This is McCain country. The best advertisement for a bar here is simply: "owned by a veteran." Another advertises wet t-shirt contests daily and the fact that the proprietor "served in Iraq on a medical team."

Last year, Hillary was reigning over the summer debates, shoring up claims to inevitability. Today she's stumping for Barack in Nevada, where it's 110 degrees in the shade. What a difference a summer makes.

Verne distrusts McCain's promises to do more for veterans. "As soon as he's in office, he'll forget all about us," he says. But Verne is quick to stand when McCain enters the room, saluting the candidate's service and sacrifice.

Mary how could you? Jerome Corsi? You could've at least edited this "piece of scholarship" you chose to publish. Although it's probably useless, I should set the record straight about the things Corsi says in his book about my husband and me.

At the Faith Forum, McCain is direct where Obama is tentative. Obama's answers give the impression that, having arrived at this point driven by ambition and a sense of destiny, he is suddenly not quite sure where he should lead us.

"The Republicans are having an identity crisis with Hispanics. If you're a Hispanic, you're going to join the Democratic Party, even though the party supports all these ideals we don't agree with. Hispanics rightfully should be Republicans; they just don't know it."

The melee is young, the crowd is trashy -- OffTheBus makes a jerky video of the litter at 10 PM -- so much for those cute recycling pup tents. The crowd is an interesting cross-section of the fourth estate.

Forget their specific callings, however -- these men and women of the cloth sure can preach. The two-hour event is almost an embarrassment of riches.

"An African-American candidate talking about economics versus a white war hero... You don't really think McCain is going to have to host a convention about how he's American, do you?"

The Huffington Post's mini day-spa, the Oasis, is one of the hottest venues in Denver "to see and be seen" -- literally, if watching the more attractive members of the fourth estate get rubbed down on a massage table is your thing.

Suddenly my companion is sobbing, "I'm three generations from slavery," she says. I'm holding her. "I didn't know it would affect me this way," she says, and I'm thinking that all of my maternal American ancestors owned slaves.

Unless intense media scrutiny and the St. Louis debate destroy her credibility -- and it's going to take a lot more than bridges, polar bears and an abusive brother-in-law to have any sway in the Buckeye State -- Sarah Palin has suddenly put Ohio seriously into play for John McCain.