So who is going to play whom for the purposes of debate prep?  Here is what I have come up with:

Debbie Wasserman Schultz as Palin
John Murtha as McCain
James Imhofe as Biden
John Thune as Obama

Cross-posted at Daily Kos

I was shocked at how the MSM was able to keep this under wraps!

Video evidence of the stunning development is below.

Among the countless issues NOT mentioned by Senator McCain in his acceptance speech (or by his oh-so-well-informed running mate, shockingly) was healthcare. Considering that his plan will not expand coverage and, amazingly, may actually INCREASE healthcare costs for most Americans over time, I'm not surprised.

An excellent piece comparing the McCain and Obama healthcare plans was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine (widely regarded as the country's leading medical journal):

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full /359/8/781

Let's pretend for a second that after all the polls and the debates and the inevitable stupidity about how Barack Obama is an American-hating muslim who is simultaneously and America-hating Christian who goes to an American-hating church this election will come down to who shows up to vote on the appointed day.

Let's also pretend that regardless of this meaningless daily tracking poll or that pointless "OH GOD ITS HAPPENING AGAIN" diary, my continued ability to breathe and walk means that the sky has not fallen and that the Earth is still correctly spinning on its axis.

And lets further pretend that we on the liberal left (with the help of Barack Obama's vaunted voter-registration drive) CAN do in this election what the political-right has done in the last two Presidential contests, which is win the election through sheer dint of will and boots on the ground.

But how?

How do we out-vote the mega-churches?

How do we out turn-out the the Republican machine?

How do we FINALLY end the war and Republican rule?

Well... let's pretend we have a battle-plan, shall we?

Folks, it seems as if everyone's favorite Georgian President is spoiling for a Round 2 with Moscow.  

So the convention is over, and John McCain received his bounce, moving ahead of Barack Obama in the Gallup Tracking poll. Bounces are referred to as such for a particular reason: they tend to be fleeting. Will this even be discussed in a week's time? And so far, it appears that neither McCain's (nor Obama's) bounce is atypical.

Regardless, with Obama generally perceived to have been the slim frontrunner since June, John McCain leading in any poll is difficult to swallow, especially with a history of imploding democratic campaigns.

Of all the surrogates on TV Barbara Boxer and James Carville were the only ones that helped Obama.  Gibbs and Kaine were o.k.

However, we know the media is really itching to go after McCain's temperament.  When Barbara Boxer brought it up, Blitzer really wanted to follow up on it.

Obama needs to go on the offensive and I think this is an issue that won't necessarily win the election but it could knock McCain off message for a while.

Obama needs to focus more on winning news cycles.

Mccain has many quotes about "more wars", 100 years in Iraq. Even Buchanan says McCain means war with Iran

use this quote from Thad Cochran

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_mccain_temper_is_tamed/

Cochran said his choice was prompted partly by his fear of how McCain might behave in the Oval Office. "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Cochran said about McCain by phone. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." McCain's run-ins with other Republican senators are legendary. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa said in an interview that he was so upset by a McCain tirade that he didn't speak to him for two years. Grassley, who said he will make no endorsement, nonetheless says McCain is the most qualified among the five GOP candidates to be president.

Common sense has nothing to do with education or the lack of it. If I may blow off some steam, we have, in our America, more than we need of intellectual, well-educated fools on every side of the spectrum.Please, let's not in any way shape or form, get started in identifying ourselves with them, especially not when our national well-being is at stake.

We live in a world that would do very well without the  so-called "common sense" opinions of the likes of James Dobson-Focus on the Family, Pat Robertsons, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and the rest. These people can  take pride in the sense that they, as the many infamous of history, have been able to mesmerize large numbers of followers.

How clever of John McCain to ally himself with the religious-right by picking Sarah Palin, someone who can truly present their extreme beliefs in a sabre-piercing but home-spun, folksy style of delivery. It has been proven that these clever Republican politicians know how to win elections but can't rule, except for their own base.

I,  like most of you are part of the ninety-five percent of Americans who represent, the middle, working class people of our great nation. All of us are going to suffer under another Republican administration. Let's get the message out across the land to reveal these people who are the merchants of status-quo. If we don't we'll be left with another four years with commmon sense eclipsed by hypocricy.