Really? Really, Sen. Udall – that’s what you’re going to work towards in the Senate? And again, we see a Democratic Senator pledge to work with their Republican colleague toward a policy solution when it is quite apparent what McCain really wants [emphasis mine]:
President Barack Obama must put forth a White House plan as soon as possible that congressional leaders can debate, McCain said.
Is this a continuation of the Cons’ view that executives make laws? Because if they do, then President Obama doesn’t need the Congress for anything. No, McCain and his Con buddies just want to continue to use President Obama as a smear target. Sen. Udall – you cannot work with these people until they demonstrate they want to work with you. And no, sliming Democrats at every opportunity and trashing the deliberative process in your chamber doesn’t count as working with you, in case you were curious or confused.
It’s interesting to me that the National Bureau of Economic Research, the group charged with assigning official starts and ends to U.S. recessions, waited until Dec 1, 2008 to announce the beginning of this recession. When did it begin? December of 2007: one year ago. What numbers did they look at in the past three months that didn’t exist in the previous nine that pushed them over the threshold? I’m sure the 2008 election had nothing to do with the timing. So George W. Bush presided over the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Bush’s recession has been apparent to most Americans for most of this year. Which is the biggest reason why John McCain didn’t win last month.
CNN’s recession article upset me with this:
Many people erroneously believe that a recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of economic activity declining.
I read article after article in the past six months on CNN’s website how it was unlikely a recession had started because economic activity hadn’t been negative for two consecutive quarters. And CNN wasn’t the only corporate “news” source that dispensed that talking point. The fact that they ignored their own reporting is very disappointing. I also remember articles treating most Americans as idiots when American’s confidence fell through the floor. Citing the misleading “two consecutive quarter” talking point, economists and reporters attempted to portray Americans as out of touch with America. We just didn’t understand what was going on with the economy. Our economic oppressors were wrong for months and the rest of us have suffered more because of it.
Onto Sen. Clinton’s nomination to be Obama’s Secretary of State. I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think Hillary and Bill Clinton are in politics for themselves first and for Americans second. I didn’t trust Hillary to be President. I don’t trust her to be Secretary of State. I have no specific example of what I think she’ll do to subvert Obama’s agenda at this time, something a lot of liberals online and on the radio are asking for in response to people who don’t think this was the Greatest. Idea. Ever. I’m not sure how this really qualifies as “change”, the amorphous feel-good motto of Obama’s campaign. Do most Presidents nominate people that didn’t run against them for office? I think so and I think that’s happened with good reason. I can think of a number of candidates that I would have felt more comfortable with for Secretary of State. Those candidates could have been characterized as change agents, whereas Hillary cannot.
Actually, while I’m on the subject, what about Secretary of War Robert Gates? Who nominated him? George Bush! Obama is going to keep him in place. The main reasoning I’ve heard behind this makes even less sense than the Clinton nomination. It seems the War Secretary needs to stay on to provide an effective transition between Bush’s policies and Obama’s policies. Say what? In nearly every arena, Obama’s policies will be a U-turn from Bush’s policies. What is so challenging about the War Department that requires a continuation of failed policy enactment? No, the truth is likely to be that Obama came under tremendous pressure to stay the course with respect to the Iraq occupation. I expect Obama to continue to call for a reasonable cessation of the occupation of Iraq. I would not be surprised however to hear about a change in his plans. I hope that Iraq’s recent call for occupation forces to leave by Jan. 1, 2011 will provide strong pressure to maintain his campaign’s occupation cessation talk. The American people voted to move in a different direction than the one we’ve been on under Bush. Gates was a part of Bush’s direction. There is no reason to keep him as War Secretary under an Obama administration.
The following is instructive on how schizophrenic the Republicans are right now. Did John McCain or Sarah Palin run for President this year? I know Republicans are desperate for any kind of a life preserver following the drubbing Democrats served up this year. But this is just silly:
NEW: DON’T BLAME ME! I VOTED FOR PALIN
Bumper Stickers!
As taxes go up and guns and freedom go away, you can let the world know that you voted Conservative and that you voted American. Get the “Don’t Blame Me! I Voted For Palin” 2-PACK of Bumper Stickers! FREE SHIPPING Included via First Class Mail!
There’s lots of crappy messaging in this advertisement. The Cons have been anti-investment for years and look where it’s gotten us: Bush more than doubled the deficit in just 8 short years. The election demonstrated that Americans are tired of failed Con economic policies. If Cons don’t want to invest in America, they should stop using the commons. Otherwise, it’s time to pay for what they use. That’s patriotic.
The Cons have been screaming about having their guns taken away for decades. Has it happened? Of course not. I will point out that it’s probably a bad idea for citizens to own assault rifles and the like. I will further point out that in most of the recent shooting rampages across the country in the past 8 years (perpetrated predominantly by white people), the weapons used included semi-automatic and full automatic weapons. After each event, when multiple people died each time, the NRA and others were quick to jump to the defense of a person’s “right to own” those kinds of weapons. It’s disgusting, but true. I don’t think U.S. citizens have a right to own AK-47s, TEC-9s and the like. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban needs to be revived, strengthened and passed. I have no problem with citizens owning handguns or rifles that are completely non-automatic.
Under Bush’s totalitarian-like government, U.S. citizens had more rights weakened or stripped than at any other time I’m aware of. Did the Cons raise their voices in anger when habeus corpus was stripped or when the 4th amendment was gutted? Of course not. Note also the ad doesn’t mention which rights might “go away” under an Obama administration. Deception and fear: two tactics that the Cons use every time they want to control their base. This is the kind of crap that they’ll hurl at Democrats every day while the Cons are in the minority, regardless of how well Democrats govern.
The cowardly ad tries to continue the Cons’ claim on patriotism. I don’t think so. Americans overwhelmingly voted for Barack Obama. Democrats voted just as patriotically as Republicans and others did. The kind of language used in the ad demonstrates why Obama won.
A number of little snippets of interesting information are being generated. The same thing happens after every election. Different analyses and comparisons are performed. Their relative importance and discussion then help to generate Conventional Wisdom. Sometimes it’s correct and sometimes it’s not. Here are some updated results from all manner of contests along with some analyses I’ve seen.
As of 5:30P MDT, Barack Obama has won with 52% of the national vote, compared to 46% for John McCain. That 6% is significant. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and got only 3% more than Kerry in 2004. Barack Obama has “won” 349 electoral college votes so far, compared to 162 for John McCain. That’s called an @$$ whooping, plain and simple. There are three areas that are not final yet: MO, NC and NE-2. If the current leads hold up, Obama would win NC’s 15 EVs, McCain would win MO’s 11 EVs and McCain would win NE-2′s 1 EV. That would generate a 364-174 total. That’s more than 2-1, which is quite impressive. Moreover, McCain won’t win a single state Kerry won in 2004, while Obama has made serious inroads across the country into states Bush won. Those include OH, IA, IN (!!!), VA, FL, CO, NM, NV (and maybe NC). Obama put the South and Mountain West in play. So far, Obama has garnered 63,859,336 votes compared to McCain’s 56,377,274 votes. Now, McCain did get a lot of votes, there’s no doubt about that. But it’s 6,000,000 fewer than Bush got in 2004, while Obama’s total is 5,000,000 more. That’s an 11,000,000 vote differential out of 122,000,000 cast (1/11th). There are still votes out there to be counted, so these total will shift around for days.
Democrats so far have picked up 5 Senate seats: in NC, VA, NH, CO and NM. Republican candidates currently lead in GA and AK (seriously? AK voters want a convicted felon representing them?!) and MN (very, very narrowly) while a Democrat leads in OR. Georgia could very well go to a recount. MN is very likely to go to a recount. AK and OR need some more votes counted. It might take weeks to get all these races sorted out. Even if the races break 3-1 R-D, Democrats will have 55 Senators and Republicans will have 43. After hyping their “bipartisanship” up so much on the campaign trail, Republicans have an opportunity they really meant it. I have no doubt those 43 Con Senators will do everything in their power to slow down or halt President-elect Barack Obama’s agenda. There is also the little annoying problem of Sen. Lieberman. He definitely deserves to be removed from his Committee Chairmanship. If he wants to support the Republican so badly, let him do it. He’ll only make himself that much more irrelevant. I should also mention the fact that a President Obama could easily tap a Senator or two to replace someone should they accept a position in his administration. For that matter, IL and DE need new freshmen Senators.
Democrats have also picked up 18 seats in the House so far. That gives them 254 votes right now. A number of races still need to have all their votes counted or are waiting to occur in the next month or so. The final numbers will wait until then. Republicans are looking at a substantial sub-200 member caucus. Again, substantial gains in the Rocky Mountain West were gained. New political realities are making themselves known.
One of the interesting analyses that I’ve come across is the change in voting pattern per county between 2004 and 2008. 22% of U.S. counties voted more Republican in 2008 than in 2004. They can be easily described: counties in AZ and AK (duh), OK, AR, LA and west of Appalachia went more Republican this year. The remainder of the country, 78%of it voted more Democratic in 2008 than in 2004. That’s freaking awesome! This country is not center-right, as the corporate media and Cons would have us believe. The country is actually moderate to left-leaning. It’s not the country’s fault uber-Cons took over the Republican party, pushing it further and further right year after year, decade after decade. It’s those folks who can point to Democrats and complain about how liberal they are. When they’re that extreme right, it makes sense that Democrats are more liberal than they are. The question is: which group advocates for policies that a majority of Americans actually support? The 2008 election has shown us that when you engage more Americans, Democratic positions clearly match their goals.
There is plenty more to point out and discuss. As time permits, I’ll do so.
[Update 11:50p]: Likely my last update tonight. I have another all-day meeting tomorrow that will be brutal to sit through if I stay up any longer. I’m watching a couple of numbers: IN, OH, VA, NC, FL Presidential numbers. The vote differential in these states (O-M) at this time stand at: 23,000 (IN), 160,000 (OH w/ 83% precincts reporting), 121,000 (VA), 12,000 (NC), 200,000 (FL). If these differentials don’t change, that’s an additional 25 electoral votes (IN & NC); OH, VA, FL have been called already. But these are small vote differentials. The fact that these five states have likely voted for Obama is amazing. A whole lot of blue has been painted over the country tonight.
[Update 11:30P]:
A clear trend has emerged: Coloradans don’t want to amend their Constitution.
A46: 50%-49% (N-Y)
A47: 55%-44% (N-Y)
A48: 73%-26% (N-Y)
A49: 60%-39% (N-Y)
A50: 58%-41% (N-Y)
A51: 62%-37% (N-Y)
A52: 63%-36% (N-Y)
A54: 48%-51% (N-Y) the only one so far
A58: 57%-42% (N-Y)
A59: 55%-44% (N-Y)
[Update 11:15P]: The b.s. spin by Cons has begun on CNN. This election did not bring in a new set of conservative Democrats to Congress. It brought in a set of Democrats that are proud of being Democrats; proud of being liberal. America is a more liberal country than it is a conservative country. The corporate media has, unfortunately, spun a very different story to the American people for too long. Americans want solutions to the climate crisis, the occupation of Iraq, the economic crisis, the health care crisis, etc. Americans tonight quite clearly rejected the failed Con policies of the past 30 years. They want to move in a very different direction. That means that Obama doesn’t need to cater to the right-wing extremists that have taken over the Republican party. He should interact honestly with moderate and liberal Republicans, because they more accurately represent more Americans. The pundits will try their darndest to move Obama to the right over the next four years. It is up to the 3 million+ donors to Obama’s campaign and his 55 million voters (so far) to ensure he stays true to what he ran on during this election.
[Update 10:45P]: President-elect Obama had another outstanding speech. America did not vote for fear or anger this year. America voted for opportunity and equality. I didn’t keep good track of the state-by-state electoral vote calculations, but Obama has 338 to McCain’s 156 right now. Again, Obama has garnered more electoral college votes than Bush did the past two elections. Obama has also taken the lead in Indiana, which has 11 electoral college votes as well as North Carolina, which has 15 electoral college votes. Obama is behind in Missouri currently, which also has 11 electoral votes. I don’t expect final results from Missouri for quite some time – tomorrow at the earliest. They have some repressive voting rules, unfortunately. Obama currently leads in Montana, which only has 3 votes, but would represent a major political coup if he can win there.
Senator-elect Udall’s lead is 53%-43%.
Polis’ lead is 60%-36%.
Markey’s lead is 56%-43%. Post calls it for Markey.
Republican’s ceilings in Colorado seems to be 43-45%.
Unfortunately, Amendment 58 didn’t get passed. If it passed, oil and gas corporations would have paid the taxes they owe to the state, instead of using a loophole to avoid doing so.
[Update 9:00P]: CNN just called the race for Obama nationally. I cannot believe what I’m hearing. I’ve waited 8 long years to see a Democratic President elected. I hope this result holds. CNN has projected 297 electoral votes for Obama, 139 for McCain. Those 297 are more than Bush received in 2004 or 2000. Let’s start talking about mandates, shall we?
[Update 8:25P]: Obama is up in Colorado 55%-42% with 16% of precincts reporting. Mark Udall is up by a similar margin: 55%-40%.
[Update 7:45P]: Dropping down into Colorado, Mark Udall is performing well in early returns versus Bob Schaffer: Udall is up 50%-39% with 8% of precincts reporting. Betsy Markey is ahead of Marilyn Musgrave 61%-39% with 31% of precincts reporting for CO-04. So far, it’s about 93,989 votes to 61,041 votes. In CO-02, a race I worked on this year, Democrat Jared Polis is leading his wing-nut Republican opponent 67%-30% with 9% of precincts reporting. So far, the vote totals are 36,554-16,117. Jared is going to make an awesome Representative.
CNN has called LA and KS for McCain. No surprises. Still no path toward success with PA and OH being called for Obama.
[Update 7:15P MST]: A number of states have been called. I’ve been tooling around on interactive sites so far tonight while watching CNN, which is doing a pretty good job overall. A couple of early calls, in my opinion, which I’ll get into later. I’ll start with states called for each candidate. Obama has: ME, NH, VT, RI, CT, MA, NJ, MD, DE, NY, NJ, IL and PA. I can’t believe they’ve called PA already. I expect Obama to win it eventually, but I’d like more actual votes to come in. Oh well. McCain has: SC, KY, TN, OK. That’s it.
Obama has had some additional states called: MI, WI, MN, and DC. No surprises there. McCain got some more also: AL, AK, and WY. Right now, Obama’s electoral vote lead is 175-52. Obama needs 95 more votes.
CNN gave McCain ND. I wouldn’t have done that. Obama was polling very well in ND for a Democrat, coming up with right around 50% of the vote in a traditionally deep-red state. It’s not going to make much difference in the electoral collage, but it’s a big swath of red that could change blue. We won’t know until all the votes are counted.
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I’ll update this as the afternoon shifts to evening. Polls likely just closed in portions of IN & KY. A number of states’ polls could close within the hour. I haven’t yet heard of any news reports of polls being ordered to stay open later. I’m also not aware of any long lines in the eastern states. If you haven’t voted yet, get out there and get it done! Nothing is set in stone until you make your own voice heard. I voted early.
Sarah Palin and John McCain have spent most of the past month focusing on what they like to call “terrorists” – folks like Bill Ayers. In a sit-down interview, Brian Williams asks if Sarah (with John by her side) defines people who bomb abortion clinics (and kill people as a result) as terrorists. Hold your hat, folks: she doesn’t. And John didn’t disagree, which means he also countenances terrorizing doctors and patients in America, as long as its his base that does so. On the other hand, if people lean left and bomb buildings, then they’re terrorists. That is what the extremist portion of the “pro-life” movement believes. I can appreciate people who employ lawful means to stop abortions from being performed. I don’t agree with them, but as long as they’re not advocating terrorizing other people, at least the disagreement is over policy. There is absolutely no way that extremists like Sarah Palin or John McCain should be in any kind of position of power. Their ultra-narrow definition of “terrorist” is quite frankly unready to be employed in our 21st century world. Bombing buildings and killing innocent people is a terrorist act, and that definition shouldn’t change based on the color of the bomber’s skin or their personal ideology.
Simply put – if someone asks whether abortion clinic bombers are terrorists, the correct answer is “Yes”, not “I don’t know”.
The RNC bought Sarah Palin’s family $150,000 worth of clothing and makeup since being selected as McCain’s running mate. That’s $2,500 of clothes per day from Nieman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. The “average hockey mom” image is such b.s. Millions of Americans are shopping at discount stores as the economy collapses. Palin got more clothes in one month than the average American household buys in 80 years. The campaign’s response that there are more important issues? Give me a break. McCain has been talking about nothing but Ayers and ACORN for weeks now. And Palin will change Washington?
Should pharmacists be allowed to not sell birth control because of their personal beliefs? It’s happening more and more across the country. The pro-fetus crowd wants to tell women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. It’s all about control over women. It’s all about moving society back 150 years, when women were property of the men in their lives. It’s immoral. If a woman and her doctor agree on a prescription, no one should have the power to alter that agreement. Maybe men need to be denied prescriptions – see how they like it.
There isn’t a Scientists for Obama group. That’s kind of depressing.
As Republicans at every level across the country find themselves behind, and in some cases way behind, their Democratic opponents, they’re resorting to increasingly violent outbursts that are clearly based on their narrow worldview.
Those outbursts have unfortunately become familiar to all of us: racial tensions obviously underlie attacks against Barack Obama; ideology forms the basis of attacks on economic policies (even if R’s have become schizophrenic about them).
Races in Colorado are no different. They merely have their own unique facet of the larger worthless rock that the Republican party represents. I read an article covering Sarah “Socialism” Palin’s visit to the rabid Republican base found in Colorado Springs. One piece of language in that article caught my attention.
“This race for the presidency – and my race for the Senate – is all about one thing: It’s about whether we choose freedom and liberty or bureaucracy and bondage,” [Bob] Schaffer told a cheering Colorado Springs crowd.
Schaffer has said some incredibly stupid things this election cycle. His campaign manager (perhaps the real candidate, depending), Dick Wadhams, has a resume chock full of campaigns whose candidates all too willingly share their … fringe views with potential voters. But including the word “bondage” in a description of what the presidential race is about while one of the candidates is half-African is particularly tasteless. It was not included by accident, either.
Republicans this election season have been left to run with what remains of their base: those most prone to their fear-mongering. They have to pander hard to those who are most scared of foreigners with different skin color, to those who think they’re frightened of “socialism”, to those who are scared of anything resembling change.
Thus, we see Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s rant about pro- and anti-american members of the House, which smacks of McCarth-ism in all its depravity. Thus, we see Rep. Robin Hayes challenging Bachmann to go even further with her hate speech by saying “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God”. Thus, we see Bob Schaffer using the word bondage, pushing the buttons of racists in an effort to invoke feelings of victimization among his extremist base.
Schaffer, McCain, Palin, Bachmann, Hayes and the rest of the loonies on the right are letting voters know exactly who they really are. They’re offering up continual proof of their fringe attitudes. Unsurprisingly, they’re still bleating about the “bias in the librul media”. Despite their best efforts over the past 30 years, 50-70% of Americans aren’t as extreme as they want them to be.
