It ain't over till the fat lady sings last vote is counted

Let’s not get complacent…

Yes, James Carville says it's in the bag…

Daily Kos’ Markos says it's in the bag…

Hell, even a Re*Sta*e front-pager said it’s in the bag… (before having said post ripped off the front page by his/her higher-ups).

All fine and good, but repeat after me:

It’s. Not. Over.

It’s not… not at all… not by a long shot.

You know who agrees with me? None other than the man himself, Sen. Obama, who said today; “For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky or think this is all set, I just have two words for you: New Hampshire. I’ve been in these positions before when we were favored and the press starts getting carried away and we end up getting spanked.”

True… so very, very true.

From the get go, no matter how rosy or high the polls have shown Obama, we at TBWA have cautioned against being overconfident… lest we lose focus and allow McCain and the gop to get the drop on us all and overtake the lead.

Remember that anything could happen between now and November 4th and while it looks less likely every day, it could still very well happen. After all, polling isn’t voting.

Do NOT get complacent…

Do NOT let your guard down…

Do NOT let McPalin say or do things that anger you get buried. Be vigilant, let your voices be heard and continue fighting the good fight – whether it be via blogs, canvassing, calling, etc – and be complacent after November 4th.

Our nation depends on it…

What were they thinking?

There was a gop presidential debate last night… but four of the so-called ‘front-runners’ weren’t in attendance.

Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and Alan Keyes participated, but Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mitt Romney didn’t…

Did I mention that the debate was specific to issues facing/effecting minorities in general and “people of color” specifically? And that the quartets refusal to attend drew a harsh response from moderator Tavis Smiley in his opening remarks, when he said; “Finally, some of the campaigns who declined our invitation to join us tonight have suggested publicly that this audience would be hostile and unreceptive. Since we’re live on PBS right now, I can’t tell you what I really think of these kinds of comments.”

For a group who want minorities to help elect them to the most powerful seat in the land, ignoring this, along with the previously-ignored Hispanic debate, is not only reprehensible… but incomprehensible. Here they had a chance to speak to these large segments of the population about issues facing them, and they didn’t… sure they had excuses, but they were just that; excuses.

And their decision to ignore the debate even led to some outrage from some of the others attending, with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee saying he was “embarrassed,” that they didn’t attend and Sen. Sam Brownback (r-KS) saying that their absence was a “disgrace.”

Here’s a nickels worth of free advice to the so-called frontrunners; if you expect to lead a nation, you have to lead the entire nation, not just particular parts of it… as George Bush is now finding out…

It's bad, but it could be a LOT worse

Sure, Congress’ approval ratings are starting to drop faster than Katie Couric's ratings as they currently stand at a Dubyaesque 23% (Here’s a personal note to Democrats: 23% is what capitulation will do for you. We, the voters, clearly expected you to, if not totally end this war, to at least give some timeline about ending the war. You didn’t, you kowtowed to the Administration and now the voters are pissed)

But Democratic leaders can take solace that at this time, it’s a whole helluva lot worse to be a Republican.

A new NBC/WSJ poll that has not yet been officialy released but is the same poll that gave us the paltry 19% that think the country is on the right track also gave us an approval rating for “President” Bush of 29%… which would be the lowest of his presidency for this poll. And let’s also revel in the fact that Bush’s unpopularity seems to be weighing down the gop as a whole as the gop has a popularity rating of 28%.

28%… and one factor is Bush, whose unpopularity isn’t likely to be helped by this exchange between White House reporting icon Helen Thomas and Press Secretary Tony “Job” Snow. Via Think Progress:

Thomas: Are there any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war?
Snow: Yeah, the President. The President is in the war every day.
Thomas: Come on, that isn’t my question –
Snow: Well, no, if you ask any president who is a commander in chief –
Thomas: On the frontlines...
Snow: The President.

So… not only is “President” Bush on ‘The frontlines’, at least according to Tony Snow, he’s also massively unpopular and dragging the whole party down with him.

Granted, trying to draw a conclusion from a description of poll numbers that doesn’t contain all of the available data is like getting cats to walk in a parade… but what is fairly easy to ascertain is that these numbers do not seem to bode well for the electoral hopes of the republican party. And these numbers should not be viewed as being in a vacuum, that is not supported by the preponderance of evidence but more so as one outlier poll making a conclusion. Polling earlier this year from CBS News and The New York Times showed the exact same thing -- the gop’s image has seldom, if ever, been as bad as it is right now.

But, like I said yesterday; this doesn’t mean the Dems can rest on their laurels and sit idly by… the incredibly pathetic 23% approval rating should be impetus enough to act, but just in case it isn’t, then the absolute possibility that we can get more republicans out of Congress and the White House in the next few cycles should get every Liberal Democrat off the fucking couch and looking to help in any way they can…

Democrats need to keep pounding away… they need to continue to be diligent in their efforts to out-raise the gop, present a single, united candidate who could return something not just to the White House, but the government itself…And that’s the will of the American people. And that’s something that this president, and this Congress, are not doing right now…