Taking a page from Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle, a couple of anonymous geeks have thrown up a great new site, Sarah Palin Is Your New Segway. My favorite so far: “Sarah Palin Is Your New Ishtar.”

Meaning, of course, that she started out with a ton of great press and is about to quickly, brutally flame out. Like the Pet Rock. Or New Coke. The revelations about Palin just keep getting weirder:

• Her 17-year-old is pregnant out of wedlock.
• She belonged to an Alaskan political party that favors succeeding from the U.S.
• She claimed to have visited four countries outside the U.S. — Canada, Germany, Kuwait and Ireland — except now it comes out that Ireland was only a refueling stop on the way to Germany.
• She’s got a drunk driving arrest on her record.
• … and that’s in the first 3 days!

What, oh what, was John McCain thinking? Enjoy your Segway while you can, Johnny…

Here’s a fun way to represent a political scandal. Blogger Jed Lewison of the Jed Report has created a video of a Google Earth Tour of John McCain’s many homes. How many? Well, McCain doesn’t know.

When asked by Politico reporters how many homes he owns, McCain answered, “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” he said. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”

That’s right. John and Cindy McCain are so rich, they don’t even know what they own. This is the same guy who recently said that the “fundamentals of our economy are fine.” When you’ve got at least seven homes (maybe more!) worth over $14 million, well, yeah, the economy probably is doing okay for you.

Turn up your speakers and enjoy. (Or watch this Obama ad that capitalizes on the fury.)

Sometimes getting shut out gives you a big in.

Yesterday afternoon, a throng of activists gathered at Fox News headquarters in Manhattan to protest Fox’s racist coverage of the Obamas. From comments like “baby mama” to “terrorist fist jab” to “lynching party,” Fox commentators have set a pattern of using racial slurs against the Obamas, in a thinly-veiled attempt to make them appear like outsiders in their own country. It’s offensive to Black Americans, and to all Americans.

The protest contingency was led by someone who has inspired and entertained me for years — hip-hop legend Nas. Ever since Fox’s Bill O’Reilly started attacking Nas on air, Nas has fought back, hard. Yesterday, he teamed up with ColorofChange.org and MoveOn.org to deliver 620,127 petitions to Fox, calling on the network to Stop the Racist Smears.

Video of the event:

I had the privilege of running the ground operations for the event. Despite many variables and deeply hostile Fox security, we pulled it off without a hitch. The major media coverage was fantastic (search Google News for “fox nas” for a taste).

The protest started at 2:00, but didn’t crescendo until 11:30 that night. Fox, in true Fox fashion, refused to accept the 620,127 petitions. Wouldn’t even let us step foot on Fox property. We organizers didn’t expect such a flat out refusal. But then another idea struck — if we couldn’t deliver the petitions to Fox, why not take them to where they could have even more impact … the Colbert Report.

Nas was already scheduled to appear on Colbert to promote his new album, which just hit #1 on the charts. Instead of talking beats and rhymes, Nas took the opportunity to turn up the heat in his well-known feud with “Poppa Bear” (Colbert’s affectionate name for Bill O’Reilly). And since Fox had rejected our 620,127 petitions, Nas brought them to the Colbert Studio, and actually made them part of the set.

Yep, Nas and Stephen Colbert conducted their interview sitting on the ColorofChange petitions. Could you dream up better placement for a protest prop?

Lesson: Fox shot itself in the face by not just quietly taking our petitions and hiding them in a dumpster. Instead, our message got amplified to every Colbert viewer in the country, and made Fox look like the race-baiting antagonists they are. A media and organizing coup!

Finally. After months of holding on, Clinton will bow out on Saturday.

In an email designed to hit inboxes Thursday morning, Clinton thanked her supporters, vowed to do whatever it takes to help Obama win in November, and started the healing process. My bet was that the announcement would come Friday, but I was a day late.

Amidst all the hand-wringing and pro- and anti-Hillary screeds, I found this one comment on the Washington Post very apt. It’s from a “loyal Hillary Clinton supporter” who clearly loves her.

AN OPEN LETTER TO HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTERS

I used to play professional sports and I always found it interesting how the fans took it so personal while to us it was just a job. Hillary is a professional politician. She knows how it works and as a candidate would do what ever she could to win the race.

But in the end, even though disappointed you can’t lose sight of what the goals were. Like on a team, we all have the same goal regardless who carries the ball. Hillary knows this and believe me, it is not as personal to her as you may think. As important as winning to her was and as disappointed as she is, she knows where her loyalties must be now.

In the coming weeks emotions will come down and everybody will begin to have to rededicate themselves to the common goal of getting a democrat elected. Anything less is to disrespect your candidate and what she stands for. Take some time to get your thoughts together and then take a reality check.

A refreshingIl margine della casa nel video casino è molto meno di quello delke slots. take from someone who understands how to take a loss. I agree wholeheartedly with him. Calmer heads will prevail. Americans have a very fickle and short political memory. By the convention, the party’s divisions will be old news!

As a New York City resident, I rarely get to do meaningful on-the-ground political organizing. Our Democratic margins are so wide here, there’s no real point. It makes me miss being out on the campaign trail.

Which is why I spent Saturday canvassing the sub- and ex-urbs of Bucks County, Pennsylvania for Barack Obama. It was a beautiful spring day in a well manicured part of the country, full of flowering dogwoods and magnolia trees. But more invigorating than the weather was being face-to-face with swing voters in one of PA’s most hard-fought battlegrounds. Three interesting lessons:

1. There’s upside to a long fight. Republicans in Bucks County have had a majority in voter registration for as long as anyone can remember … until 2008. This year, due to the protracted Obama-Clinton fight, Bucks has had a surge of Democratic registration. The Blues now outnumber the Reds by 27,000 voters, a significant margin. This, I think, is the hidden gem of our stretched primary — new D voters flocking to the primary, who will stay D for the general.

2. Age is it. A voter’s age was the most predictive measure of whether a voter would choose Obama or Clinton. The voters we met this weekend in the “young” areas — subdevelopments filled with strollers, dogs and minivans — leaned heavily towards Obama. Those in the “older” areas leaned Clinton, despite being more wealthy. There’s been a lot of talk recently about race and gender splitting the electorate. This weekend reinforced for me the primacy of age.

3. Persuasion ID makes for bad data. Human beings hate to say no. At least half of the voters I spoke with told me they were still undecided. For some, that’s probably true. But I KNOW that many of them were Clinton supporters who simply didn’t want to disappoint the nice young man with the Obama sticker smiling on their doorstep. Thus, when I marked down the voter’s preference and reported it to the campaign, I know I was handing back imprecise data, at best. It makes me question the value of “persuasion ID” — the practice of trying to identify a voters preference at the same time as you try to persuade them to vote for your candidate. In a GOTV environment, its pretty crucial to not pull out your opponent’s voters. If your tactics are giving such shady data, you are wasting critical resources … or worse, helping your opponent. A better tactic might have been IDing through repeated phone poll attempts, and then a wider knock-and-drag strategy. It’s not like the Obama folks didn’t have the money to spend on live phone calls!

Overall, a great experience. Days like Saturday make me wish I lived in a swing state. Especially one with such good weather!

Obama-Clinton debate was an unmitigated serious of disgusting, substance-less gotcha questions from hosts Charles Gibson and George Steppin-off-his-gus. They tried every angle to ensnare both candidates, from sniper fire in Bosnia to Rev. Wright to flag pins on lapels. The most outrageous moment was when Gibson asked Obama, “Do you think Rev. Wright loves America as much as you do?” Really? That passes for a debate question?

Not surprisingly, ABC’s website was slammed with negative feedback, from supporters of both candidates. As of 11:20 on Thursday, 13672 angry comments — an avalanche by any standard — and after reading 5 pages of comments, I didn’t see a single one defending ABC.

The blogosphere is equally offended. The fine folks at Crooks & Liars have put together a highlight reel of the most offensive bits. But be warned — if you have any faith left in mainstream political journalism, be prepared to shred it.

If you have 38 minutes, watch Barack Obama’s sweeping, historic, honest speech about race and progressive values in America. If you don’t have the time now, find the time. Soon.

Many have already praised the content of the speech, the reaction to the speech, the game-changing nature of the speech. But I haven’t yet seen an appreciation of the political stagecraft that made the speech truly great.

Consider this. Barack Obama could have given that speech any time. The fact that he wrote the speech in less than two days, amidst the most grueling campaign trail imaginable, means he’d already formulated the arguments long before. He could have given this speech during Black History Month. He could have given at the DNC in 2004. Hell, he probably could have given it when he started writing Dreams of My Father a decade ago.

But he didn’t. He didn’t give the speech any of those times … because the media echo chamber wasn’t ready. No, “ready” is the wrong word — hungry. Barack withheld the speech until the mainstream media was hungry for it. Starving for it. Famished for an opportunity to dissects its every word. And then he whipped the soup even more, “leaking” news to the press that he was writing a “milestone” speech, a speech that would address the controversy over his pastor. You could almost hear the press corps drooling.

In their hunger, the fell over themselves to give him a stage — 38 uninterrupted minutes of a bio-historic epic speech. About race in America. Race! When was the last time you’ve heard even 38 seconds of intelligent discussion about race on TV?

There is no skill more valuable in a political campaign than the pivot. Taking a threatening controversy (Pastor Wright) and turning it into a huge, guaranteed audience for a brilliant, historic speech about race relations in America … if that’s not a masterful pivot, I don’t know what is.

The central (substantive) argument this week in the presidential campaign is over “the experience question.” Does Hillary’s experience trump Barack’s? Does McCain’s trump them both? Does it matter? Is judgment worth more than experience?Instead of looking to blowhard pundits for an answer, how about historical data? Were good presidents more experienced than bad presidents? This totally geeky historical analysis has a resounding answer – NO.

For example, Abraham Lincoln had 8 years in the Illinois legislature, 2  in the U.S. House, and then became president. Sound like anyone else we know?

If you love Excel charts, scatterplots, wikipedia and Obama, you’re sure to get a kick out of it.

Of all the recent user-generated Obama videos, I like this one the best. It’s fun, its humorous and substantive, and it has a home-grown quality that touches me more than the high production values of Yes We Can or We Are the Ones.

The real question is, will web-based efforts to peel Latino support away from Clinton prove effective? Kinda hard to imagine that the web is the right delivery mechanism to reach Latino dishwashers and maids. We’ll find out tonight when the results start rolling in!

Barack Obama – 38%
John Edwards – 30%
Hillary Clinton – 29%

For a Barack fan like me, this was a great night.

After the numbers rolled in, Edwards gave a rousing, impassioned speech, vowing to keep on fighting. The group of 10 political nerds that I watched with were rapt with attention. It was a great speech.

Hillary followed with, well, a disaster. She sounded like she was on autopilot. I don’t remember a single line. Total dud.

Huckabee got his words in, as the Republican frontrunner. (He soared to strong victory on the backs of evangelicals.) I kinda caught some of the biblical language, but I didn’t come away really understanding his point. He didn’t seem terribly prepared. I think someone said, “like a high school debate speech.”

And then Barack closed with … well, he closed. He sealed the deal. Of all the candidates, he was the only one who sounded like a president. Poised, powerful, poignant.

We all thought he wouldn’t be able to top Edwards. He towered over Edwards. He towered over the field.

This was a big night for Barack, and for the Democrats (who caucused in numbers almost double the Republicans). Tomorrow’s crosstabs and spinmeisters will tell the continuing story. For now, progressives like me around the country are going to bed happy and sleeping well. Sleeping satisfied. Sleeping with hope.