Nervous Nellies is an establishment on Deer Island, Maine, selling excellent jams and chutneys in a weird and wonderful garden featuring sculptures made of household junk and old car parts. It also pretty much describes the state of mind of the Democratic Party as it contemplates a presidential election it knows it ought to win but could lose.

That mindset was not improved by the televised debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, at least if my personal Democratic focus group, consisting of three women, a business executive, a writer on culture and a think tank director, and one man, a lawyer, was any guide.