The Los Angeles Times is reporting that members of Barack Obama’s campaign are looking into the details of moving his acceptance speech from the 19,000 seat Pepsi Center to the 76,000 Invesco Field in Denver.  The speech will fall on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

MONTANA
Obama - 48%
McCain - 43%
Source: Rasmussen

WASHINGTON
Obama - 47%
McCain - 39%
Source: Strategies 360

GEORGIA
McCain - 46%
Obama - 44%
Barr - 4%
Source: InAdv/Poll Position

Steve Harrelson jumps into a conversation that I’ve been having here on the Think Tank and on Lance Turner’s blog .  He writes in response to an op-ed written by Northwest Arkansas Times executive editor Greg Harton regarding newspapers, bloggers and online content.

Harton writes,

“The trick for newspapers everywhere has been finding a business model that helps pay the freight for those newsgathering operations. If local newspapers had to support their newsrooms only on the revenue from online sources, newsrooms would shrink dramatically. Print still pays the bills.

“As time marches on, newspaper companies will continue to focus on what they’ve done well for years and years: Seek to be credible, trustworthy sources of information that people need to live and work in their communities and to govern themselves. To whatever extent they can translate that to new methods of delivery, they’ll have much to offer for readers.”

He’s certainly right about that.

He’s also correct when he opines, “newspapers are good for the American people. Newsgathering fulfills a critical role in this republic by delivering information citizens need to be active parts of their community, state, nation and world.”

But we have to remain mindful that so many people, especially people under 30, are getting all of their information online.  I recognize that certain entities - like the Arkansas Democrat Gazette - are trying to protect their online content (although not in Northwest Arkansas) by allowing only subscribers to access it.

That model hasn’t worked (see the New York Times failed attempt to get people to pay for Opinion content), and according to Rupert Murdoch , the Wall Street Journal’s online content will soon be free to everyone.  That said, Dem-Gaz publisher Walter Hussman says the paper is making money.  He earned publisher of the year awards from Editor & Publisher , so something is working.

But will it last?  I doubt it, especially if a competitor steps into the online space and meets the need of the online news consumer.

Also, traditional (and often money-losing) publications like The New Yorker now host a slew of blogs each of which is quite interesting and gives readers like me a reason to connect to the magazine’s website on a daily basis.

Here are some thoughts from a speech by Kevin Sack of the New York Times at the Clinton School of Public Service on this very topic.

Starbucks reported yesterday that it will close 600 underperforming stores across the United States.

FLORIDA
McCain - 49%
Obama - 41%
Source: Strategic Vision

GEORGIA
McCain - 51%
Obama - 43%
Barr - 3%
Source: Strategic Vision

MASSACHUSETTS
Obama - 53%
McCain - 33%
Source: Rasmussen

CONNECTICUT
Obama - 56%
McCain - 35%
Source: Quinnipiac

President George W. Bush was in Little Rock yesterday.  He stopped off along University Ave. to speak to friends and supporters.  I’m told more than 300 people attended the fundraiser at the home of the George O’Conner yesterday.  Photos courtesy of Lindsey Coon.

This from Arkie Suzi Parker at U.S. News and World Report:

“Obama can kiss Arkansas goodbye. A lot of Dems are mad that Obama threw Clark under the bus and denounced his comments about McCain. If anything, they think the Obama camp should have just let the comments lie. A lot of the Dems I am talking to are Clintonites but also supported Clark in 2004 [when he ran for president]. Also hearing from Clark supporters who were in the draft movement that the Obama folks must have forgotten Clark has a massive database of supporters that has only gotten bigger since 2004 because Clark has been out campaigning for Dems since then.”

UPDATE: The conversation over these comments continues. The New York Times has more.

UPDATE II: Fred Kaplan of Slate has this analysis.

I start every summer with the best of intentions: to attack one big book from the past, a classic that I was supposed to have read when young and intellectually ambitious. Often the pairings of tomes and settings have been serendipitous: “Moby-Dick” on a three-day cross-country train trip, from the vantage of a narrow, claustrophobic bunk; “The Magic Mountain” at a New England beachside colony with no locks on the doors, no telephones or televisions in the rooms, and little to do beyond row on the salt pond, above the amassing jellyfish. - - Ligaya Mishan, The Book Bench, 6.30.08

With the above in mind, I surveyed some friends from across the United States and asked them for their summer reading lists. Some of it best seller stuff, some rather obscure. But that’s the fun thing about reading and talking about what others are reading. You never know what you’ll discover. Here’s what they disclosed.

David Glover, Attorney, Wright Lindsey & Jennings, Little Rock, AR
Your Government Has Failed You by Richard Clarke
Counselor by Ted Sorensen
Einstein: His Life and His Universe by Walter Isaacson
What Wen’t Wrong by Scott McClellan

Jeremy Harper, Senior Copywriter, Stone Ward, Little Rock, AR
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
When Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
A Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs
The Ruins by Scott B. Smith

Lance Turner, Online Editor, Arkansas Business Publishing Group, Little Rock, AR
Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good by Sarah Lacy
Inside Steve’s Brain by Leander Kahney
Y: The Last Man by Brian Vaughn
The Godfather’s Revenge by Mark Winegardner

Sam Blair, Retired Counselor and Teacher, Little Rock Central High School, Little Rock, AR
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
The Girl of His Dreams by Donna Leon

Bill Jennings, Senior Art Director, Stone Ward, Little Rock, AR
The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
One Minute to Midnight by Michael Dobbs

Annie Gendaszek, Graduate Student and Wilderness Explorer, Denver, CO
All Loves Excelling by Josiah Bunting
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Prep by Curtis Sittenfield
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Jason Oleet, Managing Partner, Worth Mountain Capital Partners, Lincoln, VT
The Black Swan by Nassim Nocholas Taleb
God and Gold by Walter Russell Mead
Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken

And mine:

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian
Summer of ‘49 by David Halberstam
Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry

Enjoy your summer of books.

University of Arkansas Chancellor David Gearhart officially takes the reigns today in Fayetteville. Henderson State University President Chuck Welch also begins his tenure in Arkadelphia. I look forward to the leadership of both of these men. It’s a good day for higher education in Arkansas.

UPDATE: The Iconoclast speaks out on John White’s last day.

Thomas Schaller argues this point in today’s New York Times.  He notes,

“Virginia, however, is the one Southern state that Mr. Obama has a reasonable chance of winning. And it’s precisely because the home of Robert E. Lee, as NBC News’s political director, Chuck Todd, has suggested, is seceding from the Confederacy.

“The demographic makeup of the electorate in Virginia is unlike that of any other state in the South. The black population in Virginia is, as a percentage, among the lowest in the region. And during the last two decades, the state has also experienced a huge influx of upscale non-Southerners, who have taken over the Washington suburbs of northern Virginia. (Florida is a perennial target for similar reasons. With a relatively small black population, a big Hispanic voting bloc and a large contingent of relocated retirees from the North, it is the least Southern of the Southern states.)

“In the rest of the South, Mr. Obama cannot overcome reality. Even if unprecedented numbers of black voters turn out to vote for him, the white vote will serve as a formidable counterbalance. Mr. Obama should not hope to capture states in the country’s most racially polarized region.”

On MSNBC, they’re focusing on whether Bill Clinton can help in the South.  The panel suggests its a mixed bag, but Clinton did win several states below the Mason Dixon line the last time he was on the ballot.  Of course, he’s not on the ballot in 2008.

Hillary Clinton biographer Gail Sheehy has a lengthy story in Vanity Fair about Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Arkansan and retired General Wes Clark said that “McCain lacked the executive experience necessary to be president, calling him “untested and untried” on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” And in saying so, he took a few swipes at McCain’s military service,” reports Politico.

After saying, “I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war,” he added that these experiences in no way qualify McCain to be president in his view:

“He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn’t a wartime squadron,” Clark said.

The article continues,

“When asked by host Bob Schieffer how he came to describe McCain as “untested and untried,” Clark said it was “because in the matters of national security policy-making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions,” adding, “He hasn’t made the calls.”

“When Schieffer noted Obama has not had wartime experiences, Clark said: “Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”"

Will it work? It’s obvious that Clark, a distringuish military leader, was trying to impeach McCain’s credentials on the one issue most people thought was unimpeachable. If you think it’s a nonsensical strategy, just ask John Kerry, a decorated war hero who was injured in Vietnam and whose military credentials were obliterated by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. That said, Clark’s catching some grief for his rather pointed comments.

On “Morning Joe,” the pundits thought it was a mistake. Obama communications director Robert Gibbs appeared and said Clark wasn’t speaking for Obama. Over at Swampland, TIME magazine reporter Joe Klein writes, “Clark is just plain wrong when he says that “getting shot down” doesn’t qualify as foreign policy experience. I think McCain’s Vietnam war experience gives him important perspective on the horrors of war and should never, ever be discounted–even if McCain’s more recent positions have been unduly bellicose. It’s also just really bad manners on Clark’s part, given the suffering McCain endured.”

UPDATE: Media Matters has jumped all over the media for their distortion of Clark’s comments.  See their observations here, here and here.

GEORGIA
McCain - 53%
Obama - 43%
Barr - 1%
Source: Rasmussen

VIRGINIA
Obama - 49%
McCain - 47%
Source: Survey USA

“Four years ago, the Internet was a Wild West that caused the occasional headache for the campaigns but for the most part remained segregated from them. This year, the development of cheap new editing programs and fast video distribution through sites like YouTube has broken down the barriers, empowering a new generation of largely unregulated political warriors who can affect the campaign dialogue faster and with more impact than the traditional opposition research shops,” writes Jim Rutenberg in today New York Times.

The article profiles film director Robert Greenwald who has been making videos about John McCain, mostly about his contradictions, and putting them on You Tube.  They’ve been viewed more than 5 million times.

“. . . cash expenses to make and distribute the segment were about $50, a fraction of the roughly $100,000 that it would cost to broadcast a 30-second spot on a television news program with an audience of a few million, like “Meet the Press.” “That’s dirt cheap for an ad,” said conservative video producer Jason Mitchell.