I know Barack Obama doesn’t want his supporters to get overconfident, warning last week that “For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky or think this is all set, I just have two words for you: New Hampshire.”  But I have to admit today, I’m feeling pretty giddy and cocky and I’m thinking this is all set.  Two weeks and two days before the election, it’s hard to have a better Sunday than the Obama campaign had today.

First, the big news, Colin Powell endorses Obama.  I think we all saw this coming, even back to the primary.  But the discipline required to hold an endorsement like this until two weeks before election day is tremendous.  And the benefits of having America’s most popular and respected military general– a Republican one at that– on your team cannot be overstated.  Also, remember there was a time not too long ago when many thought Colin Powell would be the first African-American to win a major party nomination, if not the first black president.  So there’s some symbolic value there as well.

I don’t think this moves the polls much, if at all.  Endorsements rarely do.  But it may provide Obama some cushion in case of some kind of national security October surprise– a domestic attack by Al Qaeda, a sharp downturn of events in Iraq, or another tape by bin Laden giving an intentional boost to the Republican candidate.  Of course, given that voters now trust Obama more in a crisis than John McCain, he may not have needed it.

Second, speaking of endorsements, the number of Republican-leaning newspapers who endorsed Bush in 2004 but are now endorsing Obama is growing rapidly.  The list as it stands now: The Denver Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Kansas City Star, Southwest News-Herald (Ill.) and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Austin American-Statesman, and today the Houston Chronicle. Most cite McCain’s irrational pick of Sarah Palin as a major factor in their decision. The national newspaper endorsement count is at 94-28 in favor of Obama.

Third, the story that’s going much further under the radar than it should, Obama is dominating early voting in five states won by Bush in 2004– New Mexico, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, and Iowa.  He’s leading in those states among early voters by an average of 23 points.  FiveThirtyEight thinks, as I do, that this bodes very well for Obama:

Is this a typical pattern for a Democrat? Actually, it’s not. According to a study by Kate Kenski at the University of Arizona, early voters leaned Republican in both 2000 and 2004; with Bush earning 62.2 percent of their votes against Al Gore, and 60.4 percent against John Kerry.

…

What these results would seem to suggest, however, is that there are fairly massive advantages for the Democrats in enthusiasm and/or turnout operations. They imply that Obama is quite likely to turn out his base in large numbers; the question is whether the Republicans will be able to do the same.

Iowa and New Mexico, McCain can lose.  North Carolina, Georgia, or Ohio would be game over.

Lastly, the final piece of good news today, the Obama campaign released the September fundraising figures today and they nearly knocked me out of my chair: $150 million.  There were early hints that Obama had way too much money when he announced a 30-minute ad buy on three of the four major networks and his ads started showing up in video games.  But $150 million in one month is almost twice as much as John McCain– who opted for the $87 million of public financing– is allowed to spend for the entire campaign from the convention to election day.  If that pace held through October, right now Obama would have raised an additional $91 million this month.  Again, when you start talking comeback scenarios for McCain, presidential candidates have made up six or seven-point deficits in the final three weeks, but no one has done it with anywhere near the staggering disadvantages McCain is facing.

So with a mere two Sunday’s to go before the election, am I feeling giddy?  Cocky?  Thinking this is all set?  You betcha.