It is real. And, at least in NC, there is nothing scary about it. Who has voted is a matter of public record. And, in NC, the voting stations are required to provide observers* with reasonable access to the list of people who voted--reasonable defined as no less than three times during the election day.

The Houdini system simply quickly takes that public information and provides it to the get-out-the-vote-crew in real time. No more or less scary than a guy at Best Buy HQ being able to log on to the system and see, in real time, how many 80G iPods they have on the shelf in Boise, ID.

*Each party is allowed to have two credentialed observers inside a polling location, subject to all sorts of complicated and draconian rules designed to keep them in their proper role as observers and not interfering with the process.

With this explanation of how it might work, I believe it. What I read before made it sound like some sort of mystical snooping device that could gather information not normally available. So any political party/candidate, given sufficient resources, could do this themselves. It doesn't really have to be more than a database ultimately, does it? Doesn't sound like 1984 (or scary) to me right now.

Some incredibly interesting stuff there:





As to the last one.. piczplzthx

Yes. I am sure that each state has different rules about access to the records. But, in a world where internet capable PDAs are getting more and more common, you could see it expanded and used by both parties four years from now.

Based on what I saw/experienced, anything involving talking to the voters would be dead in the water because the election judges would (rightly) throw you out for potential improper voter influence and/or intimidation.

Do VPs ever talk during a concession speech? The fact that Palin was pushing to speak seems rather aggressive.

Maybe she was going to show us those nice missiles she's been hiding. Dammit that was our chance!

LOL!!

Somewhat, yes. This is a center-right country.

On the other hand, you could argue that a half-black Hawaiian named Hussein vs. a decorated war hero and one of the most well-liked politicians around might have been worth a few percentage points in the other direction.

In the end, I think that when the GOP comes back as an intellectually healthy party, it will have no problem getting back into power.

I do not recall Lieberman or Edwards giving a concession speech of their own, let alone being a part of Gore's or Kerry's concession speech. That does sound really odd that she would want to speak during it.

I saw a lot of ambition on their faces (the Palin couple) when McCain was talking about them during his speech. I'm not sure which segment of the party is convinced they are the future, because I don't see the appeal to anyone outside of the 'religious right.' She pretends to know and care about science research for cures to things like autism while criticizing science funding that is actually making progress on that front. She is the candidate for people who put religion and/or style above all else, while not looking for any substance behind it. It only works because we have a significant amount of people in this nation who think science and math are merely questions of faith.

Nah. Just make sure states that the GOP can't win dictate the selection of their nominee and then let him be a lukewarm imitation of a Republican who is scared of his own shadow. Worked like a charm this time, I can't see why it wouldn't work indefinitely.

For some reason, right or wrong, I seem to remember Edwards making some remarks at some point. I suspect one of our more liberal posters will know for sure.

Can anyone (Jon included, if I'm not on ignore by now) give me some substance to back up this scared of his own shadow claim?

John Kerry's Concession Speech, The Text Of The Speech At Faneuil Hall - CBS News

Looks like he did. I guess this turns to "Why didn't Palin introduce McCain?" then.

Did you miss this up the thread?


Stupid candyass son of a bitch lacked the balls & good sense to use what was sitting on the table begging to be used. As I mentioned last night (this morning?) those boos you hear when he panders to Obama aren't solely directed at The New Messiah.

Reposting this from foxnews because it's true and needs to be read by everyone:

The Two Party Monopoly

Those of you voting in Louisiana or Connecticut this week won't have the option of voting for Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr for president. In both states, Barr's campaign insists it had more than enough signatures to put his name on the ballot. But in Louisiana, the courts determined that Barr's campaign missed the filing deadline. That was in part because state offices were closed the week of the deadline, due to Hurricane Gustav. No matter. A federal court determined it would be too expensive to reprint the state ballots to include Barr's name.


In Connecticut, state officials initially said the Barr campaign came up about 500 names short of the 7,500 signatures required to put Barr's name on the ballot. They later acknowledged that they had made an addition error. Barr was only 321 names shy of the minimum. The state then admitted that state officials had actually lost 119 pages of signatures—almost certainly enough to put Barr over the top. Nevertheless, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that Barr would not be on the ballot, citing testimony from Connecticut officials that it would be "nearly impossible" to reprint the ballots to include him.


Meanwhile, in Texas, the tables were turned. Both the Republican and Democratic parties somehow missed that state's deadline to include Barack Obama and John McCain on the Texas ballot. Barr's campaign sued, noting the equal protection problems with allowing the two major parties to skirt campaign rules while holding third party candidates to the letter of the law. Barr was right — Obama and McCain should have been kept off the Texas ballot. But Barr's suit was dismissed by the Texas Supreme Court without comment. Apparently, the Democratic and Republican parties are, to borrow a now-tired phrase, "too big to fail." They're allowed to break the rules.
Bob Barr has no chance of winning the election. But regardless of what you may think of his politics, or that of third-party candidates like Ralph Nader or Chuck Baldwin, this system is rigged. The two major parties have effectively cemented their grip on power by creating laws that make it virtually impossible for upstarts to compete with them. They have effectively done with campaign laws what federal business regulations tend to do in the private sector — protect the behemoth, entrenched dinosaurs that dominate the industry by making it too expensive and difficult for anyone to challenge them.


In addition to ballot access laws, consider campaign finance rules. In his recent special "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics," ABC News reporter John Stossel profiled Ada Fisher, a woman attempting a low-budget, longshot run for Congress in North Carolina with a staff of volunteers. She found it impossible to comply with the election law without hiring a team of lawyers — which of course, she couldn't afford. Written in small print, single spaced, the federal election code spanned one-and-a-half football fields. Eventually, Fisher and her volunteer campaign treasurer were personally fined $10,000 by the FEC for filling late reports.
Stossel then cut to University of Missouri Professor Jeff Milyo, who ran an experiment in which he asked dozens of college-educated people to try to fill out various campaign finance forms and applications. Of the more than 200 people Milyo tested, Stossel reported, "every one of them violated the law." One participant added, "I'd rather not participate in the political process if it means I have to go through the nonsense I went through today."


That's exactly what the two major parties and the incumbents in Congress had in mind. Come up through their party structure, and you'll have a team of lawyers to help guide you through the process. Challenge them from the outside, and the laws they designed will cripple your candidacy.
Consider these two figures: Congress' approval rating right now is a dismal 19 percent. Clearly, we aren't happy with the people who are governing us. Yet 90-95 percent of the incumbents running for re-election to Congress will be victorious on election night. Many will run unopposed. Between gerrymandering their districts to ensure a friendly electorate, campaign finance legislation, debate rules that effectively bar third-party participants, onerous ballot access rules, and the privileges of office, the Democrats and Republicans have ensured that the vast majority of the country will chose only between one of two candidates this year — candidates who, when it comes right down to it, really aren't all that different.


The system we have now selects for the sorts of people who want to make a career of politics. If, in order to successfully run for high office, you have to spend years culling favors and working your way up through one of the two major parties, the winners in this game are going to be the party loyalists and power-hungry climbers who couldn't hack it in the private sector — frankly, the last personality type we want governing.


It ought to be much easier to run for office. As it is now, the first task of anyone challenging an incumbent for federal office is to raise enough money to hire a team of lawyers to ensure that they're complying with the law. It's difficult enough to raise enough money to mount a credible challenge that overcomes the name recognition and other advantages of incumbency. Congress then continually adds to that the enormous costs of navigating more and more layers of an expensive and confusing web of legalese. Defenders of these complex laws then justify them under the guise of "getting the influence of money out of politics."


How clever of them. What they're really doing is ensuring that incumbents stay in office, and that one of two same-ish parties always remains in power.

Probably because he was afraid that she'd go into business for herself, and ruin a gracious concession speech?

Yeah, I don't doubt the McCain campaign was probably scared to death of what she might say.

Ah, ok. I did not miss that, I just thought you were talking about something else.

I happened to like McCain's concession speech and felt like he seemed much more Presidential at that moment than at any other time during this campaign. I know that doesn't play well with the radical elements of the GOP these days, but that sounds more like the GOP I was once a member of. It is nothing more than the type of political shenanigans that the Clintons became famous for, and then Rove took to another level. I'm glad McCain didn't completely fold for that faction of the party. He was already impaired enough by the concessions he gave them, which is why I think he really lost.

Like revealing that sabotaging their own campaign wasn't her idea? Yeah, if I was the cowardly lions I'd have worried about that too. But maybe he can work Obama for an ambassador's job somewhere, bipartisan spirit & all.

This is the biggest problem with our system. It is easier to get on the ballot in the former Soviet Union than it is here. It's a shame that people are not outraged about this. Republicans and Democrats don't continue to share power because of the superiority of their ideas, but rather because they make it far too difficult for the competition to enter the market.

If anyone was sabotaging the message, Jon, I'd say it was Palin. Just my thoughts there.

Jon appears to be the target demographic for her approach to campaigning.

This is what a lot of my relatives are saying, which makes me wonder if the party won't go FURTHER right in 2012.

Well, let's be polite and say that the message the general campaign wanted to take clashed with the message that Palin was generating, and it led to a public perception that the campaign couldn't stand on any one message. Let folks draw their own conclusions out of that.

Subby, someone sent me a link to RedState musing about 2012, and they basically put out something that said "moderates need not apply".

To back up this assertion, I'm a conservative republican and I've had him on ignore for months. My stress levels have gone way down since then.

It would help having a candidate that doesn't change major parts of his message between the primaries and the election. I said it earlier: I was strongly considering a vote for Obama after the primaries were over, as I liked his message and McCain was clearly not the same guy he was 4+ years ago, and then Obama started flipping on everything and changing his message and turning into every other politician out there, at which point I've lost all the reasons I considered voting for him.

Heh. In the election post mortem on Fox, they brought up fivethirtyeight.com (which pretty much nailed the entire election), and one of their commentators said "Nate cheats. He goes to the future!"

If you mean people who, you know, actually want to win an election, yep I'm it.

Someone will. Whether it's the GOP as currently constituted probably remains to be seen.

Reminds me of this:

YouTube - KEVIN JAMES OWNED

In other words, the GOP is screwed.



I kid. I kid.

That's actually an awesome quote.

I think I would have changed my vote to him if he'd actually said that.

damn, Kwhit! Dola warning, man! Think before you Dola! :D

I was playing catch up and had to post very important inane responses to some stuff.

:)

OK, I had a bunch of replies quoted, but screw it. This is directed straight at MBBF. Just two days ago (I can find the posts and quote it) I specifically asked you if you would own up to it if the actual voter turnout matched closely with the weighting used by pollsters. So, now that those numbers do line up, what have you done? You are suddenly claiming that the results of the polls were inaccurate, rather than the weighting?! How can you even begin to skirt this issue when you have spent the past few months doing nothing but complain about the weighting. Can you please man up as you said you would, and admit that you were wrong on the polling. Admit that you were wrong on the eventual percentage spread across the nation. Admit that the pollsters did right and that Obama had a strong campaign that had a significant EV victory (I won't say "landslide").

In addition, early this morning you attempted to claim that your 3 point victory prediction was turning out to be correct. As of right now CNN is showing 53% to 46% (63.6mil vs. 56.2mil) and FOX News says 42.39% to 46.31% (same vote totals). I'm not sure how the math works where you learned it, but that looks like 7 points to me.

If you have to beg him to own up to it, it's not going to be sincere when he does. I think we should all just agree that we're dealing with a troll of a somewhat different nature than most, but a troll nonetheless.

10% of the trolls on the internet act like this though... (+/- 3%)








Ok.. I couldn't help it.

:D

:D

How did you weigh that?

Crap, I have been discovered.

Anybody else get their heart strings tugged watching Jesse Jackson crying last night? I'm not a big fan of his, but it really did hit home how much guys like he, John Lewis, and even Rev. Al has gone through and seen. I have a feeling there was many a-thought to MLK last night from the people who were close to him.

I would probably have felt better about Jesse Jackson if he didnt want to cut Obama's nuts off

Yeah, but it wasn't really so much about him. I have a feeling Jesse wasn't happy about Obama as much he would have been some other candidate (esp. himself). It was the symbolism of those early civil rights warriors and the first black president.

Indeed. That was the first time I've heard McCain talk when he wasn't playing the "please vote for me" politician, and he came off sounding like a pretty decent human being. Certainly a hell of a lot better than he came off during the debates.

I'm happy. I feel like this is a good step in the right direction.


For the first time in my adult life I am very proud of my country. ;)

I agree.

Wow! My local paper just got "Drudged." GEORGIA PAPER GIVES HISTORIC OBAMA WIN BELOW THE FOLD TREATMENT...

Denied:1up! Software ()

He is going off on the Obama win being "below the fold?" It is a freakin local paper! The local elections were way more important to it's subscribers than the National one. That's what the AJC is for.

And who says it has to be man bites dog to be news, dog bites children trumped the first black president! Vive les chiens!

My new favorite card is the "out of context" card. How many different meanings can "I want to cut his nuts off" have?

Jackson just comes off bitter and jealous, what a tool.

My new favorite card? The nap card. A local judge was voted out of office by a surprisingly wide margin. Credit is being given to an advertising campaign that centered on how he fell asleep during a murder trial.

Fozz, every 4 years, I eagerly await this issue. The whole election campaigning shit is made tolerable to me knowing that they had been continuously working on this issue.

The fact that he was not wanting to ok smear tactics and pander to fear are the reasons that I would've actually considered voting for McCain. What you are calling "candyass" I believe is also known as "integrity." Too bad that as the McCain campaign got rolling, any message he was sending about the issues were interspersed with comments trying to equate Obama with terrorism, or radical afrocentrism to whip up "white man's fear." McCain's concession speech was classy all the way. It's too bad his campaign couldn't stay that way before the election.

I know they don't know what they're doing and are just a propaganda arm of the Obama campaign, but amazingly 538 did pretty well using political sabremetrics.

Well, we have further throwing of Palin under the bus, this time from CNN. Although firing someone after the campaign is.. well.. a bit like closing the barn door after the horses have left.. especially since the guy would probably be switching over to Palin ANYWAY

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Sources: McCain aide fired for ‘trashing’ staff « - Blogs from CNN.com

(CNN) — Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator's campaign last week for what one aide called "trashing" the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

"He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain's campaign message," said one of the aides.

Senior campaign officials blame Schuenemann specifically for stories about the way Wallace and chief campaign strategist Steve Schmidt mishandled Palin's rollout — stories that the campaign says threw them off message in the critical final weeks of the campaign.

Another aide said McCain personally was "very disappointed by Randy," who worked for McCain for many years in the Senate.

Scheunemann became close with Palin during her debate prep process.

looks like i missed some good stuff on the last page that i'd want to miss that wouldn't really surprise me

Fozz, here was what I said on May 17


I am still more interested in reading the behind-the-scenes stuff between Obama and the Clintons, that truly was a war. The Palin stuff is reading more like an old episode of Dallas.

Vegas Vic is the gold standard of election predictions.

Funny that you say that. I was just telling my brother that the Palin story has played out like a TV series. It seems like Americans love her and/or love to hate her, making her one of the most intriguing politicians that I can recall.

And, now with the Stevens indictment and by his apparent re-election (which is something so outlandish that it probably would not be believable even in the most cheesy of TV dramas), we have an ancient Senator likely going to prison, giving Palin (the guest star) a chance to join the (national) cast by running for his (likely) soon-to-be vacant seat in January.

Only in America. :)

It looks like Palin was trying to win at all costs while McCain was more worried about losing gracefully. I have to admit, I liked Palin when she came on the scenes and really don't think she hurt McCain's chances, but I think I'd prefer she settle into a senator role or even the "Howard Dean role" in the RNC.

Everyone loves the losing candidate during their concession speech. People were talking about how gracious John Kerry was in his in 2004. The reality is that once you have lost, your opponents like you a great deal more because you are no longer a threat (and their guy/gal just won). So all this "if McCain just would have been more like today he may have done better" crud is just that.

IMO, McCain didn't buy into the theory of tax cuts, his oddly conceived health care plan, his campaign's approach to the economic crisis and some of the other "constructed" items of his platform. McCain also lacked the ability to speak about things he didn't truly believe and convince people to follow him. If he was being true to himself, he would have simply talked about a foreign policy strategy, cutting pork and eliminating corruption. That's all he really cares about and it's why he was always a terrible presidential candidate.

The goal for the republican part in 2012 should be to find 1-2 candidates (pref under 60) they can rally behind and focus on a decision between those two. Maybe a social conservative vs a fiscal conservative. What they did in 2008 was have 4 candidates (Romney, Huck, Rudy, Thompson) that each picked off a piece of the conservative electorate. The end result was that independents and non-conservatives went with McCain and the election was lost at that point.

So, the lesson should be to pair down the list fairly early and focus on 2-3 options (like the dems did with Hillary, Obama and Edwards). Otherwise, we'll have another candidate the non-conservative voters like but who won't win an election.

Dola... anyone seen the "final" (I know there are still a handful of uncounted ballots out there) breakdown of the percentage of registered Dems vs GOP vs Indies? That seemed to be one of the legit criticisms of some of the polls, so it would be interesting to see what the actual weights were and which pollsters got the closest.

All good points.

I would add that I believe (and will be interested to see if there is eventually research to back it up) that McCain's age was a surprisingly undermentioned and under-reported factor in this election for swing voters.

The shaded/shaped maps from 2004 from a few pages back have been updated for 2008:

Election maps

I'll be honest when I start by saying that neither candidate was my first choice. However, the more I've studied Obama, the more I've been impressed. I thought last night's victory speech was very energizing. Say what you will about poll numbers, but to see that many people together to hear him speak was inspiring to say the least.

A friend of mine and I discussed this earlier today. He's not convinced Obama will be successive at learning on the job. I'm not sold he'll be a successful president, but you can see the energy is there. You can tell there's a lot of hope in the country right now. I honestly think we would have been fine with McCain, but I think McCain had a finite ceiling of success he would have had. I'll give you that Obama may end up not being the messiah so many want him to be, but I think there's potential....real potential that this could be a successful term.

Interesting, thanks for the link Cartman.

Well said, and pretty much what I was trying to explain to my girlfriend last night. The reason I was enthusiastic about McCain was his foreign policy vision - the rest of the stuff, who cares. There's basically no difference between his tax plan and Obama's, and generally there were only technical differences between their domestic approaches. But there is a sharp difference in the way they each imagine America's role as a world power.

As for 2012, it depends on what happens. If the economy rebounds, the world remains stable, and Obama doesn't do anything really un-Presidential, he'll almost certainly be re-elected. If the economy worsens, I think Romney or somebody will be the GOPs nominee, and will have a good shot. If peace fails to break out in the Middle East, and Americans are getting killed by Muslims, then somebody like Giuliani will be the nominee, and will have a better than good shot.

For all that Palin is supposed to be appealing to the "base", she's not particularly conservative. I would describe her as a Dubya-style Republican, socially somewhat conservative/moderate; spectacularly and outspokenly religous; but not particularly visionary in terms of domestic or foreign policy in any meaningful way.

My favorite country is Asia.

Agree completely. I read a very pro-fiscal conservative article on her around March and that's what made her interesting to me. Yet, when she started stumping, it seemed she offered very little from that perspective. I can see why the social conservatives liked her, but she was a bit of a letdown from a fiscal standpoint.

The religious stuff is what typed Palin as right-wing, both to her supporters and detracters. Both sides let that aspect of her persona shape their perceptions of her to a really weird degree, imo.

Her character issues, gaffes, and unintentionally comedic moments did far more to shape my perception of her than anything she might have said about religion. ;)

I'm surprised they still haven't called North Carolina for McCain. I mean I know Obama is ahead in the vote totals right now, but as Vegas Vic told us:

Yes, I was clearly wrong on that. Perhaps a better example of how North Carolina has changed is Kay Hagen's 53-44 blowout of Elizabeth Dole in the senate race. This was Jesse Helms' old senate seat. North Carolina also elected it's first female governor, also a democrat.

It's not just in eastern North Carolina, either. In the mountains, Obama carried Buncombe County by 15 points, which includes my hometown of Asheville. Downtown Asheville has become a trendy, eclectic, artsy area.

As a life long Hoosier, I am very happy that the Hoosier state joined the rest of the Midwest, Northeast, and Pacific states in electing Barrack Obama as the next president. I thought he had a chance of winning. First, the polls were showing it was close. Perhaps more importantly, Obama campaigned here heavily (as well as visiting here far more often then McCain), had way more ads on television then McCain, and had an extremely strong ground game. McCain pretty much ignored the state. Essentially, the Obama campaign kicked the crap out of the McCain campaign in Indiana yet Obama only won here by about one percent. Indiana may no longer be a Republican strong hold, but I think it's safe to say it continue to go Republican in most future presidential elections.


I don't think most Democrats could have imagined that we would elect George W. to a second term. In my opinion, America seems to be trending towards two term presidents. The country is in pretty bad shape right now. If the economy starts to turn around during Obama's first term, I think he will be reelected. I don't think it will matter that much to the average independent voter. (the people who decide elections).

Earlier I read the opinion of one of her Alaskan Republican colleagues and it seems to add up. There were two things:

1) He said that she is one of those personalities that instinctively understands what someone she meets expects of her and then acts in a way that makes her immediately likable. However it's not to be trusted or thought of as being "her" but merely the persona for that moment - not deliberately deceitful but the consequence of insecurity and a genuine wish to please.

2) He also says that, while she presumes to be socially conservative, there isn't a lot of commitment behind it. It seems she takes on expected positions without really thinking it through. Her colleagues in the Republican party are disappointed in her in that she's done little that they had expected of her as governor in the way of social conservatism. She's shown no willingness to act on her views.


I note she attended the pentecostal church for 34 years yet she insists she's not pentecostal which, considering the extreme positions taken by pentecostals, is peculiar . In an interview with The Frontiersman she made the right socially conservative comments about creationism in schools (students should be presented with both this and evolution) but when asked if she believed in evolution she refused to answer. Both examples of apparent support for an idea but without any genuine commitment or knowledge behind it.

It does seem to me that these two things are connected - the will-to-be-liked chameleon personality and the lack of depth and genuine commitment to the views she holds. It explains her rabbit-in-the-headlights reactions (the Couric interview etc) where she seems to have little depth of understanding behind the positions she takes. It explains that immediate appeal which fades with time and greater understanding that characterises the response of many to her.

My own reaction to her is that she's a pleasing personality but shallow. There's no real sincerity - which allows her to claim to be a crusader for ethics and integrity yet become the enthusiastic attack-dog for McCain.

She may prove to become the perfect, populist politician :)

She made the same mistakes as the average nutjobs in any office or small town makes. The kind of people who might have a hard time finding more than 2 or 3 nations on a globe, but think they really know something about the world. The people who know absolutely zero about science, so they actually believe they are onto a real breakthrough when they target some fundamental part of science research as a waste of money. Those people are not hard to find. They just don't often become Governor AND be wrapped in a beauty pageant body. People liked her because of her overt religious beliefs and that she shared the same limited view of the planet that they did.

Yup. I have a feeling the next two years will be the "shaping" of Palin. Someone is going to run her, and create her views to be most electable. She IMHO is W in a skirt. Likeable personality that can relate to the common man, but not really someone who runs their own political life.

On a more local front, I'm surprised the need for a run-off in the Senate race was as close as it was. Voter turn-out was lower than expected in Georgia (78% against 90%. Still higher than 2004 at 76%), but to give my own county as an example:

Newton has been a pretty solid hot-bed for the GOP for last decade, with only a handfull of the old Southern Democrats still holding that party affilation, but mostly every local seat held by Republicans with a good percentage uncontested. I just noticed that a Democrat won the Sherriff's race (by 62 votes), the County chair is now a Dem at 57% of the vote, and 3 of five commision seats are now Dems.

My thought is that this could actually be less that there are less Republicans now, and more that the Dems voted (some for the first time) and some Republicans just stayed home. Two factors would play to that. 1) Excitement over Obama drove the Dems, and 2) The Republicans were not excited about McCain here, and didn't feel like he would win anyway.

For those who feel like the GOP would be wise to run another moderate Pres canidate, I think there is a message here. The Southern GOP will not turn out as well with a moderate at the top of the ticket. The South could start turning bluer if they feel the GOP is leaving them behind, not by social conservatives turning Dem, but by them just staying home. You might be happy to not have their votes, but you will never win a national election without them.

BTW, this county went to Obama by a very slim margin. This is the same county that went over-the-top Huckabee in the primaries (and that was after McCain had already almost completely locked down the nomination).

Very different demographics in Newton (and neighboring Rockdale) than there used to be.

On the Larry King show Bill Mayer commented on where the Republican party could go from here. He argued that if they wanted to continue down this know-nothing, intellect-fearing, Joe six-pack, God-on-our-side road then they should stick with Palin but he would rather they returned to the Republican party of his youth representing big business, low taxation and fiscal responsibility. Despite Mayer's obvious left leaning position I suspect many Republicans might agree with him.

Amusing video on The Onion..........

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Many former GOP members likely agree. It was the turn to the religious right and embracing of social prejudices that drove me out of the party. Until it stops being the party of "let's push Christianity down the throat of everyone" and "we must stop the < insert most hated minority group at the time >", I don't care if they win any election. Get back to something that truly matters, that can be measured with real numbers, and more common ground can be found.

What you're really seem to be saying is "abandon the things that are most important to you & come work on the things most important to someone else". That's not 'common ground', that's capitulation.

As I said in another thread, I'm cool with anybody who wants to split the party/change parties/whatever. But demeaning the priorities of a recent & potential future partner with bullshit like "something that truly matters" isn't going to fly well nor far.

True dat.

Capitulation? Is it really "most important to you" to force Christianity onto others? Is it really "most important to you" to constantly find minority groups to attack? I didn't think I was asking that much, but apparently I underestimated how important those two missions are to some people.

This may come as a real shock to you (apparently) but supporting the values & beliefs people have is actually more important to some folks than {gasp} even money. Not only is it an ethical/moral imperative for a lot of people, but on a more practical level it's also a simple matter of defending their own quality of life.

You can agree, disagree, whatever with their priorities but what you do at your own peril politically is underestimate or flat out deny just how important those various issues are.

WARNING: OVERSTATEMENT AHEAD !
Okay, having been warned that I'm intentionally overstating this to make a point here, I believe that the following quote may become increasingly relevant for a lot of voters in the next couple of years. "What profiteth a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?" More to the point, there's going to be a lot of people (me very much included) who really don't see the gain in even hypothetically perfect fiscal policy if it's maintained in a country that's not enjoyable or even downright unbearable to live in.

The Research Triangle continues to have an influx of northeast liberals. This is not the ultra-conservative rural state it used to be; Charlotte and Raleigh continue to grow and are the New York and LA of the state. And many of these folks live in surrounding counties.

I remain amazed at how well the Dems swept everything in Wake County, right down to the local elections, including kicking out incumbent Repubs. So much for fixing the school board here...

What makes it worse is all the Dem scandals at the state level, including our Speaker of the House getting sent to prison for corruption in getting the lottery in place (which included a stealth vote when key opponents were recessed), the whole Mike Nifong affair (Governor Easley appointment), the massive bloating of the state budget over the last 9 years or so (with Kay Hagan in a key role no less!), and various other scandals, and people let them get an even BIGGER stranglehold on state politics. Sigh.

Wow. I thought maybe you hadn't the thread. What a worthless contributor and liar you are.

From what I have read and heard, Kay Hagan won more because Dole simply didn't care to keep the job. When she did decide to even try campaigning, it was with inflammatory ads that received widespread negative response. It appears she is likely more interested in moving to K Street than being in the Senate and threw the race to Hagan. So, I believe that had more to do with Dole's complete ineptitude as a candidate than Hagan being the best possible choice.

I'm not sure what 'hadn't the thread' means, but The Onion has been cited several times in this thread. The article posted earlier was pretty funny as well.

Sorry, hadn't read the thread. I am referring to your continued refusal to admit you were wrong, even though you said you would admit it if you were.

That's the way he always is. Don't let it bother you.

Most of us have learned to ignore everything he says.

Well, that's not completely true. I'll try to make this the be all, end all of explanations.......

1. I was way off on the electoral vote. I said around 285 for Obama and he obviously picked up some key wins (he may still get one or two more).

2. I was wrong on Pennsylvania. I'll be interested to see the breakdown of voters in the final tallies (perhaps they are available, though I have only seen exit polling thus far).

3. There were several states where I was correct in regards to final percentage, but not sure if the percentage argument played out. Same thing there in that exit polling is the only data at this point, so we'll wait to see if the actual numbers pan out. Ohio could be very interesting in that regard, as there is some mention that the Democrat turnout may actually be really high in that state due to the voters who switched to Democrat to vote for Hillary and never bothered to switch back. That would obviously throw a HUGE wrench in my poll weight theories. It would also explain the phenomenon that JPhillips pointed out in regards to the high turnout for Democrats that didn't actually inflate the Obama vote.

4. When I made my initial post regarding vote totals, the nation vote hovered in the 3-4% range. Since then, it has settled into a 6-7 point margin, so the national polls probably will be relatively accurate in the end, despite the state numbers variance. Most of the battleground state numbers slid in favor of McCain in relation to predictions, but the heavy partisan turnout in Democratic areas offset any gains.

It'll be interesting to see the actual polling data as it comes out in the coming days/weeks.

As a registered Republican, please let me know which minority is next on my list to attack. I must have missed the latest newsletter.

"Change We Can Believe In"

So far it just looks like Clinton retreads, which I find interesting in and of itself.

That would be gays.

The gay community may not be welcome on either side of the tracks with the African-American vote also coming out against them. Time to create a gay political party.