Good News for Celebrating the Fourth!

We've got a lot to celebrate this Fourth of July!

1. The Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act. No matter whether you like this law or wanted a single payer, a decision it is unconstitutional would have hurt Obama's chances enormously.

2. A BIG increase for Obama's chances of winning, per the justly famed Nate Silver and his analytical computer model. (See N.Y. Times today.)  Silver now gives the Prez a 67.8% chance of winning, up almost 10% from mid-June. AND this increase came BEFORE the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act! Silver also has upped Obama's likely win in the electoral college by 9 so it's now a lovely 298! Wowzer!

3. An 8 point lead for Obama in the swing states. Again, this was polled before the Supreme Court decision.

4. As of Thursday, Europe looks like it's finally doing something intelligent about its economy, causing the stock market to jump nearly 300 points on Friday.

5. Consumer buying power just moved up for the first time in quite a while.

6. Gas prices are down.

7. More Americans are telling pollsters that they think the economy is improving.

8. Obama's ads depicting Romney as a job exporter in his Bain career are a success. The ads are shifting voters away from Romney in the Midwest where a lot of the election action is based. This is doubly reassuring because, not only is the result heartening from the Heartland, but because it shows that the Obama campaign knows what it's doing. As you may recall, Bill Clinton, Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, and some other right-of-center Democrats attacked the ads as unfair to private equity (from which Booker, Clinton et al get all their moola). The Obama team resolutely ignored these not-so-wise guys and kept on with the ads because their internal polling shows they are working!

9. Romney and his team are falling for the oldest trick in the book. They are delaying defining him. They are letting Obama do it while they are "concentrating on raising money" after their expensive primary fight. Yes, they will try to bury Obama in negative ads later, but we've got Obama's back.

Don't we?

And that brings us to Number 10 on our list of Happy Fourth of July items.

10. We live in a country where "We the People" still really means something. Romney believes corporations are people. But they are not. We real people vote. We volunteer for campaigns. What we tell other real people counts more with them than do ads. (Studies confirm this.) There are so many of us who support Obama that if we each donate SOME money, we can out-raise the GOP super pacs. We are not only We the People. WE are the real super pac! It isn't the 60s slogan "Power to the People". We the People already have the power! And we are going to use it, right?

This is OUR country. And it's not up for sale, Mr. Romney.

So each of you have a great and glorious Fourth!  God bless America and all the ships at sea! And God bless all of you, including you in other countries who also care about liberty and the dignity of each person. And welcome to the new readers this week in Pakistan and Colombia. Let's all of us, in all the countries where there are readers, raise a glass to each other on the Fourth because we are all brothers and sisters.   And let's salute all the brothers and sisters everywhere who gave the last full measure of devotion down through the centuries that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth."

Hip Hip Hooray!