My immediate and gut reaction from Hillary’s speech are more reflective of her long presidential run and the women’s rights movement than any (real or not) harmony with Obama.

—Her anti-McCain zingers were the best yet—what Vince Vaughn would call “so money!” She parlays McCain’s out-of-touchness in a simple and jarring way Obama has not. She is and would have been the Democrats best VEEP attack dog. 

—Not really buying the Clinton-as-historic-icon-in-women’s-rights-movement narrative. Her campaign belongs in the annals of women’s rights for being the first female candidacy to be within arm’s reach of winning the White House. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a hero. Hillary Clinton is a fighter.

—Wondering why she can’t say the three words: “ready to lead.” Such a statement would concisely counter her previous criticisms as well as her husband’s. Saying, “the future hangs in the balance” doesn’t meet the Steve Schmidt-patented “is Obama ready to lead” onslaught.

-Had its inspiring moments. She was beautiful when she spoke of uplifting and overcoming to follow your dreams and achieve your goals. She was natural and delivered it with poignancy – a welcome departure from her more stale and uptight speeches she was giving in Iowa in 2007. Between her concession speech in D.C. where she suspended her campaign and this tonight, she’s proven Obama isn’t the only show in town who can inspire. 

—If she is serious about rallying behind Obama, she would either have her “Hillraisers” and big donors either get on board the Obama express or stop giving interviews. Having her biggest supporters complain they didn’t get the titles they got in a non-existent no-drama Obama system, or didn’t get a room in the Denver Ritz Carlton is embarrassing. It harks back to her inability to reconcile her advisers Mark Penn and Harold Ickes during the primary campaign. It’s great the delegates speaking on the networks are ready to vote Obama. If the Clintons are really behind Obama full tilt, they’ll have to put muzzles on their mega-donors.

-Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer should deliver all speechs from now on.

LGBT blog The Bilerico Project offers a convincing collection of circumstantial evidence that points to Indiana Sen. (and über whiteboy) Evan Bayh as the frontrunner for Obama-rama’s VP slot.  Post author Bil Browning says the announcement will come tomorrow morning.

The Washington Post’s political blog “The Fix” has some intersting arguments for and against Bayh, while maintaining that the overall list is still at least six deep.

Most intriguing in terms of arguments against is that no one really knows what exactly Bayh stands for.  He has shown some leadership on the economic threat of China, but otherwise, “is known far more for his style of politics (post-partisan centrism) than any core belief system,” according to The Fix’s Chris Cillizza.

Hmm, square-jawed, corn-fed, midwestern whiteboy without a pre-determined set of issue prejudices.  After taking heat from his core constituents on his FISA vote and his reversal on offshore drilling, ya think Obama is chomping at the bit to get someone else in the mix that he can use as his tough-stance Gumby?  The sock puppet necessary for the ventriloquist act a liberal black man must pull-off to truly appeal to Midle America?

Obama is more like Bush that people would like to admit, at least in one respect: he needs his Cheney.  Bush and Obama are the posterboys for their respective backers.  Bush, the man-of-the-people who Midwesterners and Southerners would love to sit down and have a beer with.  Obama, the Harvard grad, bleeding heart liberal (let’s not forget his Senate voting record), and smarter-than-thou citizen of the world.

The Obama campaign came out of the post-primary gates chock full of political expediency, a conflagration of calculated moves that combined to form his much-ballyhooed center shift.  A necessary move when learning the lesson of someone like Dukakis who stuck by his left-leaning guns in the general election only to get trounced by Bush Sr.

In this respect, the Cheney to Obama’s Bush would naturally be someone like Bayh, as opposed to a Biden or a Dodd, and most certainly a Hillary.  Someone without a political trademark who could stand tall on the issues du jour to battleground state blue collar whiteys while Obama returns to his ethereal pedestal of slippery eloquence.

Obama needs a nitty-gritty errand boy like Bayh.  In perhaps the most scathing assessment of Obama’s political opportunism to date, Alex Castanellos details why he thinks Obama has already sunk his own ship:

When this young man with the flowing, passionate core, when this candidate without the solid-center changes positions and transforms himself as we watch, it leaves Americans much more in doubt about who he is and how he would lead us. It also reveals an Obama of unapproachable arrogance and inestimable self-regard: He appears confident voters will appreciate his superiority regardless of where he journeys or what he becomes to meet his political ambitions.

Reality or not, this is the current perception.  The Steve Schmidt-led assault on Obama’s image from the McCain camp has successfully chiseled away at the once-impenetrable veneer of change and hope.  A branding-strategy that ironically delivered Obama from a brutal primary against a rival with whom he shares many core values, but may ultimately sink him where the message is actually applicable.

Evan Bayh – ye of pasty, Caucasian, political paper mache – come on down and bring your overalls a shovel because there’s some digging to be done if tomorrow is indeed the biggest day of your life.

Clear blue skies in New York City today, about the first time we’ve seen the atmosphere in about two weeks, makes it especially easy to see through what many experts have been hawking as “news” lately.

Sen. Barack Obama is still for ending the Iraq war, despite week long statements from Sen. John McCain saying otherwise. His dual press conferences – the second one required because expert opinion had heads in the sand – did not change his basic principle: opposing an open-ended commitment of occupying and/or pacifying the Iraqi government.

What else has been brewing besides summer thunderstorms… ah yes – the economy. The job loss streak continued for the U.S. economy, with June being the sixth straight lousy month. Welcome graduates!

But that didn’t stop McCain from going to Colombia… to do what I’m not sure. Talking heads said it was news, but I don’t get it other than further proving McCain doesn’t know what’s going on. Ironically, the former POW was upstaged by a John Woo-style badass hostage rescue (ps – it’s coming out, first reported by Swiss radio, that the rescue actually might have been a cover up for ransom payments – McCain metaphor?).

McCain has retooled his campaign, digging into the Rovian toolbox by bringing in Steve Schmidt. All while exclaiming all is well, that this was merely a transition for the general election. The No News-News networks (we’ll cleverly dub them NNN), forgot that McCain’s has been in general election mode since the springtime when they gave him a pass. Meanwhile, the wonkysphere have been all over his pledge to balance the budget. When you have 24 hours of airtime to fill, how can someone not be screaming that this is impossible, and given the circumstances, would cripple the country. Where is Bill Clinton (circa 1994) when you need him?

Speaking of WJC, the media had a wonderful day parsing every word – and there weren’t many – of his statement supporting Obama in the general election. Their phone call was emblematic of this summer election season, and by that I mean, like soap operas. The NNN coverage of that little episode was fantastic.

Obama’s children were interviewed by the muckrakers over at Access Hollywood. The NNN was all over Obama’s perceived regret that the children, ages 10 and 7, were on television. CNN headline: “Obama regrets interview with daughters”. Obama’s point: “I was surprised by the attention it got,” he told NBC Wednesday morning. “Particularly given the way it sort of went around the cable stations,” (emphasis mine).

Also in from the war room at NNN: the Milwaukee Brewers are now thought to have a dynamic pitching rotation that will carry them come playoff time. The Beer Makers have only been to the postseason twice since the club’s inception in 1969. They could be alive in October this year, because the National League is terrible, but not because the Brewers are a contender. They need to hit and figure out a way to stop the Cubs.

And how’s this for a segue: Sen. Joe Lieberman is still taken seriously, a feat so ludicrous given Joe’s track record of distortion. How can he still be considered a source? How do you know what’s meaningful when the news is not newsworthy? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?

The world may never know.