If you can say one good thing about the McCain campaign, it’s that they’ve truly managed to expose the true colors of their supporters!!
Photographer Joe Eddins and I headed over to the closest [early voting location] and found a steady line of voters hoping to cast ballots early. Most seemed to be Obama supporters and several had come from the rally. Nearly all the voters were black.
Also at the polling site was a group of loud and angry protesters who shouted and mocked the voters as they walked in. Nearly all were white.
As you can see from these videos, no one held anything back. People were shouting about Obama’s acknowledged cocaine use as a young man, abortion and one man used the word “terrorist.” They also were complaining that Sundays are for church, not voting.
Zifnab
Even the blindest squirrel occasionally finds a nut.
dmsilev
So, remind me again why the *protesters* weren’t in church?
And, memo to John McCain: John Lewis was right to warn about the second coming of some of the uglier parts of the Civil Rights era.
-dms
Libby
It was ugly outside the rally. Thirty cars also had their tires slashed. But as an antidote to the ugliness, I did find a nice photo of Obama speaking to the supporters inside.
yam
The next eight years of the Obama administration are going to really work these nutcakes into a froth, aren’t they? We’ll probably see what we saw during the Clinton years, but everything will turned up to eleven; militias (again), the press will decide that now we’ll need to investigate any claim anyone has about the president and the ones screaming the loudest are the most serious.
Good times, good times…
Atanarjuat
The right to protest is STILL an American value, you pack of sneering, America Last jackals.
Country First.
Libby
Meanwhile, Maryscott at My Left Wing is cataloging the hate. She’s already got too many ugly incidents from just the last four days. I wonder what’s going to happen on election night. I’m having nightmares about mayhem on the streets.
Stuck in the Funhouse
For wingnuts, every day is Idiot Day, voting or not.
cleek
"Country First."
or, in the original German, "Deutschland uber alles"
Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,
Über alles in der Welt!
4tehlulz
>>Country First.
Click here to help your country first.
Far Left American Hater Incertus
@Atanarjuat:
Did anyone suggest it wasn’t? You should probably take something for that paranoia.
Libby
@Atanarjuat:
Heckling people for voting is so very useful. Why aren’t they driving McCain voters to the polls instead of screaming at voters for exercising their constitutional rights? I mean Republicans are allowed to vote as well. And by the way, Sunday voting was going on all over the state, I believe because of the high turnouts, contrary to the guy in the video’s contention that the polls were opened "just for Obama."
4tehlulz
@Far Left American Hater Incertus: Forgive him. He’s confused by the Washington Times’s implication that white people intimidating black voters is a bad thing.
Mick
Protesting polling sites? They’re against voting now? Hopefully all of McCain’s supporters are dumb enough to protest outside instead of going inside and voting.
Gunner
Yeah, Sundays are for church!!….um…and protesting!! Church and protesting!!…..ok, and for spewing hate-filled bile. But that’s it!! Sundays are for church, protesting, and spewing hate filled bile!! But definitely not for voting. This is a Christian nation, after all.
SamFromUtah
@Far Left American Hater Incertus: Did anyone suggest it wasn’t?
Not everybody’s crazy about it.
Cassidy
@ Gunner
And pork rinds. Don’t forget the pork rinds.
Comrade Darkness
The true irony here is that the less well off and minority members of our society have utterly inflexible job schedules. They can’t take a long lunch, or arrive late, or leave early to vote on a business day. Their pay gets docked and most of them barely make ends meet as it is. Long lines at voting booths on a business day IS a poll tax, which is unconstitutional. Sunday early voting is a brilliant idea for leveling the ability to get to the polls at all.
I’d prefer voting by mail, but we have to take our rights as they slowly trickle out and be happy with them, I guess.
germ78
@Mick: Protesting polling sites? They’re against voting now?
I think that inference can be made given the circumstances. What’s next? Aborted fetus pictures? God Hates Fags guy? Kristallnacht?
Punchy
I’ve never understood, in a country founded on the separation of Church and State, why a vast majority of voting places (at least where I live) are inside church buildings.
The best I can come up with is that they probably tend to be safer, as few to none would dare cause a ruckus or verbal assault in a House of Worship.
SGEW
Maybe they’ve subscribed to Brick Oven Bill’s platonic ideals of scholar-citizens.
Joshua Norton
Since when is any kind of campaigning allowed at the polls? I’ve only voted in Massachusetts and California, but that shit ain’t allowed. Once I recall a poll worker had to move his car because of a bumper sticker being too near to the polling site.
Strange that other places would allow this.
lutton
>>So, remind me again why the protesters weren’t in church?
They’re Protestants!
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Atanarjuat:
I lost my sneer after the 2006 election. The frown I have now is scheduled for replacement on Nov 4, with a MASSIVE Shit Eating Grin. Protest that!
bootlegger
But voter intimidation is not. Oh, I realize its a tradition in the south to intimidate minority voters, but I wouldn’t call that an "American value".
What spooked me about the video is the similarities to footage from the 50’s and 60’s with a bunch of whites in the south screaming at "negroes" (the polite term) with law enforcement and sometimes soldiers making sure the negro can exercise his or her right to vote. Eerily familiar.
And how the fuck is it "unfair" to open the polls on Sunday? Any chance for people to vote is a good thing. You could open a polling place in front of Hagee’s church for all I care, the more the merrier in a democracy.
peach flavored shampoo
Hence, the anger of these KKKaucasians.
Conservatively Liberal
Atanarjuat is like a giant turd that chokes the toilet, plugging it up, just floating there falling apart and stinking the place up. Something that RotoRooter would look and and say "Pass".
They were protesting early voting and calling the early voters "cheaters". I guess voting early is cheating in their simple, low-information minds? You know that it says a lot about a party when one (the Republicans) needs to depress turnout in various ways to win and the other (Democrats) push turnout and fight to have every vote counted so they can win.
Yes, the contrast is that clear. Democrats fight to win and the Republicans do everything they can to make the Democrats lose.
Far Left American Hater Incertus
@SamFromUtah: You’ll find no greater hatred for free speech zones than mine, and I fully acknowledge that my party is at least as guilty for their formation as anyone. But that’s not what I was talking about in that post.
Poopyman
At the voting site, I asked a local sheriff monitoring the scene if the protesters were allowed. "They’re fine," he said. I asked if he’d ever seen anything like that and he said he’d never seen Sunday voting.
What does "They’re fine" even mean here? You can’t tell from the article, but there are election laws that specifically mandate how close to the polling place electioneering (and presumably protesting) can take place. Was there enough separation, or was the sheriff just not doing his job? The article isn’t specific enough, but I hope somebody from the campaign was paying attention.
bartkid
>They also were complaining that Sundays are for church, not voting.
I agree w/ dmsilev.
Sunday isn’t for complainin’ either.
>The right to protest is STILL an American value, you pack of sneering, America Last jackals.
All of my America is a free speech zone, even the reality-based communities which Bay alleges are not.
Cue the clips of police action during the 2004 and 2008 Republican National Conventions.
Dork
Trust me: if this were a bunch of AfrAmericans heckling a group of white voters, they’d be arrested, booked, and jailed in a matter of minutes. For the very thing you mention, plus probably another 34 "associated charges".
Not My Fault
I’m all for mocking these folks. Just so that we don’t get confused and think that McCain supporters (or Palin supporters, or Obama haters, or whatever they really are) are the only jerks around.
Please note: I am not declaring equivalence. As a matter of fact, I’m hearing about many more slashed tires, vandalized cars, and dead bear cubs at the hands of nobamists. I’m just saying that self righteousness isn’t pretty.
DBrown
Try protesting bush-ass-wipe or shit-eating cheney. Only a fenced in area three or more miles away is allowed. The right to protest at a voting place is ok? This is true repubic filth at its lowest.
gbear
@Mick:
I was wondering about that too. Protesting people voting is such a goofy thing to do that you have to wonder if these idiots have made a final step that equates voting with terrorism and unamericanism. Are they going to refuse to participate in a system because the outcome is likely to be counter to their ‘prayers’? Will their anger at seeing a line of people who look like they will joyfully be casting their vote for Obama cause them to boycott voting for McCain?
If so, this is going to be one very dangerous group of people over the next four years.
SamFromUtah
@Far Left American Hater Incertus: But that’s not what I was talking about in that post.
I thought so – I was just trying to be clever and failed. Pardon.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@lutton:
You win the thread. And possibly the next couple of threads.
bootlegger
Now that is some serious stoopid. Did they really think that a car driven by the Secret Service and carrying a "principle" would stop for a human barricade? That driver was probably trained to hit the gas hard and aim for the leader.
Still and all, not the moral equivalent of protesting a polling place, slashing tires or kicking reporters, but equally stoopid.
SGEW
Voting is elitist.
Also:
RotoRooter passes on nothing! RotoRooter can clear even the toughest clog!
Colonel Danite
@ Cleek
I tried to link to the Family Guy snippet where Stewie finds a McCain/Palin button on his Nazi uniform but couldn’t do it. Go to Hulu and watch. Funny, sick stuff.
gbear
Often, churches have the best (or the only) community room in a town or neighborhood. The schools are in use by kids and teachers, and the town hall of a small town may only hold a dozen or so people.
Atanarjuat
Conservatively Liberal (or better said, Traitorously Liberal), your toilet-clogging imagery brings to mind what you hive-minded socialists wish they could do to the First Amendment.
Yes, I know that it would cheer all you explosive vest-wearing, suicide-bombing traitors to see your ideological opponents (read: true Americans) stripped of their rights, but it’s just NOT going to happen, even if (God forbid), your Messianic Marxist Leader steals the election.
Country First.
gbear
And even if they can’t, they will continue to bill you for their time until you kick them off your property. Bad experience.
edit: Atanartwat – you are just fucking pathetic. Go kick some puppies. It’ll make you feel better.
bootlegger
Fixed.
bartkid
>All of my America is a free speech zone, even the reality-based communities which Bay alleges are not.
My bad; it was Michelle Bachman, not Bay Buchanan.
Sheesh.
Krista
So by this one’s logic, we’re all suicide bombers. I’m assuming one cannot be considered a suicide bomber without having actually completed the act of a suicide bombing. Which would lead one to the conclusion that this blog is full of dead people, commenting and snarking from beyond the grave.
Or, it would lead one to the conclusion that Atanarjuat needs to dial his spoof down from 11, as he’s being just a leeeetle too over-the-top to even be partially believable.
boonagain
Ah, yes, the Right Wing has always been so supportive about Free Speech.
redbeardjim
@gbear:
Yep. Big open indoor spaces, usually a sizeable parking lot, not generally in use on Tuesdays.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Well, it’s not like we’ll be tapping your phone without a warrant, probably.
/rim shot
John PM
I think that a limited "positive" from all of this crap coming out in the open is that the so-called "Bradley effect" will be less than expected. If people are willing to heckle and attack Obama supporters and make racist comments, then it seems to me that they would tell a pollster that they are voting for John McCain rather than say that they are voting for Obama because they are afraid of being looked down upon as racist.
gex
@Not My Fault:
Don’t confuse indignation for self righteousness. Many on this blog readily concede that both sides have nutty extremists. I happen to think their side has more of them and they are more mainstream and more dangerous, but that’s just my opinion.
In any event, we should be speaking out against stuff like white people hassling black people trying to vote. Even if there are some crazy lefties out there too.
Atanarjuat
I should have realized that if I invoked the terms socialism and Marxism with enough frequency, a social insurance dependent from north of the border would comically rear its head like a seal-clubbing Jack-in-the-Box.
My bad.
As to your necrophilic musings, Krista, I’m sorry to say that the suicide bombing metaphor escaped you. But then again, you coddle the traitors here on BJ, so your blind spot for Benedict Arnolds is understandable.
Country First.
Svensker
Sorry, Atanjurat is too articulate to be a true wingnut. Grammar and syntax are too good, not enough exclamation points, no CAPLOCK, sentences long but not rambling. Nope. Just a spoof.
Krista
And I love you too, Atanjurat. :)
Beej
Atanarjuat is a spoof. Ignore it. (A Tan Arjuat {idiot} ).
Atanarjuat
Wait a minute, Svensker. You’re saying that because my writing style is not similar to a typical BJ commentator (who is typically liberal), I’m not a conservative?
Liberal logic at its finest, I suppose.
Country First.
Poopyman
Comrade Jake
I’d just appreciate a spoofer with some talent. Atanarjuat, seriously, you need to practice somewhere else before coming over here. Your game is really, really weak.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Oh yea, you Oxymoran!
@Atanarjuat:
boonagain
The frozen Inuit dog turd needs to go back to hillaryis44 to polish up his mad skillz
Scrutinizer
@Atanarjuat:
If they ever do a remake of Dr. Strangelove, you really must try out for the Jack D. Ripper role. Swear to God, you might even do a better job than Sterling Hayden.
Take care of those precious bodily fluids, m’kay?
Amerika First.
anonevent
In Texas, I go to an elementary school to vote in the library, while school is in session. It will be interesting to see what that is like this year.
jake 4 that 1
@Mick: If they wait until Tuesday 4 Nov., they can take part of the day off work.
nicethugbert
Everybody knows that after church it is perfectly acceptable to go lyn…er, heckling the heathens, so please, some respect for our Weakend Warrior Patriot God’s Soldiers.
theturtlemoves
@Atanarjuat: I think he’s pointing out that your rhetoric is so over-the-top batshit crazy right wing that no actual human could hold and express such views and still be able to actually use a device as complex as a computer. It is sort of entertaining, but it has reached the point in this thread where even folks from the John Birch Society would be taken aback. Where the folks from the Posse Comitatus would be asking you what the hell your problem is. Where even a tinfoil hat can’t keep out the CIA mind control rays. You know, paranoid schizophrenic territory.
Jess
These protesters remind me of a roommate I once had who would constantly help herself to my food and then deny it. I solved the problem by getting a locking cabinet to keep my stuff it, and she was OUTRAGED! Absolutely furious. Needless to say, she lost all credibility forever in our household. I hope and believe the same will happen to these protesters accusing black voters of "cheating" because they’ve found a way to outflank the GOP vote suppression machine.
Chris Andersen
Whose brilliant idea was it to protest at a polling site?
The people who support McCain are already going to vote for him, but the more reasonable ones will bow their heads as they pass these yahoos.
The people who support Obama will feel that much stronger about doing so just to piss off these yahoos.
And the people who are on the fence will think, "Do I really want to vote for the guy that these yahoos support?"
Brilliant!
Zuzu's Petals
Fixt.
OniHanzo
Fucking slays me that these dimwits are now suddenly in love with protests. Am I the only one who remembers the wingnut cheering of the Smoketown Six arrests and the actions taken against the Denver Three?
OniHanzo
Or the hysteria over the Dixie Chicks speaking out of turn?
Kate
Protesting voters while arguing Obama doesn’t believe in democracy. That’s rich.
I have to think that Atanarjuat didn’t actually see the film with the same name. After all, it’s about a man who decides not to kill, not to be the vengeful one, but rather to make the violence end by not reacting with violence himself. How exactly does this sort of protesting and such hate-filled language end divisiveness?
Two wars being fought by an over-stretched, under-appreciated military; global warming and our addiction to burning fuel for energy; rising health care costs and legions of our neighbors, family members, friends without insurance coverage or underinsured; home foreclosures, job losses, lowering wages and rising costs for food and fuel; a societal lack of respect for education, leading us to be near the bottom of industrialized nations in math and reading levels.
The good news is that Obama is staying positive. We are all going to face this myriad of problems together, like it or not. The beauty of Obama’s campaign is that he is about inclusiveness rather than hate-mongering and divisiveness, two of the last feathers in Rove’s cap.
These are real problems that our whole country faces. McCain and his supporters can pretend this election is about nonsense. But it’s not. We ignore these problems in exchange for continued division at our own peril. The reality is this ‘your side/our side’ business suits a handful of corporations and their government lackeys (of both parties, mind you), just fine. We can cave into it and become nothing more than the batteries in The Matrix or we can rise above it. Let’s give it a try, shall we?