Obama wins Dixville Notch, NH 15-6

The first results are in at 9:11pm Pacific time on Nov. 3rd:

The historic (since 1960) first polling place in the nation, little Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, is Obama territory, preferring Barack Obama more than 2-1 over McCain.

Let them be the first of many. Cheers everyone!

Happy Election Day!!!

More on the Socialist Republican state of Alaska

Some great mock-ads courtesy of KalVoid. (Thanks!)


PRIVATIZE THE PROFITS • SOCIALIZE THE LOSSES

What I'll be looking at tomorrow night

One day out from the election, here's what I'll be watching for:

1) Pennsylvania and Ohio. Obama has solid leads in polls from both states. If those polls are accurate, and if undecided voters break for Obama even by 1/3, he's got those states.

2) Virginia. With Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia in his pocket, Obama could take a lot of losses for the rest of the night and still come out way ahead. With Pennsylvania and Virginia only in his pocket, Obama could afford to lose Florida and Ohio by picking up some of the smaller Bush states like Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa.

Why I'm not betting on Florida: its just too unreliable. For two reasons. First, the polls show the state within a couple of points. Yes, all across the country black voters have been turning out in record numbers for Obama, and that would theoretically boost Obama's chances in Florida. But - I'll be blunt - I don't trust those votes to get counted either accurately, fairly or in a timely manner in Florida. They just don't have a good track record.

Why Democrats are afraid: the Bush campaign teams were ruthless in their voter suppression and disenfranchisement efforts. For a large part of my adult lifetime, that has been the reality of our electoral fight. We fear complacency on the part of our voters who have, historically, been unreliable, and we fear a fix where the fight is close and crucial, like Ohio and Florida.

The Obama campaign has given us some reassurance. By widening the ground game so that the election does not hinge on two states, the campaign has, perhaps, spread the field too wide to be meddled with.

So we go forth unto election day filled with cautious optimism.

And in California we have a nauseating anxiety in our stomachs, waiting waiting waiting - hoping - to see Prop. 8 defeated. My friend the minister-in-training says he's out trying to spread the word: pro-8 is NOT pro-gay. We wish him God speed in the fight to keep discrimination out of our constitution.

Exurbs' '08 Election Guide

Get it here and dork out on Tuesday night.

Includes state-by-state map with poll close times in battleground states, hotly contested Senate and House races, and a do-it-yourself electoral vote predictor. If I could think of a drinking contest, I would.


Page 1 - Electoral projection map of states, battleground poll closings



Page 2 - Hotly contested Senate races, part I.



Page 3 - Hotly contested Senate races, part II.



Page 4 - A couple of interesting and hotly contested House races.



Page 5 - Are you a bettin' man? ... or gal?

The climate going in to Tuesday

Well, the predictions are now coming in and, while we like to ridicule the pundits, the fact of the matter is they pay attention to the details. Drumroll, please...

Barack Obama to take 340 electoral votes at least.

But here's the interesting thing: in the last 50 or so years, that's not a very commanding total. Ronald Reagan won reelection in 1984 525 to Mondale's 13. And George H.W. Bush won his presidency over Michael Dukakis 426 to 111. Nixon beat McGovern 520 to 17.

In fact, Republicans have regularly stuck it to Democrats. The last time a Democrat was able to cross even the 400 electoral vote threshold was LBJ in 1964 over Barry Goldwater (486 to 52).

It seems highly unlikely at this point that the Dems will get their fillibuster-proof 60 seat majority in the Senate. They may have up to 58 seats come Wednesday.

The takeaway: yet again, all of this points to the fact that Democrats need to see this election as an opportunity to build on a movement. They risk squandering the opportunity if they look on their wins as an unequivocal mandate.

When did it become OK for adults to trick-or-treat?

Its not.

If you have or can get a tattoo, you have no business asking people for candy unless there is a cash register between you and the person you're asking.

WTF?!

Voting anti-GOP, not pro-Dem

I've long been of the belief that the country's Democratic-leaning pivot this election season can only be seen as a rejection of Republican leadership. I do not think the electorate has somehow found Progressive religion.

I've been telling anyone who cares to listen that the Dems had better not see this election as a mandate giving them "political capital".

The Dems need to walk away from this election seeing it as an opportunity to show the American people what we can do. We need to work not only to make their lives better, but to make Washington work, to avoid grandstanding and divisive politics and restore the better angels of our nature.

I see signs that the Obama campaign is thinking the same way. Take this piece in Chris Cillizza's blog, The Fix. Cillizza reports that the Obama campaign sees Florida as an important symbol that they cannot walk away from, even if they don't need the state for an electoral win. Cillizza reports:

In the last few weeks, Obama has sent his top two field generals -- "Sunny" Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes -- to direct ground operations in the state.

Surrogates for Obama are also flooding the state. Last night, following his 30-minute national informercial, the Illinois senator appeared alongside former President Bill Clinton at a midnight rally in Kissimmee. Then today came the news that former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, will make stops in West Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow to lead early vote rallies.

What does this mean? It means that the Obama campaign is not willing to write Florida and its diverse population off. It means that they feel they need to keep working to show they care about Florida and want to represent Florida. That is the beauty of the 50 state strategy: it backs up Obama's talk about our not being "a red state America or a blue state America, but a United States of America."

Right on.

Religious zealots for Prop. 8

Do you support Yes on 8? Are you one of these people?


You see, these are the people who support Proposition 8, rewriting the California constitution to discriminate against gay people. I have a family: me, the mother, one father, one boy, one girl. It will not effect my family one bit if every gay person in the world had a same-sex marriage.

What are these people afraid of? The apocalypse, apparently.

When did God create oil?

Ha! Never thought I'd say it, but MSNBC's Chris Matthews just asked an excellent question:

If you believe, as Sarah Palin does, that God created the earth several thousand years ago, then how is oil created?

According to scientists it takes millions of years for fossil fuels to be created from organic matter under tremendous geologic pressure. So if you don't believe that the earth is millions of years old, how do you think we get oil?

Seems to me this is a crucial question for the person John McCain says would be his chief adviser on energy policy.

(Way to go, Matthews!)

Should Lieberman lose his chairmanship?

I know what my husband's answer would be: "Let 'im hang!" There certainly are plenty of Democrats who would love to see Joe Lieberman's political career go up in flames for his support of John McCain. According to a report by The Hill today, Democrats are discussing a possible removal of Lieberman from the chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, a position he's held since 2007.

However, I find myself concerned not with Lieberman specifically, but with the reasoning behind the choice and the precedent it sets.

Here's the thing: I am one of those oft-referenced Americans who really hates how partisan Washington has become. And I'm not sure that punishing Lieberman, a Democrat-cum-Independent, for supporting a Republican with whom he has a long-standing friendship, is right.

Don't get me wrong. There may be a LOT of very good reasons to remove Lieberman from the chairmanship. Committee positions are used strategically by the leading party to put up-and-coming politicians in positions to gain experience. That's how you become an experienced leader. Lieberman is not entitled to hold his chairmanship.

Additionally, Lieberman did not just support McCain. Throughout the campaign season, Lieberman actively attacked Barack Obama using distortions of Obama's record and repeating "questions" about Obama's history and relationships with no evidence that there was actually any wrong-doing on Obama's part (a particularly virulent campaign tactic that I think is beneath the dignity of any honorable leader). The Democrats have no reason reward such behavior by honoring Lieberman's claim to the committee chairmanship.

But then let's be clear about why Lieberman is losing his chairmanship: because he's not entitled to it and has done nothing outstanding to earn retention of it.

Let us not ever approve of a vindictive approach to politics that punishes politicians to making decisions of loyalty based on personal conviction. Even if the other team did it first. We've got to move on from that brand of leadership.

Sen. Ted Stevens guilty on all counts

Per Salon.com:

Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens

The jury in the corruption trial of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) came back Monday afternoon with a verdict that could well send Stevens' career down the tubes. Stevens was found guilty on all seven of the charges he faced, felonies relating to false statements he made on Senate financial disclosure forms on which he failed to report some $250,000 in gifts.

Stevens reportedly faces up to five years in prison on each of the counts, but the AP says he "will likely receive much less prison time, if any."

Though he's the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, Stevens may not be part of that body for much longer. He's facing a tough Democratic challenger, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, this year, and recent polling has generally shown Begich holding on to a slim lead. If Stevens is re-elected despite the conviction, it would be up to the Senate to decide whether or not to let him remain in his seat.

Capitalism + Subsidies = Hypocrisy

Watching George Will on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday made me wistful for the 1980s brand of GOP conservatism that, you know, seemed PRINCIPLED. (Note: I'm the last person who would claim that the Democrats hold exclusive claim to principles, but the GOP seems to be trafficking in a particularly virulent strain of politics these days.)

No, I didn't agree with its values, but that brand of conservatism at least seemed to believe in something sincerely and with conviction.

Will made the point that I've heard him make consistently over the last several months, that if you think the US has engaged in capitalism over the last 20 years, you're a moron. (I'm paraphrasing, but not by much.)

The thing is, government subsidies are Socialism. Subsidies "spread the wealth". Subsidies to corporations are a fancy way of saying the Government is taking YOUR money and giving it to companies that cannot succeed on their own. Corporate welfare anyone?

Couldn't we take a fraction of the money that we use to subsidize industry in this country and use it to send every one of their employees to college, training them to work in a field that needs skilled workers?

If we want to have the argument about socialism, fine. But lets have it in honest terms and not engage in rhetoric.

An army deployed against its people

In his blog on Salon.com today, Glenn Greenwald discusses the recent announcement by the US Army that, for the first time ever, US soldiers would be deployed on our own soil to act as needed against civilian unrest.

One of the most concerning portions of the Army statement was the part emphasized here by me:

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

In Greenwald's blog today and in his Salon radio interview, he discusses this new domestic military role with the ACLU, who has lodged a Freedom of Information Act inquiry to find out why this new standing military force is needed on US soil.

My takeaway: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have undeniably stretched our military to its limit, so much so that the National Guard has been deployed to serve overseas to the detriment of our domestic security, as enunciated by many state authorities who rely on the National Guard during times of disaster.

Do we need guard detail available throughout the nation? Yes. But I question why it should be a US military force, a force dedicated to combating foreign threats. Army units are NOT specialized in domestic security, and I, for one, want to know why the Department of Defence thinks they should now be in a position where they may be deployed against their fellow citizens.

(BTW - where are the "strict constitutionalists" on this one??)

Revitalization for the politic-weary

One day more, dear fellows. One day more.

The diminishing relevance of Pat Buchanan

One to watch: McCain/Palin on NBC Nightly News

OK - gotta tune into NBC Nightly News tonight.  

We just got a preview from Brian Williams and Chuck Todd about the interview with McCain and Palin together, which airs tonight.  Apparently the body language and mood of the candidates and the staffers was overwhelmingly negative. Todd just couldn't emphasize enough how bad it was. He was saying they just seemed incredibly uncomfortable together, suggesting that they may be starting to blame each other for the nose-diving campaign.  

Also, apparently Palin reversed herself in the interview, telling Williams she WOULD now release her medical records, which Todd says visibly jarred her staff.  

As a side note, Todd has been saying for some time that McCain and Palin may be nearing their "Bullworth moment". 

Axelrod: a look at the image-maker

If you're wondering how it happeded, look no further.  The New Republic's Jason Zengerle has penned this fantastic behind-the-curtain piece on the Obama campaign's chief strategist, David Axelrod, revealing Axelrod's history of political stagecraft and his evolving relationship with the would-be candidate for President of the United States.

Interesting tidbits abound, like Axelrod's lack of forsight and vision when it came to Obama's potential, Obama's persistence in pursuing Axelrod for a lead position on his political team, and Axelrod's role in persuading Obama to aim for the Presidency in 2008.

Most revealing of all may be the amount of strategy that was put into making a black man acceptible to white voters.  It seems that in this campaign Barack Obama's blackness has often almost been beside the point in this contest, especially when compared to predecessors like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.  But, as Zengerle highlights, that air of post-racial, post-partisan politics was indeed well-crafted.  Of Axelrod's work on the 1989 mayoral race of black state senator Michael White:

Axelrod believed the other crucial vehicle for winning his candidate the votes of Cleveland's white residents was what he's called "third-party authentication"--in other words, endorsements from respected individuals or institutions that whites put a lot of stock in. "David felt there almost had to be a permission structure set up for certain white voters to consider a black candidate," explains Ken Snyder, a Democratic consultant and Axelrod protégé . 

Axelrod, it seems, has developed the winning formula for black candidates to grab freely from the white electoral pool:

The self-described "keeper of the message" for Obama's presidential bid has taken the lessons he learned from his mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns and made them cohere into something that approaches a unified theory of how to elect a black candidate--emphasizing biography, using third-party authentication, attacking with an unconventional sideways approach, letting voters connect to the candidate by speaking to them directly in ads, and telling voters that supporting the black candidate puts them on the right side of history.

There are many, many revealing and fascinating bits in the piece.  If you want to know how we got to this moment, read it.

What we really think of attack ads

Just a thought, but when the media and political operatives say that we, the people of America, hate political attacks, and that the Obama and McCain campaigns are engaging in attacks, does that mean that all attacks are equally bad?  

Bear with me here.

If a candidate attacks his oponent's policies, plans, and records, that's one thing.

But if a candidate attacks the opponent's character and patriotism, isn't that something else entirely?

I'm just thinking that, just because we all hate political attacks, it doesn't mean that all attacks are created equal.

A return to Palin's "pastor problem"

I know we've largely put Sarah Palin's "pastor problem" behind us, with the media consensus seeming to be that Kenyan Bishop Thomas Muthee, who blessed Palin and called for her protection from "witchcraft", should be seen in a cultural context and that he isn't literally hunting witches.  As summed up by the Washington Post :

Can we forget the crazy preachers and try to get the candidates to focus on the serious problems?

Haha.  Silly "phony issues".  Oh, but wait.  What if Kenyans are actually inciting the murder of "witches" by burning?  While witchcraft is illegal in Kenya, apparently the reaction to accusations of witchcraft is getting horrendous.  Per NPR today:

In May, 11 people died in a "witch" burning in southwestern Kenya, but questions linger over whether neighbors in that particular region of Kenya believed the people killed were witches.  ...Local authorities say that in May, a security guard turned over a suspicious notebook he found at a school. The notebook reportedly listed the names of local witches and the minutes of their meetings. But before turning over the book to the authorities, residents of the area apparently copied down the names. Over a two-day period, a mob cut down 11 mostly retired and elderly people and burned their homes to cinders.

While there is no evidence that Muthee's pursuit of witches in his home community has lead directly to bodily harm or death, it did lead to the persecution of a local woman who is also a pastor.  

Furthermore, persecution and murder justified by accusations of witchcraft is a real problem in Muthee's home nation and his active role in scapegoating individuals by identifying them as "witches" bears further scrutiny.  Palin should know that she is closely aligned with someone who contributes to a very real culture of persecution, violence and murder.

Behold, the Undecideds!

This was just so good I had to reprint it:

Behold, the Undecideds. Have you heard of this bizarre, nefarious group? The millions of faceless, slow-blinking, mentally unattached Americans who are, right this minute, with mere days to go before the most historic election in our lifetime and when faced with what seems to be the most glaringly obvious divisions of attitude and perspective you could possibly imagine, still "on the fence" about Obama or McCain, love or hate, country or disco, Paris or Fresno, oil or water, Porsche or Pinto?

Check out Mark Morford's column in its entirety here.

Ha!  It just doesn't stop:

Or maybe not. Maybe I have it exactly backwards. Maybe the Undecideds are the mostevolved among us, more aware and conscious than the rest of us desperate plebes who are far too eager to plant our flags in the treacherous soil of definitive thought. Possible?

OK.  Good laugh.  I feel better.