TPM Election Central has the full text of Obama's speech delivered in North Carolina today.

…I'm sorry to see my opponent sink so low. Lately, he's called me a socialist for wanting to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class. By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in Kindergarten.

That's his choice. That's the kind of campaign he chose to run. But you have a choice too. The fundamental question in this election is not “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” We know the answer to that. The real question is, “Will this country be better off four years from now?”…

…Whether you are Nancy the Nurse, Tina the Teacher, or Carl the Construction Worker – if my opponent is elected, you will be worse off four years from now than you are today. So let's cut through the negative ads and the phony attacks – under John McCain, the middle class will watch wealth get favored over work, jobs get shipped overseas, and the cost of health care and college go through the roof. North Carolina, we know that just won't do. Not this time. It's time for change. It's time to do what's right for you, for our economy, and for our country

I know that my opponent is worried about losing an election, but I'm worried about Americans who are losing their homes, and their jobs, and their life savings. I'm worried about the middle class. And I won't just fight for your vote in the final days of election – I will fight for you every single day that I'm in the White House. That's why I'm running for President of the United States of America.

So I can take six more days of John McCain's attacks, but this country can't take four more years of the same old politics and the same failed policies. It's time for something new…

MarketWatch reports on the results of an unusual Presidential Election Poll which has accurately predicted 12 of the last 13 elections by polling children…

…voting has concluded in the Weekly Reader Student Presidential Election Poll. And the nation's students resoundingly say that Barack Obama will be the country's next leader. In the 14th Weekly Reader election survey, with more than 125,000 votes cast from kindergarten through 12th grade, the result was Obama 54.7% and John McCain 42.9% (with “other” candidates receiving 2.5% of the student vote). The Obama victory in the classroom electoral vote was even more resounding: The Democrat won 33 states and the District of Columbia, garnering 420 electoral votes, while McCain took 17 states and 118 electoral votes…

I'll take any good news I can get!

This time police needed to rescue two Obama supporters who were the target of their misguided rage…

…After the rally, we witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob…

…police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone…

“People were screaming 'Terrorist!' 'Communist!' 'Socialist!'” Sorando said when we caught up with him. “I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me.”

Asked what had precipitated the event, “We were just chanting 'Obama!' and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy.”…

Conservatives would be so much better served if they didn't pander to knee-jerk nutjobs who wouldn't know a terrorist or a communist if they saw one.  Inciting mobs with inflammatory speech does nothing but make the Republicans look like the party of hate.  FiveThirtyEight.com has the story.

The other day a friend of mine was comparing this election to 2004, warning that we [Democrats] should not become complacent, because in 2004 Kerry was edging ahead in the polls and after the disaster of the Bush '01 administration it was unimaginable that Bush could win a second term.  And yet the unimaginable came to pass, and another unimaginably bad 4 years followed.

So here we are again, a very smart Democratic candidate, ahead in the polls going up against a Republican party with a terrible track record.  If past performance is any indicator, the Republicans should win, right?

This time around though, the Democratic candidate is even smarter and better spoken, even further ahead in the polls, and the Republican party is looking even worse.  Is it enough to make the difference?  Enough to buck the trend of Americans giving the keys back to the guy who crashed the car?

On this day in 2004, one of my favorite electoral news sites electoral-vote.com was estimating 260 votes for Kerry, and 254 for Bush with 24 votes (Iowa and Michigan) listed as “tie”.   Had the tie votes gone to Kerry, it would have ended 284 Kerry 254 Bush.  Had they gone to Bush, it would have ended 260 Kerry 278 Bush.  The actual outcome was 252 Kerry 286 Bush with the tied states going both ways (Iowa to Bush, Michigan to Kerry) and a few of the “barely/weakly Kerry/Bush” states flipping sides (Colorado flipped from barely Kerry to weakly Bush, Ohio flipped from barely Kerry to barely Bush, and Hawaii flipped from weakly Bush to weakly Kerry.)

All in all, the indicators from this day in 2004 showed a very close race with the candidates having similar electoral scores.  It was clear that the tied states alone could change the outcome.

This time around things are very different. The same predictor is estimating 364 votes for Obama and 157 for McCain with 17 votes in a tie.  If all the tie votes go to McCain, the score is 364 Obama 174 McCain, and Obama wins.  If all the tie votes went to McCain and all the states rated “barely democrat” (58 votes) flipped into his column, the score would be 306 Obama 232 McCain, and Obama still wins.

So it looks decidedly better for the democrats this time around than last time.  However, of the 4 states (Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire) being rated as “weakly democrat”, three are states that were either Republican last time, or flipped republican at voting time (VA, OH, CO)–I don't really like Obama having to depend on these states for victory.  But he surely does.

Obama can afford to lose any one of these 4 states, and can even afford to lose any two.  But if he loses 3 of them, then McCain is likely to win.  I think the reason McCain is attacking Obama's hold on Pennsylvania is because if PA folds up for Obama, then he has to rely on VA, OH, CO even more and at that point Obama losing OH spells victory for McCain.

The upshot of all the number crunching is that I am more optimistic than I have been over the last couple days, but I largely agree with my friend that there is no room for complacency.