Michael Sean Winters

Sixty days to go We are waiting for the polling numbers to shake out after the post-convention bounces But who is winning on the different components of a campaign on message biography the issues and on the ground Usually the two parties craft different messages for an election depending on

John McCain helped restore his reputation for straight talk when he finally referred the GOP sin that dare not speak its name I am grateful to the president of the United States hellip Of course not even McCain could call the president by name the only Bush mentioned by name was Laura McCain

Gov Sarah Palin was baptized in the Catholic Church but later joined a Pentecostal church as a teenager the Wasilla Assembly of God Her new church requires baptism by immersion so at age 12 Palin and her mother and sisters were re-baptized in Beaver Lake according to the Los Angeles Times M

Mike Huckabee rsquo s was the best speech of the night Mitt Romney rsquo s the worst Rudy Guiliani rsquo s was feisty and funny and he gave the toughest speech of either party rsquo s convention but it was strange to see a former mayor of New York use the adjective cosmopolitan in a derogatory

nbsp The President of the United States just can rsquo t help himself Even when he is trying to praise an ally he ends up smearing the patriotism of his political opponents George W Bush the first sitting president since Lyndon Johnson in 1968 not to address his party rsquo s convention becau

The first CNN poll taken after both the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention and the surprise selection of Alaska Gov Sarah Palin to be John McCain rsquo s running mate showed surprisingly little movement The race remains essentially tied despite record viewership for Obama rsquo s spe

Barack Obama is the only American politician who can fill a stadium as he did last night in Denver By moving the venue from the smaller indoor arena to the massive outdoor one he did three things First he invited and received comparisons with John F Kennedy who accepted the Democratic nod i

Sen Joe Biden gave a feisty speech last night And it wasn rsquo t difficult to see from whom he inherited that Irish feistiness His mother was in the hall and looked like she was ready to duke it out with John McCain and anyone else who would attack her son The news anchors all announced in on

You might not know it from this morning rsquo s press clippings but there were two unity speeches last night Sen Hillary Clinton rsquo s valedictory is front page and above the fold on every newspaper in America Buried at the end of the lead stories after noting the forgettable keynote address

The aging face of Ted Kennedy and the fresh face of Michelle Obama set the tone for the first night of the Democratic National Convention They had different roles befitting their different histories Sen Kennedy rsquo s task was to help unite the party and Mrs Obama rsquo s was to nbsp make her h