What John McCain said tonight was powerful and compelling. His speech tonight tried to revive the McCain of 2000. He overlooked the 95% voting record with George Bush and wants to resurrect the maverick independent John McCain... ...Let's not be mistaken this speech tonight by John McCain was the best he has given on the campaign trail... ... What McCain is trying to do is identify with basic American values and wrap himself not only in the flag but all that America represents.

"I understand that a lot of people are asking, what does Hillary want? What does she want? I want what I have always fought for in this whole campaign. I want to end the war in Iraq. I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want ... the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, and to no longer be invisible."

Her homepage, to which she directed supporters, asks supporters to send Hillary a "message of support"and to "stand with Hillary" -- words of confrontation, not concession.

One says that McCain’s great advantage is that he’s basically acceptable to the public as president. The question is whether or not Obama is. If he is, he’s the next president because it’s such a Democratic year. Another friend makes the same point a little differently. He says that people want McCain to be president—except they don’t want a Republican to be president. They do want a Democrat to be president—except maybe not this particular one. The campaign will be run on the horns of that dilemma.

I believe it’s an impressive (dazzling) use of subtle interactive-animation and information design that effectively translates a mountain of incomprehensible data into an understandable statistical narrative. I’m especially struck by the way the NYTimes artists eschewed colors and relied on the animation and the relative placement of data to interpret the statistics.