Wow: Here’s Obama’s first national ad as the nominee. It's "Country I Love" and it reaches directly for the “values” card the Republicans love to play, shreds it into a million little pieces and throws the scraps in their faces.

With all due respect to Time's Ana Marie Cox and AP’s Nedra Pickler -- or for that matter, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe's strategic plan, as reported by Pickler and blogged by Cox -- I must rudely note that there are a few of us, particularly many western Democrats, who have been saying for years now that there are ways to get to 270 by starting more or less with