Last night I went to Commonwealth to watch the Obama speech. They’d set up a television above the bathrooms and it was packed to the gills. The speech was received with much laughter and cheering and, all in all, it was one of those things that I’m glad that watched with a group of my fellow Americans.

The one weird note: after the speech a guy from the Obama campaign got up and made a little speech about how people could get involved. He acknowledged that NY state was just about guaranteed to go for Obama, but that there would be bustrips every weekend to Pennsylvania and other nearby swing states. Then, as he ended his little speech (and this ws a white guy) he tossed in the phrase inshallah. I was like, “whoa…what the fuck?” When you support a candidate who’s suspected of being a crypto-Muslim, you don’t go peppering your public speeches with arabic phrases.

Then, this morning, McCain announced his selection for the vice-presidential slot: Alaskan GILF Sarah Palin. McCain says that people should vote for him because of his judement and experience. This judgement and experience led him to select someone to be a heartbeat from the presidency who, two years ago, was the mayor of a 9,000 person community in Alaska. I think I can hear the champaign corks popping in the Obama campaign headquarters right now because McCain has just taken the “experience” issue off the table.

Looking at this, logically, there is no way the Democrats can lose the election. This is, however, the Democratic party and one should never underestimate their ability to lose elections they should win. Interestingly enough, there was a football game last night that perfectly illustrates the Democratic party of the last few elections: Oregon State-Stanford. Oregon State outgained the Cardinal 490 yards to 301, had 29 first downs to Stanford’s 18, and lost 36 to 28.