Convention Diary: Does Teresa's cookie failure signal defeat?

* John Kerry's wife has upset that presidential campaign staple, the presidential spouses' cookie bake-off organised by Family Circle magazine.

* John Kerry's wife has upset that presidential campaign staple, the presidential spouses' cookie bake-off organised by Family Circle magazine.

La Kerry originally put in a recipe called Yummy Wonder, but apparently it didn't work. Her office then sent in a pumpkin spice cookie recipe, which appeared alongside Laura Bush's oatmeal chocolate version.

After readers gave Kerry a big thumbs down, Teresa disowned it: "I never made pumpkin cookies, I don't like pumpkin cookies." But it may be too late to save her husband from defeat. Ever since 1992, when Hillary Clinton triumphed in the inaugural bake-off, the contest has an infallible indicator of electoral success.

* Obama, Osama... Someone had to make the mistake, and it was Lou DiNatale, a Democratic analyst on a local cable network. DiNatale was bowled over by the keynote speech delivered by Senator Barack Obama, from Illinois, the convention's latest pin-up. But he mixed up his "Bs" and his "Ss" saying how the Democrats were about to "crank out this guy Osama".

* Every convention has its ghosts. Those here include a grey-haired man making his way quite unnoticed into the hall on Tuesday. Who was it? None other than Gray Davis, who was recalled last year from the governorship of California by Arnold Schwarzenegger.