Fresh Loaf

SHARP AS ATTACK: Obama will kick off today a more aggressive approach in campaigning and defending himself against recent truthy attacks from the McCain campaign.

HURRICANE IKE: The National Weather Service warns of “certain death” for coastal residents around Galveston who try to ride out the storm. Houston, however, is doing just that. In metro Atlanta, the specter of Ike has raised gas prices slightly.

THE BEST OFFENSE: The upcoming announcement of where the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility will be located has led to renewed discussion of bioterrorism dangers and accidental disease outbreaks. Meanwhile, NBAF proponents were joined by Gov. Sonny Perdue, who chimed in in support of locating the facility in Athens.

TROY DAVIS: Clemency hearing is today.

FALCONS: Ranked 29th in the NFL in terms of team value. But the emergence of a dynamic running game may make that a low estimate.

DOWNTOWN CONNECTOR: All work that requires lane closures is now finished.

ACCESSNORTHGA.COM: Reports that the Ga. 316/I-85 interchange is one step away from completion; crews now just need to remove the oversized road construction signs.

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BUSH: Secretly ordered the recent covert military strike in Pakistan, according to the NY Times, a major detachment from the usual U.S. tactic of using unmanned Predator spy planes to fire at suspected al-Qaeda targets in the country.

MCCAIN: Leads Obama by 18 points in Georgia.

HURRICANE IKE: Barreling toward Houston and Galveston, expected to be a Category 3 when it hits Friday night. Thousands of coastal Texans are evacuating.

CAGLE: Will run for governor in 2010.

THE POACH STATE: Georgia is among the fast-growing states poaching teachers from more economically strapped states, such as Michigan.

EXCELLENCE DEFICIENCY: The Commission for School Board Excellence, formed at the request of the Georgia Board of Education, is recommending that Georgia should have more power to intervene in dysfunctional local school boards such as Clayton’s.

BOBBY COX: Will return next season.

TOUCH AND GO: A Fulton Superior Court judge dismisses a lawsuit by VOTER GA challenging the fraud-proofness of the state’s touch-screen voting machines. VOTER GA’s Garland Favorito says the group may appeal.

CUMBERLAND ISLAND: Will begin tours of its north end, which had previously only been accessible to visitors via a 17-mile hike.

UGA: Will face its first real test of the season as it enters SEC play against Spurrier’s Gamecocks in Columbia Saturday.

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Barack Obama’s chances in Georgia aren’t as strong as once thought, according to a new survey from InsiderAdvantage.

When asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, more than 56 percent of 506 registered likely voters said John McCain. Obama trailed with 38 percent. (Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate who’s been considered a possible vote-stealer from McCain, was not included as a choice in the survey.)

Says InsiderAdvantage’s Matt Towery:

“This is a huge slide from what had been, in our prior surveys, a relatively close race. The reason is simple—Obama lost serious ground in virtually every demographic.

“At first glance it would seem that Obama is headed for no better than the low 40 percentile level achieved by John Kerry in 2004. But let me warn observers that in both our national tracking and surveys in other states, the biggest change has been a near parity between the two candidates among the youngest of voters.

“Should that group return to Obama and the African-American vote end up where we expect it to be, the race could be closer in November. But as of now Georgia is no longer a “leans McCain” state. As of this survey, Georgia is in the McCain column.”

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HYPERCAMPAIGNING: The late conventions combined with unprecedented early voting in various states has drastically changed the formula for how to campaign on the home stretch.

SMASHING SUCCESS: The Large Hadron Collider — the $9 billion, 17-mile atom smasher that will replicate the moments following the Big Bang and which some skeptics worry will create Earth-swallowing black holes — was successfully started outside Geneva this morning.

IKE: Leaves Cuba reeling as it hits the Gulf, where it may strengthen to a Category 3 before hitting Texas.

FIREFIGHTERS: Atlanta Fire Union president warns of a mass exodus of firefighters to the suburbs.

KNOWSHON MORENO: UGA’s star tailback has become a hit on YouTube for his hurdle over a Central Michigan defender Saturday, but ESPN and FOX are in Mark Richt’s doghouse for not including the highlight in their top-10 reels.

CROC HUNTER: The parents of a boy whose Croc-clad foot was mangled by a Hartsfield-Jackson escalator are suing the Colorado-based shoe company for not including warning labels.

BALD IS BEAUTIFUL: Conservationists in North Carolina are experimenting with using desert goats to reclaim the natural mountain balds, which have become overgrown due to human overhunting of the natural grazers like elk and bison.

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“FIGHT WITH ME”: Says John McCain during his speech accepting the Republican nomination for president. I haven’t listened to the audio of his speech, but I assume he emphasized “with,” and not “fight.”

WARRIN’ POLICY: The New York Times examines how the hawkish and moderate wings of the GOP are vying beneath the surface to influence McCain’s foreign-policy compass, and what to make of his bellicose statements about Iran and Russia.

FIRING RANGE: After her aides improperly peeked at her sister’s ex-husband’s personnel files in an effort to get the Alaska state trooper fired, and then unsuccessfully pressured the public safety commissioner to fire him, Gov. Sarah Palin just fired the public safety commissioner, according to the Alaska state police union.

GATOR CHOMPED: The alligator that’s been sporadically spotted around Lake Lanier during the past month has been caught.

MASS TRANSIT: Can save the average Atlanta household $9,129 a year, according to the American Public Transportation Association. But APTA assumes the household would also get rid of a car, so those estimated savings include no longer paying to register and insure it.

NO BLACKOUT: Three Falcons sponsors bought the remaining 1,500 tickets to Sunday’s season opener to prevent a TV blackout. The game marks the beginning of the Mike Smith era, which players are thrilled about, especially when compared with the Bobby Petrino error “era.”

HOT PANTS: In addition to the ongoing rash of high-priced blue-jean thefts in Atlanta, four Gustav evacuees from New Orleans were arrested Thursday afternoon and charged with yet more blue-jean banditry. Hours earlier, Atlanta police arrested three other smash-and-grab suspects after a car chase.

HANNAH: Will bypass the Georgia coast today, bringing just wind and rain, but Savannah officials hope the false-ish alarm won’t discourage future hurricane wariness.

IKE THE DICKENS: The hurricane, which had been a Category 4 storm, is “extremely dangerous,” according to forecasters, even though it’s weakened to a Category 3.

TURF WARS: California’s attorney general and the nonprofit Center for Environmental Health are suing artificial-turf makers in Georgia and Florida for their turfs’ lead-based coloring, which the lawsuits claim violate California’s environmental laws.

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Zac Farber, a junior at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., gives his impressions of the on-going Republican National Convention.

Do not let the politicians fool you; it wasn’t their convention. The stage may have been reserved for Minnesota elected officials, failed presidential candidates and White House residents, but hogging the limelight from the politicians under the klieg lights Tuesday night were the 100,000 balloons pinned to the rafters; the three-story, high-definition video screen featuring—for much of the night—a billowing image of the American Flag; and the Xcel center convention floor itself—a blur of flashbulb photography, elbows, press credentials and power ties.

Neither was the convention for the delegates. Given front-row seats to the spectacle, the dilettantes were rewarded for their interest with supporting roles in the kabuki. Their part is to look like average Americans and to hoot and holler—political knowledge is optional. Asked for her favorite part of Sen. John McCain’s education policy, fifth-grade teacher and delegate from Marshfield, Wisc., Jeanie Moore replied, “Well, actually, I guess I would have to delve in to it more, but from what I hear he is right on.” At the first commercial break, the House minority leader John Boehner of Ohio took the opportunity to ask the delegates to face the rear and stand still for the “official convention photo.” Opportunity for purchase to follow, he told them, as if he were a carnie at the end of a thrill ride. (more…)

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PALIN: Excites the crowd at the RNC with an aggressive speech aimed at Obama’s experience and celebrity. McCain makes a surprise appearance to support Palin, and reminds those in attendance of her national security experience.

OBAMA: Will give a prebuttal to McCain’s acceptance speech tonight on “The O’Reilly Factor.” Maybe this will come up.

KWAME KILPATRICK: The embattled mayor of Detroit has accepted a plea deal and will resign.

HANNAH: Takes a northward turn, and is now expected to bypass the Georgia coast and hit land on the Carolina coast. Savannah’s unlikely to be evacuated, but the Hostess City is still preparing for the uninvited guest.

HAITI: “The situation is as bad as it can be,” according to a U.N. official in Gonaives. The country has been hit by three tropical storms in two weeks, and more than 100 people have died amid flooding and mudslides.

PAKISTAN: Mad at the U.S. for an alleged cross-border raid that it says killed 15 villagers in the northwestern part of the country.

CLAYTON BOE: Gets one step closer to a quorum by appointing Jessie Goree to fill the vacant District 3 seat, but takes two steps back by holding another controversial closed meeting, which two members refuse to attend in protest. Meanwhile, Gov. Perdue is looking into how he could gain more power to intervene in troubled school systems, even if by constitutional amendment, but the earliest that could happen is November 2010, likely too late for Clayton.

WAREHOUSE FIRE: Shuts down North Avenue this morning near City Hall East.

SHOCKLEY AND AWE: Terence Moore fantasizes for UGA/Falcons fans how the beloved former Bulldogs QB could ascend now that he’s the No. 3 behind an unproven No. 1 and a mediocre No. 2.

BAD SPORTS? Spencer Hall at the Sporting Blog defends “the Atlanta sporting landscape” in response to mockery of the Falcons reducing ticket prices in hopes of avoiding a TV blackout for the season opener.

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One of my favorite conservative columnists is the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan. A former Reagan speechwriter. I don’t typically agree with her, but her prose is graceful and she doesn’t ooze venom, loathing and opportunistic cynicism like Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, et al.

Unfortunately, her column today on Gov. Sarah Palin was wishy-washy crap.

The Sarah Palin choice is really going to work, or really not going to work. It’s not going to be a little successful or a little not; it’s not going to be a wash. She is either going to be magic or one of history’s accidents. 

Peggy Noonan loves Sarah Palin. No, wait, Peggy Noonan hates Sarah Palin.

Noonan’s an experienced political hand who certainly has a more-informed opinion than most. She’s simply not willing to share it on the record.

It’s like Noonan’s got a gun to her head while gargling the Palin Kool-Aid; unwilling to spit it out for fear or pissing off her Republican fans, and unwilling to swallow it because she doesn’t want to be on the record saying anything positive about someone she knows is poison for her party.

How do I know what Noonan really thinks of Palin?

Because she accidentally told me today.

When she thought the mics were off after an interview on NBC today, Noonan called McCain’s selection of Palin “political bullshit” and said, presumably of McCain’s chances of winning, “It’s over.”

I eagerly await Buzz Brockway and gang at Peach Pundit denouncing of Peggy Noonan as a high-tech lyncher.

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The Republican Party line since Monday has been that all criticism of Gov. Sarah Palin is sexism. Apparently, someone forgot to send the “cry sexism” memo to McCain campaign co-chair and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

Here’s Whitman on Fox this afternoon, telling Chris Wallace that media prying into Palin’s past is not just fair, but also the “right thing to do.”

Who knows? Maybe Whitman did get the memo but chose to ignore it because, as an intelligent, accomplished person, she might very well be insulted by the McCain campaign’s crocodile tears about sexism.

I can’t wait to hear the revelers at Peach Pundit’s high-tech Palin pity party demean Whitman as a sexist tool of the liberal media.

(Speaking of talking points, thank you to Talking Points Memo for finding the clip)

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Your daily dose of wacky Sarah Palin art, courtesy of The Searcher on Flickr. (Click the link for an excellent pseudo-interview, as well.)

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Even though I don’t share its Republican political leanings, I appreciate Peach Pundit because its not only informative, but because it has several contributors who aren’t afraid to call B.S. on fellow Republicans.

Until recently, anyway.

Video surfaced yesterday of Sen. John McCain’s running mate Gov. Sarah Palin telling the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party to “keep up the good work.”

Keep up what good work? The work of breaking up the United States of America?

If a video surfaced of a Democrat telling secessionists to “keep up the good work,” Peach Pundit contributors would give themselves carpal tunnel syndrome demanding the Democrat leave the ticket. If video surfaced of Sen. Barack Obama telling members of the Weather Underground to “keep up the good work,” they’d be calling for his head.

There is literally nothing less patriotic than encouraging people to break apart the country.

But instead of expressing this at Gov. Sarah Palin, my friends at Peach Pundit are doubling-down on her candidacy.

In a post titled “The ‘high-tech lynching’ of Sarah Palin.“, the normally non-hyperbolic Peach Punditeer Buzz Brockway absurdly claims Palin is the victim of a smear campaign

In reality, she’s the victim of a “maverick” who added her to the national ticket without considering the consequences.

How can you root for a campaign whose slogan is “Country First” and still support the selection of a novice governor who tells secessionists to “keep up the good work?”

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RNC: Fred Thompson, Joseph Lieberman and a not-too-close President Bush regaled John McCain during the first full day of convention festivities in St. Paul Tuesday. Meanwhile, Ron Paul held his own convention outside Minneapolis Tuesday, rallying his troops behind his libertarian conservatism.

SAVANNAH: May need to evacuate for Hannah, which is expected to be a Category 1 hurricane when it makes landfall Friday. Some scrambling for flood insurance find out it’s too late.

ROTARY CUB: The newborn panda at Zoo Atlanta is back out of the incubator and with its mother, Lun Lun.

TYING UP JUICE ENDS: Coca-Cola is hoping to capitalize on its recent Beijing marketing blitz by making a bid for China’s largest juice company, which would be its second-largest acquisition ever.

DECORUM, BUT NO QUORUM: The new, relatively uncontroversial Clayton school board has just three members, two short of a quorum, but has 45 days to appoint additional members.

UGA: Falls to No. 2 in both major polls despite winning Saturday, as USC’s rout of Virginia leapfrogs the Trojans to the top spot.

CHIPPER JONES: Atlanta third baseman’s quest for the NL batting title is the only silver lining left on the Braves’ dismal season.

CHENEY: The vice president will speak Sept. 19 in North Georgia at the opening-day ceremony for the 145th anniversary of the Battle of Chickamauga.

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When Sen. John McCain tapped Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on Friday, several contributors to the local conservative blog Peach Pundit shared a group orgasm.

“I heart John McCain.” “Brilliant.” “Absolutely BRILLIANT!” “outstanding choice”

And my personal favorite: “John McCain has saved the GOP today.”

As it turns-out, the Palin pick is quickly turning into a disaster for the Republican Party.

In addition to some personal issues about which I don’t especially care (yet), it turns out:

a) Palin misled the public about her involvement in the so-called Troopergate scandal.

b) Palin was for the infamous Bridge To Nowhere pork project before she was against it.

c) Palin and herhusband belonged to a secessionist political group.

What do Peach Pundit’s bloggers have to say about this?

As of 11:25 this morning, almost nothing.

Maybe they’re just stunned, as am I, that McCain would pick a one-time secessionist for the number-two spot in a campaign whose slogan is “Country First.”

I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be so quiet if Obama or Biden were the pork-loving, lying, secessionists in question.

UPDATE & CORRECTION: On Monday, the chairperson of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party claimed Sarah Palin was a member during the 1990s. On Tuesday, she said she was mistaken. She was registered Republican during this period.

She did, however, send the secessionists a videotaped message in 2006 telling them “keep up the good work.” I’d like to know what she meant by that.

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From Politico.com:

In an interview just a month ago, [Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin] dissed the job, saying it didn’t seem “productive.”

In fact, she said she doesn’t know what the vice president does.

…

Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co.” asked her about the possibility of becoming McCain’s ticket mate.
Palin replied: “As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”

I guess John McCain explicitly stated what he wants his vice president to do.

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MCCAIN: Picks Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. He’ll introduce her in Dayton, Ohio today.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH: Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination for president in Denver with a speech CNN analyst David Gergen calls a “political masterpiece.”

CLAYTON: School system loses accreditation, but can get it back at any point during the next school year if it can meet the SACS mandates. Superintendent John Thompson plans to appeal the SACS decision.

GUSTAV: Bearing down on Cuba as it becomes a hurricane, with a Tuesday landfall in Louisiana expected.

LANIER: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has slowed flows from the lake because tributaries and reservoirs south of Buford Dam were replenished by Fay.

UGA VII: The new mascot will be announced today and debuted tomorrow when Georgia hosts Georgia Southern in Athens.

RAMBLIN’ WRACK: Fay pushed excessive wrack, or decomposing seaweed that’s naturally washed ashore, beyond normal high tide in coastal Georgia, and it’s filled with trash.

RAMBLIN’ WRECK: Tech beats Jacksonville State 41-14 to open the season.

MEDAL OF SCIENCE: The nation’s highest science award will be given to Georgia Tech chemistry professor Mostafa El-Sayed, who’s working to treat cancer with cylindrical gold nanorods and lasers.

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OBAMA: Officially becomes the Democratic nominee for president, the first black person ever nominated by a major party. He’ll give his acceptance speech tonight.

MCCAIN: Has picked his running mate, whom he’ll inform of his decision today and introduce Friday in Ohio.

UNDERDRIVE: As gas prices and environmental worries have driven down driving, highways and other transportation projects, including commuter rail, have lost a major source of funding — gas taxes.

CLAYTON IS THE HARDEST PART: SACS will announce its accreditation decison at a 1 p.m. press conference today. [UPDATE: Accreditation lost.] Meanwhile, a state judge has recommended that Gov. Perdue remove four Clayton school board members from office for violating Georgia’s open-meetings laws and ethics code. 

FREE REFILL: Fay has now added two feet back to Lake Lanier, as rainwater continues to move downhill through the basin. It’s still 15 feet below full pool, but that one storm has made up for the month of August so far, which has been especially dry.

FUNNEL VISION: The National Weather Service says up to four tornadoes may have touched down in Hall County as Fay passed through.

OUR DEERLY DEPARTED: Rome’s world-famous six-legged deer died last week after surgery to remove his two unnecessary legs.

PAUL JOHNSON: The New York Times profiles Georgia Tech’s new skipper and his stubbornly distinctive coaching style, which he’ll debut in Atlanta tonight as Tech hosts Jacksonville State to open the season.

BRAVES: Call up minor-league outfielder Josh Anderson after trading CF Mark Kotsay to Boston Wednesday for minor-league outfielder Luis Sumoza. Atlanta also signed journeyman relief pitcher Elmer Dessens.

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VICE GRIP: Obama says he’s picked his vice presidential candidate, but instead of finding out who it is, we get a podium. The NYT lists the most-discussed candidates of both parties here; the AP reports that Sam Nunn seems to have dropped out of the running.

HOUSEKEEPING: McCain and his countless homes can’t get out of the news as the Obama campaign capitalizes.

FAY: After overstaying her welcome in Florida, Tropical Storm Fay moseys into South Georgia today, bringing several inches of rain, which could help some drought-stricken crops. Many of this year’s record sea-turtle nests on the Georgia coast have been destroyed by storm surges, though. Metro Atlanta will get high winds but not much rain.

PANHANDLING: Undercover cops have made 40 arrests and 50 “interventions” in aggressive panhandling in the last 20 days.

POP GOES THE MEASLES: Outbreaks of the infectious disease are at a 12-year high, and many health professionals are blaming parents’ fears of MMR vaccines leading to autism.

RED, BLACK AND GREEN: Preseason No. 1 UGA could also be the top revenue-generating college football team this season, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports.

FREE LUNCH: A masked robber steals a Macon man’s lunchbox at gunpoint.

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You run the story about her new ad poking fun at Sen. John McCain and you use her mugshot? Doesn’t Access Atlanta have something in its “What are the celebrities up to?” file?

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Sen. John McCain is about to announce his running mate, according to the Washington Post.

I’ll mail $5 cash to the first person who correctly guesses the identity of McCain’s running mate AND the city from which McCain makes the announcement.

Make your guess in the comments section below.

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Last month, John McCain gave a speech in Louisiana so dull that Comedy Central’s faux-right-wing pundit Stephen Colbert invited viewers to place the Republican presidential candidate in more exciting surroundings.

The entries are in and they range from mildly diverting to solidly amusing. We haven’t watched them all, so there might be one that’s pee-your-pants funny. We’ll offer our favorite, a Pulp Fiction homage.

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WALK IN THE FARC: The Colombian military infiltrates FARC rebel leadership, tricking the guerillas into handing over hostages who had been held in the jungle for more than five years.

MCCAIN: Accused by fellow Republican of getting hot under the collar during a 1987 negotiation with Nicaraguan guerillas, then grabbing one by his collar, “like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever.”

OXENDINE: Bars a California insurance company from doing business in Georgia after concluding that it violated rules against selling misleading or unsuitable life insurance policies to military personnel.

BATTLE OF KETTLE CREEK: Archaeologists uncover evidence that changes the story of the 1779 Revolutionary War battle in Wilkes County between 350 Patriots and 700 Loyalists.

CUMBERLAND BLUES: The Cumberland Island wildfire is still going despite rains, but visitors continue to visit the island.

TERRAPIN STATIONARY: Dylan the sea turtle, who was recently released into the wild, hasn’t traveled far, now exploring the waters off Cumberland Island, according to an online tracking map.

DENIM CRISIS: Women’s Wear Daily reports on the toll the Blue Jean Bandits are taking on metro Atlanta’s premium denim dealers.

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From Ben Smith at Politico.com, here’s Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe speaking to reporters yesterday in Washington, D.C.

“Barr will get some votes [in Georgia]. If Barr were to get two percent in most states, our belief is he’ll get four percent here, most of it coming out of McCain’s hide.”

The last time a Democratic candidate for President won Georgia was 1992, when Clinton squeeked by Papa Bush with the help of countrified billionaire populist Ross Perot, who received 13.4 percent of Georgia’s popular vote.

If Obama were to win Georgia this November, he’ll need more than just a strong Barr campaign nibbling into McCain’s total. He’ll also need a record turnout of enthusiastic Democrats.

February’s presidential primary vote in Georgia hints at that possibility. In a competitive field, Obama nabbed 704,247 primary votes — more than doubling Kerry’s 2004 primary vote count.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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EVERGLADE PLUG-IN: United States Sugar agrees to sell 187,000 acres in the Everglades, and all of the company’s other assets, to the state of Florida for $1.75 billion, which will allow natural water flow from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay for the first time since the 1890s.

OBAMA: Leads McCain in two polls by more than 10 points, although June poll results rarely hold steady through November. Hillary Clinton begins campaigning for Obama today. Obama asks his supporters to help alleviate some of her campaign debt.

UNIONS’ UNION: Delta and Northwest pilot unions agree on a joint contract.

CYBER RATTLING: Atlanta is the 10th-largest cybercity and largest in the Southeast.

COLLARED: Police pull over and arrest an Atlanta man in Macon driving a U-Haul loaded with $150,000 worth of Polo shirts that had been stolen in Valdosta.

GAS PRICE WAR: Two gas stations in Buford are in an arms race of affordability, with a gallon dropping as low as $3.45 over the weekend.

DOG BEAT DOG: Fresno State downs UGA to tie the series at 1-1; Game 3 to decide the national champion is tonight at 7.

JOHN THOMPSON: The Clayton County corrective superintendent says he was misheard in the video he posted online Monday, that he said Clayton schools “had a very slim chance” of maintaining accreditation, before he became superintendent, not “have a very slim chance.” Two Board of Education members back up the misheard version, saying Clayton will not maintain its accreditation.

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Emory University professor Drew Westen predicts in The New Republic today that the 2008 presidential campaign will be the “nastiest, most racist presidential contest in modern American history.”

Westen says the only way McCain and the Republican Party can derail the Obama train is by insinuating that he’s a foreigner and reminding people that he’s black.

As evidence of how low McCain might be willing to go, Westen cites “The American President,” recent TV spots touting McCain as “The American President Americans have been waiting for.”

Westen explains:

The ad ends, “John McCain: The American President Americans have been waiting for.” Syntactically, that’s an oddly redundant conclusion. Why not, “John McCain: The President Americans have been waiting for?” Because, of course, that second rendering would not imply that his opponent is not American.

A professor of psychology and psychiatry, Westen’s most recent book is The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

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Georgia had Obamamania so bad before Super Tuesday that the O-man put the Peach State in his “win” column weeks ahead of the primary and sent his campaign ops to work in other places.

There’s a big difference in this GOP-friendly state, however, between winning among Democrats and beating a Republican in the November election. But lately folks have been questioning much more seriously whether Georgia could swing for Barack Obama.

Earlier this week, Time magazine ran a story headlined “Can Georgia Be Obama’s Ohio?” which reveals that the Obama camp has selected Georgia and Virgina as potential battleground states and is dedicating workers and resources in an effort to gain ground here:

Obama has 15 full-time paid staffers who have been in Georgia for over a month. They also have had staff in North Carolina and Virginia and have been “literally moving in dozens of people every week to all three states,” said Jon Carson, Obama’s national field director. They also expect to have staff in Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana before the end of the month. “It’s very hard to sit here right now to say what’s going to happen in November… Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Montana, North Dakota, Missouri — which of those is going to be most winnable? So our campaign is taking the approach of casting a wide net.”

It may be working. Yesterday, InsiderAdvantage released a new poll that shows Obama trailing John McCain by a single point – 43 percent to the Republican’s 44 percent – helped mightily by the Libertarian candidacy of hometown boy Bob Barr, with 6 percent.

As InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery explains it:

Georgia is competitive for Obama for several reasons. First, it has a high African-American voting age population (VAP). Second, it has an unusually high percentage of younger voters (18-29). Both of these groups are more in the Obama camp, with black voters already at the 83 percent level and likely to climb.
Equally important, like its neighbor Florida, Georgia has a high percentage of voters who consider themselves independent. Obama is carrying that critical swing vote by about 10 percent in the poll.

If this trend continues it could make things very interesting come fall.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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