I think you might be right. Obama can be very convincing in the debate/discussion format, as was Bill Clinton. The longer economic and war concerns are with us, the stronger Obama will be in the Northern states.

Pat sees things from Texas, and down here the economy hasn't taken much of a downturn at all. Houston didn't even have a housing bubble, and values are still going up around us. That perspective is going to be different than to someone in Ohio or Pennsylvania. But Texas will go for McCain anyway, so it doesn't matter.

The real battleground states are not so long on religious conservatives, and I think people will see through the Rev. Wright issue. Frankly, I'm dismayed with both the timing and the content of most of Rev. Wright's comments, but it seems more than clear that Obama isn't cut from the same cloth. In the same way that McCain had to make peace with people like Hagee, Obama had to get into a church in order to make his career.

I don't think either Rev. Wright's comments or McCain's "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" comments actually reflect the real positions of either candidate.

But Obama, in particular, has got to get his economic house in order. Many people foresee some sort of tax increase coming, but Obama needs to be careful not to over promise services nor to get in bed with the populists (i.e. windfall taxes). Choke off investment, returns, and growth in the companies that are actually doing well is no way to re-grow the economy or the job base. And we all know what massive energy price increases do to a presidency.

I don't see huge negatives with either candidate. Obama would be constrained by peoples' fear of who he might be, which would act as a moderator. McCain would be constrained by a Democrat Congress, with whom he's proven to be willing to compromise.