http://www.gallup.com/poll/109957/Obama- Gains-Among-Former-Clinton-Supporters.as px

Former Hillary Clinton supporters are now significantly moving towards Obama according to a new Poll released today by Gallup.

Gallup points out that the democratic convention has helped rally Hillary Clinton supporters for the democratic ticket, with the percent saying they will vote for Obama in November moving from 70% pre-convention to 81% after the convention, and the percent certain to vote for Obama jumping from 47% to 65%.

In my view it is clear that democratic voters are now coming home and with a little over two months to go before election day, it looks very much like there will eventually only be an insignificant number of Hillary voter holdouts

Do you remember, it wasn't long ago, all those accusations about Barack Obama being a Muslim?  Do you recall all the rants from republicans and their supporters that Barack Obama's birth certificate is a forgery?

Do you recall how the republicans tarred and feathered John Kerry for mentioning that Mary Cheney was gay? They called him a "bad man" even though Mary Cheney was admittedly gay.

Do you recall how John Kerry, a true American hero, was swiftboated to death in that campaign? The republicans even went so far as to state that Kerry shot himself to get a purple heart? Do you remember the humiliating purple bandaids at the 2004 RNC convention?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=2 0601103&sid=aSQVj61p7tVk&refer=u s

The DNC convention was easily the most watched one since records have been kept about such happenings starting in 1960, according to numbers just released by the Nielsen Co. The convention actually had more viewers than the recently concluded Olympic games. Furthermore there was a 57% gain in viewers, who watched Obama's acceptance speech, 38.4 million viewers, compared to John Kerry's in 2004 when he attracted 24.4 million.

This definitely speaks to the exitement that is being generated by the democrats in this campaign, and bodes very well for November.

Thus far there has, strangely, been a dearth of post convention polls, not counting the two on-going tracking polls, Gallup and Rasmussen; both of which show a nice bounce for Obama. Nonetheless these Nielsen ratings may be even more pertinent than any polls that may come out, because it speaks directly about the peoples interest in the democratic ticket shown by their daily desire in wanting to hear and see the democratic team in action.

For those of you that are worried about recent fluctuations in tracking polls, take heart. Polls don't always tell us the complete story of what's going on out there. What you should be looking at is how the battle is being fought. What may be different? Which candidate is taking the battle to the other? Who is playing defense? And most importantly, who is on the offensive?

Today we have this story which is quite meaningful--"Obama makes bid in 7 longtime Republican states."  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_make s_bid_in_7_longtime_0804.html

Alaska is young. Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia have growing populations and many black voters. Montana has seen recent Democratic inroads, and North Dakota has sent only Democrats to Congress since 1986. Indiana borders Barack Obama's home state.

http://www.ppic.org/...

There was bad news out of California today for Barack Obama. A new poll by Public Policy Institute of California, just released, shows Obama leading by 15%. What's even worse, the poll gives Obama just 50% of the vote.

The McCain camp was obviously delighted by these results. One McCain backer who couldn't control his happiness was overheard saying: "I was so sure we would be down 17 points, so to have it 15 is just great."

John McCain even managed to pry himself loose from a Britney Spears commercial to remark that this proves California is in play: "Who would have ever thought that 35% of all of California supports me." This is truly a miracle.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/ 2008/latestpolls/index.html

CNN has just released a poll showing Obama with a 51-44 lead. This is huge because Obama has now broken the 50% mark. It also comes on the heels of a Gallup poll which had given McCain a 4 point advantage. Many observers believed the Gallup poll was unreliable because it utilized a flawed likely voter model. In any event this new CNN poll seems a lot more in line with almost all the other national polls that have come out in the past 2 months.

The Obama camp has launched a new all-out drive to win over the Latino vote. Frank Sanchez, the chairman of the Obama for America National Hispanic Leadership Council, said the unprecedented effort will focus on paid advertising, online organizing, increased staffing in Latino communities and organizing surrogates to hit the campaign trail.

This is a significant develpoment as it comes at a time when polls show Obama with a growing lead with this group, which is the largest growing demographic in America. Hence, Obama seems to be working on consolidating the strong support he already has with Latino's while attempting to expand it even further.

Obama advisers launched the effort at the Democratic National Committee along with Colorado Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar and a handful of other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080728/ap_o n_re_mi_ea/iraq

The surge keeps working and it worked again this morning, but don't tell it to the 57 people who were killed in Bagdad and Kirkuk today by suicide bombers who apparently weren't told how the surge has made Iraq a much safer place. Don't tell it to the 300 who were wounded. Some may never walk or see again, but at least they know they will be living in a nice, safe Iraq thanks to folks like George Bush and John McCain who made life better for them with a surge.

One wounded Iraq resident seemed to sum up his feelings about the surge quite vividly: "I heard women and children crying and shouting and I saw burned women as dead bodies lied in pools of blood on the street," Mustapha Abdullah, a 32-year-old man who was injured in the stomach and legs, said from the hospital where he was being treated.