Don't want to miss out on the latest in politics? Start each day with The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m. as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news.

Washington Post congressional Dan Balz was online Monday, July 28 at 11 a.m. ET.

The transcript follows

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Archive: Post Politics Hour discussion transcripts

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Avon Park, Fla.: Much has been made that Barack Obama "only" has a single-digit lead in what should be an overwhelming Democratic year. Why are pundits basically saying that the cup is half-empty for Obama? Could the race's closeness be due to the fact that John McCain isn't a conventional Republican? Keep in mind that at this point in 1980 Reagan wasn't blowing out Carter.

Dan Balz: Good morning to everyone. I spent the last week traveling with the Obama campaign to the Middle East and Europe and haven't quite made it back to Washington yet. I'm doing this chat from an undisclosed location.

This is a good question to start on. I think what goes into that assessment -- of a race that is still relatively close -- are a couple of realities. One is that the overall climate is very, very favorable for the Democrats. President Bush's approval rating alone would make it very hard for a Republican candidate to win. The so-called right track/wrong track poll question shows how far off track people think things have gotten. A bad economy generally works against the party that holds the White House. Finally, it's hard for any political party to win three straight terms. So for all those reasons, the wind is at Barack Obama's back.

The reason people call this race relatively close is that we've seen leads of far greater size evaporate quickly. Summer polling is not at all predictive. If Obama were to win this race by eight points, people will say it is a handsome victory. But a six or seven point lead in July is different than a seven or eight point victory in November.

We know that there are questions people still have about Obama. He's well aware of that and talked about it when I interviewed him last Friday on his way from Paris to London. John McCain is not running a good race right now, but we also know that McCain is a survivor. If he can turn things around, and Obama cannot satisfy the doubts about him, then this will be a competitive race to the end.

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Washington, D.C.: Dan, are the efforts of Hillary's supporters (and probably the Clintons themselves, albeit behind the scenes) to persuade/force Obama to choose her as VP unprecedented? I do remember a discussion of Reagan choosing Ford as VP in 1980, but as I recall, it was brief and high level. I can't think of another effort similar to the "Draft Hillary for VP" movement? Can you?

Dan Balz: Oh, I doubt that what Senator Clinton's supporters are doing is unprecedented. John Edwards ran a pretty aggressive campaign for the vice presidency four years ago and it paid off. Senator Clinton has earned a good, hard look. Everybody talks about the mistakes she and her campaign made but the truth is she came within a whisker of winning the nomination and clearly has the qualifications to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. So why shouldn't her supporters push for her to be on the ticket. Senator Obama is presumably strong enough not to make his selection just on the basis of a vocal constituency in behalf of someone.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Dan, good morning and thanks for taking my question. John McCain's TV ad blames high gas prices on Barack Obama and claims that "drilling America" is going to lower prices at the pump. The implication is that there will be a big effect right away, and there is no mention of what happens when we're all tapped out. If I were an undecided voter, this ad would make me less likely to vote for McCain. Do you see any evidence that people actually believe this stuff?

Dan Balz: I'm sure there are many people who believe that this country ought to be more aggressive in producing more energy of its own, whether through more drilling, development of clean coal technology, alternatives, etc. There is no overnight solution but there is no solution that doesnt' require taking steps now that will return dividends some time in the future. Now as to the question of whether drilling is the right or wrong way, that is a debate on which people differ. There are obvious tradeoffs but there is nothing wrong with advocating it. Let voters decide whose energy strategy they prefer.

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Gettysburg, Pa.: This morning on MSNBC, someone said that this election could be like 1980, with the possibility of Obama breaking it open late in the season. I could see the debates working the same way they did for Reagan in 1980 -- that people see him on stage next to McCain and he looks presidential (and a whole lot younger) and any undecideds break for Obama at the end (unless Obama makes a serious gaffe). What's your take on this? Absent any significant mistakes by either side, could this election end up being an Obama blowout? Any chance of a McCain blowout (absent a serious mistake or scandal involving Obama)?

Dan Balz: The 1980 analogy is one that is very topical these days. It took Ronald Reagan almost the entire campaign to overcome questions about whether he could be trusted to have his finger on the button. Barack Obama faces related questions about whether he's ready to be commander in chief and whether the country would be comfortable with a president who has such an unusual biography. The theory is that, like Reagan, if Obama can satisfy those concerns, the election might not be close for all the reasons I mentioned in an earlier answer. John McCain has a history of continuing to plug along in the face of adversity and getting it together when it counts. As I said earlier, his campaign is not working well right now, but given his own biography and his history, if he finds his true voice, he can make this a very competitive race.

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Chicago: The National Association of Minority Journalists invited both McCain and Obama to its meeting yesterday which is held once in four years. Obama showed even after the grueling trip he just finished. McCain claimed a "scheduling conflict". Will the press pound on this as they did with the lack of a troop visit in Germany by Obama?

Dan Balz: I don't think the press "pounded" on the Landsthul visit and I doubt the press or others will pound on McCain's decision not to attend the Unity convention. He did speak to the NAACP (which he skipped last year).

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Polling: Smells to me like the networks (and even some Grey Ladies) are cherry-picking polls they want to use to sell their narrative of a close race (particularly the usually ignored Q-polls). I mean, from what I saw (and I am a media hound) they all but ignored the Rasmussen and Gallup polls from Friday that once again show Obama maintaining his consistent lead over McCain -- and even getting a bounce from his overseas trip. I'm sure they know that the real picture requires looking at all the polls, not just the ones they like... but maybe that's the whole idea?

Dan Balz: My complaint about the interpretation of polls this cycle is that there is a tendency to seize on outliers rather than looking broadly across a spectrum of results. Here's an example: Newsweek had a poll in June that showed the race at 15 points, which got some attention when it was clearly off the mark. Then Newsweek's last poll showed the race at three points, which McCain partisans seized on as evidence of a tightening race, which was not necessarily the case. If you read as many polls as it sounds ike you read, you probably have a pretty good sense of where the race is.

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Seattle: Good Morning, Dan. Lots of rumors that the VP choices will be unveiled this week. Do any of these rumors have some actual scoop to them?

Dan Balz: My guess is that Obama will wait a few weeks. Hard to tell about McCain but it's not clear what the value is of making his pick this week. I know people are spooked by the Olympics and the idea that nothing will break through the pagentry and competition. I'm skeptical of that, frankly. I think a vice presidential pick will get major play, at least for a few days. There are some smart Republicans who believe McCain should wait as long as possible to announce his pick -- certainly after Obama has picked his VP. If McCain were to wait until, say, the Sunday between the two conventions, he might arrest any bounce that Obama has gotten and could overshadow President Bush's appearance at the Republican convention early the next week. If McCain were to pick now, it would be a signal that the campaign does not have a better way to attract attention.

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New York, N.Y.: I know you spent much of the last few days covering Sen. Obama on his International trip (like most of world), but what is your sense of how Sen. McCain faired while the eyes of the media and globe were pointed at Sen. Obama? And do Sen. McCain's comments about Sen. Obama's response to the surge come off as effective or make McCain seem a little bitter for losing out on the spotlight all week?

Dan Balz: Senator McCain was clearly frustrated by all the attention Senator Obama got last week. Anybody would be. From what I could see from where I was, it did not look as if they had a coherent strategy for the week, or if they did, they quickly got blown off course.

I believe there are good questions about Obama and the surge, which he has not answered well or fully. Senator McCain has a legitimate right to raise them. But he runs a risk of sounding peeved about some of this and that's not when he's at his best.

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McCain is a Survivor?: Other than the 2000 primaries, has John McCain ever faced a halfway decent opponent? The 2008 GOP primaries was a vote to see who was less worse. The great hope Fred Thompson was so good he isn't even mentioned for Veep. You can say the same thing for the long-time front-runner and 6 percent vote-getter Rudy G. So what politically has McCain survived?

Dan Balz: You rightly mention 2000 when he was a very good candidate but one finally undone by the Bush operation. You're also right that he needed and got a lot of breaks in winning the nomination this year. That said, his ability to keep his candidacy afloat after the implosion of July 2007 and to hunker down and to double down on the surge and to run his campaign on pennies suggests a durability that ought not to be ignored.

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Anonymous: Dan, word is that Obama let his hair down a bit more on this overseas trip -- did you learn anything new about him that you can share ?

Dan Balz: I wouldn't say he let his hair down that much, though he was fairly accessible. He did tons of interviews -- tv, print, etc. -- and has press conferences or press avails on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. He came back on the plane on Thursday heading from Israel to Germany. But I don't think he showed off a personality different than we've seen before.

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St. Paul, Minn.: As a business executive, I just cannot help but marvel at the management effectiveness of the Obama camp. After spending a week in close quarters with the campaign, who are the cogs in the machine? Who gets credit for running the railroad?

Dan Balz: I agree with your premise and the names are probably too numerous to list here. But this was a big, comomplicated and very well executed trip overseas. We all wrote that it was a presidential-style undertaking without all the levers that a White House can bring to bear. Any trip like this is a challenge of staging, but there are a host of little details that I noticed that showed good management. Obama himself mentioned this when I talked to him on Friday, saying he hoped people recognized that he has put together a very good staff.

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Dan Balz: That's all for today. I have to cut it a little short to get out of my undisclosed location. Thanks for all the good questions and apologies for not getting to a lot of them today. Have a great week.

Dan Balz

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