“I’ll clearly support whoever the nominee is,” McElwee told me. “I think all of these people can be moved. They’re pieces on a chess board that’s so much larger than them. And I want to be helping move those chess pieces.”

"And then something like this happens, and after years of feeling ashamed you look up and you see what you represent on your best days, what you hope your fam represents--vision, courage, competition, confidence--is represented at the highest levels of this country. You wake up and realize that your best face, is the face of the country, is the face of the world."

RapLeaf, which collects and analyzes information from across the Web, took a look at which of these sites the presidential candidates should target to court voters in each swing state.

"Both of these candidates are on the verge of pulling a Bullworth," said Todd, referencing the late '90s political classic about a pol who stopped spinning. "We are at a critical juncture inside this campaign for the McCain folks and that is who is trusting who? You have got people worrying about their reputations. Now you are wondering do the candidates trust the staff? Does the staff trust the candidates? This is a dangerous time in a campaign that is behind. They desperately need some good news because you do wonder if cohesion is disappearing on the inside."

I asked him a rather basic question: “Leaving aside her actual experience, do you know how informed Governor Palin is about the issues of the day?” The senior adviser thought for a moment. Then he looked up from his beer. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t know.”

"As you know, it's such a difference between when we have a normal discussion about something or when you are on the campaign trail. You sometimes end up talking like a machine."

"It's annoying that intrade just lists the EV totals, since what we're really interested in is probabilities of each candidate winning.

I've put together a tool that takes the Intrade state-by-state prices and runs them through a Monte Carlo sim like the one used here (mine uses 100,000 runs instead of 10,000 because I'm more manly). You can see the results here:

http://xkcd.com/intrade "

"[...] As a candidate, advertising is neither Obama nor McCain. We're a youthful face with a long, heroic history. The candidate who has been tortured by sinking economies and world events but hasn't given in. We're also the candidate of change(ing). Maybe slower than most people want -- but every year, we're making more progress than the last. [...]"

"As environmental problems get worse, however, politicians will be increasingly forced into confrontations between the urban and rural coalitions."

"She's just as flawed as we are. It's not the fact that she's a woman but the way she does it all. And let me tell you: There're more American parents with unwed pregnant teenaged children than American parents with Harvard grads. She's real."

"No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves."

"That family is so American. The pregnant daughter, the baby with Down syndrome, the husband who doesn't have as big a career as his wife." "The boyfriend with the embarrassing MySpace page. That's real life! Go Sarah Barracuda!"

"Though the situation is no longer so clear-cut, Senator Obama and Senator McCain (as well as running mates Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin) do differ in opinion on several political matters that are critical to industry health. These are the things you as a gamer should know before you cast your ballot in November."

"Country" vs. "promise."

"Here are some excerpts from an account of a ride during the convention Kerry did with Jonathan Vaughters, the director of one of the two American teams to compete in this year's Tour de France, Garmin-Chipotle (named after the team's two sponsors)."

"In the world of political stagecraft, where songs are used as stimulants and signifiers, lyrics often don't matter, particularly if they fall outside of the chorus. (Very notable exception: Barack Obama's surprising use of Brooks and Dunn's country-rocker "Only in America" following last night's speech. "One kid dreams of fame and fortune/One kid helps pay the rent/One could end up going to prison/One just might be president.")"

“I don’t think folks expected that Barack himself keyed in the message on his Blackberry and sent it out. But signing up for the alert and then getting the word directly to your own mobile is a lot more personal than seeing it in a newspaper some kid threw up on your front porch. Beside, many of the younger text generation don’t read newspapers anyway.”

"Credentialed guests at the gratis media party jointly hosted by The Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post whooped it up on rides, gorged on junk food and lined up at game booths where they got as many chances as it took to win. It’s probably the last time in the coming week that the odds will be in their favor."

"[...] Politicians must have audiences: democratic practice demands it. As those audiences mobilised by parties age and dwindle, new ones appear on the internet. The termites of indifference and contempt, corruption and manipulation, special interests and private cynicism, eat away at parties: the able and ambitious can scarcely be expected to decay with them. [...]"

"Young Republicans and young Democrats are basically doing the same stuff. There's just a lot more (young) Democrats."

"In short, Obama shouldn't worry: Americans will start picking up foreign languages in larger numbers (think: Mandarin) when they really need to."

"You can have the best technology in the world, but if you don’t have a community who wants to use it and who are excited about it, then it has no purpose."

"Who doesn't want somebody to come save the day when the world is a mess? Life is hard. We are going through bad economic times. The environment is in trouble. There are looming terrorists."

Heh. :)

“She isn’t sitting with a fixed, adoring gaze. But she obviously loves him deeply and believes in him, and more than that, she believes in this. And that motivates him.”

"He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to."

"He is like a minimalist musician hitting a new note; the slightest change in his look excites speculation. Are you sure he undid his tie?! What depths of emotion must roil beneath that cotton dress shirt!"

"Digital tools give every newspaper, no matter the size, the ability to deliver news and information to audiences we previously only dreamed of reaching. And politicians know that."

"Not like anyone gives a crap, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to put the idea out there again, to paraphrase the great George Carlin, I’m putting on my beret and going down to the rally."

"Before he dropped out of the race, Edwards won 18 pledged delegates. He has the power to release his delegates and encourage them to vote for Obama, which could widen the Illinois senator's lead by a sizable chunk."

"[...] They're so reluctant, in fact, that 7% of the voters in West Virginia voted for John Edwards, who isn't even in the race. [...] Faced with a black man and a white woman, these voters chose a white man who isn't running."

"There would be a limited budget, because you wouldn't need a stadium filled with thousands of people so much as you'd need lots of lonely hotel rooms after midnight."

“Instead of spending days thinking about your wardrobe, you can concentrate on who you’re voting for for president.”

"I still believe a black president is possible in America. Within another generation, it is far more conceivable than it would have been a generation ago. But I also now understand better why it will be an almighty struggle. [...]"

"The most pressing decision facing the next U.S. president and Congress may be how best to accelerate the transition from a fossil-fuel-based energy system to a system based on climate-friendly energy alternatives."

"That’s Osama bin Laden." "If I did that, I am so sorry." “This is part of what I have been going through for the past months, which is why it is impressive that I am still standing here.”

"Today I see journalism falling into two traps. One is the passive abandonment of responsibility that sometimes comes along with the 'objective' mode, and the other is the crass exploitation of divisive opportunities that you see from infotainers [...]"

Next time I've got a spare $20 ...

"Following is a partial transcript of a representative speech given in Boise, Idaho, on Feb. 2 to a crowd of about 14,000 in the Boise State basketball arena."

"In New York, there are other kinds of newspapers that handle stories like this. They are called 'tabloids,' from the Greek root "'tab,' meaning 'SLAIN FROZEN PROSTITUTE,' and the Latin suffix '-loid,' meaning 'IN QUEENS LOVE NEST WITH HALF-GOAT POPE BABY

"So beginning in the 1980s, Xerox Corporation launched a major advertising campaign designed to keep 'Xerox' from becoming 'generic.' The future of their corporation depended upon it."

"[...] I would not broadcast to the world that I am going to bomb a sovereign nation in order to accomplish my goal."

"Cultus by contrast, is a term used in the study of religion to denote those ritual practices in which a community comes together to establish a collective picture of the world, themselves, and their place in it."

"[M]any of the men who said they were considering gender in casting a ballot, gave the New York senator more, not less, support than did other men. [...]"

“If you tell people how to consume their content, they will ignore you. Let people do what they want to do and try to be in their circle of choice.”

“If we are really serious about winning this election, Democrats, we can’t live in fear of losing it.”