From the Detroit Free Press:

To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation:

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.
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Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest – a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours — Hillary Rodham Clinton. To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

To the love of my life, our next First Lady, Michelle Obama, and to Sasha and Malia – I love you so much, and I’m so proud of all of you.

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story – of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren’t well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America, their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.

It is that promise that has always set this country apart – that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.

That’s why I stand here tonight. Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women – students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors — found the courage to keep it alive.

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John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank, who helped Senator McCain draft his health Care proposals, is so out of touch that he should resign from the McCain campaign immediately. On the heels of a a US Census Bureau report that came out on Tuesday that showed a dip in the number of uninsured in the US for the first time during the Bush Administration, Mr. Goodman holds anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. His suggestion is insulting. That’s not the same and in terms of costs it places a burden on local city and state governments. It’s passing the buck, a shirk of Federal responsibility.

From the Dallas Morning News:

Texas once again led the nation with the highest percentage of residents without health insurance, a U.S. Census Bureau report showed Tuesday, although the same study also reports a slight dip last year in the percentage without coverage across the nation.

Almost one of every four Texas residents – 24.8 percent – were uninsured in 2006 and 2007, based on an average of the rates for those two years. That’s up from 23.9 percent for 2004 and 2005.

The national number also increased a bit for the two-year period to 15.5 percent. However, looking at 2007 by itself, the percentage of uninsured in the country fell from 15.8 percent in 2006 to 15.3 percent in 2007. (State percentages were given only for two-year periods.)

California still has the highest number – not percentage – of uninsured residents at 6.7 million, compared with 5.7 million Texans. The Texas number is up from 5.5 million in 2006.

McCain adviser John Goodman

But the numbers are misleading, said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain’s health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

“So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime,” Mr. Goodman said. “The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

“So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved.”

Mr. Goodman’s analysis drew a sharp response from the Center for Public Policy Priorities, an Austin-based think tank focusing on poverty issues. “That is not the same thing as having health insurance,” said Eva Deluna, a budget analyst for the center. People without insurance are less likely to seek care, and when they do, the cost to the health system is greater, she said.

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The McCain campaign released this ad to run tonight during Senator Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field. In this 30 second spot, Senator McCain congratulates Senator Obama on his historic night.

“Senator Obama, this is truly a good day for America. Too often the achievements of our opponents go unnoticed. So I wanted to stop and say, congratulations,” McCain says in the ad, “How perfect that your nomination would come on this historic day. Tomorrow, we’ll be back at it. But tonight senator, job well done.”

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Former Congresswoman and former Vice Presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro has an op-ed in the New York Daily News on what Hillary Clinton’s supporters are looking to hear from Senator Obama:

Hillary Clinton’s speech before the convention on Tuesday night was brilliant. It reminded me of the one that Jesse Jackson gave in 1984 after a very contentious primary, when his name would be put into nomination the next evening and his 465-1/2 delegate votes would be recorded in the history books. His speech soared with reminders of a historic campaign, thanked supporters and recognized it was time to move on as a unified party.

Hillary’s remarks, however, went even further than Jackson’s did 24 years ago – by pressing for support, over and over, for her former opponent, Barack Obama, and urging party unity as the only way to defeat John McCain in November.

She could not have done more. And despite what some of Obama’s supporters seem to feel, responsibility for a contentious campaign does not rest solely on her shoulders.

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One hopes that MSNBC realizes that they have a problem on their hands and one really hopes they realize that the problem is overt but undisclosed partisanship on behalf of Senator Obama by Keith Olbermann and David Shuster but I won’t hold my breath.

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It is sad when conservatives understand better the dynamics at work currently in the Democratic Party better than the leadership of the Democratic Party. What is even more egregious is that the writer of this post is a neo-con.

From Pajamas Media:

Why, many ask, can’t the PUMAs get with the program and unite behind Obama?

After all, primary campaigns are often hard-fought, and nasty things are said. Everyone should understand that’s the way the game is played. Afterwards, everybody is supposed to kiss and make up and support the nominee whom just a few days ago they were bashing unmercifully.

So the reasoning goes that those women (and they are mostly women) who remain angry at Obama and his campaign are typical of just the sort of grudge-holders who can’t let bygones be bygones. Sore losers, all.

But those who mount that argument are missing the point. It’s not so much that Hillary lost, or that she lost in a phenomenally close race. It’s not even that Obama and his supporters disagreed with her and criticized her. It’s the form that criticism took.

The PUMAs perceive Obama as having played dirty. And not just in a generic way, but by using the twin evils of sexism and racism to his advantage. If these women had previously bought the idea that the Democratic Party is above that sort of thing, they’ve now experienced a profound shock—and that shock is a very a personal one.

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Though my vote remains up for grabs, I’ll be making a contribution, that’s for certain. So are others. From ABC News:

Some of Hillary Clinton’s most fervent supporters are taking their enthusiasm – and their campaign contributions – to John McCain.
More than 85 of Clinton’s fundraisers, including Donald Trump, Univision chief executive Joseph Uva, cable mogul Charles Dolan, philanthropist Norma Hess and one of Florida’s biggest lobbyists appear to be skipping Barack Obama when it comes to writing checks for the general election, according to an ABCNews.com review of campaign finance records.

These Clinton donors have contributed at least $200,000 to McCain’s campaign in the last few months, an amount which doesn’t include larger contributions to the Republican joint fundraising committees.

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Historian David McCullough tackles the historical illiteracy of Americans and severe lack of understanding of the political philosophy of the Founding Fathers by both the nation’s leaders and the nation at large in this video clip from Big Think.

Well sad to say we are raising and have been raising for about 25 years one generation after another of young Americans who are by and large historically illiterate. Now it isn’t their faults we can’t blame young people in high school or college for not knowing what they haven’t been taught. It’s the fault of their parents follow lot of us, teachers-parents and the culture. History is of the utmost importance, I think its probably more important than any other one single subject because its about the human experience, its about life and consequences of ones actions and its about the role of personality of character in events passed, and we can learn from it, we can learn infinite number of lessons from history and we can also take strength from it, we could be guided by in our own performance, in our own contributions, by the examples of those who went before us and the founders alas have been rather forgotten in part I think because they appear in no photographs. We have no photographs of them, we have no film clips of them, we have no recordings of their voices, we have no television out takes.

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The McCain campaign released a new ad today entitled “Remote Control” showing a television running scenes of a world in turmoil with an inset quoting Democratic leaders on how Senator Obama is too inexperienced to be President. The ad is a 60-second spot.

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A new CNN/Time Magazine poll in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Pennsylvania largely has good news for Senator Obama. According to this poll, Senator Obama leads Senator McCain in three of the four and trails only 1% in Colorado. All polls that I have seen to point an Obama lead in Pennsylvania but polls in the other three Western states generally show tight race that as of last week seem to be breaking McCain’s way especially in Nevada and New Mexico. This poll shows Obama with comfortable leads in Nevada and New Mexico.

The poll also included independent candidate Ralph Nader and that changed the dynamic of the race in unexpected ways. In Nevada, Nader polled of 6% and his presence flattened Obama’s lead into a 41%-41% tie. Yet in New Mexico, where Nader polled at 8%, he drew votes almost equally from both major candidates, while in Pennsylvania he siphoned off significant support from McCain; a three-way race there would give Obama 47%, McCain 38% and Nader 7%. It’s possible especially in Pennsylvania that much of Nader’s support comes from disaffected Democrats who supported Senator Clinton.

An exclusive TIME/CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll reveals that Barack Obama leads John McCain by several percentage points in three crucial battleground states—Nevada, New Mexico and Pennsylvania—while McCain tops Obama by 1% in Colorado.

Obama’s widest margin is in New Mexico, where 53% of registered voters said they prefer the Democrat to 40% who favor McCain. Obama also holds a five-point advantage in Nevada (49% to 44%). Both states went narrowly to George W. Bush in the 2004 election.

In Pennsylvania, Obama leads 48% to 43, while McCain topped Obama in Colorado 47% to 46%. In all state polls, the margin of error is plus-or-minus 4%.

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