Way up on top of the mountain where our messiah-in-waiting is hurling his thunderbolts at John McCain and dispensing manna in the form of soothing bromides and empty platitudes, a distant, ominous rumbling can be heard far below the summit that portends some possible trouble for our hero when his coronation takes place in Denver late in August.

It is an unconfirmed story and indeed, sounds like one of those rumors that are circulated during the dog days of summer in the interregnum between the time a candidate clinches the nomination and the convention. There may be more wishful thinking than truth here but it nevertheless presents an interesting scenario.

Are some Superdelegates having second thoughts about Obama as the nominee?

Big news folks – it looks like our efforts in contacting those Superdelegates are starting to pay off, so keep on writing to them (ok, maybe Donna B’s a waste of time). There are unconfirmed reports, based on phone banking efforts to reach out to Super Ds, that eight previously Obama SDs expressed that, given the opportunity, they would vote for Hillary at the convention.

I heard about an interview Will Bower of PUMA did recently, where he said delegates are starting to say they’ll vote for Hillary in Denver if the DNC did the right thing and ran an open and fair convention. That means a roll call vote with Hillary’s name put into nomination, and on the ballot.

So I shot an email to Bower to ask him where he got that info from, and here’s what he sent me regarding the efforts of a friend of his

“A large phone banking effort to the super d’s combined with Obama’s flips and poor presumptive nominee performance, etc have yielded doubts within the super delegates, enough that 3 elected and 5 DNC members have confided that should they have the opportunity to do so, they will vote for Hillary.”

Maybe this is why BHO and the Toxic Trio are pushing so hard to keep Hillary off the roll call ballot eh? I’ve been wondering what they’re so afraid of now it looks like we have part of the answer.

Secondly, I can’t believe this is true because there has been no sudden shift in the polls, no big controversy involving Obama, and no calls at all from anywhere in the party that I have heard for a change at the top.

And the number one reason Hillary will not be on the ballot is to prevent an extended demonstration of support for her thus deflecting attention that should be paid to Obama. The messiah will not want to share the limelight with anyone given the extremely limited exposure over the air TV is going to be giving the convention. The “Big Three” can still gather 18-20 million eyeballs in front of the TV compared with cable’s 8-10 million. This means that every prime time minute will be scripted for maximum impact.

I doubt whether the Obama crew is worried that Hillary will stampede the convention and wrest the nomination from Mr. Lightwalker. Instead, the whole roll call of the states thing is extremely time consuming and while a quaint relic of an era when conventions were important, it doesn’t fit in to the modern “production” of what the handlers want the convention to be. Better to have speeches from well known Democrats with Obama surrogates making the rounds of the anchor booths upstairs, hammering home whatever themes and issues are on tap for that day.

This is a pity because the highlight of any political convention for me was to hear each state’s name called and some poor schmuck who had been years toiling in obscurity for the party would get their 15 seconds of national TV exposure.

“Mr. Chairman….Mr. Chairman…The great state of Illinois – Land of Lincoln – Hog Butcher to the World -#1 in production of soybeans – Birthplace of Adlai Stevenson, Paul Simon, and the great Mayor of the great city of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley – Home of Senator Richard Durbin – location of the largest ball of twine in the world – proudly casts all 184 of its votes for its favorite son, the next president of the United States, Barrack Hussein Obama!

And with each state, the bragging would get bigger and more outrageous. Some state leads in the production of potato chips. Another in horseradish. Still another in port-o-potties.

And the hats. Oh, those convention hats. Humongous donkeys or elephants sitting on top of straw hats. Hats with a message. Hats that light up with the candidate’s name. The TV back then loved the hats, couldn’t get enough of them.

Not now. Conventions are rather soulless affairs today with the delegates probably a lot more sober than they were 40 years ago when I first began to watch them. And both sides feature more of their gimlet eyed radicals who somehow manage to make it on screen – no doubt because the networks always love controversy at a convention and the radicals usually disagree with the mainstream.

The convention in Denver will be no different. The networks will seek out Hillary delegates, asking them if they are pleased with the efforts at unity by the Obama campaign. The Obama camp will try their best to put forward satisfied Clintonites but I guarantee you the networks will find several disgruntled Hillary delegates and try and gin up controversy.

Another sure fire way to create a bogus meme will be for the networks to find Democrats who are dissatisfied with the way the campaign is being run. Apparently, that might be easier than one would think:

After a brief bout of Obamamania, some Capitol Hill Democrats have begun to complain privately that Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is insular, uncooperative and inattentive to their hopes for a broad Democratic victory in November.

“They think they know what’s right and everyone else is wrong on everything,” groused one senior Senate Democratic aide. “They are kind of insufferable at this point.”

Among the grievances described by Democratic leadership insiders:

• Until a mailing that went out in the past few days, Obama had done little fundraising for Democratic candidates since signing off on e-mailed fundraising appeals for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee immediately after securing the Democratic nomination.

• Obama has sometimes appeared in members’ districts with no advance notice to lawmakers, resulting in lost opportunities for those Democrats to score points by appearing alongside their party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

• The Obama campaign has not, until very recently, coordinated a daily message with congressional Democrats, leaving Democratic members in the lurch when they’re asked to comment on the constant back and forth between Obama and John McCain — as they were when Obama said earlier this month that he would “continue to refine” his Iraq policies after meeting with commanders on the ground there.

Carter also arrived in Washington as an outsider. And while it is true he owed nothing to nobody, the opposite was true as well; nobody owed Carter a damn thing. Soon, it became apparent that simply being the head of the party meant little if there was nothing tangible to cement the loyalty of those under you. The normal log rolling that any president is forced to employ on legislation in order to get it passed is interrupted and in the end, it was everyone for themselves with nothing much getting done.

If Obama believes he will ride into Washington on a white horse and clean up the cesspool there without the help of his own party – help bought and paid for during the election by assisting the party in electing House and Senate members – then he is tragically mistaken. He could very well turn into a one term wonder like Carter.

Let’s hope he makes a better ex-president than the peanut farmer from Georgia.