DENVER –Veteran national pollster Peter Hart offered a generally optimistic to Missouri delegates this morning, as he laid out how presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama can win the White House.

Hart said Missouri was among at least five states that went ”red” in 2004  –Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Virginia and Missouri — that had the potential of going for Obama in November.

Hart has a Missouri history, having conducted polling in the state for decades for such political clients as Dick Bolling (a legendary Democratic congressman from Kansas City), U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton and various Carnahans.

This year, he asserted, is “as good a year as gets for the Democratic Party.”

Only 16 percent of national likely voters like the current direction of the country, Hart said. And the Democrats currently have a stunning 8-10 percentage edge, when it comes to whether people identify themselves as Democrats or Republicans.

But Hart cautioned that Democrats still have their work cut out for them, because they’ve already allowed Republicans to personally attack Obama and define him as someone out of the mainstream.

The GOP already has made the election “a referendum on Barack Obama,” which poses risks unless Democrats quickly shift the argument so the public focuses on GOP presumptive nominee John McCain.

“When voters look in comparison, all of sudden they say ‘hold it,’ ” Hart said, explaining that they then become concerned about McCain’s age and his longstanding support for George W. Bush’s policies.

Democrats also need to personalize Obama, he added, which is one of the goals of the convention.

Afterwards, Hart said in an interview that Missouri was in the middle of the targeted swing states, when it came to which ones were more likely to go for Obama.

In any case, Hart arguably was overshadowed at the breakfast by the speaker who followed him: former Mississippi Governor and U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Ray Mabus.

Mabus now is a key policy advisor to Obama. Mabus is an electrifying speaker, and told the delegates that the nation is at risk:

“We’ve had eight years of destroying this economy and shredding the Constitution,” Mabus said. “We simply cannot stand another four years of McBush.”