Tonight I attended a convention party to listen to Barack Obama accept the Democratic party’s nomination for president. Twenty or 30 people were expected; instead, about 60 showed up and crowded the condo at which this was held. (There could have been more, but the hosts shut off the online invite at 60.) The mood of the crowd left little doubt that this was an early indicator of the level of excitement, at least in these circles, for the candidate.

I thought Obama’s speech was superb.

On the one hand, I was impressed by the way he stole all the ground from the Republicans: To listen to Obama, all problems can be settled somewhere in the middle between left and right, and to the satisfaction of all parties (except, well, al Qaeda). I doubt this is true. Every day in every way, the world forces hard choices on us. But the notion of compromise is spot-on, and the concept that right-wingers aren’t unpatriotic, but simply wrong, threatens to dampen the fire under the opposition, as does the notion that their ideas will at least get a hearing. The only skilled way McCain can go after this is to cut the knot by saying that you can’t have it all, and that in a time of hard choices we need someone capable of making them. In what almost all of us hope will be a post-Decider age, I don’t think this will carry him far.

On the other hand, what truly impressed me with Obama’s speech was the deft way he wove his positions that are unpopular with his base  into the overall tapestry of his speech. To wit:  Obama endorsed nuclear energy. I know, you probably didn’t hear it, especially if you sneezed or blinked or thought about something else for a nanosecond. But he did. How did he do it? As part of (I’m paraphrasing) “releasing us from dependence on foreign oil within 10  years.” (And by the way, if he can do that, he can probably also cross his arms, nod his head quickly, and reappear inside a magic lantern.) So nuclear energy under Obama isn’t an anti-environmental position, as it has always been, but is now a national-security issue, and a pro-environmental issue because it relieves us from global warming. That’s smart. Even moreso because he buttressed it with a call for “clean coal energy,” which last time I checked doesn’t exist. While I’m skeptical about “clean coal energy” and an early parole from oil dependency, I don’t doubt his sincerity in working toward these things. He is indeed a man with hope you can count on — or, at least, a man you can count on to hope.

That’s what I’m going to start saying to the supporters of Hillary Clinton who keep telling the press they can’t bring themselves to vote for Barack Obama this fall.

“Then don’t.”

Just think how much whining and complaining would mystically go away if more often we adopted this response to the many free-floating objections we hear from people on a daily basis, whether it’s about significant others, traffic, politics, or your crummy hairdresser.

“I don’t think I can take much more of this.” “Then don’t.”

It really has a put-up-or-shut-up quality to it.

Now that I’m reading and hearing about the ongoing outrage by the Hillaryites, who for some inexplicable reason think their candidate was robbed of an honor to which she was entitled, and who therefore say they won’t vote for Obama, I’m ready to deploy it. So here it is: “Then don’t.”

Don’t come out and vote for the Democratic candidate, who by the way, fairly and squarely beat your candidate within the rules (never requesting that discounted or uncounted delegations suddenly regain their votes, for example).

But then, if you wind up with another White House Administration you don’t like — one that thinks the Iraq War should go on for another 100 years, one that thinks Antonin Scalia is a model Supreme Court Justice, one that thinks $5 million in annual income is the upper register of the middle class — don’t complain about it.

Just move to Canada. And start your complaining there.

We know Joe Biden uses Amtrak to commute home. Let’s just hope he doesn’t rely on it to meet with voters this fall. We don’t want his campaign running out of gas.

Just as I suspected, my color laser printer has been lying to me and saying it’s “out of toner” long before it is. This piece on Slate explains all — and how you can get extra mileage out of your toner.

(By the way, my suspicions had been aroused because 25 years ago I sold auto parts, and most auto sensors work precisely the same way:  By going off at a prescribed time whether or not there’s something wrong with them. You might want to bear this in mind the next time you have a sensor light come on and  the mechanic tells you you need a new EGR valve or thermo fan switch.)

A few minutes ago, the Associated Press and then just about every news agency decided that they had enough corroboration and announced Joe Biden as Barack Obama’s selection of a running mate. For two reasons, I hope that’s true.

The first reason is that I’ve been predicting it since almost the moment Obama nailed the nomination (which — seriously — was February). It’s not just that I’d like to be right in this case; it’s that I’d like to stop being so wrong with political predictions. (Although in this case not so wrong as Mark Evanier.) Here are a few I’ve made and lived to regret:

• 2004, to a neighbor with an anti-Bush sign on her door: “Kerry’s way ahead, no way he’s going to lose.”
• Election night 2000, early in the evening: “Gore’s already won.”
• Election night 2000, later in the evening: “They just called Florida for Gore — he won.”

OK, so I was right about the last one. (Nobody predicted theft.)

The other reason has to do with the ugly whisper spoken in homes all across the country, but never dared to be uttered in public: “If Obama wins, somebody’s going to shoot him.” You may recall that Hillary Clinton was roundly hissed for seeming to even allude to this idea. But it is out there. This summer I’ve been all up and down California, and traveled to Omaha, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and Washington DC and I heard that sentiment every single place I went. Last weekend we had a backyard party and I told a local Democratic operative that I was sure Biden would be the v.p. pick.

“Think like Obama,” I said. “He’s young and new, so he needs someone to counter his youth and relative inexperience. We’ve got foreign policy problems, so he needs a foreign policy expert. McCain wants to paint him as elitist, so he needs someone lower-middle class. And he’s black, so he needs someone white. All of that equals Biden, a guy who looks like what a president looks like to people.” (Until, that is, we got (in)Curious George.) And my friend and objective analyst Doug Hackney called Biden the best qualified for president this year.

We’ll see if this story holds up in the morning. I hope so. Biden adds a lot to the ticket. I’m not just tired of being wrong with predictions; I’m tired of the GOP presidency.

There’s still time to suggest what I should download from iTunes and win yourself a free song in the bargain.

C’mon, guys. iTunes has more than 1 million songs (and that’s just counting cover versions of “Yesterday.” Surely there’s something on there that you think I should hear and that I probably don’t have.

The deadline is today.

I just got two “free” songs from iTunes.

“Free” because getting them means I first spent $150 on two tickets to see David Byrne in October at the Greek Theatre. (With, one fantasizes, Brian Eno in tow.)

So now I leave it to you: What song should I download (for “free”) from iTunes, and why?

I will indeed download the best suggestion and rationale, comment on the song — and reward the nominator with the other “free” iTunes song download (which actually will be free to him or her).

Offer expires this Friday, August 22nd at 6 p.m. Winning nomination must be a song I don’t already have.

Here’s the new album from David Byrne & Brian Eno, offered as free streaming special to you* as a faithful reader of this blog.

*Other, non-readers of this blog, might be able to get it too — but they’re not quite so special, are they?

Just now I got a call from a telemarketer soliciting donations for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Paraphrasing, here’s her closing:

“Mr. Wochner, as you know, our veterans have sacrificed so much for our freedom. That’s why we’re making these calls on behalf of the Veterans of Foreign Wars so that we can honor our brave veterans who have sacrificed so much for us. The top honor we give them, which shows them really how much we respect their sacrifice, is $100. We do have another level of honor, which is only $50. Should I put you down for that, or for the top honor?”

Her honeyed voice betokened a southerner:  the sort of good ol’ gal who pronounces “you” as “yew” and does her best to ingratiate herself with fellow good ol’ folks. (In other words, John Edwards, with fewer $400 haircuts.) Given the target market for this appeal, I’m sure the selection of calling firms and their calling voices is intentional. (And why am I getting this sort of call more frequently? Because once I subscribed to Reason, the magazine of the libertarians, all sorts of unattractive causes and groups have tried to embrace me as their own.)

When she asked which “honor” she could put me down for, I said:  “I think the best way to honor our veterans is not to invade countries that don’t attack us, so they don’t have to die or have limbs blown off.”

After a pause, during which she did not acknowledge that comment, she did her best to tie back in the notion of sacrifice (which I had just noted), and how they were due this honor.

So I replied, “How much of this goes to the veterans?”

In that molasses drawl – still working to be polite, but hearing the edge in my voice – she said, “Excuse me?”

“I said, how much of this ‘honor’ goes to the veterans?”

“Well, that’s a very complicated answer.”

“Actually, it’s a very simple answer. You’re calling from a for-profit fundraising organization, right?”

Meekly:  “Yes.”

“And the non-profit has to file paperwork showing the fundraising expense behind this. So what is it? What percentage goes to ‘honoring’ the veterans?”

“Sir, I can put my manager on. I’m sure she has answers to these questions.”

There was a click, and then a woman I take to be the manager picked up.

“This is Leeza. Sir, did you have a question?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been invited to honor our veterans by paying either $50 or $100 to honor them. I’d like to know how much of the honor goes to them.”

She repeated the same line:  “That’s a very complicated answer.”

I explained to her why it wasn’t. And then, in what she intended as a long answer with more camouflage, and which included an offer to mail me some “information,” she let it slip:  “about 20%.”

“Did you say ‘about 20%’?” I said.

“Again, sir, that’s a complicated answer.”

“No, you said ‘about 20%.’ So it’s less than 20%. So if I send you $100, less than 20 bucks is in some way, shape, or form going to make its way to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. That doesn’t sound like much of an honor. In fact, it sounds rather dishonorable, especially given the level of their sacrifice, which you keep noting. I mean, if they’re dying over there, or getting their limbs blown off, surely they deserve more than 20%. More than 50%! I think they should get it all.”

Now unsure what to say, she offered again to mail me something. I decided to let her off the hook so I could share this story with you, and said, “That’s okay. As you can tell from my questions, I’m not going to be sending a donation.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” she said, and hung up – no doubt striking me forever from their particular call list.

I did want to say other things, but I think they would have fallen on deaf ears. I know you’ll take them to heart, though, so here they are:

Although of course there are always fundraising expenses, if the cause is worthy it’s shameful to keep the majority of a donation. If the cause isn’t worthy, it doesn’t merit a donation.

I’m sickened by the treatment of our soldiers and our veterans, and I recognize our enormous obligation to them. But we do pay taxes to take care of them, and if that isn’t happening – whether at Walter Reed or in the field – then we need to fix that system and prosecute the people at fault. Sending phony tributes through telemarketers does nothing.

Finally, our best long-term solution is to elect people to Congress and the White House who have a better understanding of the world and how it works – and who therefore know better than to embroil us in dangerous, ill-conceived, badly executed foreign missions with no clear exit strategy.

Sending money to people turning a buck off the mutilation of our armed forces is stupid and disgusting.

The new issue of the Atlantic arrived today in the mail. It provides interesting reading for anyone who has been following the recent presidential  campaign closely.

“The Front-Runner’s Fall,”  by Joshua Green, details what went wrong with the Clinton campaign — from the inside. After it was over, Green contacted many of the people who worked on that campaign, and they were quick to oblige by supplying him with insider emails and memos that, I assume, advanced their individual agendas. (I.e., “It wasn’t my fault.”) You won’t find anything terribly surprising — the view from inside looks just like the view we all got from outside:  of a campaign at odds with itself, and hobbled early on by crippling hubris — but I did come away again relieved that Hillary Clinton has no shot at the presidency, at least not right now. If you’re disinclined to read the whole piece, allow me to pull out the single most salient insight:

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence—on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.

We’ve currently got a quote-unquote president who makes decisions —  albeit all too quickly and poorly. Imagine following the current catastrophe with someone incapable of making any decision and incapable of managing a staff, even the rather small staff of a campaign. You can’t be “leader of the free world” if you need your husband to make the final call on whether or not to air a TV ad. (An incident revealed in Green’s piece.) Say what you will about Obama, but he has certainly managed his campaign well, mounting an effective insurgency that continues to impress.

Elsewhere in the issue, James Fallows views and critiques all 47 (!) of the primary debates.  If you thought cleaning the Augean Stables was a job unfit for most, imagine watching 60+ hours of shifting statements about Iraq, illegal aliens, and the meaning of the word “bitter.” Fallows shrewdly decides out that Obama “won” the Democratic debates by playing a consistent character, where Clinton kept redefine herself to do better. For some of us, this is an uncomfortable reminder of 2000, when George W. Bush telegraphed the boorish cluck he would prove to be, but was seen as doing “better than expected” and praised by the press for his consistency. (While Al Gore went from extravagant sighing in Debate 1, to careful reticence in Debate 2, to finally finding his voice — when it was too late — in Debate 3.) The Atlantic website carries some videos that back up Fallows’ analysis; chiefly, the video of Carter and Reagan serves to remind me why I was a supporter of John Anderson that year.

Fallows makes this forecast for the eventual McCain-Obama debate:

Once he gets on the stage, McCain will try to remind Obama of Hillary Clinton—that is, of someone he must take seriously, someone who is willing to challenge him and even insult him to his face. Obama “is vain about his idealism and ‘nobility,’” a staff member for one of Obama’s Democratic opponents (not Clinton) told me on the phone. “He is thin-skinned about having his motives and competence questioned, so that’s what you do.” Grizzled pols like Hillary Clinton or her husband would laugh off such an attempt; Obama may still be innocent enough to be shaken by it. McCain made many dismissive references to Obama after Obama became the presumptive nominee. The easy next step is to do so while looking at him.

This sounds like good advice for McCain. We’ll see if Obama is dumb enough to get rattled by it.