Tuesday, November 04, 2008
What if this was your FIRST TIME?
Imagine if this was the first vote you'd ever cast. Pretty special. Let's not forget how historic today is and how important it will be to say that you were a part of it.I officially voted!!Obama, no on 8 and 4!!!!
No matter what, the lefties are winning
Whether John McCain or Barack Obama wins this election, our next President will be the third consecutive left-handed President.
Perspective from one who's seen voting
Posted: 1613 GMTNEW YORK — Finding myself in New York City this U.S. election Day, I saw scenes that reminded me of the first democratic elections I covered in Afghanistan in 2004, or Iraq in 2005.
Voting lines in New York wrapped right around the block.Scenes that reminded me of the historic election in South Africa in 1994 when a black man, Nelson Mandela, was elected president thus ending generations of white minority rule known as apartheid.
Or 1998 in Iran when women and young people turned out en masse to elect the first ever reform president, the moderate cleric Mohammad Khatami.
The enduring motif from those elections were the massively long lines at the polling centers. Men and women standing patiently, sometimes for hours, to cast their first ever vote for a hopeful secure future.
And that’s what I saw this morning in New York City as the polls opened. As I rode my son to school by bike, we passed a public school-turned voting center that made us gasp.
There were lines wrapped right around the whole block.
People were waiting happily, patiently, with their take-away coffee cups, snapping pictures of each other, recording what they clearly believed was their role in this historic democratic drama.
I asked some whether they had ever stood in line so long to vote here in the U.S. “Never” they said, smiling. TV and radio report similar long queues across the country.
Remember, the U.S. is never known for its high voter turnouts.
Everywhere you look the mood smacks of history…almost a foregone conclusion. Even New York City’s right-wing leading tabloids, are calling it for Obama.
These past few days, people riding in elevators, walking the corridors of their workplace, hopping in cabs or taking care of their kids, have all been discussing their plans for today, election day: Planning not just to cast their own vote, but to help shuttle the elderly, and cajole new young voters to the polls.
Meantime cable and broadcast TV networks can barely contain themselves: Newspaper articles quote news executives all but saying they will be able to call the election as soon as polls close early evening.
No election has electrified the U.S. like this since 1968. But the whole world wishes it could cast a vote in this one. Whatever happens, this U.S. election will change the world. Stay tuned.
John Cusack on The Big Lie
Check out John Cusack's capitalist critique on the Huffington Post. Here's a choice bit:
So define the big lie: free marketers want free markets. Not so, the facts say. They are the biggest welfare freaks on the planet.
These men and keepers of the faith would lecture us with a straight face on the evil socialists/ communists/terrorists /vampires/space aliens who would dare "redistribute wealth" by amending the tax code. Two wars and the only shared sacrifice they want is more tax cuts for the rich and for the U.S. citizenry to continue shopping. As Sidney Falco said, you gotta give it to them, their gall is gorgeous.
Fox News and the Halloween election
"...And he is the only Black Panther we've found watching the polls here so far."
"Thanks, Adam. And we'll keep watching that story."
I'm SO glad that Fox News is keeping an eye on the scary Black Panthers this election. Because, you know, it was like 1978 the last time they were relevant in this country's politics. But you gotta keep an eye on these 60s radicals, man.
Fox News. Fairly relevant?
OK - this one made me cry...
Again, courtesy the War Room at Salon.comHuge turnout -- bigger than I’ve ever seen at our polling place. Lots and lots of young African-Americans. People with their children in tow. Taking photos with cellular telephones and video-cameras to document what everyone agreed was a wonderful sight to see. Great to see.
When I finally made it through the 2-hour-long line and nearly to the voting booth, an older African-American man in front of the line kept letting people go in front of him. When he told me to go ahead, I said, “Don’t you need to vote too?” He told me that he was going to need help and that a woman with whom I guess he’d been waiting had agreed to help him. So he was waiting for her. She happened to be in the booth next to me and so I heard them talking when he went up to vote. It was clear very quickly that he could not read. She helped him to make his choices. I couldn’t help but overhear who was his choice. It was a great thing to see that he was so determined to vote -- most likely for the first time in his life. I think change has already happened to some extent…
The good mood in Philly
A series of local pols warmed up the crowd, starting with Bob Brady, a hulking sausage of a congressman. The former carpenter kicked off the rally with a series of union-guy shout-outs: "Jimmy! Harry! Guy! Johnny Doc! Manny! Ronny! Tony!" before, with a joke about hiding his knuckles, handing off the lectern to a nun and walking backstage to smoke a cigarette with a cop. A series of local luminaries followed, including Mayor Michael Nutter, Gov. Ed Rendell and Maryland's governor, Martin O'Malley.
Every speaker made sure to emphasize how important it was that voters stay in line Tuesday, no matter how long the wait might be. Rendell in particular captured the spirit of the night.
"I don't care if you're in line for two and a half hours. Don't bitch about it," the governor said. "Do you remember when South Africa got the vote for the first time? People stood out in the heat for five and a half hours to vote for Nelson Mandela. Why? Because their country's future was on the line ... Make a party out of it. Sing songs. 'Kumbaya,' you name it. 'Philadelphia Freedom.' Whatever. Have fun."
To hear a crowd of south Philly carpenters and electricians cheering wildly for Nelson Mandela and "Kumbaya" seems as good a measure as any of the kind of Democratic Party that looks poised to win the White House Tuesday.
Sweet.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Obama wins Dixville Notch, NH 15-6
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!!!
What I'll be looking at tomorrow night
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.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Exurbs' '08 Election Guide
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
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.
Friday, October 31, 2008
When did it become OK for adults to trick-or-treat?
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?!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Voting anti-GOP, not pro-Dem
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:
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."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.
Right on.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Religious zealots for Prop. 8
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?
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?
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.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sen. Ted Stevens guilty on all counts
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.
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