I can rejigger the initialization of my spreadsheet, and it would still make yesterday a very good day for Obama - the math isn't that complicated.

It's not speculation - it's a spreadsheet.  It's actually not hard to calculate the daily totals from a running 3-day average.

I use a spreadsheet to calculate each single day's sample from the 3-day rolling average.  When I say "yesterday", I mean yesterday's polling sample only.

Gallup swings wildly from day to day: yesterday it was 54-37 but a couple days ago it was basically even.  Better to be ahead than behind, though.

Rasmussen is much more stable since they weight for party ID.  Amazingly, Obama was ahead 54-43 in that poll, though.

It will be interesting to watch the polls as we go through the GOP convention and hopefully get something stable next week.

McCain does not think clearly when an attractive woman is involved.  His "soulmate" line and wandering eyes reveal his crush, which (among other things) impaired his judgment.

You know, there is actually a scenario where she does drop out.  If she were to drop out before the GOP convention, McCain would nominate someone else and off they go.  On Sunday, she could say upon further examination of the time requirements of campaigning, she decided she needed to put her family first.  The net result would be that Obama's big media day was thrown off track.  It would be quite the political maneuver.

The Obama campaign is obviously trying to get its message about Palin into the media narrative, but the choice for VP is not likely to be a big factor in the end.  In the mean time, we keep running against McCain.

Obama probably won't attack her experience.  It does eliminate McCain's only substantive attack on Obama, leaving only character attacks.

Palin has no national experience.  She's been a governor for a year and a half.  Before that she was mayor of a city of less than 10,000 people.  

Obama's speech was excellent on the substance, the delivery, the emotion, and the connection with ordinary Americans.  As political theater, however, it's something that has never been seen before.

Howard Fineman was saying that the GOP will have a low-key convention, especiallly since it will coincide with a major hurricane hitting the U.S.  In terms of theater, I'm reminded of the California recall election.  Jon Stewart did a really funny piece where he showed Arnold with his booming voice, Twisted Sister playing their anthem, a car being blown up, etc.  Then he showed a Gray Davis rally with polite applause.  Steward said, "Gray Davis' confetti machine must have been in the shop."  That piece made it painfully clear that Gray Davis was totally screwed.  The imagery said "only losers vote for Davis".  The issues didn't even matter anymore.  

We happen to have the issues on our side, but it almost doesn't matter.  You have an eloquent young speaker with a compelling life story giving an amazing speech in front of 80,000 people.  On the other hand, you have... John McCain.  I'm really, really glad I'm not a Republican right now.

It's coming alright, but...

...will the Republicans be able to connect with American voters like Obama did?
...will they be able to get away with it after Obama called them out on not running a serious campaign?
...will anyone even be watching their convention?

We won't know for another week and a half, but I think the GOP has just been dealt a mortal wound.

He'll be up over 10 in tomorrow's release of the Gallup tracking poll, but that won't include the effect of tonight's speech.

Florida's voting patterns are changing rapidly.  

- Kerry won among 18-29 year olds by 58-41

• The Cuban vote is shifting Democratic rapidly
  
• Governor Crist restored voting rights to most ex-felons

I think the state is likely to be a pleasant surprise in November.

Nevada and New Mexico are pleasant surprises at least.  We'll know after the GOP convention how things are shaping up for November.  Obama's vastly superior organization and greater voter enthusiasm is probably good for 1-2 point overperformance relative to the pollsters' likely voter models.

Hutchison is nominally pro-choice.  Won't happen.