The situation in Georgia is a tough and complex issue for America. About the only good news is that the press may be forced to ask the two presidential candidates some (gasp!) actual questions about actual real-world issues. But apart from pressuring the mainstream media into committing an act of journalism, there are really no good options in Georgia for the United States at this point.

A quick review of the background and current status is in order first, before we get to what it means for John McCain and Barack Obama (and, to a lesser extent, George Bush). Georgia used to be a part of the Soviet Union. Joe Stalin was a Georgian, for instance. When the U.S.S.R. broke up, Georgia declared its independence and became a country. Parts of Georgia, for various ethnic and demographic reasons, wanted to be either their own independent countries, or part of Russia. That's what the current fight is about.

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If you're sick of politics, and don't want to read another single thing about it before Election Day, then you should just skip this column. I recommend taking Opus' advice in this situation, personally.

For the rest of us wonks, before I get to examining Bradley v. Obama, today I'd like to remind everyone that August polls don't mean a whole lot. I'd be saying that no matter who was ahead, mind you. Because I think we all need a reminder that not everyone is like us (quick test: do you know who Mark Penn is? Or David Axelrod?).

Because if you really look at the polls, you'll soon notice that about a third of America just isn't paying all that much attention.

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I have to assume if you're reading this that you're sick of the Olympics already. Wow, that was fast. Is NBC's coverage going to be twice as bad as last time around, or will they go for the gold and make it four times as bad?

Ahem.

Sorry, I'm in a snarky mood today. So if you're allergic to snark, I'd suggest you go back to watching the Lichtensteinian athletes walk around the field. Or whatever's currently on....

Today's Friday Talking Points column is a bit more free-form than normal. Very quickly, we will award this week's prizes, and then get on to the heart of the matter -- trying to convince Barack Obama that it's time to get up off the mat, dust yourself off, and throw a few punches. Because although Obama has a commanding lead on the state-wide level, that lead could evaporate quickly under a barrage of slime and mud from the McCain camp. Democrats across the country are holding their collective breath, waiting to see whether Obama will wind up being another Kerry, or wind up being another Bill Clinton. Kerry famously "was above" responding to August attacks. Clinton had a War Room which responded forcefully to attacks (even the true ones -- remember the phrase "bimbo eruption" from the 1992 campaign?) immediately, and within the same news cycle. Kerry, of course, lost. Clinton won.

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Will tomorrow be the ultimate "take out the trash" day in the news? This charming term is an inside-the-Beltway phrase which refers to the propensity of politicians to announce things they'd rather not in the most dead and unnoticed news cycle of the week: late Friday, after the evening news has already aired on the East Coast. If the administration has some of what they consider "trash" news -- news that they don't want to draw a whole lot of attention to -- this is when they unveil it. Nobody's watching news on Friday night, and very few follow the news much over the weekend, which effectively buries the story.

But tomorrow night is not exactly a usual Friday night, as it will be the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. So will President Bush and the government of Iraq very quietly announce (while the party's going on in Beijing) that they have reached an agreement which sets a timeline for American combat troops to leave Iraq?

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It's time once again to take a look at the Electoral College math from state-level polling. Nationwide polls are not completely meaningless, but they are pretty irrelevant -- because that's not how we elect a president. You have to win enough states to get more than half the electoral votes in the Electoral College. While many would like to change this system, it's what we've got for the 2008 election, and so looking at the state-level polling is much more important to figure out where the race is right now, and what the trends are.

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Senator Barack Obama is currently facing a test in the presidential race. He's already successfully passed the Serious Test (talking to foreign leaders, appearing presidential), as well as the Oratory Test (he does know how to give a speech, that's for sure). But the next test voters are closely watching could be called the Feisty Test. Does Obama have what it takes to put some passion into parrying John McCain's Low Road Express? We will have the answer to that in the next few weeks.

It's an important test for many voters out there, so even though I've given it a cutesy name, don't discount how crucial this test is for a big sector of undecided voters. Americans like a certain degree of feistiness in our presidents. Sometimes we even like too much feistiness in our presidents, in which case we wind up with belligerence instead of feistiness. But rarely do we elect candidates that seem lacking in feistiness (it has happened, but it's rare). American voters want to see presidential candidates stand up for themselves... so that they know the candidate will stand up for the country if elected.

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Just a quick program note here (yes, there will still be a column later today) to introduce a new feature here at CW.com.

The last time I wrote a column about the Electoral College, I provided some graphs to liven up what I was talking about. I got a comment from someone who had his own graphs, who invited me to check them out. I did so, and liked his graphics so much that I asked him if I could cross-post them here for my readers. He graciously accepted, and I've got most of the bugs worked out (I think)... so I'm giving CW.com readers a one-day preview before I officially roll it out on Huffington Post as well.

Over at the left side of the page here, under both the "Multimedia" and "2008 Election Tools" headings, there is now a NEW! link to check out, with current, up-to-date graphics which show the state of the race for the Electoral College. These will be updated automatically on a continuing basis until Election Day, every time new data is published for any individual state.

I'm working on a better and more prominent link for this page currently, so keep your eyes peeled for that. For now, just look for the red link over on the left.

And also check out the "About" page to learn more about Samuel Minter and his blog Abulsme.com, the creator of these graphics. If you like them, head on over to his site and let him know (and join ChrisWeigant.com in thanking him for making them available to us here).

One thing worth noting, for the eagle-eyed wonk, is that his graph doesn't match perfectly with the ones I made, due to his getting data from a different source. While I will continue to use my baseline data source for my graphs, I actually think his source and methodology are better than what I'm using. So consider it an independent chart from any of my comments or articles (just to be clear).

I invite everyone to check this new page out, and also encourage people to come back and check it on a daily basis to see current information on the state of the electoral race.

-- Chris Weigant

The vice presidential guessing game has reached fever pitch, with many betting Barack Obama is going to make his pick known this week, before the Olympics start. But I'd like to suggest another appointment for Obama to announce, which he should do before he selects his running mate. Obama should announce that, if elected, he will offer the job of special envoy to the Middle East to former president Bill Clinton.

This could reap many rewards for Obama, and for the Clintons as well. First of all, it would be impossible to find someone better qualified and better suited to be America's face in the region. Bill Clinton would likely be acceptible to both the Palestinians and Israelis, which goes a long way toward moving the peace process along from the very start. Clinton could oversee the entire region, and try to put Bush's Humpty-Dumpty foreign policy mess back together again. Not being an ambassador to any one county, but rather having a portfolio of the whole Middle East, would give him a regional focus on one of the most important (if not the most important) regions of the world for the near future. Clinton could sit down with Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and all the other countries who have a stake in what happens in Iraq, and address their concerns in a fair-handed way. While achieving total peace in the Middle East may be an unrealistic goal in four years (or even eight), achieving stability in the region is indeed possible. It would take a master statesman to do it, but luckily we have one of those available -- Bill Clinton.

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I have a confession to make. I actually watch the network news. Maybe I should enter into a twelve-step program or something.

But I don't watch the news for fun, and I certainly don't watch it for, you know... news... since it has largely become a substance-free zone. But I do watch it because I want to see what pap is being fed to America each and every night by the giant corporations that pre-package it and serve it up to us all.

I do, however, draw the line at cable news, since the dent in my living room wall from my forehead is already deep enough. To say nothing of the dent in my forehead. Ahem.

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Republicans think they've discovered the way to beat Democrats in this year's election, with a strategy that can be summed up as: drilling for votes. Democrats, confident that logic is on their side in the oil drilling debate, may be ignoring this at their peril. It is too early to tell, of course, but the Democrats need to come up with a way to frame the debate to their advantage fast, or else they risk appearing as if they have no idea what to do about high gas prices.

I've said before that the price of gas is intimately tied to how Americans see whoever is in charge in Washington. Presidential approval ratings track very closely with the price of gasoline. This is not a new phenomenon. But Bush isn't running for re-election, so John McCain is free to say whatever he wants on the subject. Which he has increasingly been doing.

Democrats seem confident that they're polling ahead on most other issues, and have not been giving this the attention it deserves. But elections sometimes hinge on a single issue, and Democrats are on the wrong side of the polls on this one. Sure, it's nice that Barack Obama has both a better plan for foreign policy and a better take on most domestic issues that voters care about. But rebutting "let's drill now" (the Republican talking point making inroads with average Americans) is tough to do. It takes facts, and long-winded explanations. And that doesn't always work in a campaign.

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