A brief history lesson:

In 1972 the Presidential race came down to Nixon and McGovern.  McGovern won the Democratic nomination at the convention and selected Thomas Eagleton to be his Vice Presidential running mate.

According to McGovern, he had asked and been turned down by Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Hubert Humphrey, Edmund Muskie and Birch Bayh, before asking Eagleton.

Eagleton, 43 at the time, was not thoroughly vetted before being selected as the running mate.

Only two weeks after being selected, it came to light that Eagleton had been in a mental hospital in the 60's for depression and received electroshock therapy.  It was a devastating revelation.

Shortly after this information came to light, McGovern requested that Eagleton remove himself from the nomination.  Eagleton was quickly replaced with Sargent Shriver but the damage was done.

Nixon went on to beat McGovern by over 23% and an electoral victory of 520 to 17.  McGovern carried Massachusetts and DC.

Writing this diary was a very tough decision and it may go very poorly.  I prefer that we don't start a flame war here and if we do , I will simply delete the thread.

Okay, please read the whole thing before telling me to go f myself.

I know there are PUMA here, some are willing to talk and others are not, but you are here either way.  I have a request, an honest and straightforward one:

When you visit the PUMA blogs, please ask them to stop attacking Michelle Obama.  

After Hillary's amazing speech last night, I thought I would head to several PUMA blogs to see what the reaction was.  I was not surprised to see that they are still not okay with Barack (not the point of the diary, please don't discuss it here), but I was surprised at the vitriol being thrown at Michelle.  Frankly, I was appalled.  Here is why:

The people were using the same frames, same attacks, and the same horrible words about Michelle that the Republicans have been using against Hillary since 1991.  Hillary was a bitch, but now Michelle is one.  The comments only got worse from there. Are you (like the Republicans) that frightened of a beautiful, intelligent, well spoken woman?  

When the party was united under Bill and these attacks were constantly thrown Hillary's way, we stood up and said "bullshit".  Why?  Because attacking the wife is cold, callous, and completely inappropriate.

In conclusion, feel free to hate Barack and/or wish for his defeat that is not the point here.  But please, PLEASE do not attack Michelle and please, PLEASE stop calling her a bitch.  It is a low that you may not be able to recover from.

I would really appreciate if you could cross-post this at the usual haunts, but I doubt you will.  At the very least, when your friends do this, ask them not to and remind them of the 90's.  You can say something like, "we all know Barack is an empty suit, but Michelle is like Hillary: a beautiful intelligent woman.  Please stop attacking her".

Thanks in advance.

Once again, if a flame war starts.  I will delete the thread, which would be sad because I think the message is important.

I didn't have a chance to follow along with the convention today and was away from electronics since the afternoon.  I was excited to come back to the blogs and read about our Liberal Lion's great speech and Michelle Obama's beautiful tribute to her husband.

But that is not what I came back to.

In short, you should all be ashamed of yourselves.  Every one of you.

I started with what seemed to be the most urgent diary about the possible assassination attempt on Obama.  Commentors didn't seem to care that a Presidential nominee was threatened with assassination.  Many people here, I imagine, are old enough to remember Bobby.  Where are you? Tell these assholes what this would do to our country.

Instead I was treated with comments alternating between blaming Hillary Clinton, PUMA, etc. and comments from Obama haters saying that its no big deal and that we are overreacting.  I am so ashamed of all of you.  

Is this really what we have become here? Have we forgotten all of our liberal and/or progressive ideads? Have we lost our humanity of a primary election?

Get over yourselves.  If you hate Hillary or if you hate Obama, take one minute and think about this actually happening.  Your petty primary arguments are meaningless.  Stop for one second and try to be human.

I'm going to bed.

When I come back in the morning, I would be delighted to find out that you have all grown up. Don't really expect it though.

Lots of polls have come out today so I thought we could put them all in one place.

Lets start with daily tracking:

Rasmussen shows Obama up 48 to 45 (with leaners)

Gallup shows a 45/45 tie

We have a national poll today from ABC and WaPo

Obama 49, McCain 45 LV

Obama 47, McCain 40, Barr 4, Nader 4 RV

Obama 48, McCain 42, Barr 3, Nader 3 LV

Now for State Polls

Lots of Mason Dixon polls (no links yet)

Nevada:  McCain leads 46%-39%
ARIZONA: McCain leads 47%-41%.
COLORADO: Obama leads 46%-43%.  
NEW MEXICO: McCain leads 45%-41%

Quinnipiac disagrees on Colorado

McCain leads 47%-46% in their poll

Lastly, PPP has polled virginia

Obama leads 47%-45%.

The Politico is reporting Hillary Clinton was never vetted for the role of VP.

Obama has often said, most recently on NBC's "Meet the Press" on July 27, that Clinton "would be on anybody's short list."

But apparently not his.

"She was never vetted," a Democratic official reported. "She was not asked for a single piece of paper. She and Senator Obama have never had a single conversation about it. How would he know if she'd take it?"

The official also said Clinton never met with Obama's vetting team of Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy.

And the official said she was never asked for medical records or for any financial 2008 information about her or former President Bill Clinton. The last information the couple has disclosed about taxes and financial holdings was for 2007.

"This would be the biggest leap of faith ever," the official said. "She's waiting for the text message like everyone else."

You guys really believe this shit?  Seriously?  There are already diaries popping up and fresh comments with some Obama hate based on "Democratic Sources".

Stop and Think.

What is the biggest wedge that the Republicans can use to defeat us this fall?  The answer is continued primary warfare.  This "leak" comes out the day after McCain's biggest fuckup of the whole campaign and just a couple days before the convention.  Put two and two together.  Gullible.

Now go spend some energy writing about how McCain doesn't know how many houses he owns but still calls Obama an elitist.

Hey Mydd,

I have flipped my Republican dad and am working on flipping my Republican mom into supporting Obama in the fall.  They live in central Ohio and are therefore very important electorally.

Unfortunately, the Republican offshore oil talking points have taken root in their house.  Below is the e-mail I want to send them to win them back on the oil issue.

I would love any advice on editing, more talking points, more sources (they love nonpartisan sources, i.e. MSM).  Do I have any factual errors because I don't want to get trapped in a partisan lie.  

Please help me win Ohio!!!

Hey MYDD turn Florida blue on the map.

Rasmussen has put out todays numbers for Florida.

Money quote:

Barack Obama has caught up to John McCain in Florida. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds Obama with a statistically insignificant one-point advantage over his rival, 46% to 45%. When "leaners" are included, the Democrat leads 49% to 47%.

While I am not a huge fan of the Mydd methodology (latest poll sets the map), we should be consistent.  So turn Florida blue.

Earlier there was a diary related to gender inequality in the sciences.  Unfortunately, active discussion in the diary was not really possible.  With that in mind, I thought I would take a moment to discuss my personal experiences with gender issues in the world of academic chemistry from my male perspective.

I am a graduate student at one of the top universities in the country.  I am not trying to get patted on the back (as I was accused earlier) but simply adding context to the story.  I think it is relevant that the men and women I work with are probably some of the smartest people and best chemists in the world.

The department I work in has a man to woman ratio of around 3/2.  My specific research group comprises 20 men and only 4 women.  We are very much a boys club, albeit unintentionally.  My boss actively courts women but we find it difficult to convince them to join a male heavy group and therefore we never seem to be able to break out of the mold.  There are also groups in our department with the opposite problem.  They are predominantly female and few men join because the persona of the group has been set.  This is the first problem that I saw in my academic career and it is something many people notice pretty quickly upon their arrival.  I have thought of no reasonable solution to this problem.

There are also problems related to internal gender perceptions.  I have noticed that one of my female co-workers is typically unwilling to ask general questions of us.  At times it is detrimental to her progress in her project.  When I pointed out her unwillingness to get help, she said that she didn't want us to think she was stupid or the dumb girl.  She then gave several examples from her undergraduate experience where there was some mysogeny at play.  She had stereotyped her new male coworkers and in the process slowed down her own progress.  We discussed the matter in depth and she came around to the idea that the older grad students are there to help her just as the other grad students helped us.  If we already knew everything, why would we be at grad school.

I am also friends with a Canadian post-doctoral scholar.  After deciding to become a professor and doing some research into staying in the states, she realized that the US academics do not have a system for accounting for female faculty that want a child and tenure.  In Canada, the pre-tenure position is extended for women who choose to conceive.  This is not true here.  Young women faculty here have to choose tenure or children but rarely both.  My friend decided to return to Canada so she could do both.

These are the problems of gender inequality in my own personal experiences.  There are fewer women than men.  The women who are here sometimes are not well integrated into the greater community.  At least one women assumes that we think less of her due to her prior experiences in undergrad.  Lastly, women in the US have difficulty accomplishing their career dreams and their desire for children at the same time.

Unfortunately, there are no magic bullets for these problems.  The first clear step is to give girls in primary school equal footing at the beginning.

That is about all I can think of.  Sorry it rambles.

I would be happy to stick around and discuss my anecdotes and yours.  Blogs are about dialogue not monologue.