Joe Must Go

Allowing Senator Lieberman to remain in the caucus if he were to step down from his committee chairs was a generous offer that he should have been glad to receive. That he would turn around to see if the Republicans could provide a better deal is unacceptable. He has played both sides against the middle for far too long, it's time for him to go.

I Voted Today

Over 98% of Michigan residents who are eligible this year were registered to vote in today's election. Over ?? of them are expected to vote today. I'm proud to say that I'm among them.

What I'm not so proud to say is that today marks the first time I've ever voted. It surprises a lot of people I know but it's true, I've never voted before. Not once, even though I've had ample opportunity. But even though I seem to be so tuned in to politics and the elections and everything else (I'm not, really, I think I just pay more attention to everything than most.) I've never bothered before. I've either been away at school or out of the country or even just to apathetic to care – it's not like my one vote, after all, could ever have made a difference. And in those few years when I have actually felt motivated to vote, I've always wound up putting off registering until the last moment only to miss one deadline or another.

Not this year. I sent out my application over the summer, well in advance, just to make sure. Had my voter's card returned just in time for the primary although I didn't bother to vote then since it was such a joke. Obama and Edwards weren't on the ballot in Michigan, remember, because of the fight over the contest being moved up, leaving it to Clinton in a race of one. And I just couldn't stomach crossing the aisle and trying to throw some chaos into the Republican race.

I'm registered as an Independent, by the way, because I don't believe in strong party identification. I'd prefer to vote the issues rather than a blind party line. But I might as well be a Democrat because it'll be a long time before I ever consider voting Republican.

I did vote for the Green Party candidate for the House of Representatives in my district, if only because I also couldn't stomach the idea of voting for Kilpatrick's mother. I was really hoping she would have lost to Waters in the primary but I was out of town that day and couldn't manage to figure out the absentee provisions so I, again, didn't bother to vote. Wouldn't have matter much anyways.

I also voted yes on both propositions on the ballot this year. The first was to legalize medical marijuana which is expected to pass handily. Opponents say it's a stepping stone on the road to decriminalizing marijuana entirely. Since I wouldn't have a problem with that, I'm all for the idea.

The second, though, is less of certainty. Polling about propositions is notoriously inaccurate but, heading into today, at least, it was running about dead even. Prop 2 is about embryonic stem cell research which is an extremely complicated issue. I got into a lengthy discussion about it with my mother over the weekend since she's planning to vote against. Neither of us were very committed to our position and spent most of the time just trying to justify our opinions even to ourselves because we're, as my mother put it, “conflicted”. I don't have the religious objections to the development of new stem cell lines that my mother seems to have but I can understand why it makes people uncomfortable. It's a complicated issue and the wording of the proposition is complicated as well.

And the campaign of distortion and distraction waged by both sides of the debate in the weeks leading up to the decision hasn't helped. The pro-2 position says derregulating stem cell research in Michigan (where the creation of new stem cell lines is currently prohibited) will lead to cures. Something that hasn't happened yet, even though stem cell research is promising and even though there are a few potential medicines undergoing clinical trials at the moment. And they also say it'll bring grant money to the state, bringing with it well-paid research jobs that are going elsewhere. A compelling argument in a state as beleaguered as Michigan but it's not like they're going to be offsetting the tens of thousands of jobs about to be lost in the automaker's collapse.

The anti-2 side, on the other hand, are, if anything, even worse. They say this measure opens the door for human cloning and repellent animal hybrids. That the funding for this research is going to be paid for with new and higher taxes. Again a compelling argument in a state as economically disadvantaged as Michigan but also one that's unsupported by the evidence. Proposition 2 is merely about removing the ability of the state to regulate this embryonic stem cell research, instead entrusting any such guidelines to the federal government's oversight. There's nothing in there about public or private funding and certainly nothing about raising taxes. That it might cost the taxpayers money is just a projection, a prediction, and a shakey one at that.

In the end, though, I wound up confirming my initial impulse to support the measure. Stem cells might not be the magic cure they're made out to be but I think it's at least worth the chance. Any research, as far as I'm concerned, can only be a net positive to humanity as a whole and we need as much as we can get. Any ethical research, of course, which is where a lot of people part company with me since embryonic is another word for fetal and these cells are coming from discarded fertile cells. But, as far as I can understand, it's not coming from human harvesting or paying for aborted children, but, instead, from waste material produced by fertility clinics as part of their treatments. From cells that would otherwise simply be thrown away. I don't necessarily like where those cells originate but as long as they're made they might as well be made to be useful before they're destroyed, as far as I'm concerned.

And, at the same time, I find the campaign against the measure to be dishonest and disgusting. I think, in so many words, that when one side is asking you take the positive case and to hope for the best while the other sides is lying to you in order to get you to fear the worst that it's probably better to go for the side that's asking for you to be optimistic. Hope is a powerful trap but, sometimes, it's worth believing in. And when it comes to cures and health, sometimes, I think it's the only thing we've got.

So, that's the way I voted. As for my polling place, I went in the afternoon where I've heard that the waits is the shortest. Despite reports of long lines and large waits, I didn't have any problem. There was a bit of a line although not much more than ten people. I got there a little late and I'm actually kind of glad that I did. One woman I spoke with said she'd been there earlier, when I actually planned to to show up, and the line had been stretching out of the door. I'd been smart, though, and brought a book. But I didn't even have a chance to read more than 5 pages before it was time to fill out my forms and cast my ballot. I walked to the polling place, instead of taking my customary afternoon stroll and, all in all, it took me less than an hour to walk there, vote, and get back home.

But I did it. I voted. It's taken me far too long but I've never felt so proud.

A Stranger In a Strange Land

I'll let you in on a little secret. One that I've pretty much already told. But for the past few months now, I've been volunteering for the Obama campaign. It started off slow and tentatively since I'd never done anything like it before, so I unsteadily checked in at a locale office, attended some meetings, and made some posts on this or that message board. Before long, though, I was doing my best to live up to a promise I'd made a long while ago that if I ever encountered a candidate who made me believe, made me want to believe at the very least, that they should get elected then I'd do my best to do everything I could to make sure they did.

When Senator Obama began to call on people to help him get out the vote in his latest speeches, when he asked for people to make phone calls or knock on doors, I smiled. Because I already had.

I haven't talked about it, though, because my best really isn't very much. There are people who can and have and will do so much more. And I don't want to make it seem like my efforts are some how commendable. My volunteering wasn't about making myself feel good but, instead, about feeling like I was doing something. Contributing in some small but important way rather than just allowing events to pass me by again.

My efforts, though, were interesting, especially as the election is underway and they've now drawn to a close. Because I didn't just volunteer once or twice. I volunteered a few times and at several different locations. I travel a lot, you see. And there are over 80 in my home state of Michigan alone. And even more in neighboring states that aren't that difficult to reach.

So, when I had the time and even sometimes when I didn't, I'd stop in at the local branch office and see if they needed any help. If they asked, I'd explain that I lived in such and such a place but that I was in the neighborhood for a little while and wanted to help out. I've lived, after all, around the Metro Detroit area and its surrounding suburbs all of my life. From the west side to the east side, from the inner city to the exurbs, I've been there or known someone who lived there or spent time there and I wouldn't feel walking through Farmington, any more than I would in Warren or through Dearborn or anywhere else. I had a whole spiel laid out, when I started, for how I'd talk myself past the front desk but I never needed it because I didn't run into a single office that wasn't glad to have that one more person. Or, for that matter, a staffer who didn't thank me for coming down and spending some of my time to help out.

It was, I felt, an interesting experience because it meant I could see the many different campaign offices and compare and contrast. Some were fly by night operations, set up in dingy, abandoned store fronts with little more than card tables and a coffee machine. While others were slick, professional looking office buildings, comfortably appointed. Some were in the inner city and staffed by veteran community organizers. Some were in the suburbs and looked run by the local coffee clatch. But no matter what they looked like, no matter who the staff were, it was all the same once you got inside. The places were always full of activity with volunteers walking in and out of the door or phone calls being made. A hustle and bustle filled each place as the staff would chat or the volunteers would converse. I sat through training session after training session, getting the latest script or talking point, learning what stage of the effort we were involved in and just how I'd be doing my part. Listened to different staffers explain the same thing in different ways in different locales and I felt the same exact thing. That buzz. That sense of excitement blending with weariness and lack of sleep that pervaded each place. The excitement that I felt with being part of something. The expectation that everyone there felt, working at being part of the great engine of change. The exhaustion of too much coffee and not enough rest that goes along with being part way through and one day closer to the end.

I spent my time answering phones or entering data but what I liked best was when I got to head out and canvas. I'd take my trusty map and figure out where to head and then I'd wander around a neighborhood for an afternoon with a clipboard and a list, knocking on doors. It was nice to get out and get some exercise, better than any walk. And it was even better to get to talk to people, to ask them about their views. Hearing their opinions and having to try to explain to them my own was, I think, good for me. It forced me to confront my own idea, to have to refine them into words that ccould easily slip past my lips. To cram my high-minded ideas and complicated thoughts down into workable bites, something that I've always struggled with.

More than that, it was just nice to get to see so many different people and houses and towns. So many ways of living just within a few hundred miles. It makes me appreciate just how vast this great country is and how many perspectives and ways of life there must be, stretching from one coast to the other.

When I went home, for example, to visit my mother, I drove into the Pointes. A little oasis of red surrounded by a sea of blue. A place where the McCain signs were many and the Obama signs were few. Part of Wayne Country, true, but spiritually part of nearby Macomb, that great bastion of Reagan Democrats. A place of old families and older money – they say that when you grow up in the Pointes you tend to come back and I can see why, it's a beautiful place with a small town feel right in the middle of a larger metropolis. Good schools and friendly people, wide lawns of green grass with children playing on them and sidewalks filled with people taking their dog out for a walk. Grosse Pointe, where I grew up, is one of the original suburbs. Back when the auto industry first started, it was where the plant's managers and owners would live, driving a short way into work and, then, a short way back away from the industrial parks to their comfortable homes. The most valuable property was by the side of Lake St. Clair, along the Jefferson where the Ford estates once were. And when I took that trip home to help my mother clean her house and get ready for Thanksgiving, that's exactly where I wanted to go.

They said I was a brave man in the office, for wanting to walk in the Grosse Pointes. After a few hours of knocking on doors, I could understand why. With my Obama sticker and my liberal policies, I was definitely out of place. A stranger in a strange land that was all the more odd for being where I came from. That's the old selection bias for you, though, until I grew up I would have never thought that my neighborhood was anything but dyed in the wool liberal, just like me and my folks because that's who I'd been surrounded with. But, really, the GPs are a pretty conservative area. The Pointes, after all, are now a place for the graying and elderly and those are the people for whom McCain's politics of racial resentment have really hit home. Detroit is a city of de facto segregation if no longer of de jure, and the proud white folk of the Pointes have built up a lot of mistrust and enmity over the years.

The saddest, though, had to be the time I spent walking along the Eastside. Oddly enough, both of those assignments came from the same office since the heart of Detroit is only about a twenty minute drive from my mother's home. It's a world of difference, though, like driving into another country.

But I firmly believe that sometimes you need to be reminded of how lucky you are, so I took my nice car and my lily white face and headed into the fringes of the urban jungle, armed only with a clipboard, some pamphlets, and a smile. I needed have worried, though, even though I still rue that fleeting worry I felt as I locked my door and wondered if I shouldn't have tried to borrow my sister's less expensive, less likely to be stolen car. I worked downtown once, you see, and I still remember how that car was nearly stolen right off the parking lot in front of me. But although I got a few stares, I didn't get any meaningful looks.

I saw the kind of things that just break you heart, while I was down on the upper Eastside, that one chilly autumn afternoon. From the burned out shell of houses to mothers younger than I am, hanging on to a handful of kids while they nervously opened the door. Trash piled up on porches and paint peeling away. Wood work splitting and concrete steps that were starting to crack. Empty lots that were a sight better than the still-standing houses with broken windows and pried open boards just rotting away.

But the people? They were the same as I talked to anywhere else. A little poorer, maybe, but not as poor as some other spots to which I'd been. They were friendly and kind and full of hope. That audacity to believe that as bad as things are, they could one day get better. I could see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. All over Michigan the feeling is the same, that the election was the day when the tide might break and the sorrows might well roll back. And more than most didn't have shabby, worn-down houses just waiting to fall apart. They had nice homes, well-maintained with fresh panelling or coats of paint stood proud and dignified amidst the squallor. A sign not of the increasing decay of a city that's too large with too few people but, instead, a promise that things can get better.

After I'd finished my list and returned to the office, I turned in my report almost in silence. Just drained by the experience and unsure of what to thing. What hits me the hardest whenever I go back to a place like that is that I was born in a house not very far off. I was born in Detroit, within the city limits, and raised for those first few years of my life that I hardly remember on a street, nearby. Over the years, my family's followed the flow of people out and away and into the burbs. But Detroit is where I started and where I'll probably always return. I've never gone back to look for my old house, though, because I'm not sure what I'd feel if it had been swallowed up by the blight and decay. But I imagine it would be something like what I felt standing in that campaign office that afternoon as the light was beginning to fade.

Still, all in all, I'm glad I did it. It was an experience worth having. It might not have been fun to pound the pavement until my legs ached or to wander around in the drizzling rain trying to keep my pages from getting wet. And I might not have made much of a difference. I knocked on, perhaps, a thousand doors, maybe a few hundred more, and talked to nearly as many people. And some of them I might have convinced and some might not otherwise take the time to vote and that makes me feel good. But then I hear about the millions of bells that have been rung and the calls that have been made and I can't feel too good because I was just one part of a vast effort and my contributions weren't so great, after all.

But it was worthwhile because of the experience. Like with voting, I've come to realize that it's not so much the result as the getting there that counts. My one vote probably isn't going to change any election in which it's cast but that doesn't matter. It's important because it's mine and I'm going to exercise it and be a part of that great, wider process. A process that would then include me. I'll remember the result, I'm sure, although I'll probably never be able to tell if I made any difference. But what I'll forget are what really matters. Those sunny days and cloudy afternoons where I was out in the world and being a part of it all. The experiences that I had along the way.

Some were funny. Some were rewarding. Some were scary. And others I just plain don't know what to make of them. Like the black men who said to me that they were voting for McCain with a straight face and holding on to the joke just a little too long. Or the elderly man with the raspy throat who looked around and told me that his area was all going for McCain even as his daughter stood behind him, pointed to herself, and mouthed “Obama”. And don't even get me started on the crazy Ron Paul supporters and their conspiracy theories while I nodded along patiently. For every dog snarling at me and straining at the fence or at its chain, there was someone who told me they weren't sure what to do but they were now leaning away from McCain. For every bigot and door slammed in my face there was that elderly person who needed a ride or that young voter who needed information about their polling place.

In the end, I think, it all balances out. And it doesn't mean much. But it meant something to me. And the secret is that I hadn't realized just how important that was.

Opting For the First Clause in "Trick or Treat"

You know, I grew up in Grosse Pointe so let me just say that this woman is both disgustingly average and just plain disgusting.

Hooray For Democracy!

We're going to shatter some voting records today. Who knows, maybe even more than half the country will vote!

That'd be amazing.

Still kinda sad but amazing all the same.

What I'm Going to Watch Tonight

Today, I think, most eyes are going to turn to Pennsylvania. It's the biggest battleground state on the list and, potentially, McCain's last stand. He's made a big push there over the last few weeks even though it still looks helpless. If Obama wins in PA then the election is effectively over and there's no way that McCain can win.

But, as far as I'm concerned, the part of the race to closely scrutinize is Virginia. It has a few advantages. Its polls close early, allowing for some actual results (I do not and will not trust exit polls. In fact, I'm not even going to turn on the news until later tonight. The exit polls are as unscientific and biased as samples come. It's not until the actual hard data starts rolling in that you can start making predictions). And it's a former Bush state and, more than that, a southern Bush state, so depending on how the vote goes there, it just might be a predictor for plenty of other races. If Obama wins in Virginia then the needle McCain has to thread becomes vanishingly small. Obama will just have to pick up a few more electoral votes. It could be Florida. It could be Pennsylvania. It could even be Ohio. But, more likely, if those don't turn blue then it's going to be out West.

That's why the second part of the race I'm going to be watching is Nevada. It's another battleground that 's leaning towards the Obama side of the ledger, just like, really, all of them. And the combination of the Virginia, Nevada, and Colorado vote which should already have gone Obama's way thanks to early voting will result in a Democratic win.

If things turns out badly in the East then Nevada just might become the firebreak. And, by bad, I mean Obama dropping some combination of PA, FL, or OH and maybe even all three. It might happen if the turnout models are wrong and have been overestimating rather than underestimating the strength of the Democratic vote. Nevada starts to check in around 10PM so if the evening is tense before then, that just might be the time to breathe a sigh of relief.

Personally, though, I don't think it's going to be in much doubt. I think the polling models have been undershooting the likely vote thanks to things like the cellphone effect, increased registration and likely turnout and, especially, the feeling that I get that most people are determined to vote this year. Not because they want to vote for their candidate, not because they want their candidate to win, but because they want to be a part of their candidate winning. Those are the people who are going to stand in line for hours, if that's what it takes, just so that years from now they can say they voted for their man. There are, I think, a lot of people this year and that's going to help overcome any sort of temporal poll tax effect.

I predict, in so many words, that the predictions are all going to be wrong. And that the only thing we can count on is a record turnout.

The Plural of Data

There's such a thing as too much GOTV

In the past days, from the Obama campaign, I've gotten a half dozen phone calls - some live, some recorded, several pieces of mail, a few pamphlets hung on the doorknob. And at least one in-person visit from a someone out canvasing. That's as I was heading out the door to drop in at the local campaign office and do some canvasing myself, by the way. And it's all on top of the daily deluge of e-mails from the campaign, including the one that directed me exactly to my polling place.

I'd have to say the get out the vote effort is working.

The Dirty Tricks Squad

Looks like it's out in full force today.

This is what has really bothered me about all the screaming and warbling that's been done about ACORN and other registration drives. The real, great threat to our democracy lies not in efforts to get more people to vote but in the actual efforts out there to prevent people from actually voting. Whether it's misinforming people about the date with a wry chuckle. Or whether it's about the temporal poll tax of long waiting lines and crowded polling places. It's all about depressing turnout. Or, in other words, making sure people don't vote. Which should be reprehensible but because it's done by political campaigns and government officials, it's just the way the game is operated instead of a deplorable shame.

But it's out there and, more than anything, the people who perpetrate it fear revealing just how deep it goes.

I'm reminded, today, of the what happened in my own home state of Michigan where there was a report that the Republican party was going to try to use foreclosure lists to purge the voting records. After all, if there's a region of the country that's been harder hit with more people losing their jobs and their homes then I shudder to think of it – the national economy is bad but the Michigan economy is even worse with no signs of getting any better soon (Mostly because it's so tied to the auto industry and the American automakers tied their fortunes to the SUV boom rather than working to develop cheap, affordable, efficient cards, and made gas guzzling engines with a lot of horsepower rather than creating new fuel technologies that could be spurring thousand of new jobs and... you know what? I'm just going to stop because it makes me too damn mad.). Because, of course, if you didn't have a house then you weren't a resident and if you weren't a resident then you couldn't vote.

The Michigan Republican Party denied this report up and down for several news cycles, even going so far as to sue the Michigan Messenger in open court. Only to wind up quietly withdrawing that suit days later, weeks in advance of the election. The reason? Partly, I'd think, so that it didn't become an issue by the time of the election with story after story being written about the results or the courtroom fights. But also partly because going forward would have meant going to trial. And trial means discovery. The Republican Party would have had to turn over any documents and memos in its possession about such voter suppression to the plaintiff. Enter, no doubt, a wealth of information into the public record. That's something that the party elders just couldn't allow so they quietly put a halt to the proceedings and scuttled any lawsuit and, with it, a chance for the public to see just what they've been up to for years.

Part of their agreement, though, included the acknowledgement by the Michigan Republic Party that they were, in fact, planning to use such foreclosure lists even though they vehemently deny it to this day.

So, this stuff is out there. And it's hidden. But there really is a conscious effort to deny people their right to vote. Like so many things the conservatives have done in democracy's name, it just shouldn't happen in America. That's why, more than ever, it's important to make sure to get out there and that every vote is actually counted.

Whether it's by national ID or the increased trend towards early or absentee, voting will continue to become easier and more available. The tide is against those who want to keep a portion of the electorate away from the polls and it's going to wash over such futile efforts today. But it doesn't mean attention shouldn't be paid. Because if what these people fear more than anything is being revealed then it's time to bring them out into the open and make them face the cold, cool light of day.

Then Again, Maybe Not

Senator Obama's ailing grandmother has finally passed away.



I never met the woman but if you can tell about a person from the children they've raised, something tells me I would have liked to.

Maybe He Is The Chosen One

I don't know about anywhere else but around here, at least, tomorrow is supposed to be an unseasonably nice day. Warm and sunny and more than a little better than the dreary, bleary day full of rain that we suffered through today for standing a few hours in line to vote.

I've heard some pundits and commentators say that good weather along the East might not actually be a good thing - Obama's already got such a big lead thanks to early voting and the less people who vote tomorrow the less chance there is of an upset. But, if you ask me, there can only be good things that come from having as many people vote as possible.

Tomorrow, I think, we're going to see the waters roll back and an energized electorate rise from the depths. It's going to be a sunny day but that won't be the only beautiful thing to see.

A Black Man Will Be President, Some Day

Unlike some others, I did think I'd see a black president. Just not so soon. I'm young enough that I figured shifting demographics would have made in inevitable at least by the end of my life (And, of course, I'm young enough that I think I'm going to live a long and happy live instead of, you know, dying horribly in some unpredictable wreck.). That by the time I was an old, graying man still tottering around I could greet the monumental news with a warm smile. That I would then call over to my children and their own, have them gather around me and wait, as I told them just how bad it had once been.

I'd tell them about lynching and riots. Poll taxes and Jim Crow. Detroit and Watts and cities burning because of racial tensions. Dogs and firehoses and boycotts passed. About a dream.

I'd tell them about the long march of time, in so many words. And how, by my time, it seemed as though things were better. And how, by theirs, it had become better yet. Until things had improved to the point where what they'd just done had seemed like nothing remarkable. And that, maybe, they should take a moment to appreciate what they'd just done.

That it used to be unthinkable that a black man could become president of the United States and, now, there was one.

I never thought, though, that I'd be hearing a version of that speech from my own grandmother.

But it's true. What's about to happen tomorrow - what will happen, what should happen, what I and so many others have hoped and worked and strived for through the many long months - is remarkable. It's historic.

But it also feels like it's not anything special. We're about to elect a black man to the presidency. Not because he's black but because he's the best man for the job and, for me, there's nothing extraordinary or remarkable about it.

That, more than anything, speaks to how far we've come. The unthinkable has become normal.

It doesn't, though, speak about how far we've yet to go. You don't have to turn to the election to see that but, instead, the campaign. And all the vile and disgusting sewers through which we, as a nation, have been dredged.

But somehow, on this day at least, I'm not bothered by it all. The ghosts of the past aren't going to vanish without a fight. It's a fight that must be waged and one that is being waged. And it's one where it might not seem like much progress has been made as you've pushed and shoved away. Until, that is, you turn around and see just how far the line's been moved.

Morning Sickness

Whenever someone tells me that MSNBC has become unabashedly liberal. I have one answer: Joe Fucking Scarborough.



Seriously, two primetime hours of a left-of-center viewpoint does not make you a den of liberal inequity.

They Have Only Themselves To Blame

Well, there goes the Big Three. Looks like we're going to be down to just GM and Ford for major American automakers before long. The feds have refused to step in and help GM with their buyout so, one way or another, Chrysler is going under soon.

I don't really blame the feds, though, because while this is likely going to mean the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in an economy that can't really afford it, that's exactly what would have happened if the two giants had merged anyway. Better to steer clear and own no part of the mess.

Random Election Thoughts

It's not just that Obama's up in the polls - and, he is - it's that he's up in the right areas. The presidential election is only tangentially about the popular vote, instead, it's decided by the electoral college (Thanks, founding fathers! Or, wait, actually they had a convoluted mess that only vaguely resembled our current system. Why do we do it this way again?). And that means it's a state by state battle to get the requisite number of points.

Obama might eke out a win in the popular vote. If the polls are true then he's up something like 7 points nationally which means, depending on the margin of error and the course of the race over the next few hours, we could be in for a 10 point blow-out or a 2~3 point squeaker. Not even if McCain were to make up that distance and close that increasingly impressive gap (Obama's had bigger leads but not when it mattered. Now, it matters. And each percentage point gets harder and harder to move. So what would have been a paltry margin over the summer has turned into a commanding lead. Hell, a lot of people have already voted and if their votes followed the national tally then Obama's already cruising to victory.) he'd still lose.

Because while Obama's up large but not large enough he's up massively in enough battleground states that he should pull ahead. Even if he loses Ohio. Even if he drops Pennsylvania. And maybe even if he misses Florida, too (Not getting one of those big states is fine. Two is possible. Three is when the race starts to heat up but still not completely impossible.). And, 6the thing is, if the election were held today instead of merely in a few days, Obama wouldn't lose those states, McCain would.

At this point, it's not about whether Obama wins but about how much. And how he can use the slings and slurs of the past month which have branded him so out of the mainstream to, instead, turn around and paint those who stood against him as the real ones who have no clue about the American public's opinion.

Random Election Thoughts

John McCain wants to spread the wealth around too. It's just that he wants to shovel it onto the richest top percent of this country and leave the rest of us to beg and scrap for the crumbs. That's, after all, not the Republican rhetoric but the actual results of their policies as far as I can see. But that's not really what this is about. All taxation involves some amount of wealth redistribution, even a flat tax takes money from the public and channels it into programs to stimulate and provide, and as crazy as the right is I don't think they're ready to get rid of taxation just yet. No, McCain talks about spreading the wealth and socialism because, like so much out of conservative mouths, it's a double-sided message. Plain words that have coded meaning. And, in this case, what's he's saying is not that Obama's going to take your wealth. But that's he's going to turn around and give it to the darkies. It's disgusting, it's despicable, and it's a shame that this is how our national discourse is - of course, since we're also a nation where even just knowing an Arab is a forbidden thing, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. What I can be is ashamed. And what I will do is head to the polls this Tuesday and do my best to vote this line of thought and the people who support it out of office. If I could vote them out of the country I would but, you know, I guess I'm not a real American because I don't think there's some sort of litmus test for citizenship. To the contrary, I think living in this country and living up to its ideas means that you think people can believe whatever they want, no matter how crazy it is.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Next President of the United States

This is how we do. Cut not with a sword but with a thousand laugh lines.



He'll be here all night folks. And for the next four years, too.

Fireside Chats For the 21st Century

Just saw the Obama campaign infomercial. Just awesome. At this point, I'd vote for anyone with a post instead of McCain. But it sure feels good to be voting for someone instead of against someone. I felt the same way after the convention and I feel the same way now. I don't care if it's raining, snowing, and the gates of hell have opened up and the damned are pouring forth to reclaim the earth or even if I have to wait around a few minutes in line, I'm heading to the polls in a week and I know who I'm going to vote for.

And...it's already online in case you missed it.



The best thing? I didn't even notice when they cut to the live shot. That's how polished, that's how calm, that's how unflappable my candidate is. He wasn't poised and confident because it was his thirty second take and he'd listened to his dialog coach. Presidential is just the way he is.

Oh, and the McCain attack ads that followed were just priceless. Talk about a study in contrasts.

Why Not to Vote For McCain

Because you don't like starting needless wars in order to feel good about yourself.

A Random Thought

You don't want to make it too easy to vote. Because, then, more people would do it and democracy might break out.

Conservatism Has Never Failed

It's merely only never been tried.