I've gotten a million media requests lately to talk about Obama's "move to the center". Exhibit A for that conventional wisdom is Obama's capitulation on FISA.

As I've made clear to those reporters, there's nothing "centrist" about the FISA vote. There's nothing liberal or conservative about protecting the constitution. And given libertarians and liberals are both for keeping the Constitution out of the shredder, it's hard to pretend the issue sits on the simplistic left-right axis.

Bottom line is that Obama wants to cave on FISA not because of "moving to the center" concerns, but because they are afraid of television ads claiming Obama is inviting terrorists over for BBQ. It's the same crappy-style ads that failed miserably in the IL-14 special election (and Foster went on to vote against the FISA capitulation) and have gotten little traction this year. But the Obama campaign thinks that by capitulating, it'll "take the issue off the table", as if Republicans need any excuse to accuse Democrats of being weak on terror.

"Taking the issue off the table" led Democrats to vote for Bush's disastrous tax cuts, and most still lost that year (like Jean Carnahan and Max Cleland). It led them to vote for Bush's disastrous war, yet that didn't stop Republicans from morphing Cleland into Osama Bin Laden. And of course, no matter how they vote on FISA, Republicans will still accuse Democrats of being weak on terror. It's pretty much the only thing they've got left in their toolbox, no matter how ineffective it has become.

But in any case, Obama's FISA capitulation has nothing to do with "moving to the center", and everything with being afraid of the ads Republicans will run.

But don't expect the media to care. Their media narrative has been set. It ain't going anywhere.

Karl Rove:

Mr. Obama may be overreaching by running ads in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, Montana, Alaska and North Dakota – states Republicans won by comfortable margins in recent years. It would require a shift of between one-sixth and over one-quarter of the vote to win any of them. Shifts that large rarely happen.

Big shifts do occur – witness West Virginia in 2000, which swung more than 20 points between 1996 (when Bill Clinton carried the state) and 2000 (when George W. Bush did) – but these require sharp contrasts on big issues, not just money. Money may be the mother's milk of politics, in Jesse Unruh's famous phrase, but when running for president, money alone can't buy a candidate love. Cash matters, but being a good candidate and right on the issues matters even more.

Hey Karl, meet your "big shift":

Rasmussen. 7/1. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (4/6 results)

There still aren't enough polls in Montana to generate a Pollster.com composite score, but it's tight. Montana is a changing state, and with a popular Democratic governor who will romp to re-election, a state legislative body that has been adding Democrats, and two Democratic senators, including one who will also romp to reelection this year, this isn't the crimson Red state of Karl Rove's dreams. Perhaps that's why Obama will actually spend 4th of July in the state.

Butte, MT: THE OBAMA FAMILY ATTENDS FREEDOM FEST INDEPENDENCE DAY PARADE IN BUTTE

Reason's Dave Weigel speculates as to why Montana is suddenly in play:

Montana's libertarian streak makes it, I think, rocky territory for McCain. This is a state that elected a Democratic senator in 2006 who told voters "I want to repeal the PATRIOT Act." This is a state whose governor gave Homeland Security Michael Chertoff a rhetorical kick in the teeth when he opted out of REAL ID. This is, finally, a state whose Republicans gave Ron Paul a quarter of their primary and caucus votes, and where the balance of power in the state House is held by the Constitution Party. Voila: Another state falls off the Republican map, and McCain will have to scramble and spend money to save it.

And there you have Rove's "sharp contrasts on big issues". Few issues are bigger than freedom, and Democrats are (mostly, when not cowering from fear and capitulating) on the right side of the issue of "freedom".

• Another blurb for Taking on the System, now available for pre-order at Amazon and other online retailers.

  A guerrilla manual for political insurgency, a motivational guide to personal action, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga’s Taking on the System lays out the map on how to transform social networks into a power grid and send the funeral directors of our archaic institutions packing. Written with the high-velocity enthusiasm for a healthy shellacking that has made Daily Kos the Battlestar Galactica of the blogosphere, Taking on the System, studded with practical tips and inspirational tales, teaches and preaches how to turn your voice into a force-multiplier without losing your soul in the process. This is a book that conservatives could learn from too, if they could tear themselves away from Rush Limbaugh long enough to take a jab at something new.

  --James Wolcott, Vanity Fair columnist and author of Attack Poodles (Miramax)

  Pre-orders help build buzz, so your help is hugely appreciated!

• A coalition of California groups are suing the State of California to throw this fall's anti-gay marriage hate initiative off the ballot.

  * "The proposed initiative is invalid because it is a proposed constitutional revision, not a proposed constitutional amendment and, as such, the California Constitution provides that it may not be enacted by initiative"

  * "The description of the proposed initiative in the petitions that were circulated for signature was materially misleading and materially misstated the effect of the proposed initiative to the electors signing the petitions to qualify the measure for the ballot.

  UTBriancl explains in the diary that the case is a long-shot. We'll likely have to defeat this hate initiative at the ballot box.

• WALL-E is easily the best animated flick ever, in both story, "acting", and animation quality. Interestingly, the biggest challenge for the movie's animators was to make the movie less perfect.

  Stanton adds that the new virtual camera system was set up to make both the robots and the environments look more believable. "Life is nothing but imperfection and the computer likes perfection, so we spent probably 90% of our time putting in all of the imperfections, whether it's in the design of something or just the unconscious stuff. How the camera lens works in [a real] housing is never perfect, and we tried to put those imperfections [into the virtual camera] so that everything looks like you're in familiar [live-action] territory."

  The movie is stunning, through and through.

• What's funny about the crazy Republican in the Montana Senate race is that he thinks Baucus is paying any attention to himat all. Still, the dude spills his family's secrets anyway.

  As a 23-year-old man, Kelleher was a friar in a Carmelite monastery 18 months away from ordination into the priesthood. He dropped out, Kelleher said, because he couldn't handle the vow of chastity.

  He has been married and divorced three times. He has seven children and regrets the impact his absence had on their lives. Kelleher said he particularly regrets the way he walked out on his first wife, Gerry, mother to his six oldest children and to whom he was long married.

  “I wanted to have fun,” he said, but his fun hurt his children and his wife, whom he described as “wonderful.”

  Umm. Okay...

• Sonics leave Seattle for Oklahoma. Seattle gets to keep the name and team's history. Lawsuits abound.
• Why is no one polling South North Dakota? Obama is visiting today, and it's clearly looking in play. Yet we get lots of silly polls like Massachusetts and New York.
• Speaking of South North Dakota, the Fargo Forum, which endorsed Bush in 2004, is flirting with Obama.

  It’s a rare presidential election year when a candidate of any political party visits North Dakota more than once. In some elections, even once is a big deal. So Sen. Barack Obama’s stop in Fargo today could be a hint of what’s to come, not only from the Obama camp, but also from Sen. John McCain, the Republican standard-bearer.

  Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton packed ’em in during back-to-back campaign rallies in April in Grand Forks. The 1,000 available tickets for Obama’s visit today were hot commodities. If there were space at Fargo’s Yunker Farm, he could attract 10,000 or more. McCain supporters should pay attention [...]

  No one should conclude that Obama has a lock on North Dakota. He certainly does not. But given the surprises in this year’s presidential campaign, it would be unwise to assume McCain has the lock. That’s the dynamic the Obama campaign senses, and that’s one reason he’s in North Dakota today.

• Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is purchasing ad time in Virginia. Homeboy will be playing a lot of defense this year.

There was talk about Dems shortening the convention to three days, but now, talk is about doing "something different" on the last night. Could it be this?

What better place to accept the nomination for the most powerful job in the world? Invesco Field at Mile High, the home of the Denver Broncos, can seat 75,000 people. It's just a short walk under I-25 from the Pepsi Center and would be a part of the rumored one-mile square radius security zone.

DenConWatch has heard rumors to this effect as far back as March 2006.

Denver's bid would put most of the convention action at the Pepsi Center, with the final night at Invesco Field.

I am very suprised by that last one. Having the convention in two separate places makes the logistics much harder. You have to build all the infrastructure twice: podium, floor seating, and media facilities. I can't imagine the media will be happy about having to pay for two sets of anchorbooths, wiring, etc. Security is also a nightmare. You have to setup the whole security infrastructure in two separate places. Not to mention the security checkpoint system gets used and worked out the first 2 days, before the big days of Wednesday and Thursday. If you have the final night in a completely new place, it seems to me you're asking for trouble.

And:

However, a source has told me that Dean has been dropping hints that he would like some sort of "public event" to close the convention week, which could, logically, be the nominee acceptance speech. (It could also just be a big rally the next day).

In 2004, I learned about a little trick apparently done at all conventions -- a group would walk in, a single person would collect all their passes, go outside, and bring a new group of people. Lather, rinse, repeat. There were likely three times as many people inside the convention hall for Kerry's speech than at any other time.

So why restrict Obama's historic acceptance speech on the 45th anniversary of MLK's "I have a dream" speech to the convention delegates and whoever they can smuggle in? Open that puppy up.

We set out yesterday to raise $150,000 for Darcy Burner, taking pressure off her fundraising efforts so she and her family can rebuild their lives. In 24 hours, the netroots have moved past the halfway mark, with $85,000 raised (we started at the $250,000 mark). That's 17 days she can focus on rebuilding rather than fundraising. As Goldy says:

This is more than just money, it is a gift of time and an outpouring of affection that has buoyed Darcy’s spirits just as the full impact of her loss finally started to sink in. The campaign tells me she has canceled her schedule at least through the end of the week and will reevaluate day by day after that.

I'm glad she has cancelled her schedule for at least this week. Let's help give her more time to put the pieces back together.

Race tracker wiki: WA-08

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 6/30-7/2. Likely voters. MoE 4% (3/31-4/2 results)

Independents disapprove of George Bush 14/86, so that has a clear effect on Lieberman's approval ratings. He is even less popular with Democrats while more Independents now disapprove of his performance than approve. While Lieberman's approval ratings continue to fall, the matchups with Lamont were largely unaffected compared to a couple of months ago.

Other findings from the poll -- Obama crushes McCain 57-35 in Connecticut, and Lieberman would actually hurt McCain on the ticket in the state. Let's hope McCain picks him.

My biggest fear is that Lieberman retires in 2012. I want him defeated at the ballot box. And until then, this poll, along with yesterday's Q-poll, should go a long way toward dispelling the notion that Lieberman is popular. His loving embrace of Bush and McCain, along with his rabid warmongering, have definitely killed his support at home.

Full crosstabs can be found below the fold.

Race tracker wiki: CT-Sen

CNN:

With the dust having finally settled after the prolonged Democratic presidential primary, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama locked in a statistical dead heat in the race for the White House.

With just over four months remaining until voters weigh in at the polls, the new survey out Tuesday indicates Obama holds a narrow 5-point advantage among registered voters nationwide over the Arizona senator, 50 percent to 45 percent. That represents little change from a similar poll one month ago, when the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee held a 46-43 percent edge over McCain.

Nate links us to a primer by the National Council on Public Polls that tells us how media should report on polls:

Certainly, if the gap between the two candidates is less than the sampling error margin, you should not say that one candidate is ahead of the other. You can say the race is "close," the race is "roughly even," or there is "little difference between the candidates." But it should not be called a "dead heat" unless the candidates are tied with the same percentages. And it certainly is not a “statistical tie” unless both candidates have the same exact percentages [...]

When the gap between the two candidates is more than the error margin but less than twice the error margin, you should say that Candidate A "is ahead," "has an advantage" or "holds an edge." The story should mention that there is a small possibility that Candidate B is ahead of Candidate A.

Obama is ahead in this poll. There is a chance the poll is wrong, given the 3.5% margin of error, but when the poll says Obama is ahead by five points, it means something, and it's not the same as if the poll was 45-45.

Furthermore, the Pollster.com national poll composite currently has Obama leading 48.5 - 43.9, just shy of the 5-point margin in the latest CNN poll. In other words, chances are that its results are not an outlier.

Of course, CNN desperately wants their dead heat. It's good for ratings.

This is a "blogger inside baseball" story, so if you think such things are trivial, feel free to skip.

Long time progressive writer Al Giordano ended up writing a new blog this year, quickly building traffic based on his astute coverage of the Democratic primary battle. He parked this blog at the site of a fledgling organization called Rural Votes run by Deb Kozikowski, a vice chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

Al built his blog into a mini little powerhouse, worked his way up the Technorati rankings and was able to score a blogger pass for the DNC convention. In addition, his readers raised several thousand dollars to help get him there.

Then one day Al wrote a piece that cited Saul Alinsky (the inspiration for my forthcoming book, in fact), and Kozikowski freaked out.

From: DebbySKoz@cs.com
To: narconews@gmail.com
Date: Wed, June 11, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.
Subject: What Are You Doing?

Rules for radicals? Give me a break. We have a meeting with Farm Aid and other interested parties in the next two weeks -- what do you think you are doing? This is not helpful -- do you WANT Barack Obama to lose? Talk about creating the petrii dish for beautiful loser syndrome. I am including Matt in this conversation b/c w/o an understanding The Field goes fallow. I mean it, Al. I cannot allow you to rule this roost to the detriment of the overall mission. I'll take the hit if you refuse to be a team player and quit. An Obama funder I have been courting is horrified. That makes three -- two in the last week. You are wrong headed. This has NOTHING to do with rural at all and this particular hero of yours according to Time Magazine in 1970 -- "SAUL ALINSKY has possibly antagonized more people—regardless of race, color or creed—than any other living American."

This is pretty funny, if a tad pathetic. Alinsky is a true American hero, and like I said, my forthcoming book pays homage to him. But that should give you a taste of this sordid affair. (I won't get into the details, you can get them at Al's site if you want them).

Bottom line, she thought Al was harming her site, so she didn't just pull the plug, but she purged all of his past writings from the site. That's fine, it's her site. Kind of short sighted, since Al's blog was the best marketing possible for her obscure little organization. (Should I ban Saturday Morning Garden Blogging on Daily Kos because it doesn't directly relate to the mission of the site?) But whatever, no one cared much about that.

What was a problem is that Kozikowski essentially stole the money his community had raised to send him to Denver and kept the blogger credential Al earned for herself. When I asked her about it via email, she came up with a bizarre rationalization that she had used her apparently boundless clout within the DNC to pull strings and get those credentials. Total delusions of grandeur, and completely contradicted by emails from her Al posted on his blog.

Whatever. This post isn't designed to run Kozikowski or her lame organization through the mud. I think they're pretty irrelevant and will stay that way.

This is all to explain and promote an effort by some of Al's readers to get the DNC to issue him a new credential. So if you value Al's work and think he should get credentialed (like me), sign the petition.

From the subscription-only Roll Call:

The Republican National Committee is launching $3 million in independent expenditure television ads in four states, focusing on the energy issue.

The ad is slated to run on network and cable television in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and will highlight the differences between Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) on energy security.

This is good, our first look at how much McCain and the RNC can move people with their usual bull. It's all offense, too. The four states are Kerry Blue states. Let's grab the current Pollster.com composites for those four states, so we can use that as a baseline to see whether these ads move numbers:

Michigan:

Ohio:

Pennsylvania:

Wisconsin:

Update: Oops, obviously Ohio is not a Kerry state...

One of the worst decisions a candidate can make is to base his or her campaigns headquarters in the Washington DC area, like John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and -- yes -- John McCain have done. Apparently, campaigns feel they can tap into the talent pool in DC far better than they would in the hinterlands of Boston, New York, or (and this makes slightly more sense) Arizona.

The problem is two-fold -- one, no one likes DC, so why reinforce that you are such a creature of the Beltway that you can even return home to run your campaign? Obama is in Chicago, of course. Gore moved his HQ from DC to Tennessee in 1999 way too late -- on September 29.

Second of all, you don't attract the most loyal staffers because they aren't forced to sacrifice for their candidates. There's no effort involved in working at another downtown DC office, rather than have to decide to uproot yourself (and maybe your family) to go to work in Chicago or North Carolina or Arkansas. So for the DC-based staffers, it's just another job, not a whole lifestyle decision.

Finally, the DC beltway conventional wisdom is so noxious and wrong, that it does no one any good to live in that bubble for too long. If I had my choice, I'd move the entire DNC to Chicago or Columbus or Kansas City or Omaha or Denver. Get it out of DC and its chattering classes, cocktail parties, and corrupting K Street. With a satellite hookup and studio, and airplanes, there's no reason that it needs to be physically located in that godforsaken city.

In any case, I'm glad to see that at least this year, our campaign is based outside of that cesspool while their campaign is right in the middle of it (and staffed to the hilt with lobbyists as a result).

No one can.

McCain became visibly angry when I asked him to explain how his Vietnam experience prepared him for the Presidency.

"Please," he said, recoiling back in his seat in distaste at the very question.

McCain allies Sen. Lindsey Graham stepped in to rescue him. Graham expressed admiration for McCain’s stance on the treatment of detainees in US custody.

He became visibly angry because the answer to the question was "it doesn't". Yet now, thanks to Wes Clark, this obvious question is being asked of someone who would rather use his military service as a shield against all criticism. And McCain can't deal with it.

I actually think that Wes Clark completely threw McCain off with this. The Villagers are having their little hissy fit, but this has exposed that McCain believes in his own divine right to the Presidency based entirely on his suffering and his wounds (which he's ever so "reluctant" to talk about, he mentioned in the same interview. Yeah, right.) Clark touched a nerve here by questioning the assumption that McCain's biography can stand in for his judgment or policy prescriptions. He deflated McCain's entire rationale for his candidacy. And McCain can't take it so he's acting like a WATB.

Consider all the primary-era bullshit spin we heard the first half of this year, and none was more offensive to me than the notion that Latinos wouldn't support Obama because (a) he was black, or (b) they supported Clinton too heavily, or (c) because McCain had a good relationship with that group based on his pre-flip flop support for comprehensive immigration reform, or (d) because that's what the b.s. convention wisdom told them and they were too frackin' stupid to think for themselves.

We've already seen evidence that the CW was terribly awry on this issue.

There was a growing consensus during the Democratic primary season that Obama was going to struggle with Latino voters -- due to the exit polls, his race, and McCain’s immigration stance. In fact, in that now-famous conference call in which Hillary Clinton indicated that she would be open to serving as Obama’s running mate, that response was spurred by concern by New York Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D) that Obama was going to have trouble with Latinos. But it looks like that CW -- at least right now -- was wrong. In addition to our recent NBC/WSJ poll, which showed Hispanics breaking for Obama 62%-28%, a new survey of 800 Latino voters from 21 states finds that 60% of them plan to vote for Obama versus 23% for McCain. That is down considerably from the 40%-plus Bush received in 2004. It’s no longer fair to say that Obama has a problem with Latino voters; McCain does. This was a case of conventional wisdom that was never based on fact, just semi-informed speculation based on primary exit polling and bad stereotypes of Latinos.

Gallup now offers additional evidence that Latinos, in fact, are poised to support Obama in record numbers:

Some political experts assumed Obama's struggle to attract widespread Hispanic support in the primaries would carry over into the general-election campaign against the Republican candidate. But Hispanics have become a reliable Democratic voting bloc, and have so far shown little difficulty in transferring their loyalties from Clinton to Obama. Obama continues to lead McCain by about a 2-to-1 margin among Hispanic voters, as he has since March. Hispanic voters could be crucial in key swing states such as New Mexico, Colorado, and Florida.

While George W. Bush made a strong push for the Hispanic vote in the 2000 and 2004 elections, McCain faces an uphill climb to attract Hispanics' support, given their consistent and solid support for Obama in recent months.

Remember, Kerry won the Latino vote in 2004 only 53-44 per the exit polls. Latinos have been one of the biggest swing demographics in recent years. They are not as reliably Democratic as some believe. Yet here we are, already showing a 30-point lead and one that I'm willing to bet grows. It'll be at least 70-30 by election night, if not 75-25.

This, of course, matters greatly because, in short, us Latinos are growing stronger by the year.

oting by Hispanics surged in the last congressional elections, showing strength that could swing this year's presidential vote in closely contested states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.
A government report released Tuesday shows that 5.6 million Hispanics voted in the 2006 general election, an increase of 18% over 2002, the previous year for a federal election without a presidential race on the ballot. That compares to a 7% increase among white voters and a 5% increase for black voters.

"For years they called the Latinos the sleeping giant. Well, they woke us up," said Luis Vera, general counsel for the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC.

Vera said the debate over illegal immigration has energized Hispanic voters, a trend he expects to continue this year.

There's a reason Karl Rove worked so hard with Bush to try and bring over that demographic -- which is socially very conservative -- over to the GOP.

Also in the interview, Rove worried that after the recent immigration debate, the Republican Party risks losing the Hispanic political support that he and Bush worked to build up in the past three elections, going back to their days inTexas.

"I am worried about it, and you cannot ignore the aspirations of the fastest-growing minority in America. We did that once before, and that's why we were able to increase our vote among African Americans by 40 percent between 2000 and 2004, going from an incredibly anemic 9 percent to a virtually anemic 13 percent. And we better not put ourselves in the place with a vital part of the electorate that fundamentally shares our values and views."

Obama is poised to win Latinos huge, and with them, the states of Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and maybe even Florida. Smaller Latino populations are helping lock down Oregon, Wisconsin and Washington (and of course California), will play a role in Missouri and Ohio (which will likely remain tight through election day), and may even help drag Texas into contention.

Seattle Times:

Looking into the black, collapsed interior of her home along the shore of Ames Lake on Tuesday, congressional candidate Darcy Burner was matter-of-fact.

"I'd say it's pretty much a total loss, based on the smoldering remains," she said. "We lost stuff. It's just stuff. The boy is fine. The husband is fine."

Burner, her husband and their 5-year-old son were home asleep when the 7 a.m. fire broke out, but they escaped unharmed [...]

Fire investigators said the blaze was caused by a malfunctioning electrical device that was plugged into an outlet in a bedroom, said Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff's Office. Burner said a faulty lamp in her son's room apparently was to blame.

Burner said she and her husband, Mike, were awakened Tuesday morning by their son.

"Henry came into our room screaming there was a fire," she said. "I scooped him up and got him out of the house. The fire started in his room. He did everything right."

"Thank goodness for smoke detectors," said Glaser. Investigators believe Henry was awakened when smoke alarms sounded, Glaser said.

I just went and re-checked the smoke detectors in my kids'' room. The thought of a fire starting in their room makes me want to throw up.

Darcy needs time to put her life back together. We're doing our part to make that possible, looking to cover her fundraising goal for the month ourselves.

I'm in for $1,000.

Update:

Update II: HelpDarcy.com

Race tracker wiki: WA-08

• My upcoming book, Taking on the System, is now available for pre-order at Amazon and other online retailers. I'm proud of this book, guys. I just got a blurb from Elizabeth Edwards:

  As the founder of the blogosphere's most lively town square - a place where Americans come to debate ideas, discuss policy, and yes, plot to "crash the gates" - Markos has already permanently altered the landscape of American politics. DailyKos and the progressive blogosphere have inspired a new generation of American patriots, determined to rise up and make their voices heard. In Taking on the System, Markos provides both a call-to-arms, and the rules of engagement, for getting active in our newly networked age.  With passionate and accessible prose guaranteed to inspire and empower anyone who has ever struggled to make a difference, this book captures the spirit of our nation's modern-day pamphleteers.  - Elizabeth Edwards

  Yeah, I'm blushing. But it really is a good book. Better than Crashing the Gate, I think. Your pre-orders help generate buzz for the book, which does things like help it get on the best seller list and onto the hands of more people who could make use of its message of empowerment. So if you are so inclined to purchase the book, considering pre-ordering it. Publication date is September 2.

• Why does Chris Matthews continue to insist that only white people are "regular people"?
• We have raised about $25K $43K for Darcy Burner this morning as we try and give her some breathing room to take care of her family and home situation. Every $5,000 we raise is one day she doesn't have to focus on fundraising. So this morning, we gave her five eight days of respite. Our goal is $150,000 (for a total of $400,000 raised across all of ActBlue), so she can spend the entire month rebuilding her life before she goes back to defeating Dave Reichert this November.
• Imagine that -- waterboarding is torture. Not that it matters to the morally debased panic-stricken bed-wetters on the Right.
• Everything you've ever wanted to know about the Tour de France, without having to pay $8 for a preview guide.
• Took my kid to see the Giants-Cubs game last night. He ate a hot dog and cotton candy. And then spent half the night vomiting it back up. Reminded me of this:

  [Scene: Madison Cube Garden Corridor. Zoidberg comes out of the Gents and approaches a vendor.]

  Zoidberg: I'd like a jumbo squid log, please.

  Vendor: We don't sell those.

  Zoidberg: Alright, alright. Let me have one of your young on a roll.

  Vendor: We're outta rolls.

  Zoidberg: Fine! Just give me something crawling with parasites.

  [Cut to: Madison Cube Garden. Back in the bleachers, Zoidberg eat a hotdog and purrs. The others have hotdogs too. Fry takes a bite.]

  Fry: Mmm. At least hotdogs haven't changed.

• I wrote about GOP sockpuppets this week in the Hill.

Guys, as you might've seen, Orange to Blue candidate Darcy Burner lost her house yesterday to a fire. The tragedy has obviously upended her life, and she's struggling right now to put all the pieces back together. As such, she now faces a dilemma -- the more time she dedicates to dealing with her personal affairs, the less time she has to campaign and raise money.

We can't help with the "campaign" side of things, but we can help with the money side of things. Darcy would have to raise about $150,000 in the month of July to keep up with her Republican opponent. Us bloggers are going to try and raise that for her.

Darcy is currently at $250,000 across all of ActBlue. We want to get that to $400,000. A tall order, but no one deserves the respite from the rigors of fundraising more than Darcy.

One last point: Darcy is a huge netroots sensation because she is truly one of us -- a former Microsoft exec who is a geek at heart, and someone who has been with us on the war and FISA since she first started running in 2005. Some politicians can put up a facade or say the right things for the right audience, but there's no faking it when you've just run out of your burning house, seeing all your worldly possessions go up in flames as you frantically try to ensure your family is safe.

Look at the shirt she was wearing:

(Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

She is family.

I know I promised a lull from the fundraising after the end of the quarter, but these are not normal circumstances. Darcy will be someone who will be there for us when she's in Congress. Now's our chance to be there for her during these horrible, trying times. Let's do what we can to help her out.

Update: Goldy:

[...] that’s XML for “end war.” And the fact that this was the shirt that Darcy was wearing at 7AM when she and her family fled their burning house, tells us in the netroots all we need to know about Darcy Burner [...]

Darcy needs to raise about $150,000 this July to keep pace with Dave Reichert and her own 2006 fundraising, and everyday she takes off makes her campaign budget that much harder to hit. That’s about $5,000 a day.

And that’s why I’m joining with bloggers nationwide to ask our readers to contribute what they can today, to help give Darcy the breathing room she needs to tend to her own affairs without worrying about neglecting her campaign. Every $5,000 increment we raise represents a day that Darcy won’t have to dedicate to her own fundraising efforts. It is a gift more precious than money; it is a gift of time.

Race tracker wiki: WA-08

FLORIDA

PPP (PDF). 6/26-29. Likely voters. MoE 3.6% (3/15-16 results)

Rasmussen. 6/26. Likely voters. MoE 4% (6/18 results)

The Pollster.com composite is tight: McCain 45.3, Obama 43.5.

NORTH CAROLINA

PPP (PDF). 6/26-29. Likely voters. MoE 3% (5/28-29 results)

Pollster.com composite: McCain 44, Obama 41.1.

GEORGIA

Rasmussen. 6/26. Likely voters. MoE 4% (6/4 results)

Pollster.com composite: McCain 50.4, Obama 43.9.

VIRGINIA

SurveyUSA. 6/20-22. Likely voters. MoE 4% (5/28-29 results)

Pollster.com: McCain 45.1, Obama 46.5.

OHIO

SurveyUSA. 6/20-22. Likely voters. MoE 4.2% (5/28-29 results)

Pollster.com: McCain 42.7, Obama 46.1.

TEXAS

Rasmussen. 6/25. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (6/2 results)

Pollster.com: McCain 46.7, Obama 38.

ARIZONA

Rasmussen. 6/25. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (4/15 results)

Pollster.com: McCain 48.1, Obama 38.

Also:
AL: M 51, O 36
MA: M 40, O 53
MS: McCain 50, Obama 44
NJ: M 33, O 48
NY: M 37, O 57

The 6/23 edition of this feature can be found here. The tally was Obama 289, McCain 249. The states are granted to whichever candidate has the lead in the Pollster.com poll aggregates. (When there aren't enough polls in a state for there to be an aggregate number, I tally all polls after tossing anything from February and before.)

For this edition, the tally is Obama 317, McCain 221.

Compared to last week, Obama has taken the lead in Michigan and Indiana, monopolizing the Great Lakes states. All Kerry states are now in Obama's hands, while he's got leads in six Bush states -- New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia. That's a nice little swatch of Blue forming on the map.

Now let's look at the states I consider battlegrounds -- those with the poll aggregate in the single digits:

A lot of good stuff here. For starters, 207 Obama electoral votes are safely in the double digits, while only 86 McCain EV's are in a similar state. A full 21 states are currently in single digits, while Arizona and Kansas just barely missed out.

Compared to last week, Wisconsin and New Jersey are now solid Obama states, while Oregon slid into single digits and "yellow" battleground status. On McCain's side, his solid double-digit leads in Texas and Mississippi are gone, at least for the moment. Both coasts are now entirely in play or solidly Democratic, while the entire northern border is in play or solidly Democratic except for that 45-mile sliver of Idaho.

Quinnipiac. 6/26-29. Registered voters. MoE 2% (3/19-24)

That's a 15-point downward swing in support, from +17 approval to +2.

The crosstabs:

Yup. There is little doubt among Democrats and Republicans in the state about their senator's allegiances.

Remember we polled a hypothetical Lamont-Lieberman rematch back in April, and on that poll, Lieberman had a better 47-40 approval/disapproval rating. Matched up against Ned Lamont, Lieberman lost 37-51.

I've got another poll in the field this week asking that same questions again. If that Q-poll is any indication, Lieberman may be looking even worse against Lamont this time around.

Incidentally, Dodd is at 51-34.