Dear Sen. Obama: Please, now that you have made so much progress across the nation, come campaign

[Stop Cornyn]

in Georgia, where our Senate candidate Jim Martin is running neck-and-neck in a campaign to unseat one of the worst abominations ever to sully the Senate.

And please come to Mississippi, Kentucky, and Texas, where your presence in the state will boost our good Senate candidates and help them build a Senate that will enable you to accomplish the goals you promise to achieve.

Please continue your hard work in Minnesota, Hew Hampshire, North Carolina, and Oregon, where your repeated campaign stops have already improved the strength of our Senate campaigns in those states.

The perception of overconfidence (more accurately, the misperception of overconfidence) is the greatest risk of a campaign that is well ahead with three weeks until the election. The best insurance against this misperception of overconfidence would be for you to go to those states like Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Texas where the polls remain very tight, and engage those voters whose hearts are ready for change but whose minds still want for more persuasion.

I offer my views sincerely and hopefully.

[GarbagemanLB]

1. Perception of overconfidence? Yeah, going to Texas and Georgia will help with that.

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4. Living up to the committement to be president of a UNITED States of America by campaigning in states

Obama might lose would be an act of leadership (as contrasted with McCain's acts of politicianship), and while those stops would not necessarily lead Obama to carry those states, they would do wonders for the Senate and other down-ballot races.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. No.

We need to shore up margins in states that are deemed competitive. Mississippi, Kentucky, and Texas are not in that group.

[Stop Cornyn]

5. That's politicianship you're talking about. I'm talking about leadership. It is precisely BECAUSE

Obama may not win Mississippi, Kentucky, and Texas that he SHOULD make a campaign appearance there. Notwithstanding the fact that McCain will likely carry those three states, the President will have to govern those states. Obama should come to Mississippi, Kentucky, and Texas to make appearances before tough-to-persuade crowds to show that he will be there as President for everyone. It would be self-effacing (and a sharp rebuttal to those who inaccurately see the campaign as turning too confident) for Obama to go before crows and say "I may not win your state, but if the people of America call upon me to be the president, I will be a president of a United States of America."

Nightly news video clips of live audience appearances where Obama is explicitly and demonstrably NOT taking a win for granted would be a good image to rebut all the "picking out the curtains" nonsense that hate-radio is spewing.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

6. You have to win first.

All the leadership in the world ain't gonna do squat unless he's inaugurated. Perhaps those can be his first official stops.

[Stop Cornyn]

7. Right. If you haven't heard the phrase "picking out the drapes" in the past 24 hours, then you are

smarter than I am because I keep hearing it on the shout-fest "news" shows and am hate radio (I say you must be smarter than me because I know that I would eschew shout-fest "news" shows and am hate radio if I were only a bit smarter).

This is a dangerous meme to deploy against a front runner.

A campaign that looks like it's running out the clock does nothing to rebut this meme.

A campaign that goes into tough, not-very-friendly territory and admits up-front that the state may be out of reach (1) makes the news and (2) puts a stake in the heart of the "he's taking it for granted" attack.

Self-deprecation before a tough audience is the antidote to the attack we'll be seeing until we counter the "picking out the drapes" meme.

Obama should show us what he learned from the New Hampshire primary.

[Orsino]

3. I'd love to see him knocking on doors here in Georgia.

Those Ohio pics were powerful.

[Stop Cornyn]

8. Agreed!