Newsweek says: Losing Ground What’s been lost? Obama only leads by seven. Oh no!

He leads McCain by 3 pts overall and by 2 among Independents. Clinton also leads McCain by 3 but is 1 pt behind him among Independents. Obama is 6 pts closer than Clinton in drawing Republican support. Oh no!

Democrats want Clinton to be the nominee by 1%. Independents want Obama to be the nominee by 26 pts. Oh no!

McCain’s age draws more bias against him than Clinton’s gender or Obama’s race. Oh no!

The internals about Obama are especially interesting. His Harvard education and the charge of elitism don’t click with voters as negatives. They find him down to earth and think he relates to them. The issues that hurt him appear to be Reverend Wright and his comments about rural voters. Not as much, but still significant is the flag pin. And they’re about evenly split on whether he has enough experience.

Oddly, by far, he’s viewed as the guy least likely to represent the rich and powerful, even by working class and poor white voters, yet that group still prefers Clinton. 55% of that group would consider voting for Clinton, and 48% of them would consider Obama, so that gap is not as wide as some have imagined. Oh no!

Elsewhere, the Washington Post lets us know: Party Fears Racial Divide OMG !!!!!!! And Bob Herbert adds his warning with Heading Toward the Danger Zone . Somebody better send the Bat signal, Stat !!!!!!!

How many elections must we go through where we’re supposed to make a choice based on FEAR? If it’s not terrorists, it’s ‘other’ Democrats or unelectability. Something scary’s gonna happen if you punch your ballot for the wrong person. Lordy-lord help us.

Matt Stoller has the absolutely best answer to all of it: TAKE A CHILL PILL. If you woke up thinking “Great! A Saturday off and I’m feeling fine”, why let someone else interfere with that, based on a lot of guesswork? As he notes:

The evidence does show that the country hates Republicans, thinks the economy is slipping, and hates the war in Iraq. Democrat Bill Foster just took Dennis Hastert’s seat, and Democrats took a majority in the R+10 MS-01. There’s just no evidence that the Democrats are in trouble. None. There are a lot of media and political elites that want to spread this narrative for a lot of reasons, some of which are emotional and some of which are financial. Most of all, though, I think people are getting worried because it’s something to do. There’s a perceived sense of control in worrying and being able to plead for Clinton and/or Obama to do something/anything to end the fighting.

It’s much more difficult to let go, as political junkies, and say ‘well, voters will decide, and that’s that.’ It’s boring to say ‘don’t worry, Democrats are going to win big everywhere’. It makes you look foolish if it doesn’t happen, but if you fret and bite your nails and then we do win you can celebrate and cover your ass at the same time. The reality though is that events outside our control - climate disasters, an invasion of Iran, etc - are much more likely to change the outcome than anything Clinton or Obama does.

If that doesn’t convince, head over to Pam Spaulding for a really upbeat perspective. Hell, even Joe Klein’s promising to stay on McCain’s case when he plays dirty, and tosses in the reminder that McCain voted against Hurricane Katrina relief funds. Forgotten Americans? No. Turned away by McCain in their hour of greatest need? I wonder which fact will not be forgotten by those Americans in November?

And Obama doesn’t seem especially worried. It makes sense to appear on Fox now. After all, Fox got shut out by the Dem candidates for so long that the last thing they want to do right now is go on too much of an attack and get shut out till after Election Day.

Out here in Oregon, Bill Clinton’s doing a mini-small town tour, but as an Oregonian, I can say that strategy’s been tried before, without any luck in recent decades. Portland, Eugene, Salem and a couple of smaller cities continually outvote the rest of our sizable state. When Hillary and Barack did Portland and Eugene a couple of weeks back, the Obama crowds outdrew Clinton’s by 4 to 1.

If you ask me, the main bit of concern is the Chinese water torture of what could be the longest primary season in US history. The last to go on as long as this was 40 years ago and we’ll exceed that if the race actually gets to Oregon’s vote count on May 20th.

I know that Hillary’s left Rocky behind with the Crown Royale and is eager to channel Stephen Douglas. She apparently has forgotten what slogan appears on Illinois license plates.

But really, who cares? There’s a war to end and an economy to mend and too few think the GOP is up to those tasks. So be thankful you woke up today and here’s hoping you wake up tomorrow to a sunny day. Because, quite frankly, Gloomy Gus-ism is just so McYesterday.