Democratic National Convention (Aug. 25-28)

[Professor S]

This should be a solid convention for the Dems, but thyey do need to be careful not to give ammo to McCain's advertising crew. They have been borderline brilliant the way they've spun the sometimes over-the-top passion behind the Obama campaign into a series of humorous attack ads, which are rare and hard to pull off.

The worst thing they could do is put celebrities in camera friendly areas. The McCain campaign will use it to their advantage.

The real potential for Obama in this campaign is to get away from the mysterious celebrity image he's had, and turn that into a strong statesman performance. I'm looking for him to speak plainly and directly, and most importantly, presidentially. I really don't think his sermon style speeches will fly well under such a bright spotlight with so many people watching.

If he turns statesman, he'll be hard to beat coming out of this convention.