Round three tonight. I guess I already missed the official nomination of Barack Obama. Here are the speakers you can expect tonight.

VP Nominee Neil Kinnock Joe Biden.

Hillary’s husband
former Senator Tom Daschle
Governor Bill Richardson
Senator Evan Bayh
2004 loser (and Vietnam Vet) John Kerry
Senator Jay Rockefeller
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Senator Ken Salazar
House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn
Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL)
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley
Representative Patrick Murphy (D-PA)
Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth

Pollwise, Rasmussen showed Obama losing yet another point and now trails McCain by 1%. Gallup did show Obama regaining some footing and now he leads McCain by 1% in that poll.

Meanwhile, John McCain is continuing to pound Barack Obama with daily ads.

Of course, part of it is that McCain has to spend as much money as he can by the time he accepts the nomination next Thursday since that is when the limits on his campaign spending starts. Which leads me to a question - could McCain delay accepting the nomination as long as possible to keep spending and raising primary money? I know the Vietnam Veteran John Kerry pondered doing that four years ago when Terry McAuliffe f’d up and scheduled the Democratic convention six weeks before the GOP convention. I was just curious….

CNN, Time and Opinion Research joined together to release a new poll in the four “swing” states of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. Here are the results.

PRESIDENT - COLORADO (CNN/Time/OR)
John McCain (R) 47%
Barack Obama (D) 46%

PRESIDENT - NEVADA (CNN/Time/OR)
Barack Obama (D) 49%
John McCain (R) 44%

PRESIDENT - NEW MEXICO (CNN/Time/OR)
Barack Obama (D) 53%
John McCain (R) 40%

PRESIDENT - PENNSYLVANIA (CNN/Time/OR)
Barack Obama (D) 48%
John McCain (R) 43%

All these polls were done August 24-26 among 625-670 registered voters in each state. The numbers in New Mexico seem to be wacky. In the past two weeks, we have seen Obama ahead by 13% and 6% in two polls and McCain ahead by 4% in another. How can they all possibly be right?

A new poll from Akron University in Ohio pegs the race at a dead exact tie.

PRESIDENT - OHIO (Akron U)
John McCain (R) 40%
Barack Obama (D) 40%

This poll was done, and I kid you not, between July 17-August 17 among 753 registered voters. Good grief, how useful can a poll be that is spread out over an entire month? Why not two months?

Finally, a pollster that many claim is the top polling company around goes against the grain and is out with a poll showing Barack Obama slightly ahead of John McCain in the state of Florida. The latest numbers from Mason-Dixon.

PRESIDENT - FLORIDA (Mason-Dixon)
Barack Obama (D) 45%
John McCain (R) 44%

This breaks a string of eight straight public polls that had McCain ahead of Obama in Florida. This poll was done August 25-26 among 625 registered voters. The only thing I will say is polling a state during a party convention would seem to give that party’s candidate an advantage. Why didn’t Mason-Dixon do this before the convention or wait until after the GOP convention to do state polling?

That should give you something to chew on heading into tonight….

Strategic Vision becomes the eighth different polling organization since August 2nd to release a poll showing John McCain with a lead in the state of Florida.

PRESIDENT - FLORIDA (SV)
John McCain (R) 49%
Barack Obama (D) 42%

Out of the eight polls, this poll shows McCain with the largest lead. This poll was done August 22-24 among 1200 likely voters. Meanwhile in Rhode Island, a new Brown University poll puts Barack Obama ahead by 21%.

PRESIDENT - RHODE ISLAND (Brown)
Barack Obama (D) 51%
John McCain (R) 30%

This poll was done August 18-20 among 548 registered. Not many polls in RI so far this year, so no real trend lines to speak of.

For more polls from Florida, click here.
For more polls from Rhode Island, click here.

Well tonight we get what we all have been waiting for, Hillary’s attempt to make it look like she really, really wants Barack Obama to win. We also get the keynote address from Virginia’s future US Senator Mark Warner. here is a full list of the major speakers for tonight.

Headliner - Hillary
Keynote Address - Mark Warner

Pay Equity pioneer Lilly Ledbetter
Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana
Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts
Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas
Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona
Governor Joe Manchin of West Virginia
Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin
Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania
Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio
Governor David Paterson of New York
Governor Chet Culver of Iowa
Senator Bob Casey, Jr., of Pennsylvania
Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont
former Secretary of Energy and Transportation Federico Peña
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
House Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel
Representative Xavier Becerra (D-CA)
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chair Chris Van Hollen
Representatives Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)
Represenative Linda Sanchez (D-CA)
Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC)
Representative Mike Honda (D-CA)
California Controller John Chiang
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards
Change To Win’s Anna Burger
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney

Another winning slate of speakers. If you want to minute-by-minute schedule, click here. One thing I found interesting, with all the Governors speaking tonight, is the complete and total absence of our esteemed Governor Martin O’Malley. Of course, O’Malley pretty much threw away his career when he backed Hillary two years ago thinking he was going to get a spot in a Hillary administration….

Of course, if the polls are to be believed, Barack Obama is already experiencing a negative bounce of sorts. The latest Rasmussen tracking poll shows Obama down 3% compared to yesterday’s tracking poll while Gallup, for the first time this year, shows John McCain taking a lead in their daily tracking poll. Here is what the McCain folks indicated in their email on Monday about the anticipated Obama bounce.

Obama’s stadium address on Thursday — the 45th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech — will result in effusive and overwhelming press coverage. On Thursday, Obama will give a great speech, as has been his trademark. The press will sing his praises and remark on his historic address and Obama’s place in history. For example, The Associated Press today published an article comparing the historic nature of the addresses - a week before Obama’s speech. This coverage will be impenetrable and will undoubtedly impact the polls.

We believe Obama will see a significant bump, and believe it is reasonable to expect nearly a 15-point bounce out of a convention in this political environment.

Obama has a ways to go to get the expected 15% bounce out of his convention if he is already heading into negative territory….

Not much polling out today, nothing from Rasmussen and Survey USA seems to be dribbling out a bunch of state polls that avoid asking the only question we really care about, who winning between Obama and McCain. Anyway, a new poll from some organization called the Kitchens Group for the Florida Chamber of Commerce puts John McCain ahead of Barack Obama by 3%.

PRESIDENT - FLORIDA (Kitchens Group)
John McCain (R) 42%
Barack Obama (D) 39%

This poll was done August 18-21 among 605 registered voters. This is now seven straight public polls since August 2nd that have given McCain a lead in Florida. Meanwhile, Public Policy Polling has a new poll out for the state of North Carolina that gives McCain a small lead over Obama while Democratic candidate Kay Hagan leads Republican US Senator Elizabeth Dole.

PRESIDENT - NORTH CAROLINA (PPP)
John McCain (R) 42%
Barack Obama (D) 39%
Bob Barr (L) 4%

US SENATE - NORTH CAROLINA (PPP)
Kay Hagan (D) 42%
Elizabeth Dole (R-inc) 39%
Chris Cole (L) 5%

This poll is the first poll since May to show Hagan ahead of Dole. This poll claims 50% of the voting public are Democrats although the NC Secretary of State officially indicates that number is only 45%. This poll was done august 20-23 among 904 likely voters.

For more polls from Florida, click here.
For more polls from North Carolina, click here.

John McCain’s new ad.

You just knew that original Hillary 3am ad slamming Obama a few months ago was going to make a return sooner or later…why not on the night she tries to convince the world that she really, really, really wants Barack Obama to win…no really, she does…damnit, I’m not kidding…Hillary wants Obama to win in November…really….

Something non-political for a change from Deal or No Deal last night.

I hope to some day be in a position in my life where I could turn down a guaranteed $530,000 for at best a 50/50 chance at $1,000,000….

Quinnipiac University is out with their latest round of polls in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

PRESIDENT - FLORIDA (Quinnipiac)
John McCain (R) 47%
Barack Obama (D) 43%

PRESIDENT - OHIO (Quinnipiac)
Barack Obama (D) 44%
John McCain (R) 43%

PRESIDENT - PENNSYLVANIA (Quinnipiac)
Barack Obama (D) 49%
John McCain (R) 42%

This poll was done August 17-24 among 1069 likely voters in Florida and 1234 likely voters Ohio and Pennsylvania. This poll does move the state of Ohio into Barack Obama’s column in the Electoral College Watch.

The last thread was getting a little filled up, so here is a new one specifically for Michelle Obama’s speech. In the meantime, John McCain has released a new ad in which a support of Hillary announces that she will support John McCain in November.

I did look this woman up on the FEC website to see if she ever gave money to a candidate on the past and she does not show up at all, although only people who have given more than a certain amount are reported. Small donations do not have to be reported.

On a side note, John McCain will be on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight….

The first day of wall-to-wall Bush bashing starts tonight. On the docket:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri
Barack Obama’s sister Maya Soetero-Ng
Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama’s older brother
Jerry Kellman, mentor and long-time friend of Barack Obama
Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr.
former Indiana Representative Lee Hamilton
Tom Balanoff, President of Illinois SEIU
Nancy Keenan, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America
NEA President Reg Weaver
AFT President Randi Weingarten
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan
State Comptroller Dan Hynes
Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulis
Chicago City Clerk Miguel del Valle
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper

Prime-Time Speaker - Michelle Obama

Monday night will also feature a tribute to Mary Jo Kopechne Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Oh…my…word….

If you really want the minute-to-minute schedule - click here. I am going to put up one of these threads each night of the DNC for you to give your snarky comments. I believe the networks only come on about 10pm, but the cable networks should have wall-to-wall coverage.

(UPDATE 8:33pm): Om my goodness. I flip over from watching Prison Break (new series starts next week) and they are doing a tribute to worst president of my lifetime, Jimmy Carter. In other words - back to Prison Break….

The home state of George W. Bush looks to stay in the Republican column according to new Presidential and Senatorial polls from Scott Rasmussen.

PRESIDENT - TEXAS (Rasmussen)
John McCain (R) 54%
Barack Obama (D) 44%

US SENATE - TEXAS (Rasmussen)
John Cornyn (R-inc) 52%
Tick Noriega (D) 38%

These polls were done August 21st among 500 likely voters.

For more polls from Texas, click here.

Suffolk University has dumped out a new poll for the state of Colorado that seems to be in line with yesterday’s poll from Mason Dixon.

PRESIDENT - COLORADO (Suffolk)
Barack Obama (D) 44%
John McCain (R) 39%
Ralph Nader (I) 2%
Bob Barr (L) 2%

US SENATE - COLORADO (Suffolk)
Mark Udall (D) 39%
Bob Schaffer (R) 31%
Douglas Campbell (C) 4%
Robert Kinsey (G) 2%

This poll was done August 21-24 among 450 likely voters. This poll does move Colorado back in Barack Obama’s column and he now leads 294-244 in the Electoral College Watch.

For more polls from Colorado, click here.

We are supposed to get new numbers from Texas later today from Rasmussen.

A new poll from The Columbus Dispatch puts John McCain slightly ahead of Barack Obama in the state of Ohio.

PRESIDENT - OHIO (Columbus Dispatch)
John McCain (R) 42%
Barack Obama (D) 41%

This poll was done August 12-21 among 2102 likely voters.

For more polls from Ohio, click here.

EPIC/MRA has dumped out a new poll for the state of Michigan that shows Barack Obama with a 2% lead over John McCain in the state of Michigan while US Senator Carl Levin is cruising to Re-election.

PRESIDENT - MICHIGAN (EPC/MRA)
Barack Obama (D) 43%
John McCain (R) 41%

US SENATE - MICHIGAN (EPIC/MRA)
Carl Levin (D-inc) 59%
Jack Hoogendyk (R) 27%

This is identical to last month’s EPIC/MRA poll that showed the same 2% advantage for Obama. This poll was done August 18-21 among 600 likely voters.

For more polls from Michigan, click here.

Interesting new poll from CNN and Opinion Research showing the effects of Barack Obama choice of Joe Biden as Vice President. The race, according to CNN, stands at a 47%-47% tie.

PRESIDENT - NATIONAL (CNN/OR)
John McCain (R) 47%
Barack Obama (D) 47%

While this is in line with other polls being released, it is a collapse of 7% since the previous CNN/Opinion Research poll back at end of June that showed Obama ahead by 7%.

What is even more interesting is some of the internals of the poll.

Sixty-six percent of Clinton supporters — registered Democrats who want Clinton as the nominee — are now backing Obama. That’s down from 75 percent in the end of June. Twenty-seven percent of them now say they’ll support McCain, up from 16 percent in late June.

This entire poll was done after the selection of Joe Biden, August 23-24 among registered voters. Oh, in case you didn’t see it, McCain is out with a new ad on Obama’s stiffing of Hillary.

Of course, Hillary tells us she is fully behind Barack Obama and Joe Biden in her email that she sent out earlier today…very believable…I’m convinced….