Despite the slack-jawed pose above, Daisy Mayhem is a highly intelligent animal. It’s just that when she sees reflected light on the wall (or, FSM forbid, a laser pointer beam), her brain shrivels to the size of a lentil, and all she can think to do is stare and then pounce.
I’m off to vote for President Obama in a few minutes; today is the first day of early voting in Florida. I’m kind of out in the boonies, and our early voting polling place is a library surrounded by cow pastures. It’s usually not very crowded, but it was jam-packed on Election Day in 2008.
From what I read on Mememorandum, it looks like some folks are starting to entertain the possibility that President Obama will win the election via the Electoral College and lose the popular vote. In a way, that would be poetic justice, and we could spend days here swapping recipes featuring bitter wingnut tears. But it’s not the outcome I want to see.
I hope President Obama crushes Romney like a rotten walnut — and not just because I don’t want to see us return to a policy of shoveling goodies to plutocrats in hopes that a few crumbs will fall off their table for the rest of us. I hope Mr. Obama wins big because Romney is the most shameless liar to ever credibly aspire to the presidency, at least in my lifetime.
That a champion prevaricator and spinning weathercock like Romney is even within striking distance is a shameful indictment of the state of our national politics and media. I entertained similar notions when Bush won in 2004 after it was clear he’d hoodwinked us into a war on false pretenses, but there was a “let’s not change Horsemen in mid-apocalypse” vibe back then.
There’s no excuse now. So off to vote I go.
[X-posted at Rumproast]
TR
The election hinges on whether they can suppress the vote or we can mobilize it.
GOTV!
Elizabelle
Check the Kraken level.
Daisy was just in it, and you’ve surfaced before she could dilute it back to level.
Main problem there being, she’s just not tall enough to reach the faucet in the sink.
mb
I rather see an out and out win for Obama, too. However, a win in the EC while losing the pop vote would, I think, spell doom for the EC. And that would be a very good thing.
Poopyman
Today is also the first day of early voting in MD, and since early voting ends November 1 it’s my best chance to go to the polls. I’m an election judge outside my precinct on Nov 6.
dr. bloor
Popular vote is basically boiling down to “Yeah, Rmoney’s a shamless liar, but Obama’s a Ni-CLANG!” The sociopath is running up the score in the south, no more, no less.
amk
FY cole for your vista moment. Two posts eated.
Mark B.
If it does come to pass that Obama wins the electoral college and loses the popular vote, and some Republican ever whines about it to me, I’ll just tell them to shove it up their ass.* At least if it happens, Obama won’t need a crooked Supreme Court to jigger the results for him.
Having said that, I expect Obama to win the popular vote in a close contest.
*I would also ask them if we could have the 2000 election back, because Bush was the suckiest president in history.
Mark B.
I’m doing my part to fix the popular vote. No chance Texas goes to the Democrats this cycle, but I’m still voting for Obama. In the long term, Texas will be a blue state. The racists are slowly dying off, and Hispanics are growing in number and voting more.
Maude
I was listening to Bloomberg radio about the company that bought Anheiser (sp) Busch.
They have cheapened every aspect of the beer and the packaging. The company has made a fortune and the stock price is up.
People are complaining about the taste of Becks beer being bad.
This has been going on since Reagan and it continues.
The big companies that have been merged and acquired can’t be changed to produce quality. They need to be replaced by new companies.
Romney is the symbol of cheap.
Rick Massimo
We also need Obama to win big because Mitt Romney, let us not forget, was the Republicans’ “f-ck it, whatever; we’re gonna lose anyway” candidate. At least half the GOP didn’t wanna nominate him.
donnah
I’ll take an Obama win in any way, shape, or form. He can win by a single vote for all I care. I just want Romney and Ryan to be a fading footnote, an asterisk in the history books.
I voted absentee this time because for the first time in my life, I will be out of town on Election Day. It will be sad for me, as in the last election my husband and I toasted the Obama win with champagne. I still have the cork, a reminder that good sometimes prevails over evil. It will be my lucky charm while I’m away on Nov 6th.
PsiFighter37
The fucking media is full of fail. If anything, I feel like they got dissed by Colbert in 2006, and instead of taking the message to heart, they got even worse.
I wonder if any of them watch ‘The Newsroom’ and ever feel the slightest sense of shame in how they perform their jobs.
That’s the only reason this election is close. If any actual reporting was done to ensure there was an informed electorate voting, this race wouldn’t even be close.
aimai
They will complain no matter what. The guy had a huge fucking mandate in 2008 and it was worth spit. If he wins the popular vote and the EC the right wing will shriek that their voters were suppressed by the hurricane, or turned back by the sight of scary black people at the polls, or that their voters were frightened out of voting for Romney because of social security and women’s issues. There is no depth of sore loserdom to which the right wing won’t sink because there’s no baseline of common decency there. I absolutely can’t worry about the EC vs. Popular vote thing. Obama could win with 95 percent of the popular vote and the dead enders would declare it a scandal.
aimai
Elizabelle
@mb:
I’m seeing some of the wisdom of the Electoral College.
1) Romney has a 24 point lead in the Southern States, while Obama leads in the East, Midwest, and West? Do we want the Solid (Confederate) South choosing our presidents?
And if you think it’s just 24 points because Obama’s on the ticket, I would propose that Republicans and FoxWorld have made the entire Democratic party to be “other.” Darker, more minority, slutty women. Not patriotic, working Americans.
2) Looking at 2000: never forget that horrible Palm Beach County butterfly ballot that gave Pat Buchanan about 2,500 Democratic votes he knew had been cast in error. He said that, if memory serves, on election night.
Florida should never have gone to recount territory, but there is no recourse for a miscast vote. They never tested that confusing ballot before trotting it out.
The EC may not have let us down in 2000.
Plus, Gore ran a terrible campaign. He pushed Clinton away and didn’t deploy him. People who despised Clinton were not that likely to vote for Gore.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Obama will likely pull off a very narrow win in the popular vote. I don’t foresee any more dire consequences than he, and we, already face if he doesn’t.
The stupid train has already left the station. In a non-stupid US of A Romney would never have been nominated, let alone giving Obama a close contest. Between the lackluster media and tribalism I believe that stupid is here to stay.
It’s also nearly impossible to imagine Congressional Republicans being ore intransigent or less cooperative than they’ve already been for the past four years. They will continue to be obstructionists assholes even if O was to win the popular vote by a landslide.
Citizen_X
Presented for comment, because it’s going to come up: Matt Stoller’s The Progressive Case Against Obama. My summary: the country sucks and it’s all the black guy’s fault for not fixing it, although, obviously, YMMV.
Stoller makes some good points in there, but solutions? All of the arm-wavey variety.
Anya
I think POTUS will win the electorate and popular vote. He’ll win the EC comfortably but the popular will be a squeaker.
I am hoping that the turnout for dem voters in red states is similar to 08. This will offset the racist vote. Although, I still don’t believe that Mittens will outperform grandpa Walnuts with the southerners. What changed? Did POTUS become more black in four years?
Raven
They don’t ask HOW they ask HOW MANY? Just win.
Omnes Omnibus
I voted, in-person absentee, in Madison on Thursday. Our ballot was quite funny. Of the 12 or so offices up for election, only about four had a GOP candidate. Also, there was an election observer from Republic Party of Wisconsin sitting outside City Hall; he looked a bit forlorn because nothing untoward was happening. He was in his early 20s at most and he looked like an extra from Risky Business – tan jeans, oxford cloth button down shirt, and topsiders without socks (to his credit, he did not have a sweater tied around his shoulders or a popped collar). I swear I have not seen a full-on compleat Mark I 80s preppy since I was in college. Hell, even those of us who dressed that way didn’t dress that way.
Elizabelle
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I really see the power of cable news on the ill informed this election. Out there swinging a narrative that aids their corporate owners.
MSNBC is doing it too.
After November 6, I am going to write to NBC and let them know that Chuck Todd is a tool, and an obvious one.
Raven
@Omnes Omnibus: That ain’t how they dressed in Madison in my day!
Mark B.
@Anya:
Basically, yes. Four years of listening to blackety black black from Fox News has really fired up the racist people in the south. I can see the phenomenon in my own family, where the older generation is shamefully racist. Four years ago, they were fairly circumspect about it, now they are just about ready for a good old lynching.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: I didn’t go to college in Madison. Also too, your day was before mine.
Raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t either, I went up there to see the Dead.
And for a couple of football games that always fell on Halloween. Place really rocked on those weekends.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus:
I voted, absentee in person, yesterday in Northern Virginia. It was my perception more people were taking the Democratic information sheet (a purple one) outside the polls, than were taking the blue sheet proferred by the Romney volunteers.
We had 2 constitutional questions on the ballot, so voters were looking for guidance.
And there was a sign on the door to the polls: “There is no early voting.”
Virginia offers the fig leaf of “absentee in person” voting for a variety of reasons, for those who can’t get to their polling place on Election Day.
Early voting is the future. Election Day is for the olds.
j
Joe Walsh’s Super-Pac, “Now or Never” (which already dumped $2 million on smear ads against Tammy Duckworth, and vowed to spend another $2.5 in the last 2 weeks of the campaign to “bury Duckworth” ) has suddenly pulled all funding from loudmouth Joe.
It seems he decided to wade into that “legitimate rape because the bitch has it coming” Republican meme.
The latest polls have Duckworth up by 10 percentage points, so the PAC opted to cut and run.
They are claiming that they are not running away, but simply “our work is done here, we turned this race around and now it’s up to Joe.”.
http://www.suntimes.com/15986994-761/superpac-pulls-back-25-million-it-had-earmarked-for-walsh-in-race-vs-duckworth.html
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: Absentee voting in WI, both in person and mail-in, is going to be huge.
GregB
I still can’t over how Romney has made the issue of his tax returns a non issue.
It seemed like only 15 years ago that Bill and Hillary Clinton’s financial deals long before they were in the national spot light were deemed such an important window to their character.
Whitewater!
It really is amazing how short memory spans are these days.
With a great assist from the shitheel media.
Anya
@Mark B.: What’s Fox News’ viewership? About six million, I am guessing. How can this small segment of society change the whole country? I think Fox’s influence is overestimated.
Also, people didn’t know the president in 08, but now they know him. He’s not as mysterious and other as he was in 08.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: Yeah, Halloween here is “interesting.”
TheMightyTrowel
@Elizabelle: i turn 30 in a couple of weeks. i have voted in every state and federal election i was eligible for since i was 18. i voted in person 1 time. i love my absentee ballots, even more so now that MA allows you to scan and email your ballot. also, the town clerk is the mother of a girl i graduated high school with and she told me she always processes my vote first.
Splitting Image
I’ve maintained for the entire year that Obama will win almost exactly the same map give or take a couple of states, and nothing that has happened in the last ten months has changed that.
At the high points of the campaign, Obama looked as though he might have had a shot at holding Indiana and maybe picking up Arizona and/or Montana, and at his lowest points, he has looked as though he would probably lose Indiana and North Carolina.
Just about everything else has stayed relatively stable. Some of the big states are close enough that people are biting their nails, but Obama is virtually certain to win enough of them to hang on for the win.
I also think that the late deciders will break for Obama if he is clearly ahead on the last day in 270 EVs worth of states. That’s why the Romney campaign is trying so hard to fudge the numbers. “Swing voters” don’t break for the challenger. They break for the guy they think is winning. Romney has had exactly one good day in this entire campaign, but he was able to use it to avoid Obama becoming the obvious winner. By comparison, McCain was painted as a loser the day he suspended his campaign.
If Obama has Ohio in the bag on the day of the election, he will win nearly all of the squeakers, and probably with a popular vote that is close to 2008.
SFAW
@Mark B.:
If Romney wins, Bush will probably drop to #2, unless the Dems take massive control of both Chambers.
@Elizabelle:
Of course, he could have run a better campaign had he not been exactly like Bush. (Cue jurassicdork in 3 … 2 … 1 …)
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Elizabelle:
The EC also de-nationalizes the election into 51 independent state elections, each implemented locally. Which makes it harder to steal. So there’s that, too.
My problem with Obama’s “firewall” in Ohio is that if it all comes down to one State, I have no doubt whatsoever that the GOP will do whatever they need to do to make sure Romney gets Ohio, especially with MSM loudly declaring it a ‘dead heat’ at O+4.
I wanted VA to stay blue, and FL to at least be a true dead heat, and WI to be further ahead. The more elections they’d have to steal to turn the result, the less likely they are to take the risk.
Nevada’s been a nice surprise, at least. OH+WI+NV means Obama wins, no matter what Romney gets.
Mark B.
@Anya: It’s not that big of a deal in most areas of the country, but for old racist white people in the deep south, it’s very influential. And these people are very loud and spout out their half-assed racist theories in all sorts of inappropriate contexts, like my car club, which I no longer attend meetings of, since it’s become so unbearable because of the few racist loudmouths. It’s probably better in more sane areas of the country.
Elizabelle
@GregB:
I would have lost a bet that Romney would get away with not releasing five to ten years of his tax returns, at a minimum.
Effing unbelievable.
Media: that’s not an “old” story. It’s a big one. Do your job.
The GOP has watered down standards like Anheuser-Busch beer.
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
Gawd, I hated those people back in the day. Soulless, they were. I was just out of college and still in punk mode. Reagan worshipping assholes, every one. That sure hasn’t changed.
PsiFighter37
@GregB: IOKIYAR, simple enough explanation.
kdaug
Our local alt-weekly puts a Halloween mask on its cover every year at this time (“just cut it out and tie it on!”).
It would seem they agree with you, Betty.
Elizabelle
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Why are you talking like Obama and Kaine will not win Virginia?
I believe that we will. I see enthusiastic voters out there, and people who love our good state schools.
Just Some Fuckhead
omg, brilliant.
General Stuck
OFA organization on the ground at state level for battlegrounds, dwarfs the Romney GOTV ops. Especially in Ohio, with some fired up union folks, along with some other rust belt states. Those who previously thought Obama was slacking on his org were wrong.
I think there will be a higher turnout for the racist vote in the south, and elsewhere in blue states where there are plenty of racist voters in a fume that will go vote when they haven’t before. Though not near enough to win. Coin toss on the popular vote,imo. I do think the situation in Ohio is rife for the wingers trying some outrageous vote tampering and last minute suppression tactics. They control that state government now, where they didn’t 4 years ago. And Husted is a real ball of puss.
I also think Obama will over perform in Arizona, and make that state a close vote, with an increase in Hispanics voting. As well in Co and NV, that should give those states to O. The GOP is just really fucked with states with big EC numbers, except for Texas. And they are going to get wiped out in the upper midwest. So it should take some diebold miracle for Romney to squeak out an EC win.
Elizabelle
@SFAW:
It was boring Gore on campaign that year. Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention, but I didn’t see the climate warrior visionary.
I saw cautious dude.
amk
@Citizen_X: yeah right. stoller, the “advisor” to that FL loser whatshisname is to be taken seriously.
PsiFighter37
Oh, and I just booked my hotel in Dayton – half a mile from the local OFA office. I’m ready to help close this deal out next weekend.
As the immortal Bart Scott said after beating the Pats in the playoffs, “Can’t wait!”
Don K
@mb:
I agree an Obama EV win/popular vote loss would create a general outcry in favor of eliminating the Electoral College as it presently exists, but I’m doubtful any particular alternative could get the required 2/3 vote in Congress.
Since 1968 (when the Wallace candidacy raised the possibility of no EV majority), there have been three alternatives on the table:
Popular vote (with or without a runoff if no candidate receives x% of the vote)
The district system for allocating EV’s, as used in ME and NE
A proportional system under which EVs would be allocated by the percentage of the vote received by each candidate in each state
I would expect Republicans to favor one of the latter two systems, which would cement in place a huge advantage for small states and also would generally give Reps a permanent EC advantage, while Dems likely would go for popular vote.
How you get to a 2/3 vote for any of these alternatives is beyond me.
Anya
Today, Mittens is campaigning in Pensacola, FL. I thought Pensacola was the fundiest of the of Florida’s fundie parts. So, why is Mittens going to a reliably red part of Florida this late in the game? Could it be that what we’ve been told is not correct and Romney is still struggling with the base?
PsiFighter37
@General Stuck: I do wonder when Texas will finally turn purple. It sounds like the key there is to get a higher Hispanic participation. That + demographic change should be enough to put it in swing state territory in how many years, though? It also probably doesn’t help that the state Democratic Party (from what I’ve read) is basically a shadow of its former self, given how they’ve gotten pummeled at state-level elections for the past 15 years.
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6: A friend of mine and I, went to a Violent Femmes concert in London in 1984 dressed in khakis, loafers, and crewneck sweaters – because that’s how we dressed and it was just fine to wear that at a Femmes concert in Milwaukee. We ended up spending the evening carousing through Soho and Camden with a group of punks who kept having to explain who the “posh blokes” were. Don’t judge a book by its cover.
ETA: Hell, I still have my L.L. Bean Norwegian sweater – the dark blue one with the three little white chevrons. I pretty much only wear it with a leather jacket these days, but still.
IowaOldLady
I had a depressing moment at the gym yesterday. A woman in her 80s said she didn’t know who to vote for because she didn’t like either one of them “any more.” I know she voted for Obama in 08. I think this is the consequence of the jillion political ads we see in a swing state.
redshirt
@Anya: Fox News is but one head of the evil Newscorp Hydra. The most visible head, but the others (newspapers, other channels) are just as vile.
Plus, they set the tune the other media channels feel obligated to follow – the so called “liberal” MSNBC dances to the FoxNews tune just like CNN and the rest.
kay
@GregB:
It’s pretty amazing he got away with it. People have no idea on Romney’s financial dealings save for what he chose to release.
There are so many LESSER jobs (now) where more disclosure is required, yet, they let him get away with it. People need a credit check to work a cash register but “applying” for the Presidency doesn’t require Romney to reveal his returns?
Obama was a sitting Senator, so had complied with all the disclosure and security clearances required for that job, and they went over his financial dealings with a fine-tooth comb, including his mortgage application.
PsiFighter37
@Anya: I like this – if there was any sense of ‘momentum’ from R-Money, they’d have him camping out in OH, WI, and IA until Election Day. The fact that he’s defending states like NC and FL that are basically gravy for our side is a good sign.
Splitting Image
The main problem with getting rid of the Electoral College is that it means that a close election would be affected by voting shenanigans everywhere in the country. It’s true that the EC allows the Republicans to concentrate their disenfranchisement campaign on a half-dozen states (e.g. Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) but it also means that their opponents can concentrate their efforts in the same areas.
A national popular vote means that the Republicans would be able to suppress the vote in particular areas of California and New York that they controlled, not to mention Mississippi and Alabama, and have it affect the national outcome.
The truth is that when the Presidential system was created, nobody had any idea that the system would grow to accommodate a country of 300 million people and 150 million voters. That’s about the same size as China was when the U.S. was founded, and it wasn’t a democracy and didn’t have to deal with the question of how to count votes.
Basically, there is no tried and true system of electing an executive for a country of this size that is demonstrably better than the one the U.S. has already got. A standardized national ballot and enumeration process would probably help, but getting one would mean the states would have to cede control of elections to the federal government, and that will happen over a lot of people’s dead bodies.
General Stuck
@PsiFighter37:
Who knows with Texas. In my fevered dreams, Obama gives Texas back to Mexico, along with a hundred billion dollars and a state to be named later.
A Ghost To Most
Sent my ballot in yesterday. Got to vote for the big O, for legalized mj, and against Joe Coors all in one shot. Amurka, fuck yeah!
Davis X. Machina
@Elizabelle: Problem is, Gore’s 2000 performache matched or slightly outperformed the models. It was a tossup, was a tossup throughout — and ended a tossup. (PDF)
The Republicans will be in popular imagination the party of fiscal responsibility, until the last person who remembers Eisenhower dies.
Gore will have blown a slam-dunk until the last person who remembers Al Gore dies.
Don K
@Elizabelle:
Early voting is the future, except in those states like MI where the Reps are scared to death of it. We can’t even get no-questions-asked absentee voting here, so as long as the Reps control the State Senate (which looks like it will be forever), there will be no early voting here.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
I wasn’t disagreeing with you. It was just a vehicle for a “Bush/Romney and Gore/Obama are EXACTLY THE SAME” shot.
If it hasn’t been clear before: I hate the unrepentant Nader voters with a passion. (Although the repentant ones are not far behind.)
I’m pretty much on board with most of your comments in this string.
PsiFighter37
@General Stuck: Sounds like the kind of trade I’d like the Yankees to make for A-Rod
/no I’m not bitter at all about how shitty he was in the playoffs
ETA: @A Ghost To Most: Is that someone also related to Pete Coors? If so, I’d vote against them for the crimes they’ve committed against beer brewing.
dan
WEATHERCOCK!!!
Davis X. Machina
@Anya: Good video for downstate…
scav
Interrrrrresting little OT rock and a hard place moment for Herr Pope: Savile is a papal knight. So, who will fix this one? Will their desire to blame secular culture for the actions of their priests win out over their need to defend their celebrity laity? Decisins, decisions. Infallibility, infallibility.
Fits in with an 80s vibe too, oddly enough.
Raven
@Omnes Omnibus: There is a Wild Rumpus here in Athens tonight. Most of the town has headed to Jacksonville so what’s left is the anti-football, edgy alternative folks.
General Stuck
@dan:
Your standard issue weathercock
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: The Badgers have MSU in town today, so things on State Street should be pretty massive.
gbear
Can’t say that I’ve ever seen a rotten walnut. Do they crush easily?
Waiting for the Ikea delivery truck to arrive. I went outside for a minute and there is solid ice in the birdbaths.
Raven
Oh look, we have a Wild Rumpus Athens website!
SFAW
@General Stuck:
“Ca-a-a-a-a-l-l for Super Chicken! Buh-caw!”
Raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I have to say, we’d go up there for the Illini games and hit State Street friday night and the only dorks were Illini fans running around in their Orange. I’m a die-hard Illini but there is a time and place for everything and that wasn’t it!
WereBear
It is my belief (and I was wrong about 2010) but the lying has been running so fast and deep, and the polls have been screwed with so passionately, and the flopsweat has been so copious…
That my dreams of “crushed like a rotten walnut” have been running like wild mustangs.
Everyone join me!
If only for a moment.
Downpuppy
Following up on the post earlier about the open racism of the romney campaign, I think it’s a little off. It’s more that racism provides the excuse for people to believe that they’re noble & surrounded by moochers. The Ayn Rand myth. And it’s way past time to confront it directly.
Paul
It would be amusing for two reasons if any Republicans complained about that:
1) Bush 2000 who won that way and then governed as if had won 100% of the vote.
2) Our constitution. These people claim that they are patriots and unlike Democrats they cherish our constitution. We will see after this election (assuming the popular vote and electoral vote splits) how many Republicans still cherish our constitution.
Finally, this would no different than Hillary Clinton in 2008 complaining that she won more votes than Obama and thus should have the nomination. If the rules stated that the popular vote rules, of course Obama would have campaigned differently, ie run up the score in NY, CA, MA etc etc.
Dave Dell
Of course, I’m old enough to remember “Tricky Dick” Nixon. A liberal by today’s standards but he’d be a Romney if that’s what it took. My favorite campaign slogan on the left at the time was:
Don’t change dicks in the middle of a screw. Vote for Nixon in ’72.
Said by an R. Crumb character I believe. Perhaps Fat Freddy.
aimai
@TheMightyTrowel:
What? We are specifically forbidden from asking for an absentee ballot unless we sign an affidavit that we absolutely can’t get to the polls here in MA–like elderly or out of the state can’t get to the polls. Otherwise we’d have early in person voting here, in effect. I’m surprised you can simply do it automatically.
aimai
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: To be fair, State Street bars tend to attract either undergrads or the dorks. There are cooler places on the other side of the square – King Street, the first block or so of East and West Main Streets have some good places (members of garbage have been seen hanging out), and then there is the more alt/neo-hippie Williamson Street area. Some of the ethnic restaurants on State are good, but I tend to stay clear of the bars since I am neither an undergrad nor someone trying to relive my “glory days.”
jurassicpork
George W. Bush was infamously called “All hat and no cattle.” Mike Flannigan’s nickname for Mitt Romney is “No heart, all chattle” in The Man Who Fell to Earth, Redux.
kay
@WereBear:
All I can say is Nate Silver called the OH governors race in 2010, and he had it as just where Obama is now. 75/25.
I was pissed off at him, I believe I wrote an outraged post where he was sticking his nose into state races, blah, blah, but he was right in 2010, and I was wrong.
A Ghost To Most
@PsiFighter37:
I believe he is Pete’s brother.
Coors is now owned by SABMiller, so direct your complaints to South Africa. CO has plenty of great beers, no need to drink that shit.
Joe has more money than morals. A true wingnut.
Mino
Two billion dollars spent and 538 reports that the SAME candidate leads in each state that led when he first put up his charts. We are a stubborn bunch. Or, our minds were already made up in 2011. I’d almost bet Newt, or Santorum or, god help us, Herman would be in the same place as Mitt.
Rosie Outlook
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: I kinda sorta remember seeing a news story somewhere that a friend of Romney’s owns the voting-machine company used in Ohio. If this is true…
I think Daisy’s cute, and I normally don’t go for ugly dogs. Daisy has that certain something. Long may she wag.
IowaOldLady
@aimai: I don’t have to do a thing to early vote, which in Iowa is an absentee ballot filled out by mail or in person. I just marched on down to the courthouse, asked for a ballot, and filled it out then and there. No excuse needed.
Omnes Omnibus
@aimai: I think the Trowel is Down Under these days.
Paul
@Elizabelle:
But it did let us down in 2000. With a popular vote, nobody would have cared about Florida.
And yes, Gallup claims that Obama is down by 24 points in South. If we were governed by popular vote, Obama could just as easily spend much more time in California, Boston, New York etc. As it is, those populous places will NEVER see our President (unless it is a fundraiser).
And if that wasn’t enough, then Romney should be our President. After all, he got more popular votes.
gbear
@Anya:
I think he just wants to be able to collect video clips of himself in front of a friendly crowd to run on television for the next week. Also provides the moderately-sized crowds for Romney’s staff to photoshop clumsily into looking like an acceptably presidential-sized crowd.
Romney is just afraid to go anywhere where he might not be worshipped.
Davis X. Machina
@Mino:
Or, our minds were already made up in 1865.
Fixed that fer ya…
A Ghost To Most
My big fear for Ohio (and the election) is a Diebold Ex Machina, given who holds the levers.
Anya
@Mark B.: But the old racist white voters were going to vote republican anyway. They’ve always gone big for the confederate party. Why is this year any different? I think the news media’s constant assertion that whites are going big for Romney is their way of depressing the Obama vote. Fuck these racist assholes. The only vote they think is legitimate is from voters that look the most like them. They’re not conscious of their own bias but it guides all of their reporting.
j
@Rosie Outlook: H.I.G. Investments owns the company that controls the voting machines. H.I.G. is run by 6 former Bain employees. Tagg Romney owns a sizable chunk of H.I.G.
Nothing too out of the ordinary, right?
The
BainH.I.G. machines are predominately in Hamilton County, so Boehner doesn’t have to sweat a thing.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/23/pro-romney-firm-voting-machines_n_2006697.html
Seanly
Someone mentioned swing voters breaking for the winner –
I have to relate the single stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Back in 1992, I lived in NJ & had to commute to NYC for work. From Hoboken I took the PATH train into the city. It’s was usually a 5 or 6 car train and I almost always caught the train at the same time. On several occasions, there was a school teacher with a group of buddies in the same car.
They’d talk about typical stuff, but on election night 1992, they were discussing who each was going to vote for. The teacher said “I want to get home and see who’s winning so I know who to vote for. I hope it’s not Clinton because I really don’t want to vote for him.” This is your low information undecided.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost To Most: I work in election administration in Wisconsin and this may color my views, but I am not particularly concerned about that happening. In WI, at least, electronic voting equipment must be thoroughly and publicly tested prior to the the election. After the test, the memory unit of the machine is sealed. In addition, the source code for the machine must be on file. Machines in WI are also required to produce a paper trail. And voters always have the option of voting on a paper ballot.
I know every state is different, but my experience, in the year and half I have been doing this for a living, is that the vast majority of people, from the little old ladies at the polling places to the top election officials want to run fair elections. They may fuck up, they may misunderstand the law, they may do things the way they did when they were first trained back in 1937, but they trying to do it right. YMMV.
dmsilev
@Seanly: That’s impressive. You don’t often see multi-layered stupid of that purity these days.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PsiFighter37: there was an interesting article at HuffPo (no, really) saying that there are rumors (or gossip, so FWIW) that Willard has more or less given up on Ohio and is now banking on running the table from Wisconsin to Iowa, CO, FL and VA. I haven’t sat down and done the math, but IRRC he would still need to NV and NH to make 270 in that scenario.
Has anyone seen a good breakdown of the various likely voter screens? I’m trying to avoid unskewed trutherism, but I can’t help thinking that those screens lean GOP.
Spatula
Ummm…pardon, but no.
That would be George W. Bush.
How quickly Americans forget.
Omnes Omnibus
@Spatula: You really can’t help yourself, can you?
Gator90
I had the privilege of being a Palm Beach County voter in 2000. There was something odd about that ballot, said my wife as we left the polling place…
I’m afraid that this election will be close enough to steal.
Davis X. Machina
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Looks like with all that UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH they hired someone who can count…
. Ex Washingtonmonthly.com
Jeremy
Obama is going to win the popular vote and EC period.
No president besides W. Bush who cheated by the way as ever won the EC and lose the popular vote. It just doesn’t happen.
The media has been hyping these LV models from GOP leaning pollsters which are based on 2000, 1996 turnout demographics. If you believe that the electorate will look like that then I have a bridge to sell you.
Look right now Turnout is exceeding 2008 levels in terms of early vote and even in red Georgia African Americans are turning out at a higher percentage than 2008 and the same for North Carolina. The same goes for Hispanic voters in the West. Dems are showing up to the polls.
No Democrat since LBJ has won the majority of the white vote and in the 21st century it doesn’t matter. With the explosion in minority growth in this country a Dem only needs around high 30’s to low 40’s percentage wise of the white vote.
SFAW
@Spatula:
Well, maybe, but at least with Bush, you knew what he’d lie about, and how he’d do it.
With Romney, it’s always a coin flip.
Redshift
@Rosie Outlook: Snopes says it’s not true.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@j:
This doesn’t seem much of a threat to me. These are former Bain employees and it’s very likely that they know Mitt Romney. Anyone who gets to know Mitt Romney detests him and despises him. If the H.I.G. folks know Romney and his abilities well then the likelihood is that they have to keep themselves from rigging the machines for Obama.
robertdsc-iPhone 4
I’d prefer it if Willard didn’t give a concession speech. Just go away, you fucker. You, your snotty wife, your fucked-up kids, & that Randian blow-up doll of a VP candidate need to disappear & never speak to the media ever again.
Redshift
@aimai: Even in VA, where the Republicans will never let the legislature pass unrestricted early voting, you just have to check off on a form that you believe you’ll be away on Election Day (or one of the other approved reasons) to be able to vote absentee (or “absentee in person.”) No affidavit or anything more binding.
Jeremy
@Gator90: How are they going to steal it ? Virginia is lean Obama, Ohio is going to go to Obama if you look at the raw vote and the polls, Colorado is lean Obama, Nevada is going for Obama.
Look in order to steal the election like 2000 it has to come down to one state and be close. This election is not coming down to one state. Obama is leading in the majority battleground states and tied in two. Romney has been losing since the start and the only people buying the hype that he had a chance were the dumb media, idiotic republicans and the perpetual worried folks on the left.
StringOnAStick
@aimai: Here in Colorado, you can get on the ‘permanent mail-in ballot voter’ list just by asking. I’ve been on it for at least 10 years, and you don’t have to offer a reason. As long as you vote in every election where you have been sent a ballot, you remain on that list.
I’m impressed with the OFA organization here; their lists show who had failed to vote 2 years ago and were therefore not going to be sent an absentee ballot. Several of the voters I talked to while doing GOTV were expecting to receive a mail-in ballot, and did not realize that they weren’t going to get a ballot (or why) until we explained it to them.
The local OFR rep thinks that Colorado will go to all mail-in (like Oregon) in a few years; cheaper by far (amongst some other good reasons for going that way).
Redshift
@Seanly: Yup. I overheard the idiot who was marketing director at my company in 2004 say that she liked Kerry better but she was voting for Bush because he was going to win.
Those who claim to be undecided consist of the disengaged who aren’t going to vote, liars, and idiots. No one else.
Yutsano
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: that would depend upon how wealthy Willard made them. Also remember there is the main parent company Bain and Willard’s pet project Bain Capital. So just saying they’re former Bain employees is not exactly a damning indictment.
mb
Pointing out the benefits of the EC using the current pattern of voter turnout is missing the point. Having a popular vote only campaign would DRASTICALLY change how campaigns are run and it is, imo, highly unlikely that the South could dominate such a scenario. The pop vote is trending Romney’s way only because of expected lower turnout in places like CA — something that a pop vote only campaign would not, imo, suffer. Yeah, changing the constitution is a heavy lift but, if the rightwingers think the EC stole the election from them, their likely knee-jerk reaction to that could well fast-track the needed change.
Redshift
@Jeremy: There was a NYTimes article I posted a link to last night about predicting turnout via Google searches for voting information. Author claims it’s strongly correlated with turnout, and based on that measure, turnout is going to resemble 2008, not 2004.
dww44
@Mark B.: As a lifelong Southerner in a very red state, I would disagree a bit with this:
I’ve noticed a lot of educated white upper and middle class Republicans using whatever platform available to steer the conversation into what becomes an anti-Obama rant. Like the owner of the Assisted Living complex where My MIL resides using a social Spring family event to sneak in a few anti Obama rants back in 2009. That happens a lot.
Heck, a couple weeks agothe local paper ran a column in its Saturday “Religion” section that featured a young associate Methodist minister trying to ratchet down the partisan hyperbole by arguing that the country has done well under both GOP and Dem administrations and this “the end of the world will come” if we elect one of the other is way too dramatic. The reader here must understand that Methodists in the South are generally more tolerant and open minded than their fellow Southern Baptists and the other fundamentalists. All things are relative.
Michael
@kay: 75/25 sounds nice for Obama, but remember — a 25% chance is basically the likelihood that you’ll flip a coin twice, and it will land on tails both times.
Its not that unimaginable. Unfortunately.
Redshift
@robertdsc-iPhone 4: I’m going to enjoy Romney having to talk to millions of people about how he failed. Plus, based on his performance at the Al Smith dinner, I bet he won’t be able to get through it without some nasty digs based on his campaign lies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I haven’t watched the Maher show yet, I’m saving it for some multitask chore cause I wanna see Barney Frank, but I see he had a good line “If you vote for Romney, you’re voting for every right wing asshole he’s pandered to over the last ten years.” This is so fucking frustrating to me. How can people not see that a vote for Romney is a vote for Mourdock and Akin even, if they lose? Do they really not get who Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito are? Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann? Over the last week, I heard from at least four friends/famiiy members “I’m just so sick of it all… I just want it to be over….” They’re all reliable voters, and reliable Obama voters, just not as engaged (obsessive) as I am, so I bite my tongue, and I myself haven’t watched live TV in a month just to skip the ads, but the fact that people who wouldn’t touch the actual Republican platform, even Romney’s stated policies, or Ryan’s voucher plan, with a ten foot pole are willing to ‘give him a chance’ because “well, I thought Obama would change things…” makes me so fucking mad I can almost understand smearing one’s naked self with beagle poop and running down the streets screaming.
Gator90
@Jeremy: Hope you’re right, Jeremy. Thanks for the good cheer.
Jeremy
The media has showed everyone in this country that they are aligned with the GOP. Majority of them are republicans. The liberal media was never liberal to begin with but it was impartial. It hasn’t been that way since the 80’s.
They have nee hyping Romney up since the start. Making excuses, covering his mistakes, trying to present him as a plausible candidate when the man is not qualified to be president. The media will look even more ridiculous than they did in 2008 when they were shilling for McCain.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I suspect the few strategists in the Romney campaign who actually know what they’re doing and didn’t just get their jobs by being yes-men are frantically scrambling to find some combination where their resources could actually be put to good use. It’s between eggs-in-one-basket with Ohio and trying to run the table elsewhere, and their chances aren’t very good either way. Plus they probably have to deal with all the useless yes-men who are chasing their tails with every new poll. I don’t envy them (but I don’t have any sympathy either.)
kay
@StringOnAStick:
The most interesting part of the OFA info, to me, has been the “sporadic voter” lists. This is a small-ish town, I know (or know of) most of the people in my precinct, and I would not have guessed the “sporadic voters”.
I think maybe it’s like exercising 3X a week, or “I had two beers” – people want to give the “right” answer, so they say they “always” vote, but they don’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@Michael: No, it is not unimaginable, but it also is not likely. As I see the election right now, all people need to do for Dems to win is vote, GOTV, and keep an eye out for shenanigans. I have to say that I do not understand the focus on the negatives.
Jeremy
@Gator90: No Problem man. I just think that we need to be positive, and from the start I thought Obama was going to win. And if you look at the Obama campaign Plouffe, Axelrod, etc. you can see there confidence. You can tell who is in command in this race.
Redshift
@Elizabelle: Yep, we’re going to win Virginia. Now I’ve gotta get off my butt and go knock on some more doors!
dww44
@Mino: I agree entirely but I’d say God Help Us if it were Newt or Santorum, not quite so much for Cain if one of them were the GOP nominee. What this says about us voters is sorta frightening. For myself, I could NOT vote Republican for President, ever. Just would leave it blank if the alternative was not tolerable.
TaMara (BHF)
I just checked my status and my mail-in ballot has been received and accepted. I wish I could say “my work here is done”, but I understand there is no resting until 11/7. Then it’s only a brief respite before we begin to fight for the changes we seek.
No rest for the politically active.
Bostondreams
@Jeremy:
That is not true, I’m afraid. Andrew Jackson won both the popular AND electoral votes but lost because he didn’t win the majority of the EVs and Quincy Adams was given the election by the House. In 1876, Tilden beat Hayes in the popular vote, 51 to 48, but was one behind in the electoral votes, with a Hayes being given the presidency even though he didn’t have the majority either. Grover Cleveland won the popular vote in 1888 but lost to Harrison in the EC. And of course, there is Gore v Bush.
So it doesn’t happen a great deal, but in 3 of the 4 times it has happened, there HAS been suspicion of misdeed (Cleveland legitimately lost in the EC. The other required some shenanigans).
Sorry, the history teacher in me had to say something.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Elizabelle:
I think Kaine wins (barely) and Romney wins VA (again, barely).
IMO the northern burbs of VA (DoD & other govt professionals) are deciding that Romney would be better for business. We shall see.
Not Sure
@mb: My thoughts exactly. There is no reason we need to keep this idiotic system in this modern age. Imagine if the candidates were forced to travel to ALL 50 STATES for votes. I would love to see my President hold a rally at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, but since New York is bluer than the sky on a sunny summer’s day, fat chance. Why do I bother to vote in New York State? So President Obama and Kirsten Gillibrand can win 65-35 again? Because they hold bake sales at the polling place?
And think of this. There have got to be millions of Democrats in places like Texas, whose votes don’t matter for scheisse because Texas is so full of braindead pickup truck driving, Bud Lite swilling rednecks.
Let’s get a true count of where the people stand for once. The EC must die.
geg6
@Spatula:
Sorry, but I knew Dick Nixon. And W was no Dick, let me tell you. And neither, by the way, is Mittens. If you lived through the Nixon years, you know that.
W will never be able to turn around his rep. And neither will Romney. But Dick died, praised to the skies as an elder statesman. That fucker was the most skillful and shameless liar to ever grace American politics. The difference is that Dick was smarter than almost any GOPer around today. I despise the guy, but I would never argue that he’s as all around stupid as W is or as clueless about life as Mittens is. He’s the only enemy I’ve ever had in my life whose intellectual power I respected.
Corner Stone
@PsiFighter37:
For the eleventy billionth time, let me caution folks to please stop assuming Hispanic = accumulative majority D votes. Some of the most ignorant, selfish, asshole MF’ers I know are Republican voting Hispanics. I routinely get into it with them around here.
I do agree that it seems the split does favor D candidates overall, but the Hispanics I know that vote R are very motivated to GOTV and the ones who are apolitical or lean D are not very consistent voters.
Texas will turn purple but it won’t be for another 20 years mas o menos.
Villago Delenda Est
@Paul:
If these vile fascists actually cherished the Constitution, they wouldn’t ignore the very obvious intent of Article VI and the First Amendment IRT their fucked up asshole invisible sky buddy. Also, too, they’d not piss on the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments every time they open their stinking gobs about “technicalities” letting the guilty go free. As in the vile traitor Oliver North.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think we’ve seen a real shift since the Reagan years, when the “liberal media” included a lot of people– Sam Donaldson, Mary McGrory, Jack Germond– who had seen enough of the real world, the Depression, several wars, actual military service, both Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement to understand the need for the New Deal and that we need a foreign policy with a little more thought and foresight than “Team America! Fuck yeah!”
Now, besides teh doughy white baby boomers working out their daddy issues and guilt over avoiding Vietnam by building up the McCain myth and being Iraq Hawks (Russert, Brokaw, Matthews) followed up by smarmy upper middle-class Whole Foods shoppers (Gregory, Tapper, swing a dead rat in the MTP green room) who roll their eyes at the idea that Social Security and Medicare are vital programs, to say nothing of Medicaid (ew… poors?), and want their taxes cut. But they’re for gay marriage and think abortion is all settled (and really, let’s not talk about that), so they see themselves as liberal, and overcompensate against Dems. Brian Williams is the bridge between those generations, and has all their most repulsive qualities.
eemom
hmm, comment eated
Jeremy
@Redshift: Even Gallup has said that the electorate is looking more like 2008 which contradicts there own LV polling. They act like Dems are not showing up to the polls but they are and in large numbers. Right now the Demographics favor the president. And if there is such an enthusiasm gap like the media loves to say then why are republican early vote numbers just barely beating McCain early vote numbers from 2008 while Obama is over performing ?
Like I said I think this election will be some what similar to election 1948 Truman vs. Dewey. The only difference was that many pollsters/media thought Truman would lose while in 2012 some of these people believe it’s 50/50. As we all know Truman’s support was severely under reported and he won with 303 electoral votes.
Villago Delenda Est
@geg6:
Agree. Say what you will about Tricky Dick, but the man knew how to tell strategic, believable lies. He wasn’t a fucking amateur like Rmoney, who lies so transparently that lumps of clay don’t trust him.
He was devious, calculating, and very cunning. He had authentic middle class roots that aided him tremendously in his nefarious career. The “Checkers Speech” worked because it rang true, and he played the victim in that far better than anything phoney-baloney Rmoney could ever hope to do. Oscar caliber performance, that one was.
Of course, by the time we got to the “I’m not a crook” stage, it was a joke, but even Tricky Dicky knew when the gig was up, and he slumped away back to California when Goldwater and other Republicans told him he had no chance of avoiding removal from office in an Impeachment trial. Hell, even the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee said they’d vote to Impeach after the “smoking gun” tape came out.
Rosie Outlook
@j: Reporter: Hey, Boss, I’ve really got a story! ‘Son of Candidate Owns Voting Machine Company in Crucial Swing Area.’.
We can run it as the six o’clock lead.
Boss: No, we have that time filled with what the OSU football coach’s sneeze may mean for the big ten. But if he doesn’t sneeze any more, I might be able to get you ten seconds on the six a.m. broadcast.
eemom
@geg6:
The other thing about Nixon is that he wasn’t a pampered rich boy p*ssy like these two, but rather busted ass to get everything he ever had. That sets him apart as well, imo.
Jeremy
@Bostondreams: Thanks for the correction. But I still think he will win the EC and popular vote based on the fact that it is a rare occurrence.
Jeremy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: True.
j
@Jeremy: My qualms revolve around the county vote totals changing en route to Columbus. Like in 2004, when the electronic transfers from the county election boards went first to a GOP campaign office in Chattanooga TN, and only then got transferred to Columbus. (After tweaking.)
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/new-evidence-vote-hacking-emerges-ohio-2004
The GOP only has to change a few votes per precinct in order to steal the state, and they have done it before.
kay
@Michael:
Yeah, I know 25 is one in four. I went and made phone calls for Strickland when Silver had it as one in four. I don’t really mind long odds, I generally try anyway.
All I meant to say was I had all these gut/ momentum pundit-y type FEELINGS in 2010 in the governor’s race, and Kasich won easily :)
pseudonymous in nc
There’s an obvious technical point here: if the election were decided on popular vote, the campaigns would make a lot greater effort to GOTV in the populous states that aren’t competitive in the EC model — that applies as much to Texas as it does to California.
And not just GOTV — I think it would make for a far healthier campaign because it wouldn’t be premised on appealing solely to the people of Dayton and Sarasota yet a-fucking-gain.
And I agree with Krugman: this election is a test of wonkish data-driven against subjective “momentum” pieces, horse-racery and meta-hypothetical chin-scratchers from a political press that has failed in its duty this campaign season.
Paul
@Corner Stone:
As I recall 36% of the hispanics in Arizona voted for Jan Brewer as Governor in the last election. That is a very high number considering of all the nasty anti-immigration (designed against hispanics, even legal hispanics) legislation she has pushed for.
geg6
@eemom:
Absolutely. It’s what made him such a fighter and so determined. He’d have hated, just hated with a white hot hate, both of those pampered assholes.
And I just have to say how uncomfortable I am “praising” Nixon this way. Watergate was during my coming of age and it marked me for life. It’s what made me freak the fuck out over that 2000 election (the fraud was so transparent that Dick would have been embarrassed for them) and what made me so frantic in the runup to the Iraq War, which was so obviously trumped up. Dick knew all about how to conduct a secret war and W and Cheney were amateur hour compared to him.
slag
Ahhh…the bad old days. Anytime somebody asks me whether I’m better off today than I was four years ago, I respond, “Is George W Bush or any of his wannabes insulting my intelligence as president of these United States? So, then, why are you insulting my intelligence now?”
Jeremy
@j: Yeah but it would be blatant. None of the numbers coming out of ohio shows Romney even coming close to winning the state. He is behind anywhere from 5-6 points. Also if that is the case then how come the GOP didn’t try it in 2008 ?
Also the final polls in Ohio showed Kerry losing Ohio by 1-2 points. Yes turnout was effected by Blackwell’s shenanigans but Kerry was in trouble from the start. If Obama and his administration/ government officials are not worried about it then I am not going to concern myself with negativity and theories.
Raven
Just motherfucking fuck that murderous cocksucker Nixon.
Jeremy
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: Romney is not wining VA. There has not been one good poll that has showed Romney winning the state. And Obama’s approvals are in positive territory there.
pseudonymous in nc
@Elizabelle:
If Obama wanted to rack up the vote in California and the NYC area by actively campaigning there — or GOTV in Atlanta and Memphis and other southern cities — he could. It’s not a sensible use of campaign resources; it wouldn’t be cheap. Team Obama is, for pragmatic reasons, leaving thousands of votes on the table in deep blue states in order to get a hundred votes out of Toledo.
Lurking Canadian
@WereBear: For what it’s worth (nothing), I’m right there with you. I’ve never believed the Romney “surge”. I think the polling firms monkeyed with their LV model to make it look bigger than it was.
Nate Silver’s better at this than I am, but I hold out hope that a landslide is happening that the polls have deliberately missed.
pseudonymous in nc
@Splitting Image:
That’s pretty weak sauce. You might as well say there is no tried and true system of providing healthcare for a country the size of the US that is demonstrably better than the one the US has already got — which is trivially true.
redshirt
Nixon was a great poker player too. Got to give him props for that. Poker is King of the card games.
Joel
@GregB: The tax returns stopped being an issue because Obama didn’t want to push them. I think that was smart, because Whitewater didn’t really help anyone get elected and the Democratic base doesn’t respond to scandal mongering the way the Republicans do.
dww44
@geg6: I agree with you, particularly since picking up a book from my local library, “Nixon’s Darkest Secrets” by Don Fulsom. May have a few reservations about its objectivity, but, as one who also lived thu the Nixon Years, I had no idea about lots of what he did and his somewhat strange relationship with his pal Reboza and the Mafia connections, particularly in South Florida. No doubt he was a mean SOB, if only for the way he apparently treated his wife and to a lesser extent, his daughters. Plus, he apparently had a pretty vile temper.
BTW, I had forgotten that Reboza bougt a $100M home in the Philly suburbs for Julie and David Eisenhower back in the 70’s.
Joel
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: Virginia is a tossup. And Colorado, Nevada and Iowa are looking pretty good for Obama. So’s Wisconsin.
Even if Obama were to lose Ohio, he could still win with those states + one of NH, VA, or FL. I would rather it be settled with an Ohio victory for team blue, and I think it will be. But that’s where we are right now.
Joel
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Also, the prospect of spending years in jail is not an appealing prospect to many people. And I wouldn’t put it past Romney to throw his co-conspirators under the bus, if such a conspiracy were to occur. In other words, not real.
Ruckus
@PsiFighter37:
Thatās the only reason this election is close. If any actual reporting was done to ensure there was an informed electorate voting, this race wouldnāt even be close.
And of course that’s why it is that way.
This is politics just like it used to be done except we are all in that smokey back room now. We were always used as bargaining chips and currency. Now we just get to see it done with the windows open. At least now you can see that you are getting fucked, instead of having a bag thrown over your head, having the shit kicked out of you and all your money and rights stolen. Now you have a chance. That’s a vast improvement. But sunlight scares a lot of people, they seem to like living in the dark. It’s easier, one doesn’t have to make decisions, just sort of follow the rules, keep your mouth shut and no one gets hurt. Sort of. I say fuck that.
James E. Powell
@Redshift:
I read somewhere that Wisconsin is the new Ohio.
I was kind of surprised to see that the Romney/Meatloaf thing was in tiny, deep-red Defiance, Ohio. Seemed like he had picked all the red berries available in Ohio. Romney/Ryan spent a ton of money there. So did a passel of SuperPacs going after Sherrod Brown. What did all that money get them?
James E. Powell
@pseudonymous in nc:
If Obama wanted to rack up the vote in California and the NYC area by actively campaigning thereāor GOTV in Atlanta and Memphis and other southern citiesāhe could.
It also hurts the Democratic turnout in California that there isn’t a hotly contested state-wide race to get people engaged and excited. We have a string of issues, we always have a string of issues, and a handful of high-energy congressional races in the newly drawn districts.
Ruckus
@Anya:
He also needs pics of him in front of crowds. Not just huge crowds but crowds at all. If he goes to battleground states/areas he might not get those and then he looks even worse.
He is counting on his racist/evangelical/rich base but he needs the less overt racist vote to have a chance.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Elizabelle: My wife and I just finished in-person absentee voting in NOVA. About a dozen voters were there in our time there. It seemed like a busy place with several young families waiting their turn along with some oldsters in walkers.
It was a good mix, it seemed to me.
We didn’t have the option of paper ballots in our location, but the touch-screen machines worked fine. (There were some earlier reports from elsewhere that votes were being messed up on moving between screens, but the poll worker said that hadn’t happened here.)
Fingers crossed that Sandy stays mostly out to sea…
Cheers,
Scott.
karen marie
@James E. Powell: A photoshopped “crowd”?
Death Panel Truck
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-a-crook/308699/#">Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.
‘Nuff said.
Haydnseek
@Dave Dell: Fat Freddy was a Gilbert Shelton character, but whatever. I remember the Nixon slogan well. I hated him at the time, but these days he would be considered an absolute lefty by the wingnuts.
Wolfdaughter
@Splitting Image:
I’m far from being a states’ righter, but I would be very uneasy about elections being controlled at the federal level. That would make chicanery even easier to pull off.
Wolfdaughter
@PsiFighter37:
Did you hear about the guy who put some Coors in a urine bottle and sent it off to a lab to be tested? The results came back: “We very much regret to inform you that your horse has diabetes”.