The summer went very well for McCain. He pulled even to Obama in the polls and is beginning to put together the electoral map to win. See my general take on the race earlier this summer here. That analysis still stands.
Obama is on the defensive. His appeal at the VFW for McCain to stop attacking his patriotism was a useless waste of his oratorical gifts. Americans expect that their candidate can take a hit and keep going. His surrogates should makes those attacks.
Speaking of surrogates, Obama seems ready to waste his Vice-Presidential pick on a dullard like Joe Biden. That is better than Senator Clinton by a great deal, but not much better than if he had picked your next door neighbor. Biden is a walking gaffe machine, a plagiarist, and is already on record attacking Obama’s experience. None of the other “short-list” candidates are much better.
Obama seems to have passed on an interesting choice like Senator Webb of Virginia.
McCain seems poised to also make a safe, but dull pick. That will mean that the two dull picks cancel each other out.
McCain can blow it all if he goes with a pro-choice pick which will deflate the “coming home” of religious voters he started at Saddleback.
The conventions matter a good deal for Obama. He needs to restore the old “five point poll norm.” At this point, after both the conventions are done Obama needs a net 3 point poll swing in his direction to silence rumbles of horror one can hear beginning in Democrat circles that the certain is becoming only probable. Reading some of their blogs is like hearing Patriot fans in the third quarter of the Super Bowl. There is still confidence, but with a bit of nervousness. If a few national polls start showing Senator Obama behind, then the knives will come out.
Nobody starts and loses a Civil War as well as a Democrat.
If Obama is not up by six after the conventions, then look for trouble and defections.
If present trends do not change, then McCain will win at least 274 electoral votes. (Bush states minus New Mexico and Iowa.)