Here Goes My Hero

++I'll wait until after the Convention to try and sum up my impressions of this, a political Home Run Derby.But the messaging couldn't be tighter and every speaker reinforcing the broader message of we all in this together. I don't know how you get a more diverse crowd of Americans. I even saw a dwarf. 

++For me the real kick of a convention is a Roll-Call where states brag about their history, products, sights and sports teams. The roll call for the RNC was held in early morning to hide the possible fights with the followers of Ron Paul. At the DNC the Maine delegation remarked how proud they were of being seated unlike their Republican counterparts (snark). 
I thought it was a nice, if not fabricated, touch for Mississippi to cede to the Ohio delegation,who put Obama over the top.

++Tonight, the last night of the convention, saw David Grohl and the Foo-Fighters play two songs. Perhaps I am the only one who thought that choice was important. David Grohl is an Alexandria man, who is well-loved in northern Virginia and who wrote Arlandria about Alexandria and Arlington on his last album. Perhaps, I am taking this too far but I think I have detected micro-targeting for swing states in a subtle way throughout the three days of the convention. Last night we saw the young owner of an Alexandria brewery talk about the help he got from the Small Business Administration. If you add up these mentions and personalities, you have a layered approach to marketing to swing states.

++It has been clear that the auto bailout pitch has been more toward Ohio than Michigan. The Ohio autoworkers, the Toledo workers being retrained , Sharrod Brown, Ted Strickland, add up to a big push in Ohio. This also is where Obama's best ground game is. After Bill Clinton's barn-burner of a speech, he and President Obama will be campaigning together in Ohio and Florida.

++A part of the campaign we miss is the coverage by the regional press. For instance, it is more important to the election that the Des Moines Register fact-checked Clinton's speech and found it truthful than the AP quibbling over his past performance in the White House. Clinton's speech received front-page headlines in all swing state papers. 

++The nice bit about Clinton's speech was the shot of Hillary watching it in East Timor and saying as he went long "Time to wrap it up." 

++The Romney campaign has been woefully flat-footed in trying to respond to the DNC and I think they are letting themselves in for a breakout they can recover from. The DNC has run a vastly superior convention than the RNC and are playing offense in a way I haven't seen Democrats play for years. 

++There is something that puzzles me. I know the Republicans animosity toward Jimmy Carter and they feel that this is like a 1980 election for them. But attacking an 88-year old man whom most people now consider someone who served his post-presidential years honorably and for humanitarian causes just doesn't go over well to the general electorate. 

++The same applies to Bill Clinton. Romney tried to coopt Bill Clinton's critique of Barack Obama with new attack ads from the 2008 campaign. However, Clinton's speech which was a full-throated and well-argued embrace of President Obama drowns all this out. Then there are those conservative pundits that go after Bill Clinton for his past indiscretions in office at a time when Clinton has favorables in the high 60s and unfavorables about 27%. What's the grand strategy here when Clinton outdrew the NFL opener and the tweeter feed during his speech was 22,087 to Romney's 14,289.

++Republicans are critical that I think Romney is throwing the fight. The campaign has pulled its ad spending, including the SuperPacs, Karl Rove and the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, from both Pennsylvania and Michigan. There are no ads in Ohio at this moment. And the Romney campaign is not spending anything on Wisconsin when they have the darlings of Wisconsin Rinse Penis as RNC Chairman,Scott Walker as Governor and Paul Ryan as Vice Presidential nominee. Ad buys must be made up front. The Obama campaign has already lined up all the October purchases. It seems to me that Romney is narrowing his own possibilities by shutting down operations in this key states so soon. His Michigan decision is one month ahead of McCain doing it in 2008.

++Hopefully Friday's job report will put the wind at Obama's back. Nasdaq is at its highest since 2000. Unemployment claims are at its lowest in 4 years. The stock market is the highest in four years. And Pew did a poll on how Americans feel about where they are now economically. Oh, about the same. It's not worse. The ADP report surprised analysts today showing job creation over 200,000. While federal reports usually are lower because they also show job losses in the public sector, there is anticipation that the report will be decent but no lowering of the unemployment rate.