James Carville has some advice for Barack Obama as he gears up for the Democratic National Convention and the general election campaign:

Get mad.

Obama’s campaign seems so intent on branding him as a “cool and calm” leader.

Well, voters want to see a sense of urgency and outrage in their president: Outrage over our dependence on foreign oil; outrage over our increased cost of living, health care and education; outrage over declining incomes; outrage over an endless war and an idiotic foreign policy; and outrage over our country’s loss of prestige over the last 7½ years.

To put it bluntly, Obama needs to get outraged over something other than “attacks on his patriotism.”

Carville knows a little something about elections and winning political strategy. He engineered the 1992 presidential campaign that turned a little-known Arkansas governor into the leader of the free world.

The rest of Carville’s advice to his former foe sounds a lot like that sign that hung in the Bill Clinton’s Little Rock headquarters 16 years ago. Click here to read more.

While we wait for Barack Obama to announce his vice presidential running mate selection, I think it’s safe to say we can definitively cross one guy off the list.

May I introduce you to Pete Wince?

Wince is a 24-year-old California dude. Wince says on his MySpace page, “i.hate.everyone.except.barack.obama.” He adds that he is “always unhappy. except for now since barack is gonna win.”

This young man has written a song and produced a music video entitled, “Make me your VP.”

Wince encourages Obama to pick him because, “We’re still black enough to stick it to McCain / Riding on a wave of chocloate rain.”

I think there’s an outside chance this guy is actually a McCain supporter. Either that, or ... with friends like these, Obama doesn’t need any enemies.

Here’s the video. It’s nearly four minutes long. I was just to the two-minute mark when I began wondering when it be over. See how far you can make it before you start to ... well, wince. 

This 24-7 vigil over Barack Obama’s running mate is starting to get on my nerves.

Obama and his campaign have executed a carefully contrived plan over the past two weeks to stoke the anticipation and expectation his pick is generating and maximize the attention the candidate and his campaign are getting.

But there is a point of diminishing returns: It’s a fine line between getting the most out of the situation and taunting the press and the public.

Dragging this out all week, and especially with his comments and demeanor yesterday, Obama has gotten dangerously close to the latter.

The press is giving Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, who are believed to lead the pack, the paparazzi treatment. CNN has live feed pouring in from outside the homes of each of the prospects, they are staking out the Chicago-Midway airport—with a helicopter—and get this: They even followed Biden to the dentist yesterday.

Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez just made the point on CNN that this over-the-top treatment Obama’s decision is getting actually shouldn’t be a surprise; it’s right in line, she said, with the hanging-on-every-word treatment with which the press has covered Obama since Iowa.

His handling of this situation, dragging it out until the eve of the convention, reiterates and reinforces the Obama-centric feel of the whole campaign, she said; it certainly won’t help him overcome those criticisms that his ego is a bit too healthy for his own good.

Fox News’ Major Garrett said that there could be a more practical reason for Obama to string the announcement out until the very eve of the convention: It means he isn’t picking Hillary Clinton. By holding the announcement as long as possible, the Obama campaign hopes to blunt—or at least eclipse—the backlash it knows will come from disaffected (outraged?) Hillary supporters who believe Obama has a moral obligation to choose the only other candidate who drew 18 million votes in the primaries.

The hysteria around the announcement and the wall-to-wall media coverage of it, the newly introduced No. 2 and his (or her) personal story and political history will squeeze out and freeze out Hillary’s disappointed followers in their attempts to share their feelings on the airwaves, Garrett argued.

One more thing for the Obama campaign to consider as this moment-to-moment vigil drags on into the sixth day: The Obama campaign has promised to notify its supporters of the selection via text and e-mail message before it is announced to the media. The longer he waits to announce the pick, the closer he gets to that Springfield, Ill., rally tomorrow at which the pair will make its first joint appearance as the ticket. But the VP nominee is going to have to head to Springfield at some point, so the stakeout that’s going on with the assumed top-tier trio increases the chance that the press will figure out what’s going on.

And that means that Obama runs the risk, no matter how tightly he’s guarded the secret thus far, of the press delivering the message before he can.

Of course, the alternative is to have all three (or more) prospects arrive in Springfield. But then you have an entirely new problem: The massive egos of politicians don’t tyically lend themselves to being used this way. So gathering all the prospects in one place, telling all but one of them that they’ve been passed over and then expecting them to smile and not indicate any disappointment ...

... Well, that would be real change. 

The last two days have been a mixed bag for the McCain campaign.

On the positive side, new polls show McCain either running dead even with Barack Obama or perhaps even slightly ahead of him going into the convention stretch. This means that McCain has managed to make up some ground—as much as 10 points in some polls—over the relatively slow summer period.

On the negative side, McCain had a Dukakis moment yesterday when a reporter asked him how many houses he owns and he was only able to say, “I’m not sure, I’ll have to check with my staff.”

It was a made-for-viral-video moment, and it wasn’t but just a few hours before Obama had turned it into a sound bite, VP prospect and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was on the offensive and the Obama campaign had turned the awkward exchange into its newest ad.

This is the kind of careless, unnecessary gaffe that McCain simply cannot afford to make as the candidates round the corner out of the conventions and head into the heart of the general election campaign. There are going to be plenty of rough days when the candidates are going to be forced to deal with difficult issues; they can do themselves a favor by not creating for themselves any more problems than they will already face.

McCain’s campaign ended the day on a positive note when it announced that it would be setting up shop outside the Democratic National Convention to swat down and refute the positions advanced during the event. From Fox News:

There will be daily press conferences with key McCain supporters and advisers, tentatively including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele.

Plus the campaign intends to release a flurry of ads and Web videos throughout the week to compete with Democrats’ message.

The McCain campaign is rightly choosing to keep its candidate’s schedule light next week (it would be a bad move to have him at events and then have to answer questions about turnout if those events are sparsely attended). And by setting up camp outside the DNC and determining not to let the Democrats’ message go unchallenged, the Republicans will manage to find a way—every day—into the news cycle that would otherwise all but exclude them for at least five days.

Now, let’s get Obama a No. 2, get the happy coterie to Denver and let the festivities begin!

Well, well, well. Chalk it up to peer pressure, worldwide shame or just plain pervasive ridicule, but the IOC has come around to reality on the Chinese gymnast controversy. From the Times of London:

The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into mounting allegations that Chinese authorities covered up the true age of their gold-medal winning gymnastics star because she was too young to compete.

An IOC official told The Times that because of “discrepancies” that have come to light about the age of He Kexin, the host nation’s darling who won gold in both team and individual events, an official inquiry has been launched that could result in the gymnast being stripped of her medals.

Oh, if only someone had brought the “discrepancies” to the IOC’s attention earlier, before the Games ... someone like, perhaps, the New York Times!

Oh, wait ... they did.

Sarcasm notwithstanding, I’m an idealist at heart, so I’m hoping the IOC will yet do the right thing—if not for themselves and their own moral consciences, for history and the sake of the Olympic Games.

We shall see.