since 1964. Obama and McCain were evenly split at 45 percentage points apiece prior to the Democratic convention, according to Gallup.

Reference: Obama's bounce smaller than others - David Paul Kuhn - Politico.com

Hillary Clinton could have said something like that. She and Obama had, after all, engaged in a historic, utterly compelling contest for the nomination. During her convention speech, you kept waiting for her to offer just one line of testimony: I have come to know this man, to admire this man, to see his character, his courage, his wisdom, his judgment. Whatever.

Anything.

Instead, nothing.

She of course endorsed him. But the endorsement was entirely programmatic: We're all Democrats. He's a Democrat. He believes what you believe. So we must elect him - I am currently unavailable - to get Democratic things done. God bless America.

Reference: IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- And Where Are The Witnesses To His Ability?

On the critical issue of whether Obama is fit to be commander in chief, Clinton said there were many who claimed he was too young and inexperienced to be president when he ran in 1992. The statement was meant to answer itself, but given Clinton's failure to take out Usama bin Laden when he had the chance and his tepid response to the first World Trade Center attack, the Kobar Towers attack and the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria - all of which brought nothing more than a couple of missiles on inconsequential targets in Iraq - the question should answer itself. Clinton also dismantled the American military, which is why he could claim a surplus when he left office. A monetary surplus, yes, but a deficit in America's defense capability.

And, of course, Clinton directed his extended adolescence into extra marital affairs that diminished the office of the presidency and made him a laughingstock on late night TV and known for little else around the world. Who doesn't think "sex" first when they hear the name "Bill Clinton"? Was Bill Clinton too young and immature to be president? Yes, he was. Reference: Me, Myself and I: Bill Clinton Endorses Barack Obama « FOX Forum « FOXNews.com

Throughout his campaign, Barack Obama has presented himself to be a new type of politician: transparent, clean, aboveboard, and above all, positive. His campaign would be an idealistic one: no tricks, just plain old-fashioned honesty. Of course, coming from Chicago with its big-city machine politics this would be quite impressive if it were true. Alas, it is not.

As many are learning from David Freddoso's new book, The Case Against Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee was a practitioner of the dark arts himself -- and he has continued to rely upon tricks as tactics in his ground game.

Reference: American Thinker: Obama's Bag of Tricks

"Suppose for example you're a voter and you have candidate X and you have candidate Y," Clinton said. "Candidate X agrees with you on everything but you don't think that person can deliver on anything. Candidate Y disagrees with you on half the issues but you believe that on the other half, the candidate will be able to deliver."

"This is the kind of question that I predict - and this has nothing to do with what's going on now - but I am just saying if you look at five, 10, 15 years from now, you may actually see this delivery issue become a serious issue in Democratic debates because it is so hard to figure out how to turn good intentions into real changes in the lives of the people we represent."

Whether Clinton, who for 20 years has been the star of the Democratic Party, intended the analogy to represent a futuristic look at presidential politics, its relevance to the current candidacies of Republican John McCain and Obama was unmistakable.

Reference: Clinton%u2019s %u2018Candidate X%u2019 Analogy Stirs Questions About His Obama Support - America%u2019s Election HQ

Conservatives are stepping up efforts to turn 1960s radical Bill Ayers into a political liability for Barack Obama.

This spring, Obama's links to Ayers briefly became a campaign controversy. Now American Issues Project is spending $2.8 million to air a TV ad highlighting links between Obama and Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground Organization, which opposed the Vietnam War and was responsible for several bombings.

Obama released a rebuttal TV ad Monday. "With all our problems, why is John McCain talking about the '60s, trying to link Barack Obama to radical Bill Ayers?" a narrator asks.

Reference: Obama dogged by links to 1960s radical - USATODAY.com