Pema Levy, Newsweek, “Barabbas, Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr. Invoked to Get Out the Vote“:
… With the November midterm elections next week, this past Sunday was the first time Reverend Samuel’s congregation could go to the polls on a Sunday. Located in the town of Stone Mountain in DeKalb County, an Atlanta suburb with a high concentration of Democratic voters, Samuel’s sermon built up to a call to head straight to the local polling place and vote right after church — a turnout effort known as Souls to the Polls.
Before urging his congregants at the Victory for the World church in Stone Mountain to join him at the polls, Samuel preached to them about the importance of voting — even if you’re on the losing side.
In Samuel’s sermon, the point of the Barabbas story was not that the crowd chose Barabbas over Jesus. It was that Jesus’s followers did not speak up for him. For Samuel’s mostly black congregation of about 2,000, the lesson was that every vote counts and that dissent matters…
Today, all eyes are on Georgia. With only eight days to go to the midterms, the state’s razor tight Senate race between Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue could ultimately decide which party controls the U.S. Senate in January. Nunn and Perdue are virtually tied in the polls, with the race currently expected to result in a runoff. (If no candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the vote, a second ballot takes place in two months time.) Alongside the vote for senator, Georgians will also choose their next governor — incumbent Republican Nathan Deal or his challenger, Democratic state Senator Jason Carter.
The only reason Nunn and Carter have a chance in a state that has consistently elected Republicans to federal and statewide offices in the last decade is the growth of African American, Latino and Asian voters in the state. This year, the minority leader in the state House, Democratic Rep. Stacey Abrams, has lead a vigorous effort to register minority voters, collecting about 85,000 applications. Similar registration efforts collected another 120,000 forms, substantially growing the number of minority voters in Georgia.
These efforts have made Republicans nervous…
“What’s really fired up voters is overt attempts to suppress the vote,” Samuels told Newsweek at the polling station. He had mentioned both Senator Millar and Secretary Kemp in his sermon Sunday…
Election officials in DeKalb County are noticing more turnout this year than the last midterms. Maxine Daniels, Director of Registration and Elections in the county, said nearly 2,000 people voted in the first two hours of early voting Sunday. Daniels believes the closeness of the races at the top of the ballot is getting people to the polls because they believe this time they can make a difference…
***********
Apart from fighting the good fight, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Debbie(aussie)
That video was a feast for the eyes. Catchy tune too.
Mustang Bobby
Trying to decide whether or not to vote early in Florida this weekend; the lines are always long and slow, but if I go early enough in the morning, it’s not too uncomfortable, and I get to gently mock the hawkers for the candidates I don’t plan to vote for.
Paid $2.97 for regular at a station near my house. That’s the first I’ve seen gas below $3 in the Miami area in a while. I blame Obama.
Schlemazel
Races here in MN are tightening with both Dayton & Franken now holding single digit leads. GOTV has become critical but I am not sensing concern outside those of us paying attention. Stories like this one from GA give me hope that there may be room for a miss or two but I don’t want to count on that. My hope is that instead of losing the senate we actually pick up a couple of seats. It won’t solve the problems the goopers are throwing up but it might give them pause & our side some courage. Both are badly needed.
Mustang Bobby
@Schlemazel: Who is running to replace Bachmann? Any chance for a Dem pickup in that district?
Schlemazel
@Mustang Bobby:
Joe Perske, the mayor of Sartell (just outside St. Cloud) is the D and I don’t really know much about him.
Tom Emmer is the gooper and a wingnut with his own radio program (that says all you need to know)
Tommy was the gubernatorial candidate 4 years ago against Dayton who ran a pathetic clown car of a campaign & I was hoping for more of the same. Instead he has relied on name recognition and running in Minnesota’s hillbilly country. Given that nobody is spending any money Emmer is safe. I assume he will use the John Kline method, his voting will be as bad as ‘Ol Batshits but he is smart enough not to let the crazy out in public.
raven
@Schlemazel: I hope so too, it looks like turnout has been good here but it’s a mighty hill to climb.
Baud
Blessed are the vote getters…
Schlemazel
@Mustang Bobby:
The “money race” is for the 8th. Stewart Mills, the pampered son of a local businessman (think Walmart with more farm) who has never held a job not provided by daddy is running on his business credentials. From a visual standpoint Nolan could not have asked for a better opponent. But the 8th is suffering from tea party flu & the Koch Bros have dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into a race in an area where TV time is cheap.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
During the presidential election, they told us to vote early so they could focus their outreach efforts on those who hadn’t yet voted. I don’t know if they are that sophisticated in the midterms.
NotMax
@Mustang Bobby
All the way down to $4.38 at the stations closest to the abode.
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: One of the ads against Nunn criticizes the increase cost and energy. Inflation, inflation, inflation. I assume it works, truth be damn.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: I paid 2.79 the other day.
raven
@JPL: And that horseshit ISIS crap really pissed me off. They did the same thing to Max and I really wish her campaign would hit back on that.
OzarkHillbilly
For today’s WTF??? file: Fake clown attacks put French police on alert and trigger vigilante response
French police are on high alert after fake clowns caused panic across France in a spreading phenomenon that has led to violence and a response by vigilantes.…
Herreman, who runs a team of eight clowns in northern France called the Clowns of Hope, said he hoped the evil clowns would soon disappear.
I can’t think of anything to add.
debbie
@Schlemazel:
If only to watch the GOP’s tears. Rove couldn’t possibly survive this one.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: Expecting Democrats to hit back effectively is like waiting to buy tickets to the Quaker ultimate kick-boxing matches.
Schlemazel
@debbie:
cockroaches will always survive.
Comrade Jake
Caught on to the whole Jian Ghomeshi thing last night. I don’t think I’ve ever heard his show but, based on the reports, he sounds like a real peach.
But man are folks caping up for him online. Sheesh.
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: After 2010 you’d think that they would learn but no. We have to put up with shadowy, scary ads. ugh
Mustang Bobby
Early voting trends in Florida show Crist chewing into Dickwithears’s lead according to the Tampa Times. Four years ago Scott had a 12% lead in EV and won by 1%. Now he’s got a 7.6% lead and he’s spending his own money on the campaign, something he said he would not do.
He’s not sweating, but reptiles never do.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
That was the best story I’ve read in years.
RaptorFence
Jonathan Karl had to actually “report” or “do his job”. The horror! “So he [Karl] went around it and found out that the feds were sending their high-value interrogation team to Boston. “No way I would have gotten that out of the White House,” said Karl.”
Also, too, this:
debbie
@RaptorFence:
It’s not good news that the silly season has gone year-round.
bemused
@Schlemazel:
Yup, this is my district. Teaparty groupies crawled out from under their rocks when Chip Cravaack surfaced to run against Oberstar and win the seat. They have been energized, very loud, nasty and angry since and now the only issues they really care about are guns and proposed copper-nickel mine near the BWCA. Another issue that fired them up is their fervent wish to wipe out the wolves but since MN allowed a wolf hunt they can focus most of their rage on mining and guns. Mills is following the MNGOP script on all the issues including MNSure. All the MN candidates say in slightly different words they want to keep best parts of ACA but not federal mandate. Not all Republican voters here are as crazy as the teaparty types but they will definitely be voting R on mining issue and because they’ve never voted D yet.
Baud
@RaptorFence:
Not as good as the clown story, but still a lot of fun to hear the Village whine.
JPL
@RaptorFence: OMG, The President didn’t use ebola survivors to score a political point. As for the wine, it could have been French.
Mustang Bobby
@bemused: My dad was born and raised in Minneapolis and I lived there from 1975 to 1977 while in grad school. Those were the days of Wendell Anderson, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and the craziest Republican was Rudy Boschwitz.
Those were the days.
PS: I never forgave Anderson for appointing himself to Mondale’s senate seat when he (Mondale) became vice president. Shameless self-promotion just seemed so un-Minnesota.
Baud
@RaptorFence:
Glad the press figured out which energy company officials Dick Cheney met with. And happy to hear that the press retroactively got to take pictures of dead American veterans when they arrived home in their coffins.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Happy to be of service.
danielx
On the agenda…frantic efforts to finish outside projects that have been put off to work on other people’s projects. This includes refinishing the front door, quick stain touchup on the deck, cleaning miscellaneous stuff out of the garage, and what else? Changing the oil in the snowblower….and, hopefully, get back to work on repainting the master bedroom and master bath, which project was started three weeks ago and I’m still ducking under an extension ladder to get to the sink.
bemused
@Mustang Bobby:
Rudy and a few other similar wingnuts from that era, considered pretty radical by many even moderate Republicans, would easily fit in today’s MNGOP. That still didn’t stop those moderate R’s from voting for Rudy, etc then. Crazy doesn’t deter them now either.
rikyrah
Paid only $3.10 for gas IN THE CITY!!! this weekend. Shocked the hell outta me.
mai naem
@Baud: I actually think that this admin could deal with the press better than they do. I’ve heard round tables with non-famous journos and this admin won’t even confirm that something really inconsequential the reporter is saying is wrong, just to point them in the right direction. It’s stupid and it makes the relationship more confrontational than it would be. This was especially with Jay Carney so I don’t know if Carney knew something about Obama coverage that Josh Earnest doesn’t.
So I was watching Reince Preibus on Mornin’ Ho. He reminds me of my little nephew when my sister was potty training him. I used to think his name sounded like a proctologist’s tool but if you roll the R in Reince and kind of say it in a staccato fashion, he would fit right in in a WW11 movie as a Nazi SS leader. Scott Walker could play one of his underlings. Maybe Rrreince will send Vaaker off to the Eastern front next week for not doing well in his election.
geg6
Yesterday was the first Moral Monday here in Beaver County, PA. I couldn’t be there, but I’m planning on going to next week’s…just before election day. I don’t expect it to allow Erin McClellan to beat Keith Rothfus, but I’m hoping she can give him a run for his money. She’s been kicking ass in debates and he’s been running away from any media asking about minimum wage increases. I’d so love to see his smirking Teabagging face wiped off my media landscape, not to mention out of my district congressional office.
geg6
@Baud:
These assholes seriously expect Obama to kowtow to them and their egos. After all the poo they’ve flung at him, they expect access? Seriously? Looks to me like Obama feels the same way I do about them. Which is who gives a shit about them and then proceeds to not give a shit even more.
Amir Khalid
@RaptorFence:
That is a story for the lifestyle page. If I were a White House reporter, I would pass stories about wine at state dinners to my colleagues from that section.
NotMax
@Mustang Bobby
Quite the coinky-dink as those were the same years I was there, only was next door in St. Paul.
The name of the gentleman escapes me, but that was also the time when a member of the legislature openly came out as gay. Whether that was a first or not the intervening years have rendered fuzzy. Regardless, reaction was “live and let live” and he had no problems with reelection, IIRC.
tsquared2001
@NotMax: Alan Spear in 1974.
MCA1
@bemused: What’s the mining near the Boundary Waters issue you mention? MN ex-pat who believes the BWCA to be a quasi-sacred place.
MCA1
@Mustang Bobby: As a kid, I had no idea that Rudy was particularly rightwing. Interesting to know in retrospect. All I knew about him was that he was cool because he ran the flavored milk booth at the State Fair, which was one of my favorites. It’s incredibly Minnesota and, frankly, a pretty damned good idea for a politician.
karen
@OzarkHillbilly:
Jugelois?
Another Holocene Human
@Mustang Bobby: Gas goes up, employees must take a pay freeze to keep the company in business.
Gas goes down, employees should be happy, it’s like a mini-raise, right?
bemused
If you are still around, you can start with a recent piece on citypages.com Will Mining Save or Destroy Northern Minnesota. Other sites:
timberjay, excellent local paper
minnesotabrown, excellent local blog
minnpost
mpr
startribune
Copper nickel mine and mining in general have been heated issues here for quite awhile now so there has been a lot written about it.
karen
True the Vote has already begun to harass certain people who have the “wrong” ethnicity. Chris Christie has basically said that the they have control the voting in order to win elections:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/christie-wants-gop-control-voting-rules-election-officials
bemused
@bemused:
@MCA1:
Forgot to direct this to you
AxelFoley
@mai naem: Fuck that noise. The press we have doesn’t deserve shit. I don’t blame this White House one bit for not telling them jack shit. The press will just make up shit anyways, so why give them ammo.
AxelFoley
@geg6: This. Absolutely, completely this.