Barack Obama has had a hard few weeks in the polls. In fact, this week's check of how the electoral math plays out may (hopefully) be his lowest point during the campaign.

I say this not out of unbridled optimism, but because of a basic fact -- what we examine here are state polls, not national polls; and the state polls always trail the national trends by a few days to a week. And the national trend for Obama may have turned around in his favor in just the last couple of days. So even though things look grim here, Obama is already starting to bounce back.

The last time we looked at these graphs was just before the convention. Since that point, Obama got a bounce from the Democrats' convention, and McCain got an even bigger bounce from the Republican convention (and from naming Sarah Palin as his running mate). But, as with all convention bounces, what goes up usually comes right back down. Leaving us (on the national level) pretty close to where we were before we started. But on the state level, the McCain/Palin bounce still shows up very strongly. But it may have peaked.

Examining state polls is always tough, because until every state is polled every day there just isn't enough up-to-the-minute information to accurately portray where all the states are at. Ten states haven't been polled in a month, for instance (listed at the very end of this article, in the "data" section). But overall, state polling has gotten more intense, with more polls out there and with polls in battleground states coming every few days. So the information flow has improved a bit over the numbers we were seeing this summer. No poll is perfect, but more information coming in is always better.

We start, as always, with the overall picture of the electoral vote, if it were held today and if every state voted the way the polls show (for all of these images, click on them to see a larger version):

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The past week may have been a crucial turning point for the presidential hopes of John McCain. Because finally -- finally! -- the mainstream media (including some very right-wing sources) have realized that it is not "McCain 2000" who is running this year, but "McCain 2008" -- a whole different breed of cat. This may have been McCain's biggest hidden asset, but ever since he hired the Karl Rove-trained campaign staff he's got now, he has carelessly tossed this potent secret weapon aside.

Now, I will fully admit up front that the jury is still out on all of this. McCain may win. His tactics may be politically brilliant. But somehow, I don't think this is going to be the case.

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What a difference a weekend can make! Barack Obama's campaign is strongly defending themselves in the air wars, and taking the fight to John McCain. Joe Biden has found his voice on the campaign trail, giving some rousing stump speeches. And Obama himself seems to be learning the "bumpersticker" rule of political slogans; keep it short and simple! But the real highlight of the weekend had to be CBS' Face The Nation, where Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz -- a former Hillary Clinton supporter, it should be noted -- showed everyone else what a surrogate is supposed to do. She had her facts ready, she knew her issues, and she was absolutely relentless in making her points. Her performance was so strong and so well focused that it would be foolish not to immediately send her out on the campaign trail and/or to as many television interviews as she can squeeze into her schedule.

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Surprise! It's our first anniversary column!

But before we get to that, I have to pass on this information, in the hopes nobody will get stung by a virus making the rounds which uses Obama's name. So we pause for the following public service announcement:

[VIRUS ALERT: Before we get to the column today, I have to post a virus alert (full details at VirtualBlight). If you get an email titled "Barack Obama sex story with a girl" from the sender "obamasex@obama.com" -- don't click on any links in it, delete it immediately! Clicking on links in this spam email causes a virus to be loaded on your computer which will try to get your bank information. You have been warned!]

OK, on to the celebrating!

Yes, Volume 47 of the Friday Talking Points column is actually our one-year anniversary. The very first installment of this indomitable column aired on September 14, 2007.

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As a public service, today I am running a full transcript of Craig Ferguson, host of The Late Late Show on CBS, from last night, 9/10/08.

I tuned in to David Letterman last night to see Barack Obama's interview, and happened to catch Ferguson as he went on an absolute rant worthy of the name. I was pretty happy watching the Obama interview, but this just stunned me. Craig Ferguson is a comedian who usually plays a cheerful idiot on his show, and this isn't the usual fare for him. But he nailed it.

I looked for a full transcription of his remarks but could not find them anywhere online today, so I decided to post my own. You can watch both these segments from Aaron Barnhart's blog, as he's got the YouTube segments posted together (he also has an edited transcript, but it cuts a lot out).

So without further ado, here is Craig Ferguson (a recently naturalized American citizen), from last night's show:

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Barack Obama has been getting lots of advice recently about what to do out on the campaign trail. Since it seems to be "Give Obama Advice Week," I'd like to offer up a campaign ad script.

Part of the problem Obama's been having since Sarah Palin appeared is that he's been playing defense ever since. He needs to go back on the offense on McCain, and drive the news cycle instead of just reacting to it.

There's a simple way to do this. It's actually Politics 101. Since John McCain has been in Congress for decades, he has a voting record just chock full of issues that can be easily made into campaign ads. McCain's record is a goldmine of political stances that average American voters would not agree with.

There are dozens of opportunities to do this, and all it would take would be a few hours of fact-checking to come up with some hard-hitting ads. How about "John McCain voted for earmarks 50 times while in the Senate." Or "John McCain voted against a minimum wage increase 19 times in Congress." Or how about "John McCain says he's for alternative energy now. Why should we believe him? He has voted against alternative energy 99% of the time in the Senate." Or: "John McCain was against honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. with a federal holiday."

Now, I fully admit that I made up those numbers, since I didn't have time to research them all. But there are all kinds of ways to attack John McCain's voting record, and so far I haven't heard Barack Obama even mention it. It's time to fight fire with fire -- point out McCain's most embarassing votes, and paint him as an extremist or a party hack while doing so. Also paint him as anti-middle-class.

This stuff really isn't rocket science, folks.

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America handed over control of the Iraqi province of Al-Anbar to the Iraqi military yesterday. Although they had to postpone this handover for two months due to (depending on who you believe) concerns about a dust storm, or an uptick in suicide bombings, the handover is now complete. But while President Bush hailed this as a success story in his usual blustery language ("Today, Anbar is no longer lost to al-Qaeda -- it is al-Qaeda that lost Anbar"), the outcome is far from being so clear. And there are disturbing signs that point to this "success story" being undermined by the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.

Anbar is the province that gave birth to what have been variously described as the "Anbar Awakening," the "Sunni Awakening," the "Sons of Iraq," or the "Awakening Councils." These were Sunni groups who were tired of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (also called AQI, for "Al-Qaeda in Iraq") sowing so much destruction. The foot soldiers of the insurgency basically switched sides, and threw in their lot with the United States. America, in a spirit of forgiveness, started paying these soldiers $300 a month to stop attacking Iraqi and American forces, and instead hunt down AQI and drive it from the province. They succeeded in doing so, and so America kept paying them for providing security for the region.

But all that is about to end. Come October 1, the Maliki government in Iraq is supposed to take over paying these 100,000 Awakening troops. And then he's supposed to absorb around 20 percent of them into the Iraqi security forces, and give the remainder other civil service jobs.

This where the doubt begins.

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Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki seems to have the upper hand in the ongoing negotiations with the Bush administration. The talks continue, in an attempt to hammer out an agreement for U.S. troops to operate in Iraq after the United Nations framework expires at the end of this year. Upon reflection, it's easy to see why Maliki is getting stronger in this diplomatic tug-of-war, and Bush is getting weaker -- because the clock is running out on Bush, and because Bush's domestic popularity continues to fall while Maliki is using the international media to boost his own popularity with the voters in Iraq.

A quick review of how Bush and Maliki got to where they currently are is necessary to understand the dynamics of the diplomatic game of "chicken" they are playing. Last year, Maliki and Bush announced that they were going to enter negotiations for two agreements (for simplicity's sake, these are jointly referred to here as a "Status Of Forces Agreement" or "SOFA") which would create a legal framework for U.S. forces to remain in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of 2008. Both sides agreed that they wanted a bilateral agreement to move beyond that point, and that continuing the U.N. status quo wasn't the best way to go.

Bush, at this time, asserted that he didn't need the Senate to vote on such an agreement, since (by his definition) it isn't a "treaty." Democrats in the Senate don't exactly agree with this assessment, but that is a side issue here. The draft SOFA was supposed to be finalized by the end of July, which would give the Iraqi Parliament time enough to debate and approve it by the end of this year.

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Sarah Palin has already singlehandedly introduced several terms into our political lexicon. "Hockey mom" is probably the most recognizable of these. "Troopergate" will become more and more known in the next few weeks. But today, I would like to personally add to this growing body of terms the Alaskan governor has spawned:

Moose poop.

The Republicans, in their "meet Sarah Palin" video, have helpfully provided the image to go along with this new term:

This image, it should be noted, has not been altered in any way, shape, or form.

So before we begin, let's define our new term:

moose poop (n.) -- (1) Synonym for "bullshit," esp. when used to describe falsehoods coming out of Sarah Palin's mouth, or indeed any Republican in the 2008 election. (2) Genteel term for the scat or feces of alces alces (North American moose). See also: moose shit. Usage: (1) I see Sarah Palin's spouting the same old moose poop. (2) Watch your step, there's some moose poop on the trail here.

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So, after our new marathon-style two weeks of conventions, you'll forgive me if I'm a little exhausted from the whole thing. I promise, postings here will return to our normal schedule next week, instead of jotting things down whenever I pry myself from the television set.

After witnessing John McCain's acceptance speech tonight, the last event in the Republican Convention, I have to wonder: that was it? Wow.

I mean, McCain gave a good speech. It was a fine speech, for McCain. Even if he did appear in front of the lime green background for the first part of it. Even if it was interrupted a few times by protestors. And even though he's a Republican, and I disagree with almost everything that comes out of his mouth. For McCain, not known for his TelePrompTer acuity, it was actually a pretty well-delivered speech.

But, seriously, that was it?

Barack Obama should immediately start hammering McCain for not addressing the needs of the middle class once in their entire convention. "McCain just doesn't get it" should become a rallying cry for Obama and Biden from now on.

Because McCain obviously doesn't get it.

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