That's right! Put aside those responsibilities. We're in the stretch run! :)

By the way, I did have a family come by my house on Sunday afternoon. I opened the door and immediately saw the Obama buttons. I thought about dragging it out like I was interested in their message just so they could get to less houses, but I was a nice guy and quickly told them that I was a McCain supporter and I probably would be a waste of their time. They laughed and moved on.

The unfortunate part was that I got back to my living room just in time to watch the Chiefs give up the game tying touchdown and lose in OT.

Obama was trying to save you from seeing your team lose, MBBF. It's still not too late to drink the Kool-Aid! :D

Here's something I've been thinking about as the talking heads have begun predicting an Obama victory, and possibly a "large" victory, where "large" probably means a few percentage points.

We know Obama's raised a ton of money. We know Obama's run a very tight, very efficient, very successful campaign. We know McCain's not run a very good campaign and has had troubles throughout.

The environment has favored Obama. The economy needs a lot of help. People want us out of Iraq. People are tired of Bush and the GOP.

Yet with all this, the most likely outcome, at this point, seems to be an Obama win by a few percentage points. What conclusions can we draw from this, if any?

America is a center-right country. Basically, I think that George Will--though an order of magnitude smarter than the average American--closely approximates where the average American falls on the political scale.

Pulling some numbers out of my ass, I think that in any given election, you have 45% of the people who will vote D no matter what, 45% of the people who will vote R no matter what, and of the remaining 10%, they are predisposed to go 65-35 to the GOP.

The 65-35 split is well off IMO. Since Reagan we've been a split or nearly split country. A few hundred votes in FL could make this an election for a fifth consecutive Dem term.

Anybody have lists of when polls close tomorrow?

Also, any editorials of note?

Not my list, but I found it on another board and assume that it is correct.

Google Docs - Closing times

Usually, the courts decide that in Missouri every 4 years. I'm not even sure why they bother trying to make an official closing time.

I'm sure there will be 50 news storys tomorrow about how times were extended because they ran out of ballots because of unprecedented turnout.

And well they should be. Unless of course you want to disenfranchise people.

I assume you did not see my question to you then.

I just want to clarify something from you. If the actual turnout at the polls matches the weighting used by pollsters, are you willing to admit that you were wrong in your criticisms?


Clearly the conclusion is that Obama has a mandate from the American population.

Get over and post in the predictions thread if you haven't already. No gambling, just bragging rights.

That definitely means you MBBF :)

Why wouldn't I? My assertion is that the actual turnout will not match the voting weights being used by some of these polls. The logical assumption would be that if it turns out to be true, I was probably wrong. I realize that admitting that you're wrong is not a common thing in these kinds of threads, but I'll go out on a limb and do it if need be.

BTW.......great to see these big voter turnout numbers in Colorado. I don't buy into the whole 'turnout is good for the XXX party candidate'. I'd love to see more Americans take an interest in the elections. It's good for everyone IMO.

http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=547

Really bad timing for this kind of thing to come out given the states that this news could affect.....

It's sad to see what a game politics has become, on every side. These sort of stories always get 'discovered' seconds before the election. I know the stakes are high, but perhaps if we weren't all so damn sure that we knew the right outcome we wouldn't be willing to play games like this to ensure our victory.

Who votes based on the coal association? They were very anti-Kerry, saying he had "20 years of votes against coal." Kerry still did pretty well with coal families thanks to the unions.

And I agree about the close nature of elections these days. It was just as surprising to me with the Bush elections, particularly the second one. An incumbent war president would normally hold every advantage, but it came so close. I think people are fairly settled in their camps and it takes a lot to shift anything.

Barack Obama prefers socialist, Muslim coal.

Another instance of McCain missing the lay-up. Negative PR does work, but it takes time to work. If they wanted this to have any real effect, they should have released it a week ago instead of the day before the election...

The issue presented impacts some of the biggest battleground states of this election. It's an important development, though the timing was obviously politically motivated.

Obama's not winning WV anyway. I's confused.

Again for months the coal associations/Republicans hammered Kerry as being anti-coal for decades. It didn't make a big impact with coal families or the coal states then. (Kerry did as well in the coal states as he was going to do with or without coal issues.)

Why would one believe that this would make any kind of noticeable impact, when as mentioned it won't have time to soak into the public's consciousness?

I'm glad the next President gave back his illegal alien aunt's donations.

Tough situation there. His aunt may be deported thanks to the attention to his campaign. As Obama said, it's the law, but that doesn't mean he personally has to like the situation.

If only McCain could get back all the money he sent to Khalidi, then he might be able to run some ads without having to siphon money from his GOTV operation.

I'll first qualify things by adding "a relatively few percentage points in the popular vote". In other words, in recent US politics an electoral landslide & a popular landslide are two different animals & the latter is an endangered specieis.

Only 5 of the last 10 elections have been won by a candidate getting even 50.1% of the popular vote, and in the past 60 years (15 elections) only 4 times has a candidate gotten reached 55% of the popular vote (Ike '56, LBJ '64, Nixon '72, Reagan '84).

I believe albionmoonlight made a good point earlier, that by nature the US tends to be center-right more than anything else ... so that's the tendency that anyone left of that mark has to overcome to win.

That he appears poised to do so says almost as much about McCain as anything I think. The number of people (outside of FOFC) that I've run across who are actually enthusiastic about voting for him? Zero. I mean damn, that's the same number I've met who were gung-ho about voting for McKinney. Surely I should have at least run into one even by accident.

But ultimately what it says is what I already knew: there's not much "United" about these States, and largely hasn't been for most of my lifetime.
I'd say at least 25% on each end hates the other end as much as they hate terrorists/oil executives/child molesters/Klansmen/whatever. That's about half the country that friggin' despises at least half the rest. "United" is not much more than a sad joke with fairly rare exception.

I think that's a pretty heavy dose of 'debbie downer' if I've ever seen it. Missouri and Kansas fans 'hate' each other a few times a year, but we're able to peacefully co-exist and joke about our differences the rest of the year. I think the same can be said of the public in general in regards to politics. The rhetoric heats up pretty intensely during the election season, but we're able to get along just fine most of the year and we'd certainly be united in a situation of crisis.

{shrug} We disagree on what that "able to get along just fine most of the year" part means I guess.

All it takes to put folks back in the rivalry mode you mentioned is bringing the votes/voting issues/et al to the fore & bam, we're right back to it ... which says to me that it's not a matter of liking each other any more the rest of the time, it's just a combination of forgetfulness & denial that allows us to coexist more peacefully.

edit to add: The one distinction I didn't draw earlier (and now think I should have) is that we seem to be considerably less likely to lose hope of rehabilitating an internal political opponent than we are some of the other reviled categories I mentioned in my previous post. And that reluctance definitely factors in somewhere, although frankly I believe we're probably overly optimistic with that approach (myself included).

Just saw the full Obama quote on Coal, he says non-clean built power plants would be bankrupted because of penalties.

So basically, Obama is saying he is for the same exact thing the coal coalitions say they are for, "clean coal." I don't know what to say. Given the way the McCain campaign/McCain supporters have acted in this election, I am not surprised.

It certainly seems to me that the space between the political camps has gotten not necessarily larger, but more vicious for sure. I think most of the time we get along anyway becuase we avoid those sort of subjects, or keep quiet if they happen to come up. But I would agree that there are parts of our own country who just can't stand other parts, and vice-versa, and seem incapable of responding to each other with anything more than kneejerk vitriol. It's sad. The chip on people's shoulders seems inordinately large.

I really thought/hoped that this election would be the exception to that. If we had the McCain campaign that he ran in 2000, that would have been the case.

The good news is, Obama/Democrats have run a relatively clean, issue filled campaign. (The worst of it is the constant Bush mentions, but as personal and vicious as American politics has been lately that's actually a step up.) Also, the negative campaigning from either side just hasn't worked this cycle. Hopefully lessons will be learned from that... I am cautiously optimistic that an Obama Jindal race in 2012 could be all about issues and discussing differences in a fairly civil manner.

I just hope to God that we don't see Palin run for President. She embraces everything that is wrong about political campaigns.

I'm not sure how much the presidential electoins have to do with this attitude though. Certainly something, but it's not clear to me that a change in election tactics will have much effect on how joe and jane schmoe talk to each other about politics. I don't really see political ads or debates, or pay attention to the negative stories, for example. But I hear the rancor in people in just ordinary political debates online. I'm sure the negative ads help feed that but I'm not sure it's much of a percentage of where it all comes from.

I think they can have a pretty big affect. I have noticed a lot of liberals that were previously very bitter and angry towards anything conservative mellow out a lot during this campaign. Likewise I have seen some conservatives break off from the Muslim and socialist rhetoric after McCain denounced it.

The modern American political supporter is just in it to win elections. Winning at all costs has given us the ugliness we have today. But at the same time, that is what can help get us out of it. When the candidate that the base has to support says "This is about issues first and foremost, let us agree or disagree civilly."

I would suggest that you've mixed up the cart & the horse. The sense of urgency that goes with winning seems to stem from the disdain for the opponent, not the other way around.

I am not sure it has to be that way. Do Democrats this cycle really have that much disdain for McCain?

McCain's "spread the wealth" attack seems somewhat risky - it has a chance to backfire if and when people realize that they make less than $250,000 and therefore are on the side that benefits from spreading the wealth.

which Im sure youre as equally upset about as the threat of the Troopergate report becoming an "October Surprise."

Maybe not at the beginning of the campaign, but by now I think many dislike him almost as much as Bush.

I was polled by Gallup and they asked me to rate the candidates on a -5 to +5 scale. I gave McCain a -3, when it would have been a +1 or +2 a year ago.

Relatively fair enough, especially since your question highlights what I should have said instead of what I said.

Consider the original "stem from the disdain for the opponent" amended to read "disdain for the opponent's supporters". It's more accurate to what I meant (although I don't always make the distinction even to myself apparently) and now it answers your question too.

I don't know if D's this time around hold McCain in such low regard as in recent years but I don't believe they hold non-Obama voters in any higher regard than they held non-Kerry or non-Gore voters.

Living in Massachusetts, I still have not seen a McCain advertisement yet on tv. I finally started seeing random Obama ads in between the random Sununu/whoever he is running against in New Hampshire ad spam. So my exposure to this entire presidential cycle has been primarily from those few ads and what I read on the boards.

For the most part, I haven't seen much difference between how the Democrats or the Republicans have spoken on this election in regards to negative or positive ads and campaign spins. The New Hampshire race with Sununu is actually kind of hilarious.. both sides evidentally have the same advertisement agency as every single commercial is a contest to see how many sound bites they can find of the other candidate "supporting" Bush. The only Obama ads I have seen on tv here have done pretty much the same thing in regards to McCain.

I don't think I would call any of that "negative advertisement" to the extent of it being worse than things we have seen in the past, but I don't really see many Obama ads that really talk much about what he is trying to acomplish. Everything this election advertisement wise here has been all about trying to distance yourself from Bush while tying the other candidate to Bush.

Not a Democrat, but I have extreme disdain for the McCain & the Republican party and their enablers, the Democratic party.

I'm honestly not sure which is worse, holding loathsome, minority opinions and going around inflicting them on everyone but yourself, or initially opposing those views before inevitably capitulating in the most coward-like fashion.

So since you have disdain for both sides, it cancels out? ;)

Ah, if only we had the time, patience, and wisdom required to have a direct democracy. There are days I wish we had a parliamentary system, it would be more likely to give people real choices at least.

Well, I'm an independent, and I have nothing but respect for the things John McCain has done in the past. It's his VP Pick that I can't friggin stand.

There are a couple running here in North Carolina that are basically Obama laying out bullet points for what he wants to accomplish, obviously at a super high 1 minute level, without any negative mentions. Of course, there are more attack ads than anything else, and Obama has the money to do both, where McCain probably doesn't. In casual TV viewing, the RNC definitely seems to be desperate, attacking everything they can think of, hoping something sticks with a voter on election day. Of course, if the polls are to be believed, they are desperate at this point.

There are reports out that Obama's gravely ill grandmother has passed away. God bless, Toot.

Direct democracy? Wow, I'm ready to go the other route. Let's start with repealing the 17th amendment. :)

Yeah, I would believe that the RNC probably has just as many negative ads as the Democrats do. We just don't get many of them up here airtime wise. I just reject the spin that people have that one side is being less negative than the other. From my independent perspective both sides were completely willing to do whatever they needed ad-wise to try to win, but because of an early lead the Democrats have had less of a need to , or felt less of a need to. If the tables were reversed, I would fully expect much nastier ads than the current ones that we see.

I wish we got some of the ads for Obama that you have in NC though, they must feel no need to try to "sell" Obama to anyone in Massachusetts since this state is so heavily liberal, so everything is oriented around trying to remind us why McCain is bad rather than why Obama is good.

What's fun is the Senate race, where Hagan and Dole are trading attacks constantly. It's a never ending flood from those two. And it's now got the RNC running "you don't want the liberal Dems to get to 60 senators so they can push through anything they want, do you?" ads.

Pumpy must hate Obama now.

I feel like tonight is Christmas Eve. I'm so excited and nervous all in one!

It's funny, the people who still support Bush go on regularly about how awful the "left-wing" Dems are, how the world will end if they're elected and so on. On issues of legitimate substance (Iraq/Imperialism, Taxes/Spending) there's almost no difference.

For example, Obama wants to leave a skeleton crew in Iraq and go to Pakistan while McCain wants to keep everyone where they are. Dems traditionally tax, spend & regulate, but Bush2 has spent more and issued more regulations than any President ever. Big fucking whoop.

There's no pol, save for Ron Paul, that comes anywhere close to representing my views, which in short is leaving people the fuck alone. This is because 1) Every pol gets paid by companies who make money by doing exactly the opposite and 2) Most of the people who want to become pols in the first place are usually not the sort of people who tend leave people be.

So it goes...

This is really sad news...

Obama's grandmother died of cancer. Just one day before he was about to be elected President. I really wish she had been able to see that.


http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4A26GV20081103


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's grandmother died of cancer, he said in a statement on Monday, a little more than a week after he interrupted the White House campaign to say goodbye to her in Hawaii.

"It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer," Obama said in a joint statement with his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. "She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength and humility."

Dunham, 86, helped raise Obama from the age of 10 while his mother was working in Indonesia, and Obama took an emotional 22-hour trip to Hawaii to visit her on October 23 and 24.

Obama said afterward his grandmother had been flooded with cards, flowers and well-wishes from around the country, and he regularly thanked crowds at his campaign rallies for their prayers.

"Our family wants to thank all of those who sent flowers, cards, well-wishes and prayers during this difficult time," the statement said.

"It brought our grandmother and us great comfort. Our grandmother was a private woman, and we will respect her wish for a small private ceremony to be held at a later date," the statement said.

Dunham had followed Obama's presidential bid with great interest, and her death comes one day before U.S. voters will render their verdict in the race between Obama and Republican John McCain.

Obama affectionately called her "Toot" -- short for "tutu," the Hawaiian word for grandmother -- and frequently spoke of her on the campaign trail.

Dunham had recently broken her hip but the campaign had refused to comment on reports she was suffering from cancer.

If it was anything like when my Dad passed the extra few days wouldn't have mattered. I just hope that she was able to recognize him when he went to see her.

The way you have answered similar questions previously did not come across this way. You said that the election results would not prove the polls correct. I think the problem is that the answer was based on the question of whether a matching percentage win by Obama would prove you wrong. I think my question was more accurate to what people want to know regarding your ability to admit if you were wrong or right. :)

This is unbelievable...

A complaint filed by the California GOP:

I agree. You'd think somebody in the Obama campaign would have been smarter than to let that happen.

(actually I figure somebody somewhere was smarter than that & had enough sense to make some sort of campaign appearance while there)

Well, I see no reason to take the complaint as 100% fact, especially when it comes from complete and utter shitheads that have the nerve to file it when they did.

I can imagine McCain calling California "What the fuck are you guys doing?" Some of these state branches really have no clue.

Please, spare the world your angst.

Did Obama take the day off? Did his campaign staff? Then why in the fuck should anyone else? If they had the info & there's a legitimate concern then it's fair game & they would have been remiss not doing so.

Sadly, so can I.

They should have thought, "Will bringing this to court today be beneficial to my side of the campaign? And if it isn't, did Obama do something wrongful enough to risk my party looking like unsympathetic creeps?"

If they are really concerned about this issue they should have brought it up after the campaign, because they will only make the McCain camp look worse with this.

Sorry, but if it isn't a day where Obama takes off then the opposition damned sure shouldn't. Business as usual cuts both ways.

And FTR I'm not suggesting that Obama did anything wrong by continuing with his schedule.

Jon, your opinion here doesn't surprise me one bit. I'm not one of the people around here that get shocked when you say something crazy. You have your opinions, they are wildly different than mine, and I fully respect that. So I guess what I'm saying you're kinda wasting your time on this one.

That's fine, I've long since lost hope in you regaining any semblance of reason, but I've got as much right to defend the move as you have to criticize it.

I'm a bit bemused by the fact that you apparently thought I had reason at some point. I'm not aware of any position of mine that has wildly changed since I joined FOFC.

And of course you have that right. What I meant was you're wasting your time with the cute "Yeah, I'm shocked" irony bits.

Im sure you were equally pissed learning about the state of AK paying for Palin's kids to take trips with her on business when the kids weren't even invited right? Just want to make sure it's equal in your disdain eventhough Im sure it is.

Don't worry, these things happen all the time. McCain has pending lawsuits as well. If anything comes of it it will just be a small fine.

With all due respect.
This is why the GOP is behind in the poles, it is just more preaching to the choir.
While the republicans think this is fair game, it looks heartless to most everyone one else and those are the ones McCain needs to swing his way.

And that sort of lack of logic, reason, or common sense is why I don't have any faith in the nation recovering from tomorrow's embarrassing disaster, we're simply too far gone.

Bzzt. Read again Flash.

Did I comment on the claim itself? Nope.
Did I comment on the expenditure? Nope (other than to say I expected it would eventually be tied to something that made it allowable).

My comment was focused on the nauseating whining about the timing of a claim being levied with the appropriate body.

If not giving Saint Obama a free pass on this is already causing heartburn, I can only imagine how much angst we'll see over the next four years.

We have our November Surprise!!!

Alaska's Personnel Board finds that Gov. Sarah Palin did not violate ethics law by trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired.

Wow, I'm sure this clears up everything. It's good to see that she did not do.. wait.. you're telling me this has all been done before... by whom? A bipartisan group? That she did act unethically? Then why did Palin ask for this investigation on this.. oh.. it's done by a board Palin put into place.. ah.. that explains a lot.

(Please try to avoid the dripping sarcasm from my post)

you at least got me to laugh tonight by buzzing me :)

Are you saying that there are enough ultra conservatives to elect McCain all by your self?
Have at it....

Otherwise you need moderates and independents, which are disgusted by the GOP trying to take political advantage over a funeral.

:+1:

RIP. :(

I figure most people here know where I stand politically, though I must say, McCain's VP pick is a large part of the reason he won't be getting my vote. The other, somewhat shallower reason, is that I don't think he's the same person he was in 2000, when there was a very good chance I'd have voted for him. I'm not sure if it's because he's playing the game, trying to woo those on the far-right, or if it's because he's actually changed, but some of his positions (and his VP choice) scare me. Actually, his VP choice is somewhat insulting to educated women, IMO, but that's a personal thing. Either way, I feel he's changed since 2000, and I won't be voting for him.

/tk

And if they're more disgusted by that than they are by the worthless sack of shit he's running against then they weren't going to vote for him anyway. So where's the vote loss in that exactly?

From the CBS poll today.

Ok, let's settle down! After all, after tommorrow, it's over....

Well, until the first republican announces that he's running in 2012. so.. June, July 09 at the latest?

:devil: :rant: :devil:

RCP has Obama up nationally by 7.3% today. To put that in perspective, since 1960, we've had four elections that did not involve a sitting president and they had the following popular vote spreads:

2000	0.5%	Bush 43
1988	7.8%	Bush 41
1968	0.7%	Nixon
1960	0.1%	Kennedy

Op-Ed Columnist - The Republican Rump - NYTimes.com

Interesting article from Paul Krugman today:

But the G.O.P.’s long transformation into the party of the unreasonable right, a haven for racists and reactionaries, seems likely to accelerate as a result of the impending defeat.

This will pose a dilemma for moderate conservatives. Many of them spent the Bush years in denial, closing their eyes to the administration’s dishonesty and contempt for the rule of law. Some of them have tried to maintain that denial through this year’s election season, even as the McCain-Palin campaign’s tactics have grown ever uglier. But one of these days they’re going to have to realize that the G.O.P. has become the party of intolerance

All the news reports I read say the board was chosen by her predecessor.

Not that it matters, ANY outcome, of ANY group would have a predictable reaction from the closed-minded liberals who can't see anything except Obama = correct 100% of the time, Palin/McCain = wrong 100% of the time.

I wonder how long the honeymoon period last for Obama. At this rate I say he gets 6 years before the gloss wears off.

:rolleyes:

More like, the bipartisan group had already issued a six hundred or so page paper (in a state that's what, 56/44 R at best, 60/40 R at worst?) indicating that Palin HAD acted unethically, about a month ago? Kinda like closing the barn door after the horses and the rest of the walls have been sucked into a tornado, don't you think?

I find it ironic that the GOP is always looked up as intolerant, yet I can't remember an anti-affirmative action black person or a pro-life woman who received any tolerance from the left (both are fairly significant portions of society).

It will be interesting to see how "tolerant" Obama and the democrats are on opposing viewpoints in the next 2-4 years - especially in regards to things like the fairness doctrine, gun control, domestic drilling/energy production and school vouchers. It's all fine to rip on Bush for being intolerant when you are out of power, the key is are you willing to be tolerant of opposing viewpoints once you are in power (esp with super majorities in both houses).

It's a human decency thing. You'd never understand.

i don't want them to be tolerant on stupid things though (i.e. domestic drilling)

There won't be any. Even if Obama is really looking to make changes and try to increase cooperation between the parties, the rest of the government is still filled with the same assholes that have always been there. With a supermajority, Republicans will be the vocal minority, most likely watching in horror as the Democrats pass their pet projects at will.

Did he say he's a Rangers fan or something?

Obama supports an eight team college football playoff. I'm ready to vote for change.

Something we can agree on ;)

Interesting. It appears that the Minneapolis Star Tribune is endorsing Norm Coleman for Senator, even as they endorse Obama for President:

kare11.com | Twin Cities, MN | Star Tribune endorses Barack Obama, Norm Coleman

Well, it's time... (I'll modify slightly the traditional starting message for the Indy 500 for this Election 270)

Gentlemen, and Mrs Palin.. START YOUR ELECTION!

First town weighs in on election at midnight - CNN.com

(20 voters in New Hampshire are casting the first votes of election day right now.

They'll also be the first election precinct to close, the law states they can close once all eligible voters have voted

Ha, Dicks-ville. I guess if you don't want to be up at midnight to vote in that town you get thrown out of town.

Wow, Dicks-ville hasn't gone Democrat in 40 years and Obama creams McCain there.

what was the count, TC?

15-6 Obama.

interesting

It's OVUH, baby!