Personal=Political=Polemical

The Trip South

2010-12-28T10:54:00.017-05:00

Now that internet is once more accessible, I can recap the last few days. Wow, it feels like a million years ago that we were in Tel Aviv. Each day feels like a week because it is not only jam packed with so much but it is all very intense and amazing.

On the Way to the Negev

We began heading south on Sunday morning and stopped at Gedera. This low income community is home to many Ethiopian Jews. It was there that we met one of the remarkable women on the trip, Yuvi, who has founded a community of people (Friends by Nature) who permanently live with the long time residents in order to show that not everyone who has been educated leaves the community. We were first treated to the traditional coffee ceremony as a welcome and then discussed the history and current status of Ethiopian Jews.

Preparing for the coffee ceremony

Yuvi herself came to Israel at age 8 after her entire village of Jews (80 people) walked north from Ethiopia into Sudan for one and a half months and then waited for 8 more months before being airlifted as part of Operation Moses. Avi, a teenager who also spoke with us, had an easier time getting to Israel. He was airlifted right from Ethiopia.

Avi plays a traditional instrument which

he later donated as a gift to our synagogue.

Once in Israel, the social services folks descended, criticizing the parenting skills of the Ethiopian mothers and removing the children to boarding schools (similar to how Native American families were treated in the US).

By contrast in Gedera, Yuvi works with families so that they can participate in understanding how to improve their conditions themselves. One of her group's programs called Homework at Home has helped totally eliminate the high school drop-out rate among youth in the community.

After our discussion we were served an Ethiopian lunch. I usually am not a big fan of Ethiopian food and this food was a bit too spicy for me. But surprisingly I liked the spongy bread we were served (thicker and darker than the US restaurants) and the lentils were excellent.

Our Ethiopian lunch

After Gedera, we continued south to the border of Israel and Gaza where we visited a community (Moshav Netiv Haasarah) that is right on the border. Honestly, this was the scariest part of the trip for me. Our host, Raz, was born into this community of 60 families when it was located in the Sinai Peninsula and then relocated into its current location when Israel gave the Sinai back to Egypt. It is a lovely community, sort of a modern version of the kibbutz with a number of community services but much less collectivity. A closer look at the community and you get a better idea of what life is really like. Sensors at the border sound a siren every time a rocket is launched from Gaza. At that point, the residents have 15 seconds to get to one of the many bomb shelters in order to be protected. Raz's 4 year old son already knows the location of the bomb shelter adjacent to the playground. Unfortunately, if a mortar is launched instead of a rocket, then there is no siren, no warning.

A bomb shelter (right) next to the playground.

Raz grew up with the Palestinians. They worked on his father's farm and he played with their children in Gaza. He told us he wants peace ("if they are happy, I am happy") but he also said "if someone steps on your toe again and again, sooner or later you are going to kick him." He then took us right to the border, where we stood on a cliff looking directly at the concrete wall.

The wall at the border and Gaza beyond.

This whole part of the trip terrified me. I looked around and could not find a safe place. What if I just stayed on the bus? It's very visible, it could be attacked. What if I went with the group? Then I'm in a group of vulnerable people. What if it's a mortar and there is no warning? What if something happened to my son?

Part of the community's collection of rockets that have been launched at them.

I have to admit that I stood out as being the fearful one in the group. It made me realize that I had no idea how this could be someone's ongoing way of life, even though they have the choice to leave and not have to live this way. While we have had to wrestle with many complexities during this trip, I would say that so far this is the one that has stumped me the most. I was relieved when we were on our way moving farther inland.

Rabbi Kleinbaum and Raz displaying a box of cherry tomatos grown on his farm.

Our final stop for the day was the kibbutz (Kibbutz Mashabei Sade) where we spent the next two nights.

All We Celebrated Was Shabbat

2010-12-25T14:56:00.008-05:00

How fitting that on Shabbat our itinerary turned toward the hopeful. And in Tel Aviv, we were able to have hope without Christmas.

First, there was rest. After catching up on sleep and resting a bit, my day began in the early afternoon as we all went to the Yarkon River north of our hotel in Tel Aviv and learned about environmental issues in Israel. Our teacher, Hannah Schafter, an American from Portland, Oregon, now living here and working for Zalul, which focuses on ending water pollution, explained a great deal about how the serious need for water and industry in the country has impacted water quality here. Her organization managed to end the destruction of an important coral reef just off the southern coast of Israel and they have worked to get industry to improve its environmental practices. We then went off in pairs with plastic trash bags and gloves on our hands to do some cleaning up along the river bed. I was paired with Judy, who is also blogging this trip (officially for CBST) and we filled up our bag very quickly. It was a beautful sunny 70 degree day and families were out in full force in the park located along the river bank.

The Yarkon River

Judy after the clean-up with Adam and Chet behind her. The CBST blog can be found at http://cbstisrael2010.blogspot.com/

From the river we went south to Jaffa, the city next to Tel Aviv that is home to both Arabs and Jews, and visited with a group of young people in the Mechina program, a one-year pre-army program for high school graduates. In a sense, this is a gap year for Israeli students before they do their mandatory army service. This Mechina (which means Preparation) is run by the Reform Jewish movement and stresses social justice and human rights (including how to apply these values into army service). The students live together communally, do a variety of different community service jobs and study social justice topics. We met as a large group and then broke into 4 small groups to be able to talk more easily and get to know one another a bit better. One of our group's members, Elizabeth, noted publicly that she has been a teacher for 40 years of students in the 17-18 year old age group, and just by looking at these young people she could see their commitment and dedication. It was a very moving statement and made an impression on the kids. After our small groups, we all went outside together and in one big circle celebrated Havdalah, the end of the Sabbath, with a braided candle, sweet smelling spices (which in this case was improvised from coffee grounds) and wine. We came away refreshed and hopeful.

In the apartment of Melchina youth. Many peace stickers on the wall, plus The Simpsons, and the only Christmas tree we saw in Israel. When asked about it the kids said it was "a joke."

Israeli youth must perform their army service at age 18--boys for 3 years, girls for 2. For those small number who are exempted, there is an alternative community service program. College does not begin until army service is completed. I asked them about that, contrasting it with the US where kids by and large go right to college from high school. One student responded that if she were to start college now she would have no idea yet what she wanted to study. They mostly saw the army as a maturation experience and felt that their year in Mechina helped them mature even more. This is a great contrast to the US where we view college as the maturation experience and where there is much more emphasis on finishing one's education to get into the job market as quickly as possible. I imagine that there are few if any so-called party schools in Israel.

Some of the young people in our small group.

Tonight we were on our own in Tel Aviv and 5 of us went to dinner, hoping to do some shopping after, but alas, after Shabbat, the stores did not reopen. Truly, the only disappointment of the day.

Multiple Realities

2010-12-24T15:01:00.006-05:00

You would never know from where I sit in Tel Aviv that it is Christmas eve. Even at home in my very Jewish Upper West Side neighborhood, there is a smattering of Christmas lights on apartment windows and there are trees and wreaths for sale on Broadway. Here there is nothing. Not one thing that is red and white or red and green to remind me. I basically forgot all about Christmas until the rabbi reminded us (a few in our group are not Jewish and so they were afforded the opportunity to attend a Christmas morning mass in Jaffa, the mixed Arab-Jewish town south of Tel Aviv very close to our hotel). How strange for the first time to be in the religious majority, even more so than in Queens or Brookline or Manhattan.

Today we were pulled in many emotional, intellectual and political directions, which I think is the objective of this trip. First, we visited the Israeli Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed and proclaimed. It was a very moving introduction to Zionism and to the experience of the nation's founders. In 1909, Tel Aviv was just a sand dune, a stretch of land bought from the Turks (who ruled the area before the British) for a lot more than the Dutch bought Manhattan from the Native Americans 300 years before, even after inflation! The woman who works as a guide at the Hall was clearly an accomplished speaker or even actress and spoke with passion about the founding of the country. She said many things you would expect, but one of them stuck with me. She said that each time there is a tragedy--a war, an attack--it feels to Israelis like it is the first time; they have not become inured. I don't know if that is true or if it is part of her shtick, but I did wonder.

From there we went to the offices of the Agudah, Israel's national LGBT organization and also the place where a gunman invaded a meeting of LGBT youth 18 months ago killing two people and wounding many others. It was difficult to be in that same space, especially sitting next to my 18 year old son, but important to hear that story.

This afternoon and evening was devoted the The Situation - no, not the guy with the six-pack abs, but the Arab-Israeli conflict. We spoke with the head of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (similar to the ACLU) and the Israeli Religious Action Center, the Reform branch's policy and social justice organization. They are both very upset with their government and where it is taking the country ("over the cliff" one of them said). There were many assertions that the situation as it is now is just not "sustainable." Basically, the polarization is getting worse and worse and hope is waning. But of course, they are the hope. The work they do, with so many others, including their Palestinian partners, keeps the pilot light of peace lit.

I would be remiss (and not at all myself) if I didn't mention the food. First of all, there is so much of it. Every place we have eaten has been a veritable banquet. The plates just keep coming and coming. It's like the Israeli version of the Catskills. The fruit (the reddest grapefruits) and the vegetables (gorgeous multicolored salads, luscious avocados), fresh cheeses, and amazing hummus. Luckily there is a lot of walking.

I'll end with some pictures:

The view of Tel Aviv from our balcony

Some great sculpture from Neve Tzedek, the first Jewish neighborhood before Tel Aviv was built.

Political street art. Above the gun it says "Zionism is Death" and on the post there is a sticker (with the yellow arrow) that says "Cheer Up."

Safe Landing - A Tug At My Heart

2010-12-23T14:55:00.004-05:00

Outdoor Cafe at the Tel Aviv LGBT Center

I didn't expect to feel it but as we landed this evening (it's 7 hours later here) I felt a tugging at my heart. It was unexpected because I had been reading Amos Oz's memoir, A Tale of Love and Darkness (excellent, highly recommended) and so much of what he talked about was the discrepancy between how immigrants imagined Israel (the Land, they called it, which conjured up images of the Michigan Women's Music Festival, I'm sorry to say) while they were still in Poland and what Israel was really like for them once they got here (the hard life, reduced career expectations, crowded living situations). Like the immigrant view of America with its streets paved with gold. Not only was I expecting to feel jaded from reading Oz, but also because of what I already knew about the Land and its treatment of the Other, whether Palestinian, Bedouin, Ethiopian. So because I had been focusing so much on all this oppression, the last thing I expected was to feel the heart pangs of love.

Much like the Biblical Balaam, king of Moab, who looks out on the Hebrew encampment and opens his mouth to curse it, but instead what comes out are blessings ("how goodly are thy tents, O Jacob..."), I was taken by surprise at my unplanned reaction. Maybe it is necessary to love something/someone/some place in order to care enough to want it to be the best it can be.

The Tel Aviv LGBT Center

Our first stop and it is impressive. Four stories and an outdoor cafe that provides some revenue for the Center. Though most of the support comes from the municipality and the employees are city employees. Amazing.

One entire floor is for the youth - the Israel Gay Youth organization or IGGY as it is called. Its brochure is pretty standard for most organizations of this type, except on the back panel there are a series of diagrams that look like something you'd find in an Ikea instruction book on how to assemble furniture. Curious, we asked about it and were told that these were instructions for disassembling a closet. Clever.

They were wonderful hosts and fed us well.

There was evening and there was morning. The first day.

A Different Country - Just a post before I go

2010-12-20T08:44:00.005-05:00

Yesterday Jacob and I attended the pre-trip brunch for the group of us going to Israel and as we went around the table introducing ourselves, one woman said that she hadn't been to Israel for 20 years. "It's a different country," the rabbi interjected.

On Friday, I'd spent quite a long time online looking for an article that I could have sworn I'd read in the NY Times this year about Americans' perceptions of Israel (I can hear my gf in my head saying, "isn't that EVERY article in the NY Times?"). In this particular article, the writer juxtaposed the Israel of the 1960s, the one many people of my generation grew up with, with the Israel of today. What we grew up hearing about was a collective paradise of kibbutzniks doing Israeli dancing, raising children together, transforming the desert into an agricultural paradise, and providing all citizens with education, health care, and other social services. New Jewish immigrants would be welcomed with open arms and put through an assimilation process where they would learn how to become Israelis, very different from how the Jews (and the Italians and the Irish, etc.) were dumped on the docks of Manhattan after the brutality of Ellis Island, many with empty pockets, at the mercy of whatever huckster greeted them with promises of housing and a job, squeezed into "cold water flats" as my parents called them, working day and night in sweat shops.

The article I read (unless it was a hallucination and I would welcome anyone to find this article and send me the link) contrasted the view of that former Israel with the present Israel, where there is a growing economic disparity between rich and poor, where the kibbutz is more or less marginalized, and where socialism is on the wane. This is now a land that has built a wall around itself (both literally and figuratively), that imports foreign labor to take jobs its citizens don't want (and Palestinians can no longer get to) but then won't legitimize those foreigners, and that has become an occupier in a situation that is looking less and less temporary. Concurrently, it is a country that is still a refuge for a people who have not had one for centuries, that despite all its flaws is still a democracy, that exalts learning and literature so that its writers are as celebrated as its rock stars, and that has a burgeoning technology sector responsible for many groundbreaking discoveries and innovations. Except for the prominence of the writers, it is starting to sound more and more like the US. You might ask, "is that a bad thing?" or "is that such a bad thing?"

Two Jews, three opinions.

Almost time to pack the clothes, the books and all my assumptions for the trip.

Dusting off this blog

2010-12-15T08:27:00.003-05:00

:::turning on the lights in here:::

:::wiping off the cobwebs and dust:::

:::opening windows to let in fresh air:::

Ahh, that's better.

There's nothing like an impending first-time trip to Israel coming up in just one week to get me blogging again.

On December 22, Jacob (18 year old son) and I will be joining a group from Congregation Beth Simcha Torah (my synagogue), including our esteemed Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, for a 10 day trip to Israel. We'll be in Tel Aviv, the Negev and Jerusalem. This is a social justice oriented trip, so we'll be meeting activists from the human rights, LGBT rights, Palestinian rights and Bedouin movements and communities in addition to seeing important sites and, of course, shopping.

I have attended two evening classes led by the rabbi for this group so we could all learn a bit more about our trip and the contexts in which we will be finding ourselves. We have each been asked to become "experts" on two areas or issues related to Israel. I am working to learn more about Bedouins and about Russian Jewish emigration in the 1970s, two topics that interest me.

This social justice focus is the only kind of trip I would want to make to Israel. I want a balanced view of the country. The rabbi says that there are no easy answers and that anyone who says all that needs to happen is one thing or another really doesn't understand or know the situation. She wants us to immerse ourselves in the complexities and to challenge whatever positions we hold going into the trip.

This is important to me. I want to wrestle with this like Jacob wrestled with the angel. I want to be challenged by people I know who support divestment and boycotts so I can better understand why and I can balance that understanding with the opposing view. I want talk to the marginalized, to the unrepresented, to the oppressed and to come away with an even stronger commitment to them than I have now. I want to love and criticize Israel, the way I do the US. I want to believe the country has a better self, that it can be "touched by the better angels of our nature" in the words of Abraham Lincoln.

I believe that to call oneself a member of the "chosen people" implies an obligation, not a privilege. And it is an obligation to all humanity, not just to one's self and one's tribe.

These are the beliefs and values that I pack into my bag along with the shoes and shirts and other items on the list we received.

I will write about all of this and how it is impacted as we move through the trip. One of my trip-mates, an older man, told me that he was happy to hear that my son was coming because he wanted to see how an 18 year old experienced Israel for the first time. I do too, and I will write about that.

Has Rick Warren Got a Prayer? Frank Rich Nails It.

2008-12-28T13:14:00.000-05:00

Here's the link to the full piece today in the NY Times, but the best quote is this:

"Fighting AIDS is not a get-out-of-homophobia-free card. "

This pretty much sums up my feeling that I would have been impressed 20 years ago had Warren been out there talking sensibly about AIDS. But now? In 2008? Working on AIDS is just sensible and mainstream and it does not deserve a Nobel Prize just for doing what should be expected of a renown faith leader in the US. C'mon people. Let's set our expectations where they belong.

What Does A Jew Share At Christmas?

2008-12-25T11:41:00.002-05:00

This fabulous video comes courtesy of Bil Browning of The Bilerico Project. We keep hearing that straight folks need to see lesbian and gay couples living our lives in order to understand the need for equal rights. So here's a wonderful example of the first Christmas these two gay men are spending together. Enjoy!

A Bucket of Tarnish: Rachel on Obama & Warren

2008-12-19T13:08:00.001-05:00

Rachel at her very best on the Rick Warren controversy with special guest, SF Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

New York Mayor Agrees: Caroline's Outstanding

2008-12-08T17:41:00.003-05:00

The man who built a vast financial empire and who has put NYC back on track, agrees that New York and the US Senate need Caroline Kennedy.

Bloomberg: Caroline Kennedy "Can Do Anything"

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 12/8/08

WASHINGTON — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a boost to Caroline Kennedy as a possible Senate candidate, saying she is experienced and "can do anything."

"Caroline Kennedy is a very experienced woman, she's worked very hard for the city. I can just tell you she's made an enormous difference in New York City," said Bloomberg after meeting on Capitol Hill with other U.S. mayors to seek stimulus spending from Congress.

Her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said recently that she is interested in the Senate seat that would become open if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is confirmed as President-elect Barack Obama's next secretary of state.

If that happens, New York Gov. David Paterson would appoint someone to the seat for a two-year period, after which they would have to run for election, and then for a full term in 2012.

Kennedy has already spoken to Paterson about the Senate job.

While she is easily the most famous contender for Clinton's Senate seat, there are plenty of others. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is widely known in the state. Paterson could also pick Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown or Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi.

There are also a number of House members in the running, including Reps. Carolyn Maloney, Kirsten Gillibrand, Steve Israel, Brian Higgins, Nydia Velazquez and Jerrold Nadler.

The governor has weeks to decide, and Bloomberg said he wasn't going to try to insert himself into the governor's selection process.

"Caroline is very competent. The governor has obviously a lot of good candidates to pick from and I won't be presumptuous enough to try to insert myself into what's obviously a very difficult situation for him," the mayor said.

"Caroline Kennedy can do anything," he added, calling her hardworking, honest and smart.

Kennedy has worked with the Bloomberg administration raising tens of millions of dollars a year in private money to help New York City's public schools.

On Sunday, New York's senior senator, Charles Schumer, said he liked all the candidates and would not take sides before the governor announces his decision. Clinton has yet to weigh in on who she would like to see get her seat.

Kennedy has strong connections to incoming Obama administration officials _ though Obama himself said he is not going to get involved in New York politics.

As a prominent booster of Obama's presidential bid, Kennedy spent much of 2008 taking bigger steps onto the public stage.

As famous as she is, she always has been viewed as almost painfully shy.

She met her husband, Edwin Schlossberg, while working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They married in 1986 and have three children.

She made a splash in early 2008 by writing an op-ed column for The New York Times declaring her support for Obama, saying he had the potential to be as inspirational to Americans as her father was in the 1960s. She also spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

She then hit the campaign trail with Obama, and worked on the vice-presidential search that eventually settled on Joe Biden.

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The US Senate Needs Caroline Kennedy

2008-12-08T14:53:00.003-05:00

New York State has an incredible opportunity to replace Hillary Clinton with an outstanding, highly intelligent and effective new senator - Caroline Kennedy. There's no one who could do more for both the state and the Senate.

Caroline Kennedy: "No Drama" Before "No Drama" Was Cool

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by Al Giordano on 12/8/08

The reports that Caroline Kennedy is interested in New York Governor David Paterson's appointment to replace Senator Hillary Clinton in the US Senate have created a fascinating set of reactions that in some cases have resonated inversely with the dynamics of the Democratic presidential primaries of 2008.

Let's tug at the threads of some debates regarding the possible Kennedy appointment to demonstrate that there is an ongoing battle over the heart, soul and future of the Democratic party that did not end or disappear with Obama's November 4 victory, and that is part of what is at play with the coming appointment in New York.

On a purely political level, if it is true that Attorney Kennedy would like to serve in her uncle Bobby's old senate seat, we can probably consider her appointment - whether one loves it or hates it - a lead-pipe cinch. For Governor Paterson - thrust into the job of Governor after Elliot Spitzer crashed and burned from personal and legal scandal - his first political priority is to get himself elected to continue as Governor in 2010. By appointing Kennedy, New York Democrats would get a junior US Senator that would coast to reelection without diverting significant resources from the governor's contest. And Paterson would curry goodwill from many New Yorkers, downstate, upstate and suburban, that would be thrilled with the choice of the Irish-American daughter of President John F. Kennedy.

The truth is, no matter who Paterson picks - be it Andrew Cuomo or any number of members of Congress - there will be grumbling from the camps of those that didn't get it, with many legitimate arguments about why one deserved it or would have been better than the other. (This is why the tea leaves suggest that over in Illinois, Governor Rod Blagojevich may appoint a "caretaker" in 73-year-old Emil Jones to fill Obama's Senate seat, so as not to raise the ire of various powerful pols and factions with their eyes on it, allowing them to fight it out in the 2010 primary and him to duck the blowback from the also-rans.) Paterson won't have that problem if he chooses Kennedy. She is in a league of her own. And, at least in public, all the other clans and factions in Empire State politics will have to recognize it and live with it.

On a policy level, it would be an even more brilliant move from the perspective of liberalism and progressivism: Attorney Kennedy is underestimated by some only because she's lived by the "no drama" approach to politics long before Obama made it popular. Most people have little idea of her accomplishments because her style has been to seek results not credit for them. I know, because in the 1990s, as political reporter for the Boston Phoenix, I covered the Kennedy family and all its doings - including Ted Kennedys 1994 reelection battle against Mitt Romney - very closely. Caroline, at the helm of the Kennedy library, has served as the true executive director of the family and all its political and policy interests. She has also been the family's ambassador nationwide and around the world: the one that attended funerals and other matters of statesmanship on the family's behalf. That she generally avoided the spotlight in doing so, and always avoided personal scandal - a particularly difficult challenge for anybody named Kennedy - is testimony to her skill and finesse at the political game.

The Kennedy policy machine is nothing to shake a stick at: Senator Ted Kennedy has, during 46 years in the Senate, installed a generation of policy wonks as lead staffers on almost all the key committees in the upper house of the Capitol dome, and no small number in the lower one. When Teddy nods his head subtly in a given policy direction that network marches as an army and has steamrolled over Republican and business interests time and time again. When progressive legislation has been passed - when reactionary legislation has been killed - on civil rights and liberties, health care, jobs and wages, education, and on other issues, the fingerprints of current and former Kennedy staffers have been on each and every one, even as Teddy shined the spotlight on other legislators who took the public lead. Joe Biden and John Kerry are among the Senate veterans that have benefited from Kennedy's generosity when it comes to sharing or assigning credit.

Paterson and New York, thus, would not just be getting a Senator. They would get, with Caroline, the driver with the keys to the most finely tuned and influential progressive national political network in American politics, reaching (in many cases invisibly) into levers of power in all branches of government and in many states far from Massachusetts, including among the networks planted by the Southern Civil Rights movement and among Hispanic-American political leaders and organizations from Texas to California for whom "Tio Ted" has been mentor and unflinching ally. (The Kennedys have long been central to the push for multi-racial movements in US politics, one that just became realized with Obama's election as never before: that will also serve Attorney Kennedy and so many of her constituents well in New York.)

Here's what I find so interesting about some of the early reactions: Some Clinton loyalists and others are not happy at all with this development. The arguments they deploy, in the Daily Kos comment threads and elsewhere, to disparage the possible appointment are identical in many cases to those they defended against during the presidential primaries (and even more so in 2000 during Clinton's first campaign for Senate): They say: Why should a member of a political dynasty get the job? She's never held elected office (some of us, on the other hand, see that as a plus, just as we saw Obama's lack of "beltway boiling and seasoning" as positive). Attorney Kennedy, some say, hasn't enough "experience."

And you can also feel the bile rise up their throats as they cut to the real thing they're upset about: That such an appointment would supposedly constitute a political payback for her (and the Kennedy family's) support for Obama, or a matter of "patronage" or nepotism, or "aristocracy," or that she represents, to some, the same politics of "celebrity" that some (wishfully) want to believe explains Obama's primary victories. (And, yes, it is very funny to listen to complaints from some of the same mouths about Attorney Kennedy not being "charismatic" enough. They're really scraping the barrel to come up with a legitimate reason for what is evidently more of an emotional revulsion.)

The possible Kennedy appointment also opens up some wounds from some (including some former Edwards enthusiasts) that see all things Obama through the lens of "Dear Leader-ism," one writer's never-ending suggestion that Obama's base is somehow made up of dupes more into cult of personality than policy (an attempted insult that is so obviously born of sour grapes that its not worthy of response other than perhaps by quoting Alex Haley: "History is written by the winners.")

I'm not saying that these superficial contradictions make for anything hypocritical: to the contrary, the critics of a possible appointment of Attorney Kennedy to the US Senate are essentially correct in perceiving that something much bigger than symbolism would occur through it. The Kennedy and Clinton tendencies in the Democratic Party have embodied two distinct magnetic poles each trying to pull the party in different directions for the past 16 years, and before that between Kennedy and Carter tendencies.

This was very much at play with Senator and Attorney Kennedy's endorsement of Obama early in the primaries, and intentionally signaled as such. The Kennedy organization was not happy - many of us were not - with the change in direction that the Clinton administration brought to the party, toward a blatant acquiescence to corporate interests, away from the New Deal and the Great Society. And while both families have had their share of public personal scandal, for the Kennedys that hasn't bled much at all into the political or policy realms: we just have never seen Ted Kennedy, for example, go to Malaysia and collect $200,000 for a speech from a corporate power broker, lavishing his benefactor's company with praise, as occurred on Friday with Bill Clinton, now getting a few last international paydays in before his ethics agreement with the Obama administration kicks in to prevent future such embarrassments.

The problem isn't really - on either side of the debate - one of "dynasty" per se but, rather, of which one. There are dramatic policy and ideological differences between the Kennedy organization's vision of the Democratic Party and the Clinton organization's. In the end, one side or another's pleasure or distaste is more for what a particular dynasty has done, than merely that it happens to be one. So it's natural that people that prefer the Clinton over the Kennedy formula for doing politics would object to an appointment to a member the latter organization whereas those more ideologically in harmony with the Kennedys (and particularly Ted Kennedy, giving his final months or years his all for the same causes for which he has lived) tend to be excited by the suggestion of Caroline as Senator.

An appointment of Caroline Kennedy to the US Senate from New York is qualitatively different than it would be, say, for Robert Kennedy Jr. or another member of the family: She, more than any other of her generation, brings the reins and detailed knowledge of the family organization for which she has been (I'll use a phrase that's provocative but not to be scoffed at once you've given it a minute's thought) the "community organizer" among the Kennedys, the administrator and attachÃ© that has been most responsible, among them, for complying with the details once Ted Kennedy has exercised the broad stroke leadership.

Finally: Anybody who underestimates Attorney Caroline Kennedy, who wants to view her as somehow lightweight or just a celebrity name inside a business suit, does so at the risk to his and her sense of reality. Her skill sets are not merely adequate, but, rather exceptional and extraordinary. She was "no drama" before "no drama" was cool. And her appointment, if it comes, will be a gift that keeps on giving before and after Ted Kennedy moves on to the great battleground beyond.

Update: Here's another reason I'm fond of this idea. Attorney Kennedy, at 51, would be younger than 90 out of 100 US senators. That the upper house is stale and stodgy is an understatement.

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A Real Thanks - Giving

2008-11-25T11:09:00.002-05:00

Some really good news. Of course, it'll be appealed, but it's nice to start out this way than the reverse.

Florida Ban on Gay Adoption Ruled Unconstitutional

via Towleroad by Andy on 11/25/08

The Miami Herald reports that Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman has declared Florida's gay adoption ban unconstiutional:

"In a 53-page ruling, Judge Lederman said, 'It is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person's ability to parent.' Two lawyers from the Florida Attorney General's Office said they would file an appeal Tuesday. 'We respect the court's decision,' said Assistant Attorney General Valerie Martin. 'Based upon the wishes of our client, the Department of Children & Families, we will file an appeal.' Gill, who is raising the half-brothers, ages 4 and 8, said he was ''elated'' by the ruling and 'I cried tears of joy for the first time in my life.'"

Important update on NY marriage fight

2008-11-18T14:23:00.002-05:00

Pressure Rises Against NY Sen. Ruben Diaz Over Marriage Equality

via Joe. My. God. by Joe on 11/18/08

The NY Daily News reports today that the Spanish-language newspaper El Diario/La Prensa has called out NY Sen. Ruben Diaz (D-Bronx) for blocking progress on marriage equality. El Diario:

"Rev. Diaz and others are supposedly not for denying rights to gays and lesbians but believe that marriage should be between a man and woman. Yet, it's this very discriminatory position that serves to exclude lesbian and gay couples from obtaining the rights, benefits and standing that heterosexuals take for granted.

"This use of religious beliefs to block basic civil rights undermines the separation of church and state in this nation. The basis of that separation lies in the experience of early American colonists who had fled religious persecution elsewhere to pursue tolerance, acceptance and freedom in the "new" world. Latinos, as well as other groups, should have an honest conversation about homophobia. Discrimination, whether within or outside of our communities, on the basis of color, immigration status, gender or sexuality is just not acceptable."

The News also takes notes the anti-Diaz campaign on Facebook.

Diaz is also the target of another kind of (probably unwelcome) attention from a new (and rather exhaustively-titled) Facebook page called "Stop a Marriage Referendum in New York: Malcolm Smith for Majority Leader." Officers of the group include a number of well-known LGBT activists like Ethan Geto, Stonewall Democrats Matthew Carlin, Corey Johnson, and the page's creator, Jeff Campagna, a producer and activist, who wrote:
"I am furious that the obstacle standing between us and marriage equality is a Democratic state senator named Ruben Diaz Sr., from the Bronx, who with his two friends Senators Carl Kruger and Pedro Espada Jr., also Democrats, is threatening to stand with the Republicans to block Malcolm Smith from becoming Senate Majority Leader in January. Why would Ruben Diaz Sr. do this? Because he says he refuses to back a Senate Majority Leader like Malcolm Smith, who supports marriage equality and who will finally put the issue to a vote. But Ruben Diaz Sr. isn't just threatening to block Malcolm Smith from being majority leader. He's so obsessed with gay marriage that he's trying to figure out how to bring Proposition 8 to the ballot in New York. Maybe Senator Diaz thinks that we're all going to let this pass and walk on eggshells as he plays power games with his Senate colleagues. We have before. Remember when we cheered the passage of a sexual orientation non-discrimination act that was stripped of protections for gender expression because we didn't want to rock the boat?"

Both on Facebook and at an anti-Prop 8 rally outside City Hall last week, Campagna urged gay marriage supporters to contact Diaz Sr. and urge him to support Smith. At the rally, he called on everyone present to pull out their cell phones and program in the senator's office number, which he yelled out from the podium.

Gov. David Paterson has met with Diaz to discuss his recalcitrance on marriage equality.

Join the Impact: Oakland, CA

2008-11-16T19:31:00.001-05:00

Courtesy of a friend of a friend.

Join the Impact: Minneapolis

2008-11-15T23:02:00.002-05:00

1500 in
Minneapolis

Join the Impact: DC

2008-11-15T22:57:00.002-05:00

Join the Impact: Iowa City

2008-11-15T22:56:00.005-05:00

Iowa City

Join the Impact: Atlanta

2008-11-15T22:56:00.004-05:00

Atlanta

Join the Impact: Philadelphia

2008-11-15T22:55:00.002-05:00

Philadelphia

Join the Impact: Houston

2008-11-15T22:53:00.006-05:00

600 in
Houston

Join the Impact: Anchorage, Alaska

2008-11-15T22:53:00.005-05:00

I wonder if Sarah Palin can see gay people from her backyard?

Anchorage, Alaska

Join the Impact: Madison, Wisconsin

2008-11-15T22:52:00.006-05:00

Madison, Wisconsin

Join the Impact: Boston

2008-11-15T22:52:00.005-05:00

My home for over 25 years.
Boston

Join the Impact: Toronto

2008-11-15T22:51:00.005-05:00

100+ in
Toronto

Join the Impact: Nashville

2008-11-15T22:51:00.004-05:00

300 in
Nashville

Join the Impact: Salt Lake City

2008-11-15T22:50:00.007-05:00

Visibility in the place where the Mormons live:

Salt Lake City

Join the Impact: Detroit

2008-11-15T22:50:00.005-05:00

Hundreds Rally in Detroit

Waymon Hudson writing on Bilerico:

What do we want? EQUALITY! When do we want it? NOW!

That was the chant that rang out through downtown Detroit, Michigan today as over 300 hundred dedicated protesters rallied in the freezing rain and sleet as part of the National Day of Protest. That was also the chant coming from my husband and me, who are in town for family matters. It was hundreds of cold, wet Michiganders (and two very cold Floridians), marching in unity and solidarity with the hundreds of thousands across the country demanding equal rights and bringing visibility to our communities issues.

Join the Impact: Austin, TX

2008-11-15T22:49:00.007-05:00

Austin

Paige Schilt writing on Bilerico:

An estimated 3,000 Austinites turned out to protest anti-gay ballot measures across the country today. A grassroots coalition of social networkers, gay bars, activists, journalists, and churches helped spread the word about the rally at City Hall, which featured speakers from Atticus Circle, Soulforce, and Equality Texas, as well as individual Texans sharing personal stories about the impact of discrimination.

The highpoint of the rally lineup was 10-year-old Mason Marriott-Voss, who told the crowd about the day his moms, Sue and Tanya, were married in California. Mason spoke eloquently about how Prop 8 hurts ordinary kids and families, and he reminded us of the diversity of families in America, where only 23% of families fit the so-called "traditional" model.

"According to my math teacher," Mason quipped, "that's a minority."

Join the Impact: NYC

2008-11-15T22:49:00.005-05:00

Home, sweet home.
NYC

Join the Impact: Grand Forks, North Dakota

2008-11-15T22:47:00.003-05:00

Amazing, huh?

Grand Forks, North Dakota

Here in Grand Forks, ND, about 75 protesters gathered in from of the City Hall and then marched to the Town Square. The turnout was thrilling, but more encouraging were the passersby. College-aged men in pickup trucks pumping fists and flashing peace signs. Women reaching over from passenger seats and honking their husbands' horns. Elderly folks smiling and waving. Not a single person yelled anything out of a car window. Come to think of it, I only saw one middle finger the whole day!

Join the Impact: Greenville, South Carolina

2008-11-15T22:46:00.011-05:00

Today's posts consist of text and photos from many of the marches and rallies held across the country to protest the Prop 8 vote in California and to show support for marriage equality. Many of the photos come from Andrew Sullivan's blog, from Bilerico Project and elsewhere.

Greenville, South Carolina
With less than 24 hours notice that a rally was being held in Greenville, SC about 40 of us gathered in front of City Hall to let others know we support equal marriage for all persons. As this is the center of the Bible Belt, we were unsure of what reaction we would receive from passing motorists and pedestrians. What a pleasant surprise, the only fingers displayed to us were in the shape of a V. Horns honked, people shouted support and a few folks even joined us to lend their support. The crowd itself ranged from those in their 20's through to a couple in their late 50's. A huge surprise and confidence booster is the fact that 10-15 of those in attendance were heterosexual... they came to show their support.

Join the Impact: Seattle

2008-11-15T22:46:00.010-05:00

Seattle

Joining Our Fight: Civil Rights Groups Support Prop 8 Lawsuit

2008-11-15T11:38:00.003-05:00

Rainbow of civil rights groups petition CA court to halt enactment of Prop 8

via Pam's House Blend - Front Page by Pam Spaulding on 11/15/08

The idea that minority groups are monolithic about this issue needs to die a quick death now. This coalition of groups is taking action.

Civil rights groups today a petition with the California Supreme Court to stop the enactment of Proposition 8 because it would mandate discrimination against a minority group and did not follow the process required for fundamental revisions to the California Constitution.
In the petition, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Equal Justice Society, California NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. argue that in order to protect the fundamental rights of all Californians, a higher standard is required to overturn the right to marry. Minority communities cannot be stripped of their fundamental rights by a simple majority vote.
"We would be making a grave mistake to view Proposition 8 as just affecting the LGBT community," said Eva Paterson, president of the Equal Justice Society. "If the Supreme Court allows Proposition 8 to take effect, it would represent a threat to the rights of people of color and all minorities."

More below the fold.

The California Constitution requires that any measure attempting to revise the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by a two-thirds vote of the legislature before being submitted to the voters. Proposition 8 was not approved through that constitutionally required process.
"Proposition 8 contradicts the most basic protection guaranteed by the California Constitution, which is the right to equal protection of the laws," said John Trasviña, President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "We can not allow the Constitution to sanction discrimination against one group of people."
"Direct democracy cannot override the California Constitution, which requires more than a majority vote to deprive a minority group of their fundamental rights," said John A. Payton, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
"We cannot become a society that picks and chooses who is entitled to equal rights," said Alice A. Huffman, president of the California State NAACP. "We should include all people from all walks of life in the entitlement to all freedoms now enjoyed by the majority of our population As a civil rights advocate, we will continue the fight of eliminating roadblocks to freedom."
"Consistent with core equal protection principles, minority communities must not be stripped of their fundamental rights by bare majority rule," said Karin Wang, Vice-President of Programs for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. "California went down this path before when the majority population chose to bar interracial marriages involving an unpopular minority: Asian immigrants. The state Constitution exists exactly for this reason - to protect the fundamental rights of minority communities."
"Let's not forget the landmark 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia, which allowed two people of different races to marry," said Paterson of the Equal Justice Society. "People then believed it was acceptable to keep Mildred Loving from marrying a white man because of their ideas of who should marry whom. We must not return to those times."
The court has precedent for invalidating an improper voter initiative. In 1990, the court overruled an initiative that would have added a provision to the California Constitution stating that the "Constitution shall not be construed by the courts to afford greater rights to criminal defendants than those afforded by the Constitution of the United States." That measure was invalid because it improperly attempted to strip California's courts of their role as independent interpreters of the state's constitution.
A copy of the writ petition filed today is available at http://equaljusticesociety.org/prop8 and http://www.apalc.org./
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (naacpldf.org) was founded in 1940 under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall. Although LDF's primary purpose was to provide legal assistance to poor African Americans, its work over the years has brought greater justice to all Americans.
Founded in 1968, MALDEF (maldef.org), the nation's leading Latino legal civil rights organization, promotes and protects the rights of Latinos through litigation, advocacy, community education and outreach, leadership development, and higher education scholarships.
The Asian Pacific American Legal Center (apalc.org) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for civil rights, providing legal services and education, and building coalitions to positively influence and impact Asian Pacific Americans and to create a more equitable and harmonious society. APALC is affiliated with the Asian American Justice Center, the Asian American Institute in Chicago, and the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco.
The Equal Justice Society (equaljusticesociety.org) is a national strategy group heightening conscious on race in the law and popular discourse. Using a three-pronged strategy of law and public policy advocacy, cross-disciplinary convenings and strategic public communications, EJS seeks to restore race equity issues to the national consciousness, build effective progressive alliances, and advance the discourse on the positive role of government.

This is why outreach is not a futile exercise; these groups are stepping up and doing something.

Obama To End Abstinence-Based AIDS Education And Family Planning

2008-11-10T18:31:00.002-05:00

Finally, this ineffective madness will be stopped.

via Joe. My. God. by Joe on 11/10/08

Some excellent early news on the Obama administration comes via Wonk Room:

Advisers to President-elect Barack Obama are indicating that "Obama will reverse U.S. family planning and AIDS prevention strategies that have long linked global funding to anti-abortion and abstinence education." The Obama reversal is a return to an approach that is based on solid evidence and public health rather than ideology, and a recognition of needs on the ground rather than the need to please domestic political constituencies.
On January 21 2001, President Bush reinstated the Mexico City Policy (the global gag rule), requiring NGOs receiving federal funding to refrain from using their own money to perform or promote abortion services in other countries. While the policy was "purportedly designed to reduce abortion by limiting a woman's access to abortion services, and to ensure that U.S. funding for family planning services overseas is completely separate from abortion activities," in actuality the rule has denied "many NGOs access to in-kind donations of the very contraceptives that can prevent recourse to abortions"

Countless lives will likely be saved by this move.

No Bradley Effect Seen In Presidential Race

2008-11-07T09:31:00.002-05:00

RIP Bradley Effect. May you never be heard from again.

No Bradley Effect Seen In Presidential Race

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 11/7/08

WASHINGTON — Whether whites supported Barack Obama or not, they don't seem to have lied to pollsters about it.

Obama's election triumph on Tuesday presented no evidence of the so-called Bradley effect, in which whites who oppose a black politician mislead pollsters about whom they will vote for. Instead, national and state pre-election polls were generally accurate in reflecting voters' preferences in the presidential contest.

"I certainly hope this drives a stake through the heart of that demon," Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist and polling authority, said of the Bradley effect.

The phenomenon is named after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an African-American who in 1982 lost the race for California governor after leading in the polls. There were similar contests over the following decade in which black candidates facing white opponents had comfortable leads in polls, only to lose or narrowly win the elections.

Critics have said such turnabouts might have been largely the product of poor polling. Others have concluded that some whites, nervous about appearing to harbor anti-black feelings, in fact misled pollsters up through the early 1990s but that such behavior has faded over time.

Obama, who will become the first African-American president, defeated Republican John McCain on Tuesday by 52 percent to 46 percent with nearly all votes counted.

If the Bradley effect were a factor, pre-election polls should have consistently overstated Obama's share of the vote, or understated McCain's. Instead, most did a solid job of previewing how the vote would go, both nationally and in crucial states.

Shortly before Election Day, an NBC News-Wall Street Journal survey showed Obama ahead 51 percent to 43 percent among likely voters. The Gallup Poll showed a 53 percent to 42 percent Obama lead, while CBS News had Obama up 51 percent to 42 percent.

An Associated Press-Yahoo News poll in late October had Obama ahead 51 percent to 43 percent. An AP-GfK poll in mid-October showed a virtual tie, 44 percent for Obama to 43 percent for McCain.

Web sites that combine major polls to estimate support also performed well. Among some popular sites, had Obama ahead 52 percent to 44 percent, saw Obama up 52 percent to 45 percent, and gave Obama a 52 percent to 46 percent advantage.

Links:

http://www.pollster.com
http://www.realclearpolitics.com
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com

Such accuracy was a relief to pollsters rattled last winter when widespread projections of an Obama victory in the New Hampshire primary were upended after Hillary Rodham Clinton won narrowly.

"We're getting much more sophisticated estimates," said University of Michigan political scientist and polling analyst Michael Traugott, citing improved techniques.

Among them is the increased polling of people who have cell phones but no landlines. A Pew Research Center report in September, and exit polls of voters conducted Tuesday for The Associated Press and the television networks, suggest that people who have only cells tend to vote more Democratic than people like them with only landlines.

Many state surveys were impressively accurate also.

For North Carolina, gave McCain a pre-election edge of less than 1 percentage point. That state finally was awarded to Obama on Thursday, when he had a 14,000-vote lead out of 4.2 million votes cast. http://www.realclearpolitics.com

Pre-election polls by Quinnipiac University, Mason-Dixon and AP-GfK all showed Obama ahead by 2 percentage points in Florida, which the Democrat won by 3 points. The combined estimate for Pennsylvania by put Obama up 8 points, and he won by 11. http://www.pollster.com

None of this means race was not a factor on Tuesday.

Whites nationally preferred McCain by 12 percentage points, while 95 percent of blacks backed Obama, according to exit polls. Seven percent of whites said race was important in choosing a candidate, and they backed the Republican 2-1.

Analysts said any reluctance to support Obama because he is black may have been overwhelmed this year by a desire to support the candidate people thought would fix the struggling economy. They also said the Bradley effect has faded as Americans have become used to blacks winning local elections and as the 1990s' more intense focus on crime and welfare has ebbed.

The Bradley effect was "a product of a particular political environment that seems to have passed us by," said Daniel Hopkins, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University who wrote a study this summer concluding that the phenomenon has disappeared.

What Do I Do When I Get to Minute 16: My Big Fat Gay Blog Piece

2008-11-06T23:01:00.003-05:00

Even I have my 15 minutes of fame!

This piece was posted on Bilerico Project (my favorite LGBT blog) on Thursday and then was referenced by Andrew Sullivan (as: " Cindy Rizzo attacks Dan Savage," as if that's all I did in the piece). Well you know what they say--I don't care how they mention my name, as long as they spell it right. That link from Sullivan brought 3000 people to Bilerico to read my piece. This is how this blog thing works.

I must admit I've been fretting about this piece every since it went live. While it's nice to have your own blog that your friends read and say nice things about, it's a whole other thing to have your views out there in the ether where so many more people go. Oy. I have spent the weekend growing a thicker skin. How do you think it looks??

Our Choice on Prop 8 and African Americans: Reckless Carping or Productive Change?

via The Bilerico Project by guest@bilerico.com (Guest Blogger) on 11/6/08

Editors' Note: Guest blogger Cindy Rizzo is a long time Projector. She blogs at Personal=Political=Polemical.

Losing California has been a major demoralizing event for our community and there's no way to minimize that. Frankly I feel robbed--robbed of the opportunity to bask in the Obama victory, robbed of the opportunity to be excited about the Democratic majority in the US Senate and in my local New York State Senate, and robbed of the belief that there was real momentum building for a widespread progressive renewal in the US.

On Wednesday, the day after Election Day, I felt hung over, exhausted, depressed, angry, marginalized. And I knew that if I wrote anything about the election that day, I might regret it after I'd had a good night's sleep.

Not so with many in our community. Blog pieces and listserv posts were littered with angry invectives about the African American vote in California. These writers actually wondered aloud why they had to be accountable for their own attitudes on race when clearly African Americans were not equally accountable for their views on homosexuality. Ignoring over a century of historical context, they seemed to be saying, "Now, see, here are the real bigots."

Continue reading "Our Choice on Prop 8 and African Americans: Reckless Carping or Productive Change?"...

Shifting Gears: Transforming Obama's Campaign into a Movement ...

2008-11-06T22:52:00.002-05:00

This is a little wonky, but it goes to what I've been saying about Obama calling his campaign a "movement" and wondering, if that's true, what he intends to do with the movement once he's in office.

Shifting Gears: Transforming Obama's Campaign into a Movement for Change

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by Peter Dreier on 11/6/08

For the first time in history, Americans elected a former community organizer as their President. Barack Obama is going to need all those organizing skills to be an effective leader. To achieve a progressive agenda, Obama will have to win over some reluctant Democrats and a few moderate Republicans. Like Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, Obama can use his bully pulpit to inspire and educate Americans to help move the country in a new direction. But like those two transformational presidents, Obama will also need to get the ground troops mobilized, in key states and Congressional districts, to put pressure on members who might otherwise sit on the fence.

Obama can learn valuable lessons from FDR, who recognized that his ability to push New Deal legislation through Congress depended on the pressure generated by protestors and organizers. He once told a group of activists who sought his support for legislation, "You've convinced me. Now go out and make me do it."

As Depression conditions worsened, and as grassroots worker and community protests escalated throughout the country, Roosevelt became more vocal, using his bully pulpit--in speeches and radio addresses--to promote New Deal ideas. Labor and community organizers felt confident in proclaiming, "FDR wants you to join the union." With Roosevelt setting the tone, and with allies in Congress, grassroots activists won legislation guaranteeing workers' right to organize, the minimum wage, family assistance for mothers, Social Security, banking reform, and the 40-hour week.

Some pundits are already trying to diminish Obama's accomplishment. They have attributed Obama's victory to the troubled economy, Bush's unpopularity, or to the Illinois Senator's personal charisma. All these factors mattered, but the real key to Obama's success was grassroots organizing.

The Obama campaign hired hundreds of organizers from labor unions, community and environmental organizations, and religious groups. They, in turn, recruited tens of thousands of volunteers and trained them in the skills of community organizing. They used doorknocking, small house meetings, cell phones, and the Internet to motivate and energize supporters. They used the Internet and social networks to raise funds, in small and large amounts, from the largest-ever donor base. They opened more local offices than any other presidential campaign, including outposts in small towns and suburbs in traditionally Republican areas.

Many organizations and constituencie,s outside the official campaign, had a hand in Obama's win. Groups as diverse as MoveOn.Org, labor unions, community groups like ACORN, environmental and consumer organizations like the Sierra Club and US Action, civil rights and women's groups, student activists, and many others can claim a part not only of Obama's triumph but also the dramatic increase in Democratic victories in the House and Senate by educating and mobilizing voters .

These organizing efforts account for the unprecedented increase in voter registration and voter turnout, especially among first-time voters, young people, African Americans, Hispanics, and union members.

Now Obama's supporters will need to transform that electoral energy into a grassroots movement for change. Political campaigns frequently promise to sustain the momentum after election day, but they rarely do. (The late Senator Paul Wellstone, who built a strong progressive coalition in Minnesota, was a notable exception). The lists of volunteers, email addresses, donors, and other key ingredients get lost or put on the shelf until the next election, when the campaign almost starts from scratch.

But from the outset, the Obama campaign recognized that winning the election on November 4 was only the first stage of a broader crusade to help America live up to its potential. So now comes the really hard part. Can Obama's supporters transform the electoral campaign into a grassroots movement? Can they turn campaign volunteers into ongoing community activists? Can they keep many of those organizers employed to sustain and expand the political base that catapulted Obama and Congressional Democrats into office? Can they keep the fragmented mosaic of issue-oriented activists from breaking off into their separate silos, each pursuing their own agendas? Can they agree on a small number of top policy priorities -- for the first year, the first term, and the second term -- and wage effective campaigns to achieve legislative victories? Can they take advantage of the key progressive think tanks, such as the Center for American Progress, the Economic Policy Institute, the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, and others, to generate accessible policy ideas that reporters, columnists, and activists can use to help promote the Democratic agenda?

The success of the conservative movement, starting in the late 1970s, was due in large measure to the self-discipline of its varied parts -- right-wing foundations, think tanks, radio and TV talk shows, magazines and websites, corporate funders, grassroots groups like the NRA and the Christian Coalition, and Republican Party officials and activists -- to stifle their differences and coordinate their stategies and tactics. Political operatives like Grover Norquist -- who runs Americans for Tax Reform but who is really the conservative movement's chief organizer -- kept the right-wing machine well-oiled. But the Bush Administration was too incompetent to sustain that brittle coalition. The 2008 election revealed the cracks within the GOP coalition, especially between economic conservatives within Big Business and the social conservatives of the Religious Right and the NRA.

In 1992, the last time Americans elected a Democratic president, many Americans hoped that Bill Clinton's victory would usher in a new era economic and social reform. But Clinton, who received only 43% of the overall vote -- with 38% for George H.W. Bush and 19% for Ross Perot -- was elected without a ma jority mandate. Equally important, his own party, while capturing a majority of the seats in Congress, was deeply divided, with many members closely linked to big business interests who opposed progressive taxation, Keynesian pump-priming, and social spending.

Not suprisingly, Congress quickly rejected Clinton's economic stimulus and jobs plan, which included a large public works initiative, which some of his own middle-of-the-road advisors viewed as a budget-buster rather than as an investment in rebuilding the economy. They also rejected his health care reform proposal, due in large measure to the intensive lobbying and public relations campaign launched by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

The problem was compounded by the Clintonites failure to unify and mobilize their political base around a legislative agenda. Instead, progressives and liberals fragmented into different camps over the economic stimulus plan and health care reform.

The current situation is both similar and different. Obama earned a healthy majority (52.4%) of the popular vote. The Democrats expanded their margins in both the Senate and the House, capturing several longstanding "red" seats. Depending on the outcome of several tight races (in Georgia, Minnesota, and Alaska), they now have at least 57 seats in the Senate (if we include the two independents, Bernie Sanders and Joe Leiberman).

But several of them are moderate, corporate-friendly Democrats, like Mary Landreiu of Louisiana and Max Baucus of Montana as well as some newcomers. They will be, at best, reluctant reformers. That gives the handful of moderate Republicans in the Senate -- especially Pennsylvania's Arlen Spector, Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins -- enormous influence. Activists, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, will need to focus attention on these moderate Dems and Republicans to support a progressive agenda.

Although some conservative and mainstream pundits are already claiming that despite Obama's victory, America is basically a "center right" nation, public opinion polls reveal that a significant majority of Americans want a more activist government around economic, environmental and consumer issues.

Obama understands that it won't be easy to enact a economic stimulus package than includes infrastructure projects and green jobs, reform health care, pull U.S. troops from Iraq, strengthen labor laws, tackle global warming, help homeowners avoid foreclosure and strengthen bank regulations, and adopt a progressive tax plan. The energy industry, the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies, the big defense contractors, and others will be working overtime to thwart Obama's progressive policy agenda.

"Nothing in this country worthwhile has ever happened except when somebody somewhere was willing to hope," Obama said during the campaign. Change comes about by "imagining, and then fighting for, and then working for, what did not seem possible before."

As Obama assembles his "inside" White House team and his Cabinet and sub-Cabinet appointments, he will need to pay equal attention to the "outside" efforts of activists, think tanks, and others who he'll need to build support for his agenda.

Obama has clearly touched a nerve in America's body politic. Americans are hungry for hope and ready for reform. But it will require Obama to use all his rhetorical, organizing and political skills to shape public opinion, encourage Americans to mobilize, and re-invent the spirit and momentum of his campaign into a grassroots movement to move the country in a new direction.

Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College

Arianna Huffington: The Winners and Losers of Campaign '08

2008-11-06T22:49:00.007-05:00

I would have included Oprah among the winners. Other than that, I think she's pretty much on target.

The Winners and Losers of Campaign '08

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by Arianna Huffington on 11/6/08

WINNERS:

The Davids - Axelrod and Plouffe: they spearheaded a near flawless campaign.

Katie Couric: her multi-part interview with Sarah Palin was the turning point in how the country saw Palin -- and by extension John McCain. And she did it in a way that left no room for accusations of being unfair or playing "Gotcha!"

Colin Powell, Scott McClellan, Ken Adelman, Chris Buckley, Kenneth Duberstein, et al: crossing party lines to endorse the eventual winner can't hurt the rep.

Saturday Night Live: went from "Is that still on?" to Must See TV (or, at least, Must See on YouTubeTV)

Tina Fey: her take on Palin was pitch perfect; a comedy mugging for the ages. And with Palin's obvious weight loss during the campaign, she ended up looking more and more like her 30 Rock doppelganger.

Sarah Palin: lost an election but there has to be a reality show in her future.

Michelle Obama: smarts, grace, style, charm, and a serious "good mommy" vibe -- she's got the whole package.

The View: went from gal chat to political headline maker.

MSNBC: Keith, Rachel, Chris... they sent a collective tingle went up the leg of progressive viewers everywhere.

The Internet: click here.

LOSERS:

Joe Lieberman: failed to deliver Democrats, independents, or Jews. And on the way to losing his committee chairmanships.

Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Morris, and hate-mongers everywhere: the stink didn't stick to Obama but it stuck to them.

Bill Clinton: it's gonna take a lot of work to repair the rep.

John McCain: see Bill Clinton.

Liddy Dole: see Clinton and McCain. Her "Godless" ad will be taught in What Not to Do poli sci classes for a century.

George W. Bush: the repudiation of his presidency was overwhelming and across-the-board.

The Republican Party: the emptiness of its philosophic underpinnings was exposed for all to see.

Joe the Plumber: the clock just hit 15 minutes, and the wakeup call will not be pleasant. Joe the Plumber, meet Clara Peller ("Where's the beef?!").

You're Gonna Love These Kids: Letters to President Obama from 4th Graders in Harlem

2008-11-06T22:49:00.006-05:00

This was too cute to pass up. I wonder what the issue is with the cops and the Lincoln Tunnel? And the lines in Pathmark? LOL

Letters to President Obama from Fourth Graders in Harlem

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by Lauren Rubinfeld on 11/6/08

By the time the school day began at 8:05 on Wednesday morning, I had already read what felt like hundreds of articles and listened to hundreds of commentators about this historic election. But, as my students entered the classroom chanting "Yes We Can" I knew that the 25 strongest voices in my life were yet to be heard.

Nothing has hit me as hard as the letters my 4th graders in Harlem wrote to their new president. A few are pasted below.

Dear President Obama,

I am so happy you are our new president! And it is not just because you are black, it is because you have some great ideas! And I wanted to be a singer, dancer, and actress but you open new doors for me. You open the doors for everybody. Now I think that now I can be the first female black president! And we went from black people not being able to vote and that changed and then black people never got a chance to be president but you changed that. And for that, it is like you are my and the whole world's hero!

Love (a 9 year old),
Tatiana

P.S. I won't put TV before homework.

Dear President Obama,

Congratulations. I'm glad we have our first black president and I'm glad we all (the United States) have a great president like you! I am very sorry about what happened with your grandmother, but I know if she was here right now, she will be very proud of you! I am very sure you will make the best decisions for all of America! I was hoping you can make a recycling rule to help something called Global Warming.

Love,
E'Raya

Dear President Obama,

I want to say you are the bomb. I love all your speeches. Even my grandma does. I feel sorry for your grandmother but she's there up in heaven watching over you. When you get to the white house you will have our help.

I'm so happy that you are becoming president. Can you make a change about the cops? They need to pay more attention at the Lincoln Tunnel.

Write back.

Your friend,
Asia

Dear President Obama,

I like the way you think about turning off the T.V. and letting kids do their homework. I know so many things that the people in the world want you to fix. Do you think you can do it? We CAN make change. I believe you. Everybody believes you. Barack, we can do it. Yes, we can.
Don't forget leadership and responsibility is what we are looking for.

Change we make. Change we believe.

Sincerely,
Hawa

Dear President Obama,

I knew you would win. You easily won by a landslide. Do you think you can lower taxes? Just 20 dollars. My mom wants to move. I do too. The house we want to move to cost twice as much. So, can you please do that? I hope you have a good time being president. I know I would. I also hope you get free time. How did you get to spend time with family and do the election? Also can you really bend the rules? If you can please make children do less homework. Especially on holidays. On holidays they load us with homework. One last request. I promise it's my last one. Can you make Friday a weekend like Saturday and Sunday?

Sincerely,
Darnell

Dear President Obama,

Congratulations on your win to be president of the United States of America. What are you going to change about littering, gas, and wars? Are you going to make hunting stop? Are you going to lower taxes? Are you going to give more money to schools? What are you going to do about stock markets? What are you going to do about parking spaces? What are you going to do about more jail time, book store prices, gas prices, robbers, the laws, houses, and long lines in Pathmark?

Your Biggest Fan,
Rafi

Dear Barack Obama,

My name is Shareef and I am writing to you to say congratulations on being the first black President. Your wife must be very proud of you. Also your kids too must be proud. Also I'm African American too and I might be just like you. When you get to the white house please try to stop the war for once and for all. Obama I'm very proud of you especially my mom. She's really proud because she woke up 5:30 AM to go vote for you and I went with her. Please write back to me when you get a chance. To tell you, I'm nine years old in the 4th grade. Obama, you're the man.

Sincerely,
Shareef

Now Let's See Them Call the Fist Bump A Terrorist Symbol

2008-11-05T15:29:00.000-05:00

So our children can fly

2008-11-05T11:43:00.003-05:00

So our children can fly

via The Bilerico Project by bil@bilerico.com (Bil Browning) on 11/5/08

"Rosa sat so Martin could stand. Martin stood so Barack could run. Barack ran so our children could fly."

Voters Around The Country: Long Lines, Historic Crowds

2008-11-04T11:06:00.002-05:00

Amazing stuff from the most unlikely places.

Voters Around The Country: Long Lines, Historic Crowds

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 11/4/08

Voters are sending in incredible stories from throughout the country, many detailing long, but moving, lines, stacked with energetic supporters of both candidates. There is, it seems, an up-tick in student participation. And more than one reader was in awe at how historically unique this voter turnout was from past election. Here are some emails -- send us yours here:

Bucks County, Pennsylvania
I live in Northampton Township in Lower Bucks County PA. Polls opened here at 7 am. I got to my polling place at an elementary school about 8 am. There was a line of about 10 people ahead of me and the poll workers said the line was out the door just a few minutes earlier. I was voter 161 -- which means that 10% of registered voters in my polling place had voted in the first hour. Yowza. In off years and in primaries, the polls works said they had maybe 25% turn out.

Oklahoma
As a native Oklahoman I have never waited more than a few minutes to cast a ballot. This morning was different. When I arrived at my polling place at 7am there was already a line. Voting took me a total of 45 minutes, I know this is not much compared with the hours long waits faced in other states but for Oklahoma it's historic.

Columbus, Ohio
At 6:10 I was 31st in line. By the time the doors opened there were more than 100 in line. I am 57 years old and this is the first time there were more than 3 people present prior to the doors opening. Usually I am the first and only voter at opening.

College Stations, Pennsylvania
More than 1,000 Penn State students have shown up

University of New Hampshire
Students at University of New Hampshire reported standing in line starting at 4:30.

Orlando, Florida
I live in a very red part of Orlando. I moved to my current residence 15 years ago, and have voted in every election, it is always old white people or young blond republican moms. This morning, it was black, white, young, old, Hispanic, it was remarkable, it took about 30 minutes, the poll workers were hyper organized and enthusiastic. I actually teared up on the way home realizing I was privileged enough to vote for the first black president.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana
I live in Zachary, just north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I was so pleasantly surprised to see a line at the school where we vote! When we arrived at 7:15, there were 3 alphabetical lines with about 25 people in each. Only had to wait 30 minutes to cast my vote. Someone who was leaving as we arrived said she got there at 6:15, just after the polls opened, and the lines were HUGE! She had waited an hour to vote.

Blacksburg, Virginia
The polls opened at 6:00Am and the line was around the block but it only took 38 minutes to vote. The greatest part for me was seeing the youth turn out. The woman in front of me was a college student and it was her first election and she was really jazzed.

St. Louis County, Missouri
I arrived at the polling place at 5:40 a.m. There were at least 200 people ahead of me and the lines were just as long when I exited the polling place. Someone commented they didn't realize we had that many residents in the community where I live.

Indianapolis, Indiana
Two hour wait...but it was well worth it! Arrived at the polls at 6am sharp and there were already close to 300 people in line.

Sioux Falls South Dakota
I always get to my polling station 20 minutes before it opens. It has been a game between a few friends of mine that live in the same district to see who gets there first. In the past 12 years I have been in the first 3. Today I was 22 in line and by the time the poll opened there was nearly 200 people.

DeKalb County, Georgia
My polling station is the gym of the North Peachtree Baptist Church on Tilly Mill Road in Dunwoody, Georgia. I got to the polling station before six this morning and found a line of about two dozen people and the line continued to grow as we reached opening time. At least half of the people on line were African-Americans, many of whom had their children or were accompanied by an elderly person.

Detroit, Michigan
At 6:35pm, I arrived my polling place on the northwest side of Detroit, MI. It was still dark and about 200 people were already in line! I had my hot tea, breakfast sandwich, lawn chair and patience. I met a 19 year old young woman who just registered this summer at her church through the Barack Obama campaign. It took us about 1 1/2 hours to get to the table to acquire our ballots.

My Voting Experience

2008-11-04T08:30:00.001-05:00

Because I have to work (wouldn't you know we're in a crunch time in my office) and I knew the lines would be long, I went to vote at 6am. Luckily my neighborhood Starbucks was open and I could get some coffee to go. When I got to the polling place at 6:07am, the line already stretched around the corner. I just started laughing, mostly at myself for thinking I had beat the system. I got in line and people were generally in a good mood. I was reading stuff on my iPhone and said aloud that the small NH town of Dixville Notch, first in the nation to vote, had gone for Obama (first Democrat since LBJ!). Well, that was already old news to the people around me.

The line moved pretty quickly and after about 20 minutes, I got into the school gym. At that point, I had to get into the line for my district (they look up your district number on a list). I realized that the big line moved relatively fast because we were all disbursed into these dozen or so smaller lines. At that point it was another 10 minute wait to get my name checked off, sign the thing and get into the booth.

I voted and walked to Columbus Ave thinking I'd take the bus to work instead of the subway since it was so early. That was fun. We passed long lines at polling places on the Upper West Side (there was a place in the 70s where the line went around 2 corners, and remember, it wasn't even 7am yet!) and then when we got to Times Square, we heard some random group of people chanting, "Obama, Obama!" Totally amazing.

My final voting related act was to go to Starbucks for my free tall coffee. Just tell them you voted and it's yours.

Better than that Free Coffee From Starbucks

2008-11-03T14:57:00.002-05:00

Now here's a real motivator for voting.

Free Sex Toys For Voting: "Sex Crosses Party Lines"

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 11/3/08

Just when you thought it was safe to focus on the issues in this historic election season, a chain of sex toy shops has joined retailers, restaurateurs and other businesses across the nation in the time-honored tradition of rewarding Americans who go to the polls.

Babeland, with stores in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle, is offering a pair of self-gratifying incentives for voters who present their registration cards, ballot stubs or "word of honor" that they voted next Tuesday.

The rewards are no-so-subtle reminders of this year's campaign rhetoric. For men, it's the "Maverick," a "sleeve" for self-pleasuring. According to a press release, "He's always there to lend a hand, he works for every man, and he bucks the status quo." Women can choose the "Silver Bullet" mini-vibrator, which is "a magical solution to difficult problems" and "a great stress-reliever during these troubled economic times!" The promotion lasts through Nov. 11.

More Election Related Syndromes: Obama Overload

2008-11-03T09:33:00.002-05:00

Here's another pop psychology analysis of what many of us are experiencing. I imagine the next piece will be about post-election depression (not having anything to look forward to) - even if he wins! I'm considering bundling all of these posts into an anthology that can comprise an Electoral Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders.

I Have Reached Obama Overload

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by Pam Atherton on 11/3/08

We've got Obama Overload at our house.

You may not find this particular psychological disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders (DSM), but I can assure you, it exists. I know because we have it.

It's certainly not one of those things you can predict. I thought we were normal, pretty-much-not-interested-in-politics type of people. I've spent my career in radio staying away from talking about it. (It's too divisive, and I need all the listeners I can get.)

I do know when it started. I can pinpoint the day. It was the day John McCain brought Sarah Palin onto the ticket as VP. That was the day my sleeping political animal awoke and came unleashed.

I couldn't sleep that night. I was too ticked off. I couldn't stop talking about it the next day. My friends (who might not be Democrats) told me to shut up. I turned to the only method of expression I had that wouldn't get me thrown out of restaurants. I wrote.

I hadn't written essays or op/ed pieces since college when I was editor of the newspaper. I've been a broadcaster for 20 years and we don't need to know how to string sentences coherently or how to spell someone's last name properly, or what kind of punctuation goes after a sentence fragment. (We just use dots.) But the choice of Sarah Palin for Vice President so insulted me that I pulled out my old AP style book and went to town. I wrote until 2 in the morning, and then I sent it out to everyone on my email list who might lean even slightly to the left of far right.

When I got up the next morning I was greeted with a massive amount of email. I realized that I had struck a chord, especially with women. I wasn't the only one insulted, nor the only one pissed off. And my email list encouraged me to write more.

So my next piece I submitted to the Huffington Post. And when they accepted it, I got another blast of euphoria. There were even more people who felt as incensed as I did! And I was connecting with them.

This, my friends, is the start. Sadly, I must say, the Huffington Post is the gateway drug of Obama Overload. I know. Because I didn't just check to see if anyone had commented on my piece, I started reading other pieces. And then other sections. Then older pieces of the writers I really liked. Soon I was checking HuffPo, (as we addicts like to call it), several times a day. I was sending url addresses out in emails. I was watching the slideshows of the Obama's PDAs and tearing up at the realness of it. I was watching the debates because I WANTED to, not because I had to. I was hooked.

So I hear you say, "But that is simply an addiction." That's how it starts, my friends. It only gets worse. Here's how you know you when you have crossed the line into Obama Overload (OO):

You find yourself putting off important tasks to read "just one more" political article. Soon it's 2 in the afternoon and you are sitting at the computer, still in your nightgown, reaching for the eyedrops to soothe your bleary eyes. People call and ask when you'll have their project done. You say you are in the middle of something really important now and will call them back when you break free. You just never break free.

Polls. I don't have to explain. All of you other addicts and OO'ers out there already know what I mean. You know where they all are. And you check them every hour.

You start talking with your children about history and they don't walk out of the room. Your daughter is a 22 year-old college student and only drops by when she's out of cash or needs the laundry done. Now you spend copious amounts of time together talking about the lost 2000 election and hanging chads, about what the Constitution says the job of the VP entails, and how the Republican Party ain't the way it used to be

You use certain code words around people to determine what their political affiliation is. And when you find that someone you thought was a McCain fan turns out to be an Obama supporter, you make new friends for life.

You have no real sense of time. You tell your daughter, who is waiting patiently in the car, that you will only be in the store for 10 minutes while you pick up the bubble mailers that are 3/$1.00, but in fact you emerge several hours later, (only after the security guard hustles you out because the store is closing). This is because you have been standing in the store aisle talking about Obama with one of your "new friends."

You get emails from your friends saying "I don't want to talk politics with you anymore. Please stop. Don't text me, either." Granted, those are from your Republican friends, but they are friends nonetheless.

You start downloading Obama ringtones. You attach them to the numbers of your Republican friends so you can at least have a laugh each time they call you. Plus the added bonus of pissing them off when they hear your phone ring.

You humanize your cats. When Clawdine, the little cat, starts horking up a hairball, you ask what her problem is. Your daughter replies "She's choking over the thought of Palin as Vice President."

And here's how I knew we had a real problem:

Your daughter admonishes Tim Robbins about voting. In a dream. Your daughter wakes up and tells you that she dreamed she saw Guy Ritchie. She asked him if he had voted for Obama, but he told her that he is not an American citizen. She tells him to spread the word to his American friends. Tim Robbins approaches and she asks HIM if he has voted for Obama. He says he is planning on it. She says "That's not good enough! Get off your duff. Early voting is still open. Don't plan... DO!"

I have contacted a therapist for help with our problem. After we talked for 2 hours about why America needs Obama, she agreed to put us in a 12-step program. The first step is making sure Obama gets elected. I think the other 11 will fall into place on November 5th.

Simpsons Characters Weigh in on the Election

2008-11-03T09:19:00.002-05:00

Here's a fun interview by a Norwegian reporter with Harry Shearer, the voice of many Simpsons characters, giving their various opinions about the election. Listen for Waylon Smithers to hear what he's paying close attention to.

Today's Polls, 3 AM Edition

2008-11-03T09:05:00.002-05:00

Not sure these will be the last polls we'll see, but it's important to keep our eyes on CO, PA, and NM, ranging from 5-10 points ahead for Obama. Everything else we need is comfortably in double digits. Of course, there are plenty of non-essential states were he is ahead: VA, OH, NV. Some people think it will be an early night. What do you think?

Today's Polls, 3 AM Edition (11/3)

via FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right by noreply@blogger.com (Nate Silver) on 11/3/08

Barack Obama's position has become somewhat stronger since our update this afternoon. We now have him with a 5.8 point lead in the national popular vote, and winning the election 96.3 percent of the time. Earlier today, those figures were 5.4 and 93.7, respectively.

I continue to find a hair's worth of tightening on balance in the state-by-state polls -- even as Obama's position in the national trackers seems to be roughly as strong as it has ever been. This, ironically, is the exact reverse of the position we saw earlier in the week, when the national polls seemed to be tightening even as the state polls weren't.

However, Obama's win percentage has ticked upward again for a couple of reasons. Firstly, he's gotten some relatively good numbers out of Pennsylvania since our last update, with PPP and Zogby giving him leads of 8 and 14 points, respectively, and Rasmussen showing his lead expanding to 6 points after having been at 4 before. (The Zogby poll is probably an outlier, but may serve to balance out outliers like Strategic Vision on the other side).

Secondly, McCain's clock has simply run out. While there is arguable evidence of a small tightening, there is no evidence of a dramatic tightening of the sort he would need to make Tuesday night interesting.

Related to this is the fact that there are now very, very few true undecideds left in this race. After accounting for a third-party vote, which looks as though it will come in at an aggregate of 2 percent or so (after doing some work on this tonight, I concluded that I had been slightly underestimating the third-party vote before), I am showing only about 2.7 percent of the electorate left to allocate between the two major-party candidates. Even if John McCain were to win 70 perecnt of the remaining undecideds (which I don't think is likely), that would only be worth a net of about a point for him. Frankly, McCain's winning scenarios mainly involve the polls having been wrong in the first place -- because of a Bradley Effect or something else. It is unlikely that the polls will "tighten" substantially further -- especially when Obama already has over 50 percent of the vote.

It's very late, obviously, so we won't get into too much more detail, but a couple of quick notes.

-- Don't worry too much about that SurveyUSA result in Minnesota, which shows Obama just 3 points ahead. SurveyUSA's polling in Minnesota has been very, very weird all year; they've never shown Obama with larger than a 6 point lead in their likely voter model, and had McCain ahead in the state as recently as October 1st. SurveyUSA does not have a Republican lean in general, but in Minnesota, it has consistently had a huge one.

--A couple of the national polls have now started to predict how undecided voters will behave and allocate them between the two major-party candidates. I use the versions of these surveys before any such allocations are made, as from my point of view it isn't the pollster's job to get into the prediction business (our model has its own ideas about how to handle undecideds).

Hour by Hour Guide to Election Returns -- Part 1: In...

2008-11-03T09:02:00.002-05:00

People have been asking me when we are going to know that the election is over. That's why I thought I'd share this post. Remember, the states listed with their poll closing times are "must wins" for McCain but are not critical to Obama getting to 270.

Sheri and Allan Rivlin: Hour by Hour Guide to Election Returns -- Part 1: Introduction

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by Sheri and Allan Rivlin on 11/3/08

Daniel Berrier of ElectoPundit also contributed to this Post.

Part 1: Introduction

This is actually quite simple: CenteredPolitics.com places 259 electoral votes safely in Barack Obama's column based on a fairly conservative reading of pre-election polling. This puts Obama just 11 electoral votes short of the 270 he needs to win and a gain of any one of the Eastern and Central time zone toss-up states would be enough to remove most of the doubt about the final election victor. In poll closing order, the toss up states are:

7:00 Indiana (11), Virginia (13),
7:30 Ohio (20),
8:00 Florida (27), Missouri (11), and
8:30 North Carolina.

To be clear, John McCain needs all of these six states in his column to stay in contention and Obama just needs one of these states (even if he loses the other five) if all of the other states go as expected.

To get off of this scenario, McCain needs to prove the pollsters wrong in at least one major state and after pulling most of his campaign out of Michigan (17), he has pinned his hopes on 8:00 closing Pennsylvania (21). The signs of another unexpectedly bad night for Democrats would show up in early leads for McCain in Indiana and Virginia and in Florida where polls close for most voters at 7:00. The networks are likely to release vote counts as they come in from those counties although they are unlikely to call the state before polls close in the Central time zone counties in Florida's Panhandle. But mostly, it cannot be a good night for McCain unless Pennsylvania results fail to come in for Obama -- all night long.

There are three theories of this election to be proved or disproved heading into Election Night: Is the driving emotion in this race 1) anti-Republican, 2) anti-incumbent, or 3) anti-tax?
1) Anti-Republican: The Democrats believe that the public is so anti-George W. Bush that they will vote strongly against John McCain and Republicans at all levels. The pre-election polls lend a lot of support to this theory, and if they hold up, Republicans may be in for a real drubbing. Beyond the presidential race, the real test of this theory will be found in the 11 senate races where the Republican defending the seat is polling under 50%; New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi (B), Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Oregon, Alaska and especially Kentucky where Democrats dream of returning the insult of Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle's 2004 defeat by defeating Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell.

2) Anti-incumbent: One challenge to this theory lies in the Congressional approval ratings which recently have consistently polled even lower than those for President Bush. Republicans could hold down their net losses if anti-incumbent fever sweeps some Democratic Senators and Congressional Representatives out of office as well. Pre-election polling offers very little support for this theory as Mary Landrieu in Louisiana is the only incumbent Democratic Senator polling under 50%. Even if she loses it wouldn't be sufficient proof of this theory without some real Senate surprises in states where the pre-election polling suggests the incumbents are fairly safe like New Jersey or Oklahoma, and in the congressional races enough Democratic incumbent defeats to hold the net Republican loss under about 20 seats.

3) Anti-tax: The McCain theory of this election seems to be that the public's emotion is anti-tax and anti-government. The Joe the Plumber Tour has raised these as the greatest dangers of giving Democrats control of all three branches of government. Pre-election polling gives little support to this theory but that is why we have elections. If McCain is able to win in Pennsylvania and Ohio, then the theory will have proven its worth, and McCain may be on his way to possibly one of the greatest political upsets in American History.

The full Hour By Hour Guide to the Election Returns will be available at CenteredPolitics.com.

The Cellphone Effect: No Tightening Here

2008-11-02T19:53:00.002-05:00

The most important sentence in this post is: The cellphone polls have Obama ahead by an average of 9.4 points; the landline-only polls, 5.1 points.

Clearly cellphone users are Obama people and at last, someone can quantify this phenonmenon.

The Cellphone Effect, Continued

via FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right by noreply@blogger.com (Nate Silver) on 11/2/08

These are Barack Obama's leads in the likely voter models presently included in the Real Clear Politics average, plus the Research 2000 poll which they arbitrarily exclude.

The polls in the Cingular-y orange color include cellphones in their samples; the polls in gray do not. The cellphone polls have Obama ahead by an average of 9.4 points; the landline-only polls, 5.1 points.

I did a radio hit the other afternoon with Mark DeCamillo of California's vaunted Field Poll, which does include cellphones in their samples. He suggested to me that it was much easier to get the cooperation of cellphone users on the weekend than during the week. How come? Because most cellphone plans include free weekend minutes. Conversely, one might expect that young people are particularly difficult to reach on their landlines over the weekend, since they tend to be away from home more (especially on a weekend when some nontrivial number of them are out volunteering for Obama). So, while I haven't tried to verify this, it wouldn't surprise me if the "cellphone gap" expands over the weekend, and contracts during the week.

Yes We Can: Another Inspiring Obama Video

2008-11-02T18:42:00.001-05:00

This is the way I deal with my pre-election jitters. What's yours?

Wanna Chance A Guess?

2008-11-02T16:31:00.004-05:00

Here's what the pundits are saying will happen. It must be lonely being Fred Barnes today.

Remember, I'm being conservative predicting 326 EVs for Obama. I don't have the Senate figures clear enough to make a prediction, but all signs point to significant Democratic pickups, but not the filibuster-proof 60 that would really make the Republicans irrelevant.

Election Predictions: Pundits Weigh In

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 11/2/08

Mark Halperin
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 349 McCain 189
Senate Seats: 58 Democrats 40 Republicans
House Seats: 261 Democrats 174 Republicans

Matthew Dowd
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 338 McCain 200
Senate Seats: 57 Democrats 41 Republicans
House Seats: 250 Democrats 185 Republicans

George Will
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 378 McCain 160
Senate Seats: 57 Democrats 41 Republicans
House Seats: 254 Democrats 181 Republicans

Donna Brazile
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 343
Senate Seats: 59 Democrats 39 Republicans
House Seats: 262 Democrats 173 Republicans

George Stephanopoulos
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 353 McCain 185
Senate Seats: 58 Democrats (59 if there's a run-off in Georgia) Republicans 40
House Seats: Democrats 264 Republicans 171

Chris Matthews
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 338 McCain 200
Senate Seats: 56 Democrats 42 Republicans
House Seats: 264 Democrats 171 Republicans

Nate Silver
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 347 McCain 191
Senate Seats: 57 Democrats 41 Republicans
House Seats: 258 Democrats 177 Republicans

Chris Cillizza
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: 312 McCain 226
Senate Seats: 57 Democrats 41 Republicans
House Seats: 266 Democrats 169 Republicans

Arianna Huffington
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 318 McCain 220
Senate Seats: 58 Democrats 40 Republicans
House Seats: 254 Democrats 181 Republicans

Fred Barnes
Winner: McCain
Electoral College: Obama 252 McCain 286
Senate Seats: 55 Democrats 43 Republicans
House Seats: 255 Democrats 180 Republicans

Eleanor Clift
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 349 McCain 189
Senate Seats: 58 Democrats 40 Republicans
House Seats: 265 Democrats 170 Republicans

Markos Moulitas
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 390 McCain 148
Senate Seats: 58 Democrats 40 Republicans
House Seats: 268 Democrats 167 Republicans

Ed Rollins
Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 353 McCain 185
Senate Seats: 57 Democrats 41 Republicans
House Seats: 249 Democrats 186 Republicans

I Promise: This is the last Palin Video I'll Post

2008-11-02T12:30:00.002-05:00

Heard about this last night and liked it. It's a great song after all.

Vote and Get Free Coffee

2008-11-02T10:49:00.001-05:00

I know they're thought of as "the evil empire" but, if that's how you think, why not rip Starbucks off on November 4th after you vote and get your free tall coffee. Incidentally, I'm a regular latte drinker, so I'm already over on the dark side.

Affleck as Olbermann on SNL: Brilliant

2008-11-02T10:27:00.001-05:00

This is nothing short of brilliant. Enjoy!

Brand Name Recognition

2008-10-31T22:51:00.001-04:00

I like the music and the visuals on this one. Watch out for the Obama-MLK graphics and then the very last t-shirt shown. It's funny.

Updated Early Voting Data

2008-10-31T22:02:00.002-04:00

Looking good for the 17% who've voted early.

Early Vote Crack

via The Daily Dish By Andrew Sullivan by Andrew Sullivan on 10/31/08

The numbers:

...one in six likely voters has done the deed, and as many say they will between now and Election Day. Their preference: Obama by a substantial margin.

Seventeen percent now say they've already voted, favoring Obama over John McCain by 59-40 percent. An additional 18 percent say they'll do so before Tuesday, for a possible total of 35 percent voting early or by absentee ballot. That would be a record by far, well above its levels in 2004 and 2000 alike, 22 and 15 percent, respectively.

More data on early vote by state can be found here. Early voting in California seems to be helping the Mormon-funded anti-gay Prop 8.

November 5th Song - Been Saving This for Today

2008-10-31T21:51:00.002-04:00

Evita! Evita!

2008-10-31T21:47:00.001-04:00

I know there are thousands of these home-grown videos on YouTube, but I had to share this one. "Don't speak for me Sarah Palin..."

When Do the Polls Close?

2008-10-31T21:03:00.001-04:00

Poll closing times across the US.
Times are all Eastern Standard.
Now you know when to expect results.

Samuel L. Jackson Rocks: But We Always Knew That

2008-10-31T07:57:00.002-04:00

My oldest son has always been a big fan of Samuel L. Jackson, so it was with great pride that I sent him this TV ad that Jackson has recorded for the No on 8 Campaign in California.

Here's the Electoral Map I Submitted: 326 for Obama

2008-10-31T07:53:00.002-04:00

Here's My Electoral Vote Map Prediction

2008-10-30T20:15:00.002-04:00

I entered the Washington Post's electoral map contest and predicted the following:

I gave Obama all the deep blue states and then predicted CO, OH, VA and NC would go to him, but that FL, ND, IN and MO would go to McCain.

This gives Obama a comfortable 312 EVs, 42 more than he needs.

Don't blame latinos and blacks if Prop 8 passes

2008-10-30T19:27:00.002-04:00

Alex Blaze of Bilerico Project lays out a cogent, clear argument that bucks the conventional wisdom in the LGBT community that if we lose marriage in California, it will be the fault of African American voters. This piece from Alex is so important and those of us who try to fight racism within our own community should commit it to memory.

Don't blame latinos and blacks if Prop 8 passes

via The Bilerico Project by alex@bilerico.com (Alex Blaze) on 10/30/08

Here's the racial break-down of the latest SUSA poll on Prop 8.

	White	Black	Latino/a	Asian
Yes	48	58	47	42
No	47	38	41	48
Undecided	6	4	12	10
While there is definitely slippage between those categories (bi- and multiracial people, people of various racial backgrounds who get racialized as "latino" in the US and accept or reject that label to varying degrees), it's a rough estimate and it'll have to do if we're going to have this discussion about racial groups and their support for same-sex marriage. What I've been hearing, both from gay people I know and on this site, is an assumption that if Prop 8 passes in California, it's going to be because of racial minorities, which usually means blacks, and then latinos get tacked on to that. Coming from a latino background myself, I can say that the stereotype that all latinos are homophobic is about as true as the stereotype that all white people are homophobic, and the numbers in California support that. Continue reading "Don't blame latinos and blacks if Prop 8 passes"...

In Case You Missed It

2008-10-29T22:35:00.002-04:00

Here's the full half-hour Obama video that was aired on network TV tonight.

Almost the Last Geeky Electoral College Report

2008-10-29T21:43:00.002-04:00

OK, this is the penultimate (second to last) Electoral College for Geeks report from Chris Weigant and.....IT LOOKS GREAT!

Chris Weigant: Electoral Math -- Obama Has Closed The Deal

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by Chris Weigant on 10/29/08

Welcome to the penultimate Electoral Math column.

OK, I admit, I just like correctly using the word "penultimate." Plus, it's fun to say! Try it!

If you detect a certain giddiness here at Electoral Math Central, it is due to the fact that the election is actually drawing nigh, after a seemingly eternal campaign season. It's been a long, long road to where we find ourselves, and we're all feeling the strain. But fear not! Election Day is just around the corner, and just about everything seems to be breaking Obama's way.

"What's that?" you say, "the national polls are close -- I know this because the media told me so!" Well, all I can say is that's what you get for hanging around such disreputable characters in the first place.

(Ahem.)

Seriously, though, I remind everyone once again that we don't elect our president that way. If we did, we'd be at the end of Al Gore's second term right now.

Need further reassurance? Take a look at where Kerry was on this day in 2004. Go ahead, take a look. Then take a deep breath, and take a look at where we are today. Feel better now?

OK, now that we've all calmed down, let's take a look at the week. Just about the only bad news was Missouri moving to "tied" this week, when it had been (barely) in Obama's column. Just about everything else was either neutral, or good news for Democrats. Florida did move to being tied for a single day, but then it moved right back to showing a slim lead for Obama, so no harm, no foul there. Ohio, Nevada, and New Hampshire all firmed up for Obama this week. New Hampshire and Nevada aren't all that big, but Ohio is a juicy 20 electoral votes, so this is good news indeed.

In the meantime, McCain continues to watch his support fall off a cliff. Mississippi, Arizona, Montana, and Georgia all weakened considerably this week for McCain. And Indiana went back to leaning towards Obama from leaning towards McCain. The trendlines for McCain, in other words, are not good. Not good indeed when you consider we only have six days left before the election, and Obama is about to talk to the nation for an entire half-hour in prime time tonight. Not a very happy position for McCain to be in, to put it mildly.

Having said all that, let's go to the charts and take a look at where we truly stand. First up, the Electoral College totals. [Click on any of these charts to see a larger image. Compare with last week's column to see the graphs' movement in the past week.]

[Obama's percentage starts from the bottom (blue) and McCain's starts from the top (red), and winning means getting your line over (or under, for McCain) the 50% mark. Tied states are in white.]

The graph quivered a bit from last week, but then settled down once again. Net result: Obama didn't move, and McCain lost ground (to tied states). Obama started off the week with a serious dip, since he lost Florida to "tied," and since Florida has an impressive 27 electoral votes (EV). But then the next day, Obama gained it back, as well as Indiana's 11 EV. This is the first time Obama has been up in Indiana since mid-August, so it is good news indeed. One poll showed him at fairly strong support, but a second poll showed the race much closer, while still leaning slightly to Obama.

McCain's bad news wasn't confined to Indiana, though, as he also lost Montana to a tie on the same day, which dropped his numbers by 14 EV overall for the week. Obama eventually lost Missouri, which is now tied. This meant Obama finished up the week with the same number of electoral votes that he started with -- 364 EV (after setting a new record high of 375 EV, then falling back). McCain, however, didn't regain his loss, so he finished the week with 157 EV, down 14 EV from last week.

Obama now has the same 67.7% of the total electoral votes that he started the week off with, while McCain has set a new low, slipping below 30% for the first time, and ending the week with a dismal 29.2%.

Breaking the numbers down and drilling into the data just confirms the continuing movement towards Obama. First, let's look at John McCain.

[Definition of terms: Strong means 10% or better in the polls, Weak means 5% or better, and Barely is under five percent.]

John McCain continues to lose support, as what were his Strong states a few weeks ago turn Weak... and then Barely... and then drift off into Obama's column. Starting with Strong, John McCain was holding his numbers until suddenly he lost Arizona -- his home state -- down to Barely. It moved back up to Weak the next day, but still hasn't recovered back to being Strong for McCain again yet. Then just today, Mississippi weakened as well, leaving the Strong category for Weak. For the week, McCain is down 16 EV for a total of 118 EV in Strong. One week out from the election, that graph line is moving in entirely the wrong direction for McCain.

The Weak McCain states look, at first glance, like they haven't moved. But upon closer scrutiny, what happened was Georgia moved out of this column to Barely, and Arizona and Mississippi moved into it from Strong. Meaning that although McCain finishes up the week with a net gain of one electoral vote here (for a total of 24 EV), this isn't good news, as states migrate in Obama's direction. Georgia has 15 EV, so this was a big loss for McCain.

Likewise, McCain's Barely numbers also don't seem so bad if you just look at the totals. But what really happened isn't good news for the McCain camp at all. First, Montana went to being a tie, while Indiana migrated over to Obama's column. This left McCain with zero Barely states for a day. The next day, Georgia moved into Barely from Weak, giving McCain at least something in this column. But, again, the state is moving in the wrong direction. Arizona moved into Barely, but just for a day until it moved up to Weak, which is about the only good news this week for McCain -- his home state didn't change from Strong to Barely, it merely changed from Strong to Weak. And that's the good news.

The bad news is evident from a quick look at that chart. McCain keeps sinking lower and lower, with no end to the bleeding in sight. One week out, I remind you. The metric I watch most closely is Strong Plus Weak, and McCain lost fifteen electoral votes from last week (Georgia). He finishes the week with his Strong Plus Weak line at only 142 EV.

Because that was depressing, let's lighten things up a bit by taking a quick peek at Obama's chart.

Barack Obama's chart looks a bit better, shall we say. His Strong numbers stayed rock-like in their firmness during the past week. He lost not a single state, and just for fun at the end of the week regained New Hampshire. This left him at his all-time high water mark of 264 EV. That is just six votes short of a winning number, in states that are polling ten percent or better for Obama. It could be a very short Election Night indeed.

Obama started the week with 26 EV in his Weak column, and improved right away by gaining Ohio and Indiana (both substantial states, EV-wise). Three days later, he lost Indiana down to Barely, though, setting him back a bit. But he finished the week in good shape here, even though New Hampshire moved up to Strong, by adding Nevada to Weak from Barely -- good news indeed, if it holds. Obama closed the week out with 47 EV in his Weak column, a net gain of 21 EV from last week.

Obama's Barely numbers jumped around considerably this week, starting with Florida moving to tied for a day, then moving back to Barely Obama (because Florida has 27 EV, this caused quite a dip in the graph). The same day it moved back, Ohio moved from Barely to Weak, which is more good news. Indiana, after one outlier poll that showed it as Weak Obama, ended the week in Barely Obama. It's worth noting that this state started the week as Barely McCain, meaning it is still a net pickup. About the only bad news for Obama this week was the movement of Missouri from Barely Obama to being tied, which brought his overall numbers down a bit after setting an all-time high of 375 EV -- over 100 EV more than he needs to win. And at the very end of the week, Nevada moved up to Weak from Barely, meaning Obama finished up with 53 EV for the week in his Barely column, down 25 EV from last week.

In the crucial Strong Plus Weak area, Obama also hit an all-time high early in the week of 317 EV. Yes, you read that right, and now (Biden-like) I will repeat it -- three hundred and seventeen electoral votes. It then fell to 306 EV, but a last-minute uptick finished the week off for Obama at 311 EV for Strong Plus Weak -- a pickup of 25 EV over last week.

It's a good thing the election is next week, or I would have to recalibrate the axis on this graph as Obama's numbers continue to climb. When I started, I thought 400 would be enough...

(Ahem.)

Sam's Numbers

To contain my exuberance, I always rely on the analysis of Sam Minter and his website abulsme.com. His chart averages the last five state polls, while I just take the most recent data from electoral-vote.com, so his data is usually more stable than mine.

His chart combines my three charts above into one. Obama starts from the top, McCain starts from the bottom, and wherever the double baby-blue/pink line currently is determines who is ahead, measured from the centerline.

Uh oh -- Sam's commentary today is titled "Very Very Bad Polling Day for McCain." Maybe he's not going to contain my exuberance... let's see what he has to say...

New Summary:
McCain Best Case -- Obama 311, McCain 227
Obama Best Case -- Obama 406, McCain 132
If everybody gets their leans -- 375 Obama, 163 McCain
This is frankly just stunning. Lets look at this.
If John McCain wins every single swing state... that is, every state he is ahead in, plus every state Obama is ahead in by less than 5%... then he still loses by 84 electoral votes.
If everybody just gets every state they are currently ahead in, then Obama gets 375 electoral votes, which is one common definition of a landslide.
If Obama actually wins all of the states McCain is ahead by less than 5% in as well, he will top 400 electoral votes.
. . .
I'll stick with my methods and categories though, and say that at the moment McCain has no path to victory. If he manages to move a bunch of states before election day, that may change. But so far, there does not seem to be any trend in his direction. In fact, the trend toward Obama is continuing. States that seemed to be absolutely impossible for Obama are now in play. It really does seem that we now are just debating just how massive Obama's win will be. McCain winning is not a possibility that is seriously in play at the moment.
There is only one word for where we are now: Wow.

Looks like this exuberance stuff is contagious!

My Picks

There was a good deal of movement in my picks this week, almost all of it towards Obama. States that Democrats usually don't even dare to dream about winning are continuing to soften for McCain, enough to the point where an entirely new electoral map with entirely new "conventional wisdom" may be staring us in the face come this time next week.

So, without further ado, here are my penultimate picks. As always, the categories used are: Likely Obama (broken down to Safe Obama and Probable Obama); Likely McCain (Safe/Probable); and Tossup (broken down to Lean Obama, Lean McCain, and Too Close To Call). And at the very end is a section with all the full data for people who, as I read in somebody's blog today (I will add a credit if I come across it again, as it's a funny line and deserves it) -- "FiveThirtyEight isn't a website, it's the number of times you've visited it this month."

Likely States -- Obama

Safe Obama (23 states, 273 EV) -- CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, HI, IA, IL, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, PA, RI, VT, WA, WI.

New Hampshire had one outlier poll a while back, and has since recovered... no matter what the media says about it. Colorado has steadily improved its Obama support, and can now be considered Safe as well. The addition of New Hampshire and Colorado in the Safe Obama category (and the loss of no states here) pushes him over the top just among his safest states. This is the first time this has happened, and should calm a few frayed Democratic nerves heading into the home stretch.

Probable Obama (2 states, 33 EV) -- OH, VA.

Lots of movement here this week. Colorado and New Hampshire moved up to Safe, and Ohio moves up from Lean Obama. This may be overconfidence in the case of Ohio, but it's looking less and less likely McCain could win here, unless there is some massive vote fraud which makes it happen (knock wood). Obama finishes the week with two states here, Ohio and Virginia, both of which could be the state that puts Obama over the top on Election Night.

Adding together all the Likely states for Obama gives a total of 25 states, and a whopping 306 electoral votes.

Likely States -- McCain

Safe McCain (14 states, 118 EV) -- AK, AL, AR, ID, KS, KY, LA, NE, OK, SC, TN, TX, UT, WY.

The bad news for John McCain this week starts in his Safe category. McCain loses two states this week, Arizona and Mississippi, down to Probable McCain. Both states had some weak polls for McCain late in the week, but I do caution that they may just be outlier polling. McCain finishes the week with only 14 states and a measly 118 electoral votes in his Safe column -- down 16 EV from last week.

Probable McCain (4 states, 24 EV) -- AZ, MS, SD, WV.

Lots of activity in Probable McCain this week, with the addition of two states (AZ, MS) moving down from Safe McCain, the loss of Georgia down to Lean McCain, and -- his only good news -- the addition of West Virginia up from Lean McCain. He finishes the week with four states and 24 EV in this category -- up two states and six electoral votes from last week.

Total Likely McCain for the week is only 18 states (the same as last week), but since they're different states, McCain loses 10 EV for a miserly total of only 142 EV.

Tossup States

Lean Obama (2 states, 32 EV) -- FL, NV.

Ohio moved up to Probable Obama from here this week, but Florida remains shaky for Obama, so it stays as merely a Lean Obama state for now. Nevada moves up from Too Close To Call, and I even halfway considered moving Nevada all the way up to Probable Obama as well, since the numbers there are pretty close to Ohio's. But Ohio has shown deeper support for Obama for a longer period of time, so I can realistically only move Nevada to Lean Obama for now. Obama ends the week with two states here, for a total of 32 EV.

Lean McCain (1 state, 15 EV) -- GA.

McCain lost all three states he had in his Lean category from last week. Montana and Indiana moved down to Too Close To Call, and West Virginia (again, McCain's only good news this week) moved up to Probable McCain. But Georgia moved down from Probable McCain to just Lean McCain, due to a serious weakening in the polls in the state.

Too Close To Call (5 states, 43 EV) -- IN, MO, MT, NC, ND.

Some movement here, in the most volatile category. Nevada moved up to Lean Obama, and Indiana and Montana moved down here from Lean McCain. So we finish off the week with five states too close to make a prediction, none of them big enough to swing the entire race to McCain. How Obama does here is likely just going to be a question of how much icing his cake is going to have.

[Program Note: Join us here next Tuesday -- Election Day -- for my final (ultimate?) Electoral Math column, which will have my final election picks (it'll come out before the polls close, I promise). There will be no "Too Close To Call," no undecideds, as I will call every state the way I think it'll go. And I invite everyone else to share their picks in the comments, while we're all waiting for the returns to come in. Don't miss it!]

[Electoral Vote Data:]

Previous electoral math columns:

[6/30/08], [7/21/08], [8/6/08], [8/20/08], [9/17/08], [9/24/08], [10/1/08], [10/8/08], [10/15/08], and [10/22/08].

Barack Obama Likely Easy Wins -- 25 States -- 306 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 23 States -- 273 Electoral Votes
California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Iowa (7), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (15), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington, D.C. (3), Washington (11), Wisconsin (10)

Probable States -- 2 States -- 33 Electoral Votes
Ohio (20), Virginia (13)

John McCain Likely Easy Wins -- 18 States -- 142 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 14 States -- 118 Electoral Votes
Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Nebraska (5), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), Wyoming (3)

Probable States -- 4 States -- 24 Electoral Votes
Arizona (10), Mississippi (6), South Dakota (3), West Virginia (5)

Tossup States -- 8 States -- 90 Electoral Votes:

Tossup States Leaning Obama -- 2 States -- 32 Electoral Votes
Florida (27), Nevada (5)

Tossup States Leaning McCain -- 1 State -- 15 Electoral Votes
Georgia (15)

Too Close To Call -- 5 States -- 43 Electoral Votes
Indiana (11), Missouri (11), Montana (3), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3)

Oldest data -- no polls in October yet:

9/18: Utah, Washington, D.C.
9/20: Idaho
9/25: Hawaii, Maryland

The Endpoint is Near

2008-10-29T17:35:00.003-04:00

Many of us are suffering from this disorder. But luckily, unlike other disorders, it has an actual endpoint. So take heart, the endpoint is near. Only 6 more days of this.

Election Anxiety: Don't Worry, The End Is Near

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 10/29/08

Americans are in the grip of a monster case of Pre-Election Anxiety Disorder. No one is talking about voter apathy anymore, because the opposite is more likely the case. People care too much. They're losing sleep. They're having bad dreams about unfavorable tracking polls.

PEAD worsens as Election Day approaches and it's a 50-50 country and there's a war going on and people are dying and the talking heads are howling and the polls come firing at your head like fastballs. It's too close to call, too close, too close, we know the whole thing could pivot with the slightest breeze, that nothing is too trivial now, that even the slightest verbal gaffe by a candidate or his wife or one of the daughters could have a butterfly effect on world history.

Early Voting Numbers

2008-10-28T16:00:00.003-04:00

Looks like the early voting is going very well for Obama.

Early Voting Numbers

via The Daily Dish By Andrew Sullivan by Andrew Sullivan on 10/28/08

9 percent of voters have already cast ballots:

Their preference: Barack Obama over John McCain, by 60-39 percent.
That leaves 91 percent yet to vote, but more are coming. A total of 34 percent of likely voters intend to vote early, including those who've already done so and those who say they will in the next week. This overall early voting group favors Obama over McCain by 59-39 percent, essentially the same as it is among those who've gotten it done already.

The Closer

2008-10-27T21:42:00.001-04:00

A powerful speech by Obama today in Canton, Ohio. He's closing the deal. 8 days.

The Cutest Young Journalist In the US

2008-10-26T14:14:00.002-04:00

This adorable budding TV reporter has really got it goin' on. Here's his report on a speech given by Joe Biden and his actual interview with the VP candidate. I think you'll love him.

So Much for the (Older) Jewish Vote Being in Play

2008-10-26T13:59:00.000-04:00

New Gallup poll shows 75% of U.S. Jews plan to vote Obama

By Haaretz Service

A new poll released by the Gallup organization on Thursday shows Jewish voters favor Barack Obama over John McCain by more than 3 to 1, with 74% saying they will vote for Obama over 22% for McCain.

The poll, which has interviewed over 650 Jewish registered voters each month since June, shows American Jews growing increasingly comfortable with Obama since July, when the Illinois Senator tied up the Democratic Party nomination. The poll shows support for McCain among Jews stood at a high of 34% in June, before beginning its downward turn in July after Obama's nomination.

The highest level of support for Obama according to the poll is among Jews over the age of 55, 74% of which have said they're voting for Obama over 67% of Jews 18 to 34. The Gallup organization says the disparity could be based on a greater inclination among Jews 18 to 34 to call themselves Conservative, but says a similar inclination isn't apparent among Jews aged 35 to 54, 68% of which polled by Gallup have said they're voting Obama.

The poll's findings show that in spite of a certain measure of trepidation among some Jewish voters towards Obama early in his campaign, he is set to receive the same percentage of the Jewish vote (74%) as John Kerry in 2004, and only slightly less than the 80% of the Jewish vote that Al Gore received in 2000 when he had a Jewish running mate in Joe Lieberman.

Earlier in October, a poll commissioned by researchers at New York University revealed that American Jews favor Obama over McCain by a 67 - 33 percent margin.

The survey, which sampled the opinions of over 3,000 respondents - half of them being Jewish - also found that Jews as an ethnic group will support Obama by almost 30 percent more than other white, non-Hispanic voters.

The poll sought to gauge the importance Jewish voters attach to Israel as a consideration in whom they would vote for, with some surprising results. Of all the Jews surveyed who said that Israel is of "high" importance, 63 percent said they would vote for Obama. In contrast, only 42 percent of Jews who said Israel has "very high" importance said they planned to vote for Obama.

Not surprisingly, the Jewish vote swings heavily in McCain's favor among the Orthodox. According to the survey, the Arizona senator can count on support from 75 percent of Orthodox Jewish voters.

Newsweek Poll: Obama Maintains Double-Digit Lead

2008-10-25T11:34:00.002-04:00

OK, 10 more days to go. Why does it still feel like SUCH a long time? Maybe 'cause this has been a long time comin'.

Newsweek Poll: Obama Maintains Double-Digit Lead

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 10/25/08

With less than two weeks left in the presidential contest, Barack Obama continues to hold a commanding double-digit lead over John McCain according to the latest NEWSWEEK Poll. Among registered voters nationwide, Obama now leads McCain by 13 points, 53 percent to 40 percent. Among likely voters, Obama's lead is similarly strong, 53 percent to 41 percent.

Obama's lead in the NEWSWEEK Poll is consistent with other recent national polls, including soundings taken by CBS News and The New York Times, The Washington Post and ABC News, NBC News and The Wall Street Journal and by Pew Research, all of which measured Obama's lead over McCain as somewhere between 10 and 14 points. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, Obama's lead stayed virtually unchanged from two weeks ago, when he led McCain 52 to 41 among registered voters.

Success Has Many Parents But Failure is an Orphan

2008-10-25T11:31:00.002-04:00

Here's a great example of the above saying as the McCain/Palin campaign dissembles.

McCain Faces Internal "Palin Insurgency"

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 10/25/08

Politico's Ben Smith reports on the internal tensions that are roiling the McCain campaign, with many Palin allies voicing their unhappiness at how the campaign has been run. According to Smith, there are now "stirrings of a Palin insurgency." Some of the highlights:

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image -- even as others in McCain's camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain's decline.

"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.[...]

Anger among Republicans who see Palin as a star and as a potential future leader has boiled over because, they say, they see other senior McCain aides preparing to blame her in the event he is defeated.

"These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves," said a McCain insider, referring to McCain's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, and to Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide who has taken a lead role in Palin's campaign.
[...]

"A number of Governor Palin's staff have not had her best interests at heart and they have not had the campaign's best interests at heart," fumed the McCain insider, noting that Wallace left an executive job at CBS to join the campaign."

Read the full article.

Palin's favorability ratings have taken a hit recently, and the Washington Post reported Saturday that its latest poll shows the majority of Americans now have a negative impression of Palin.

October Surprise Averted

2008-10-24T14:10:00.002-04:00

When I read about this yesterday, it send shivers down my spine at the thought of the right making a huge issue out of this incident. Now it's completely neutralized and even blown back at them by the whole thing being a hoax. When is this kind of insanity going to end?

I lived in Boston during the whole Charles Stuart case where an insane white man killed his pregnant wife (on the way home from their childbirth class!) in an African American neighborhood near the hospital so that he could accuse a black man of committing the crime. The police went into overdrive--arresting black guys right and left, and even finding one they thought for sure had committed the murder. Then, of course, we find out that it was the white husband who did the deed, setting up an entire African American community as a scapegoat.

Stuart himself committed suicide by jumping off the Mystic River Bridge (yes, the same Mystic River as in the movie of the same name) and the wife's family, a really wonderful group of people, set up a scholarship fund for children living in the neighborhood (Mission Hill) where the crime had been committed.

Maybe Ashley Todd's family should do the same for the people in the neighborhood where their daughter did so much damage?

HOAX: McCain volunteer admits "Obama supporter mutilated me" story was a lie

via AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth by John Aravosis (DC) on 10/24/08

This photo is of a hoax. A McCain staffer who thought it might be cute to invent her own hate crime and blame it on black men in general and Barack Obama in particular. What a freaking witch. Of course, she's such an idiot that she claimed the mean black man carved a "B" for "Barack" on her face after he found out she worked for McCain - except the B was carved backwards, like it would be if you carved it in your own face while looking in a mirror. What a hateful, stupid woman.

From KDKA:

Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter "B" in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

Authorities, however, declined to release the results of that test.

Investigators did say that they received photos from the ATM machine and "the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction."

This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

The commander added that Todd will face charges; but police have not commented on what those charges will be.

Obama in a Nutshell

2008-10-24T10:11:00.001-04:00

I just saw this quote on my daily Beliefnet email (Jewish version) and had to post it here because to me it so epitomizes how Barack Obama has run his campaign:

The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice. They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith. They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom.

- Rav Abraham Isaac Kook

You've Got to Be Carefully Taught: "Hit a Jew Day" At St. Louis School

2008-10-24T09:52:00.002-04:00

Now here's a school and a community in desperate need of a lot of education about anti-Semitism. Where do you imagine these 12 year olds learned that it's OK to have a "Hit a Jew Day"?

"Hit a Jew Day" At St. Louis School: Students Face Punishment

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 10/24/08

ST. LOUIS — At least four students from a suburban St. Louis middle school face punishment for allegedly hitting Jewish classmates during what they called "Hit a Jew Day."

The incident happened last week at Parkway West Middle School in Chesterfield.

District officials said Thursday they believe that fewer than 10 children of the district's 35 Jewish students were struck.

District spokesman Paul Tandy said that in most cases, the students were hit on the back of their shoulders but one student was slapped in the face.

It began with an unofficial "Spirit Week" among sixth-graders that started harmlessly enough with a "Hug a Friend Day." Then there was "High Five Day."

Soon, though, the days moved from friendly to silly. Next there was "Hit a Tall Person Day" and, finally, "Hit a Jew Day."

District officials believe a handful of children were directly involved. Those who actually struck classmates could face suspension and required counseling, Tandy said. Others who weren't directly involved but taunted Jewish students or egged on classmates could face lesser penalties.

"There is a mix of sadness and outrage," Tandy said. "The concern is a lot of kids knew about it and they didn't take action or say anything."

Karen Aroesty, St. Louis regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said this was more than a case of bullying. Officials from the group will meet Friday with district leaders to discuss the matter.

___

On the Net:

Anti-Defamation League: http://regions.adl.org/missouri/

Parkway West Middle School: http://www.pkwy.k12.mo.us/westmiddle/index.cfm

The "Straight Log Cabin Boy" Endorses Obama

2008-10-24T09:50:00.003-04:00

Bill Weld is the honorary, straight Log Cabin Republican - the only one of them who's endorsing Obama. As a former Massachusetts resident who lived there throughout Weld's time in office, I just had to post this.

Former Mass. GOP Gov. Weld Endorses Obama

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 10/24/08

Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, a Republican, is endorsing Democrat Barack Obama for president, citing the senator's steady leadership, good judgment and ability to unify Democrats, Republicans and independents.

"Senator Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate who will transform our politics and restore America's standing in the world," Weld said in a statement released Friday. "We need a president who will lead based on our common values and Senator Obama demonstrates an ability to unite and inspire.

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation

2008-10-24T09:45:00.002-04:00

You know you love that adorable red head, Ron Howard. Whether you remember him as Opie or Richie Cunningham, he was the epitome of the cute, American kid. And now here he is in a reprise of both roles, with his pals Andy and Fonzie, to ask you to support Barack Obama. This is nostalgic fun that's really about the future.

The Latest Tina Fey as Sarah Palin video

2008-10-24T09:25:00.001-04:00

The gang's all here: Palin, McCain and Bush. Enjoy

VOTE BARACK!!

2008-10-24T08:59:00.002-04:00

Kudos for my best pal, Cheryl, for forwarding me this great rap video (I know, I know, white people who aren't Eminem rapping; but they mean well) reminding everyone to vote Obama. I loved it and you will too.

More than a Measly Tip: Delivery Men Get Their Back Wages

2008-10-23T14:30:00.003-04:00

As typical Manhattanites, Jen and I order in a lot and we tip the guys who tromp up 3 flights of stairs well, but our measly few dollars doesn't begin to compensate for the horrible wages and working conditions of these folks, many of whom are undocumented immigrants. Finally, relief is on its way. Kudos to the activists and lawyers who made this so, and for the brave delivery men who stood up for themselves.

From the NY Times.

October 22, 2008
For $2-an-Hour Restaurant Deliverymen, a $4.6 Million Judgment

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
A federal judge has awarded $4.6 million in back pay and damages to 36 delivery workers at two Saigon Grill restaurants in Manhattan, finding blatant and systematic violations of minimum-wage and overtime laws.

In a decision dated Monday and released on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Michael H. Dolinger of United States District Court in Manhattan found violations of federal and state wage laws in awarding up to $328,000 to some of the deliverymen. On issue after issue, Judge Dolinger ruled against Saigon Grill and its owners, Simon and Michelle Nget, saying they paid $520 a month to many deliverymen who worked more than 260 hours each month. This meant their pay came to less than $2 an hour, far less than the federal and state minimum wage.

“I’m very, very happy about this decision,” one deliveryman, Yu Guan Ke, said in a telephone interview. He said he would use the money to help buy health insurance for his family. “It was worth the fight because we were treated badly for so long,” he added. “I never imagined we would receive so much money.” The restaurants are on Amsterdam Avenue at 90th Street and University Place at 12th Street. But the case also involved deliveries made for a Saigon Grill on Second Avenue at 88th Street that closed in July 2006.

The deliverymen, all immigrants from Fujian Province in China, testified that they were required to work 11 to 13 hours a day, usually six days a week. But their employers testified that the deliverymen had to work only at peak delivery times: 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Responding to the owners’ assertions, Judge Dolinger wrote, “This testimony is manifestly false.” He pointed to a work schedule the plaintiffs made available showing that the deliverymen were assigned to work far more hours than the owners claimed.

On Tuesday, a receptionist for S. Michael Weisberg, the lawyer for Saigon Grill and its owners, said, “He has no comment at this time.”

Judge Dolinger found that the company had often illegally deducted pay — from $20 to $200 — when deliverymen committed infractions like letting the restaurant door slam on their way out or failing to log in a delivery. The case covered wage violations from 1999 to 2007.

The judge concluded that Saigon Grill should pay not just back wages but also damages because the owners, he said, had so blithely ignored the law.

“At a minimum, Simon Nget and Michelle Nget showed no regard whatsoever for legal requirements in connection with their wage policies,” Judge Dolinger wrote.

He also found that the company had illegally retaliated against 23 delivery workers by firing them when they notified their employers of their intention to file a wage complaint. But the judge has not yet decided on a judgment on that issue.

Judge Dolinger also ruled that the company had improperly made the deliverymen buy and maintain the bicycles and motorbikes they used to make deliveries, concluding that Saigon Grill should have paid for those as required tools of the trade.

Kenneth Kimerling, legal director for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said, “This is a tremendous victory, one that should warn every employer in this city that violations of the wage-and-hour law can lead to large amounts awarded against them.”

The fund represented the deliverymen along with the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, working pro bono.

The restaurant could in theory pay the workers a special tip wage, several dollars an hour lower than the state minimum wage, now $7.15 an hour. But the judge ruled that Saigon Grill was required to pay the full minimum wage in this case because the owners had not satisfied a requirement for paying the lower tip wage: explaining to the workers that they planned to do so.

Josephine Lee, an organizer with Justice Will Be Served, an advocacy group for immigrant workers, said that as a result of the Saigon Grill case, “many restaurants have already started to pay their deliverymen much better.”

Last February, a judge with the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Saigon Grill had illegally fired 28 deliverymen 11 months earlier and should reinstate them. That judge found that the firings were in retaliation for the workers’ plans to file the wage lawsuit.

Ms. Lee said seven of the workers have been reinstated thus far.

So Much for the Race Tightening

2008-10-23T09:13:00.002-04:00

Obama Gets Bounce From Powell Endorsement

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by The Huffington Post News Editors on 10/22/08

Barack Obama is up 11 points on John McCain among likely voters in the new Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll, 54 to 43 percent. Though little changed from yesterday, Obama's national lead is now his biggest of the campaign in Post-ABC polling.

Former secretary of state Colin Powell's endorsement provides a new boost for Obama, who has made significant progress with voters as a leader in international affairs. But Obama also continues to be lifted by more fundamental advantages, including a 2 to 1 advantage on "helping the middle-class."

New survey shows Prop 8 losing

2008-10-23T08:59:00.003-04:00

From Pam's House Blend - Front Page by Pam Spaulding on 10/23/08 Great news on two fronts in the fight to ensure marriage equality is preserved in California.

First, a new statewide survey released by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) with funding from The James Irvine Foundation (PDF) has found that Prop 8 is now losing among likely voters, 52 percent to 44 percent.

The gap between likely voters in favor and opposed to Proposition 8 (44% yes, 52% no) has narrowed since September (41% yes, 55% no) and August (40% yes, 54% no). Compared to last month, more Republicans (70% today, 62% September) would vote yes on the measure, which would eliminate the right for same-sex couples to marry that the state Supreme Court granted in May.
Opposition is 4 points lower among Democrats (67% today, 71% September), but 5 points higher among independents (58% today, 53% September). At least half of men, women, Latinos, and whites oppose Proposition 8. Regionally, majorities of likely voters in the San Francisco Bay Area (67%) and Los Angeles (55%) are opposed. But majorities in the Central Valley (54%) and in the "Other Southern California" region that includes Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties (52%) favor the measure.
On the more general question of how they feel about allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry in California, likely voters are divided, 47 percent in favor and 49 percent opposed. These attitudes are largely unchanged since 2005. In an indication of how strong voters' motivations are to cast their ballots on this measure, supporters of Proposition 8 are far more likely (69%) than opponents (49%) to say the results are very important.

This Weeks's Electoral College Geek Column

2008-10-22T22:24:00.002-04:00

OK, here's Chris Weigant's weekly analysis of the Electoral College. Still looking good for my formula to put Obama over the top.

Chris Weigant: Electoral Math -- Obama Holds His Lead

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by Chris Weigant on 10/22/08

It's quiet out there... too quiet.

Well, not really, but I always wanted to start a column with that line. The news this week is that there's not much news. The state-by-state polls have been remarkably stable for how close we are to Election Day. Some fringe states have shifted slightly for both candidates, but most states appear to be more and more "locked in" at this point.

Which reminds me, what the heck is John McCain doing in Pennsylvania? He must be counting on one whopping big Bradley Effect there, because almost every poll I've seen says he doesn't stand a chance in the Keystone State.

What it may be is that McCain could be pinning his hopes for the entire race on Pennsylvania. It has an impressive 21 electoral votes, and it is looking more and more unlikely that McCain has any way of putting together a 270-vote win. So maybe their electoral math has come down to: if we lose Pennsylvania, we lose the race.

That would be great news for Obama, if it were true. The list of states McCain is rumored to be pulling out of continues to grow (Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado), meaning McCain's got fewer and fewer chances remaining, and possibly no chance at all without Pennsylvania.

More and more, it is looking like Virginia will be the state that decides Election Night in Obama's favor, and (hopefully) very early in the evening. Sure, it could be Florida or Ohio, but my guess is that the vote-counting is going to take a while in both of them, while Virginia will be a big enough Obama victory that the networks will call it early, just from exit polling.

I could be wrong, but that's my educated guess at this point.

But enough rampant speculation, let's get on to the charts and numbers and stuff. First up, the Electoral College totals. [Click on any of these charts to see a larger image. Compare with last week's column to see the graphs' movement in the past week.]

[Obama's percentage starts from the bottom (blue) and McCain's starts from the top (red), and winning means getting your line over (or under, for McCain) the 50% mark. Tied states are in white.]

As I said, remarkably stable. Obama lost a little bit, then gained it back. McCain lost a little bit, and didn't gain it back.

The week started with West Virginia flipping to McCain (and then, just today, firming up for him significantly). But at the same time, North Carolina flipped from McCain to being tied. Three days later, it flipped over to Obama's column. But it truly could go either way, so while it's in Obama's column this week it could just as easily go back.

Case in point: North Dakota. After just five days in Obama's column, it flipped back to being tied this week. And still could go either way.

John McCain is now at the lowest point he's hit during the entire campaign. And Obama has set a new record high. McCain has just 171 electoral votes (EV), or 31.8%. Obama, meanwhile, has an astonishing 364 EV, for a total of 67.7%. In other words, Obama is now doing better than two-thirds, and McCain has slipped below one-third of the total votes.

This is a very nice place for Obama to be, with less than two weeks to go.

Let's look at each candidate's relative support within their numbers, starting as always with John McCain.

[Definition of terms: Strong means 10% or better in the polls, Weak means 5% or better, and Barely is under five percent.]

Starting with McCain's Strong numbers, he gained one state early in the week (Mississippi) but then lost one later on (South Dakota). This leaves him with a modest gain of three electoral votes here, up to a total of 134 EV.

McCain's Weak numbers also moved a bit, but not by much. He lost Mississippi upwards to Safe, and then he lost Montana downwards to Barely. Just today, he made some ground back here by moving West Virginia up from Barely, leaving him with a net loss of only one electoral vote this week, down to 23 EV total.

McCain's Barely numbers also quivered a bit this week. He started the week off by grabbing West Virginia from Obama's column, but unfortunately on the same day North Carolina moved to being tied (and later moved into Obama's column). And West Virginia later moved up to Weak for McCain, which was good news for him but reduced his numbers here. Conversely, his Barely number bumped up with the addition of Montana, but this isn't good news at all since it is moving downwards from Weak McCain. Overall, McCain suffered a net loss of 12 EV in the Barely column this week, finishing up with a total of 14 EV.

The metric I trust more than any other to show true support is Strong plus Weak. Adding these together didn't show much movement at all this week for McCain. The line went down a bit, then recovered a bit. McCain ends up the week with a net gain of only two electoral votes, for a total of 157 EV. While the line is moving upwards, it is just not moving upwards fast enough to give even the staunchest McCain supporter much hope.

Speaking of hope, let's turn to Obama's numbers.

Obama gained three states in his Strong category, and then lost one at the very end. He started the week off by firming up New Mexico, followed by firming up Maine and Minnesota, and then right at the end fell back a bit by losing New Hampshire down to Weak.

At his peak, he hit the highest number he has ever hit in this category -- 264 EV. Since New Hampshire slid back, he's still at a comfortable 260 EV, up 15 EV from last week. Will 264 EV wind up being the best he does in this category? I wonder, but I'm still holding out hope for New Hampshire to come back, and there is a very real possibility of adding either Colorado or Virginia (or both!) as well, which means Obama could still reach a number in his Strong category alone which would be enough to win the entire race -- a stunning accomplishment.

Obama lost ground in Weak this week, most of it (thankfully) upwards to his Strong category. He started the week off losing New Mexico up to Strong, but at the same time also losing Missouri down to Barely and West Virginia to McCain entirely. The best news was on the same day, when Obama moved Virginia back to Weak from Barely. Later in the week, Maine and Minnesota moved up to Strong, and then at the end of the week New Hampshire fell back to Weak from Strong. That's a lot of movement, which resulted in a net loss for Obama here of 18 EV, down to a total of 26 EV.

At the same time, though, Obama gained some ground in Barely. He lost North Dakota down to a tie, but picked up North Carolina from a tie at almost the same time. He also gained Missouri, down from Weak. Overall, his Barely numbers improved by 10 EV to a total of 78 EV.

Looking at Strong plus Weak for Obama reveals that he his steadily holding his ground. While he had a small peak last Wednesday up to 289 EV, this dropped three but then stayed exactly the same throughout all the movement elsewhere for the entire week. Now, it would certainly be nice to see this number get a bit higher by moving some of the Barely states into at least Weak (NV, MO, OH, NC, or FL) to provide Obama a bigger cushion for error on Election Day. But for Strong plus Weak to be as high as 286 EV means Obama doesn't need a single battleground state at this point to win outright, he just needs to hold the states he's got. Which he did admirably well this week.

Sam's Picks

We turn once again to the analysis from Sam Minter and his website abulsme.com. His chart averages the last five state polls, while I just take the most recent data from electoral-vote.com, so his data is more stable than mine.

Minter's most recent comments sum up his view of the race:

New Summary:
McCain Best Case -- Obama 277, McCain 261
Obama Best Case -- Obama 383, McCain 155
If everybody gets their leans -- 364 Obama, 174 McCain
So where does that put us?
Well, McCain's best case if he wins every single swing state is still to lose.
Over the last week or so, McCain has been able to move a couple of states (Florida and Colorado) from being blue states back to being swing states. The lead hasn't flipped toward McCain in any of the swing states, but he has made them close again, which is of course the needed first step. He still however needs to pull at least 9 more electoral votes from "Weak Obama" to "Lean Obama" in order to have a possible path to victory.
Meanwhile, there is another line I hadn't paid much attention to lately. That is the "Strong Obama" line. That is, the number of electoral votes Obama has including ONLY the states where his lead is over 10%. Obama does not seem to have peaked yet on this metric. Obama now has 245 electoral votes with just these states. That means he only needs 25 electoral votes from his Weak or Lean states in order to win. There are 119 electoral votes in those categories at the moment that he can pick from to try to get those 25.
The question here is not if McCain can win. The question is if he can even pull enough states back out of Obama's world to even have an imaginable way to win.

Not a good week for McCain fans, I guess.

My Picks

As we've had a relatively stable week, my picks haven't moved a whole lot either. There have been some changes at the margins, but mostly among states with less than 10 electoral votes, meaning that while a few states moved around, the totals really haven't much. Obama's skyrocketing gains appear to have slowed, McCain seems to have largely staunched the bleeding, but there are no signs of any sort of turnaround for him yet at the state-by-state level.

If this keeps up for another week, one wouldn't be surprised to hear that Malia and Sasha Obama have started measuring Amy Carter's treehouse for drapes.

So to speak.

Anyway, here are my personal picks for the week. As always, the categories used are: Likely Obama (broken down to Safe Obama and Probable Obama); Likely McCain (Safe/Probable); and Tossup (broken down to Lean Obama, Lean McCain, and Too Close To Call). And at the very end is a section with all the full data for those who just can't get enough of this stuff.

Likely States -- Obama

Safe Obama (21 states, 260 EV) -- CA, CT, DC, DE, HI, IA, IL, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NJ, NM, NY, OR, PA, RI, VT, WA, WI.

Very little movement here. Maine moves up from Probable, New Hampshire moves down to Probable. Because they both have four electoral votes, the numbers don't move at all. Just counting Safe Obama gives 260 EV, or only ten away from victory in this category alone.

Probable Obama (3 states, 26 EV) -- CO, NH, VA.

Maine moves up to Safe, New Hampshire moves down. But the good news here is that Colorado is looking firmer and firmer for Obama. Because of this stability, Colorado can now be considered a Probable state for Obama.

This improves Obama's overall Likely numbers to 24 states and a whopping 286 EV. Meaning that if Obama only wins these states, and none of the tossups, he will still have 16 electoral votes more than he needs to win the race.

Likely States -- McCain

Safe McCain (16 states, 134 EV) -- AK, AL, AR, AZ, ID, KS, KY, LA, MS, NE, OK, SC, TN, TX, UT, WY.

McCain also picks up one and loses one in his Safe category this week. South Dakota softened up, and moves down to Probable. But Mississippi firmed up for McCain, meaning he has a very small net gain this week of three electoral votes.

Probable McCain (2 states, 18 EV) -- GA, SD.

South Dakota moves down from Safe, Mississippi moves up to Safe, but the real bad news for McCain is he's seemingly got a new (red) battleground state to play defense in, since Montana moves down to Lean McCain (and could even move further, this is a continuing trend for Montana).

Overall, McCain loses one state and three electoral votes from his Likely states, for a total of 18 states and an anemic 152 EV.

Tossup States

Lean Obama (2 states, 47 EV) -- FL, OH.

The good news here for Obama is that Colorado moved up from Lean Obama to Probable Obama this week. The bad news is that his numbers in both Florida and Ohio have flattened out and may even have dipped. If either state gets any closer, it will move down to Too Close To Call next week. But the really good news is it is looking more and more like Obama is not going to need either of them to win the race. These two states may mean the difference between "comfortable win" and "landslide" for Obama, but they likely won't mean "President McCain" even if Obama loses them both.

Lean McCain (3 states, 19 EV) -- IN, MT, WV.

Some mixed news here for McCain as well. The good news for McCain is that West Virginia seems to be moving away from its brief flirtation with Obama. McCain's numbers here have continued to improve, meaning the state moves up from Too Close To Call this week. But the bad news for McCain is that Indiana still hasn't shown strong enough support to move up to Probable McCain, and the really bad news is that Montana has moved down from a Likely state to merely a Lean McCain state.

Too Close To Call (4 states, 34 EV) -- MO, NC, ND, NV.

Surprisingly little movement here, for being so close to the finish line. Missouri, Nevada, and North Carolina are showing a very slight lead to Obama, but not enough to move them into any of his categories. And North Dakota is a complete tossup at this point. West Virginia moved out of this column up to Lean McCain, but otherwise this is the same list as last week.

[Program Note: Only two more of these columns to go! Next Wednesday as usual, and then a special "My Election Picks" column, which will appear on Election Day before the polls close.]

[Electoral Vote Data:]

Previous electoral math columns:

[6/30/08], [7/21/08], [8/6/08], [8/20/08], [9/17/08], [9/24/08], [10/1/08], [10/8/08], and [10/15/08].

Barack Obama Likely Easy Wins -- 24 States -- 286 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 21 States -- 260 Electoral Votes
California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Iowa (7), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Jersey (15), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington, D.C. (3), Washington (11), Wisconsin (10)

Probable States -- 3 States -- 26 Electoral Votes
Colorado (9), New Hampshire (4), Virginia (13)

John McCain Likely Easy Wins -- 18 States -- 152 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 16 States -- 134 Electoral Votes
Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Nebraska (5), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), Wyoming (3)

Probable States -- 2 States -- 18 Electoral Votes
Georgia (15), South Dakota (3)

Tossup States -- 9 States -- 100 Electoral Votes:

Tossup States Leaning Obama -- 2 States -- 47 Electoral Votes
Florida (27), Ohio (20)

Tossup States Leaning McCain -- 3 States -- 19 Electoral Votes
Indiana (11), Montana (3), West Virginia (5)

Too Close To Call -- 4 States -- 34 Electoral Votes
Missouri (11), Nevada (5), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3)

Oldest data -- no polls in October yet:

9/18: Utah, Washington, D.C.
9/20: Idaho
9/25: Hawaii, Maryland
9/26: Arkansas
9/28: Louisiana

Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com

McCain Has No Clear Path to 270

2008-10-22T18:23:00.003-04:00

The failure to see Colorado as pivotal is a blind spot in the McCain campaign.

Electoral Realities

via Pam's House Blend - Front Page by Victor Maldonado on 10/21/08

CNN's John King reports that the McCain campaign is taking a hard look at how it will employ resources in the waning days of the '08 election. McCain, who is battling Obama in a number of states which supported George Bush in 2004 and has already pulled out of Michigan, is considering a pullout from Colorado. If true, this decision makes the Republicans path to 270 electoral votes very difficult.

Under the new calculus, placing Colorado in the Obama column, McCain must first carry every remaining swing state, including: Nevada, Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida. If he accomplishes this, he must still either win Pennsylvania or carry both Virginia and New Mexico. Only by running the board on swings states and flipping Obama leaning Pennsylvania (or New Mexico and Virginia) can McCain win on November 4th.

This is a difficult road to travel. Polls show Obama currently has substantial leads in three of the five swing states (Nevada, Ohio and Florida), is tied with McCain in North Carolina and is trailing by one percentage point in Missouri. Furthermore, polls in Pennsylvania have Obama leading 53% to 41%. In Virginia Obama leads 53% to 43%, and in New Mexico polls indicate Obama up 45% to 40%.

The Obama campaign, by comparison has a much easier path to victory and a number of different options to pursue in its quest for the White House. First, Obama needs to keep all of the states currently in his column. If he can do this, all Obama needs is to do is win one of the five remaining swing states. The Democrat has a much easier and much clearer path to victory.

A McCain victory however is still possible. The maverick from Arizona has certainly been written off in the past, and like Lazarus has returned from the dead. There are also a number of intangible factors which may sway the race, including the Bradley Effect. However, McCain's hopes appear to be dimming with each passing day as the likelihood of an Obama victory appears more likely.

Can We Put this Myth to Rest

2008-10-22T13:03:00.003-04:00

Let's stop blaming communities of color for the failure to retain marriage equality.

CA: Black leaders come out against Prop 8

via Pam's House Blend - Front Page by Pam Spaulding on 10/22/08

There has been plenty of talk about whether the black community would vote for Prop 8. Yesterday the Jordan/Rustin Coalition and Equality For All/No held a news conference featuring leaders in the community who spoke eloquently about the discrimination in this ballot initiative.

The participants were:

* Rev. Eric Lee, President, Southern Christian Leadership Council of LA.
* Rev. Arthur Lawrence Cribbs, Jr. United Church of Christ
* Rev. Vanessa Mackenzie, Church of the Advent
* Willie Pelote, Assistant Director of Political Action, AFSCME Int.
* Doug Spearman, Actor from Noah's Arc and on the board of Equality California Institute and the Finance Committee of the No on Prop 8 campaign.

Remarks by the group, passed along by journalist Karen Ocamb, are below the fold.

Left to right: Doug Spearman, Rev. Lee, Rev. Vanessa Mackenzie, Rev. Cribbs, Willie Pelote.
Ron opened with the purpose of the news conference - to let people know that "African Americans will vote No on Prop 8."
Rev. Lee:
"The Southern Christian Leadership Council is the only organization founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The entire core of SCLC is about fighting for justice for all people and against discrimination... As a result of that - this issue about marriage equality requires that we speak out against this proposition because anytime any group of people are denied the right afforded to another group of people, it is an issue of the violation of civil rights. And we need to be clear about that.
The difficulty is that you have many who are considered to be clergy, considered to be Christian, that are not understanding the rights of people for free choice. And to have the same benefit that any other people are afforded. The disappointment is that there is an attempt for people to impose a narrow theological view on relationships upon every body in every situation. And no one has the right to do that.
So because of that, I, along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference - I also spoke with Rev. Lawson who is one of the foremost theorists and teachers of non-violent opposition to injustice - who adamantly said this is the right thing for us to do. So we stand on your side, we will stand with you until justice is rendered until you are ensured that your rights will never be denied by any group of people for any discriminatory reason. So God bless you and I'm with you."
Rev. Cribbs:
"..... If I simply based my decision on television commercials, I would be for Proposition 8. But those commercials lie. The information that's being presented on television, even from a law professor at Pepperdine University, are all based on lies, not facts.
First of all, this is not about children and protecting children. The language in Proposition 8 that is put on the ballot has to do with marriage between a man and a woman. I'm opposed to Proposition 8 because to put discriminatory language in the California constitution....(garbled on my tape, sorry)...Although we have discriminated against persons because they're Chinese, Japanese, Latinos, we have not put discriminatory language in the state constitution. And in the 21st century, it is not a move forward to begin putting discriminatory language in the state constitution. So I oppose Proposition 8 on that.
I personally oppose Proposition 8 because I know what it feels like to have someone else tell me who I should be married to. I know the pain of that. I know the suffering that comes with that. I do not believe it is right for a third party detached and not involved dictating who should love whom and how that relationship should be formed. I oppose Proposition 8 on its face.
And then, finally - theologically. My faith tells me to treat people the way I want to be treated. To do no harm to anyone. I have heard people say, 'I am hurt by the language of discrimination that is being proposed for the California state constitution.' If don't want to feel the pain, then I am obligated not to impose pain on someone else. And so I oppose Proposition 8.
The United Church of Christ opposes Proposition 8 ....there is no reason for any one to support Proposition 8 if they have a concern for others and if they do not want someone to dictate their relationship - that it is inappropriate to legislative the dictation on someone else."
Rev. Mackenzie (who's from South Africa):
"I moved to this country eight years ago and I am horrified that now they want to put into the constitution that it is right to discriminate....We are all human, created in the image of God and all of us, in our own unique ways, reflect that image. And if we say yes to Proposition 8, we are distorting and destroying the image of God in our gay brothers and sisters."
Willie Pelote:
"....Let's be clear. What Prop 8 is designed to do is to take away the rights that gays and lesbian have worked for over the years and should be guaranteed under the constitution, not denied...
[It's important to] get word out on how people should vote on Prop 8 - it s no on Prop 8 . it's discriminatory. Its un-American, it's unpatriotic. It's against the will of the people in the great state of California. And let's think of the Mormon Church - and if God was given the right to protect everyone of his children and if you're against that, you're against god and we're against you....
Prop 8 is bad for California...Prop 8 is about outsourcing people's rights and discriminating against them in everyday life. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees - the largest public union in this country - and 175,000 strong in the state of California - will stand with you until justice prevails. We will never, ever give up and allow someone to put in the constitution discriminatory langue against anyone in our society."
Doug Spearman:
"....We can now get married in the state of California. But we have to be vigilant and protect that right. And be constantly awake and aware and fight for something the state constitution is built to protect. They want to dismantle that in order to take away something from us.
When the Supreme Court authored its opinion, it effectively wiped away not just discrimination against gays and lesbians. They wiped away discrimination in the state of California in a way that it had ever been addressed before. They did a brave and beautiful thing, making our lives safe making our lives accountable, our lives worthy, making our lives important in this state. We held up a light in California that shines on the entire nation. We held up a light that is a beacon for truth and honor and dignity and respect so that every other state has a responsibility to turn towards or turn away from.... This isn't just the right to marry....this is a civil right. It is the beginning. So if they're going to take away this right, what right other rights are they going to take away?,,,, "
Asked about the concern that African Americans who show up to vote for Barack Obama, especially young people who haven't voted before, will vote Yes on Prop 8 - the participants all said that the youth must be told that "Barack Obama would vote No on Proposition 8 - so you should, too."

***

Sign of the Times

2008-10-22T10:03:00.002-04:00

Mort Gerberg: Out of Line: Beware of Ad

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com by Mort Gerberg on 10/22/08

Yes We Carve! Obama Pumpkins

2008-10-21T21:36:00.001-04:00

I LOVE THIS VIDEO. Have you seen any of these?

The WSJ Would Change These Numbers If It Could: Obama Up by 10

2008-10-21T20:12:00.002-04:00

Some good polling news today even though we keep hearing that the race is tightening.

NBC just released the results of its latest poll. Obama is opening up a big lead. More importantly, Palin is the biggest concern voters have about McCain:

Palin's negatives have soared, but more importantly, she has now become John McCain's greatest liability - greater than voters' concern that McCain will be another Bush term. Normally, voters don't care about the VP choice. In this instance they do. I think this means that the number one voter concern is John McCain's health. Earlier today, I was watching some footage of McCain in the Republican debates in May. He was good. He looked years younger - YEARS younger. He was smart, quick, funny - he was a younger man. McCain has aged a lot in the past six months, and that's troublesome. It shows when he talks, it shows in how he thinks and how acts/reacts to crises like the recent Wall Street meltdown. That is what, in my view, is underlying these polls. People think, people see with their own eyes, that there is a real chance that John McCain won't make it through his presidency, and that Sarah Palin will be forced to take over. And real Americans know that Sarah Palin is not, and never will be, ready to be president of the United States of America.

From MSNBC:

That doesn't appear to be the case with McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin. Fifty-five percent of respondents say she's not qualified to serve as president if the need arises, up five points from the previous poll.

In addition, for the first time, more voters have a negative opinion of her than a positive one. In the survey, 47 percent view her negatively, versus 38 percent who see her in a positive light.

That's a striking shift since McCain chose Palin as his running mate in early September, when she held a 47 to 27 percent positive rating.

Now, Palin's qualifications to be president rank as voters' top concern about McCain's candidacy - ahead of continuing President Bush's policies, enacting economic policies that only benefit the rich and keeping too high of a troop presence in Iraq

Should small donors focus on small organizations?

2008-10-21T09:40:00.002-04:00

This post discusses an interesting question: how can a donor giving $500 get the most impact from his/her gift? But I think the answer given misses the point. First, it centers around service-provider organizations and not advocacy organizations, so this idea of the organization using the gift to expand to serve more people doesn't apply to all groups. Second, a gift of $500 for a small organization can have a great impact and can begin a major donor relationship that will be critically important to that organization over time.

Should small donors focus on small organizations?

via The GiveWell Blog by Holden on 10/20/08

We received the following email from reader David Micley:

I want to donate $500 to an effective charity. Ive been doing research on your site and it seems like PSI is a great choice in terms of helping global health. I have not yet made my decision as to which charity I will donate to, but as I continue to research, I continue to ask myself a fundamental question. How much of my money actually makes a difference in the effectiveness of a large charity? The amount of money that a huge charity has such as PSI makes me feel as if my $500 will be but a penny in a wishing well. Will my money be more effective donating to smaller charities that are in more need of money? Or is the large charity truly the place to find the most effective charitable work, and even if I feel my impact isn't so strong relative to the size of the charity, it will be the most efficient way to help other people in need?

Our FAQ recommends that small donors with little information give to larger charities, but doesn't address this angle - the question of whether $500 has more impact when it's a larger percentage of the budget.

My view is that the size of a charity is less relevant here than whether it is operating at full capacity.

If a charity is already at an "equilibrium" where its costs are about equal to revenues, and it's serving everyone its core activities can serve, then it will get questionable value for an extra $500. This is true whether the charity is large or small. It may attempt to expand its activities, start new programs, and serve more people, but a $500 donation seems unlikely to be the key driver behind such an expansion.

If a charity has more clients than it can currently afford to serve, or more worthwhile projects on the table than it can currently fund, a $500 donation can help it serve more people (or serve them better) - regardless of how big the charity is as a whole. To use a for-profit analogy, when you give McDonald's 99c, your contribution is an extremely tiny percentage of its overall revenue, but it still produces an extra burger. McDonald's, Inc. had no role in endorsing or funding this analogy.

Figuring out the extent to which a charity is "at capacity," and what the impact of additional funds will be, is something that we struggle with, and we have no easy or fully reliable way of doing it. However, it's worth noting that a large charity may be better positioned to handle increases in revenue, and use them to expand projects that are already repeatable/scalable, than a small one. And we feel relatively confident that the large charities we recommend are very far from serving everyone they could serve.

For this reason, the "will I make a difference?" question seems to tilt slightly in favor of giving to large charities when making small donations. $500 might be a small percentage of PSI's revenues, but if you put credence in our estimate that PSI prevents a death for every ~$1000, that donation can be a huge deal in human terms.

CNN's John King: McCain Trading Colorado for Pennsylvania!

2008-10-21T09:39:00.002-04:00

Crazy as it seems, CNN is reporting that the McCain campaign is giving up on Colorado (as well as Iowa and New Mexico) in favor of a big push...in Pennsylvania? Why give up a light blue state with poll numbers showing Obama ahead by single digits in favor of a dark blue state with Obama ahead by double digits? Beats me. Maybe they think those white voters in W. Pa will come through for them and deliver the state. Or maybe this is just another "great decision" by the McCain campaign?

CNN's John King: McCain insider says New Mexico, Iowa and Colorado (yes, Colorado) are "gone"

via AMERICAblog News A great nation deserves the truth by Joe Sudbay (DC) on 10/20/08

This is a very revealing bit of news from CNN Chief National Correspondent John King (we've heard repeatedly that John King is a big fan of John McCain, which heightens our interest in this news).

According to King, inside the McCain campaign, they're pretty much writing off the chances of winning not only New Mexico and Iowa, but Colorado with its nine electoral votes. Without Colorado, McCain's path to victory is becoming non-existent. Team McCain is basing all hope on the delusional idea McCain can win Pennsylvania:

The McCain campaign is looking at an Electoral College strategy heading into the final two weeks that has virtually no room for error and depends heavily on a dramatic comeback in Pennsylvania, which hasn't backed a Republican for president in 20 years.

While Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado are still officially listed as McCain target states, two top strategists and advisers tell CNN that the situation in those states looks increasingly bleak. Iowa and New Mexico always have been viewed as difficult races, but the similar assessment of Colorado reflects a dramatic shift for a campaign that had long counted on the state.

"Gone," was the word one top McCain insider used to describe those three states.

This source said while the polls in Colorado remain close, he and most others in the operation were of the opinion that the Obama campaign and its allies have a far superior ground/turnout operation and "most of us have a hard time counting on Colorado."

This begs the question of whether Chuck Todd will finally tilt Colorado to Obama. NBC's map has had Obama at 264 electoral votes for the past couple weeks. Colorado would put him over 270 electoral votes in NBC's projections.

ABC Poll: 60 Percent Say Ayers Not Legitimate Campaign Issue

2008-10-20T07:29:00.002-04:00

The quote at the bottom on my emails says that a lie oft repeated is still a lie. Luckily, when it comes to the William Ayers ("pal around with terrorists") issue, the American electorate understands.

ABC Poll: 60 Percent Say Ayers Not Legitimate Campaign Issue

via The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com on 10/19/08

More challenges for John McCain: Likely voters overwhelmingly reject his effort to make an issue of Barack Obama's association with 1960s radical William Ayers. Fallout continues from McCain's pick of Sarah Palin for vice president, with 52 percent saying it weakens their confidence in his judgment. And on optimism, it's Obama by 2-1.

Skepticism about the Ayers issue was one of the factors cited by Colin Powell in his endorsement of Obama yesterday, and in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, likely voters broadly agree: 60 percent say Obama's relationship with Ayers is not a legitimate issue in the presidential campaign; 37 percent say it is.

Powell: Nothing Wrong With Being A Muslim in this Country

2008-10-19T21:00:00.002-04:00

Andrew Sullivan (whose acting awfully progressive lately) just posted this quote from Colin Powell on the attacks leveled against Obama by the McCain/Palin campaign. Finally, somebody is saying this:

"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America," - Colin Powell, standing up to the disgusting rhetoric and tactics of the McCain-Palin campaign.

Forget OH, VA, FL - It's CO That We Need

2008-10-19T19:57:00.003-04:00

I was just looking at state polls at www.electoral-vote.com to see where things stood with my winning formula that tells us we can ignore OH, VA and FL if we get CO. Actually, I orginally said we'd need not just CO, but NH, MI, MN, NM and WI. At this point, those five states have all been counted as dark blue, safe for Obama (i.e., he's at least 10 points ahead in recent polls). Our only "leaning Obama" state in my formula is Colorado (where he's 6 points ahead), and we still need it.

Here's why. The safe states total 264 electoral votes. Colorado (or any of the 3 battlegrounds: VA, OH, FL) put him over the 270 line. Ironically, Virginia is polling a little better than Colorado. It's at 7 points ahead for Obama. But I'm sticking with Colorado because I think it has a better chance of going dark blue in the end.

One interesting and frightening new development. West Virginia's latest poll is showing McCain pulling ahead by 6 points there (after he was only ahead by 2). The pundits explain that the intensely negative and hateful stuff coming from the McCain/Palin campaign may be taking root in WV. The Obama folks say they're not giving up and will be throwing more money and time into WV in these last 2 weeks. That's fine, as long as they don't neglect Colorado.

Let's keep our eye on the prize and stop worrying about turning all the red states blue. We need 270 to win and that could happen in Colorado (or in Virginia or even Florida, where Obama is polling 4 points up).

Rachel Domesticus: I Know You Love Her!

2008-10-19T15:36:00.004-04:00

Just had to share this fun article in today's NY Times Sunday Magazine on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow's home in western Massachusetts shared with her partner, Susan Mikula. Great pic, huh? And I had to show you the red pick-up.

Domains Rachel Maddow
A Pundit in the Country

Inteview by EDWARD LEWINE
Published: October 17, 2008

Rachel Maddow, host of left-leaning chat shows on Air America Radio and MSNBC, both named “The Rachel Maddow Show”, spends downtime in an 1865 house in western Massachusetts.

Biggest misconception about pundits: That we all hang out together. I don’t know any of these people. Maybe all the pundits are hanging out and not inviting me.

Worst thing about job: My self-doubt that this is a worthy thing to contribute to the world. It’s fun, but I worry that it is self-indulgent.

Her 190-mile commute: It’s an opportunity for me to turn my brain off. My apartment in New York is only 275 square feet. So just being able to stretch out is great.

Always on her: A handkerchief. One of my liabilities as a broadcaster is that I am little teary. Having a handkerchief is handy. My partner, Susan Mikula, buys me cute ones.

Worst thing about Obama: He’s measured to a fault. He is so calm and cool and collected that sometimes I want to know what he feels.

Best thing about McCain: He’s very funny.

Morning routine: I arrive in Massachusetts around 2 a.m. Saturday. I wake up so that I can put the trash and recycling together and get it to the dump, which closes at 11 a.m. Me and the dog go to the dump. Then we drive to a sheep farm and I let the dog look at the sheep.

Gadget she can live without: We have no television. Susan wants to buy one, but where we live there’s no cable. So we’d have to put up a satellite dish, and we already have one for the Internet. To have two dishes on the roof would be crazy.

Prized possession: I have a file of letters and bits of ephemera from friends who have died. I have had lots of friends who died of AIDS.

Concession to vanity: I’ve had to get contact lenses. I only put them in while I’m on TV. They are a miracle device that allows me to be on TV without glasses, which everyone tells me I can’t wear on TV.

Favorite movie: “The Manchurian Candidate,” original version.

Always in fridge: Champagne. I always keep a bottle, because you might need to celebrate at any moment, and a bunch of mustard, because I am a mustard person.

Obsession: Loose nukes. I literally lie awake and worry that we haven’t paid attention to some of the real national-security threats that are out there.

Favorite item in house: The house mostly reflects Susan’s style, but I have to put my stamp on things. Once, I found a sculpture of a big, fat squirrel holding a reflector. You’re supposed to put it at the end of your driveway. We have it near the kitchen table; it’s the house mascot.

Obsolete item she won’t part with: I have a little stockpile of lawn mowers, some of which it has been years since they worked. But it seems wrong to get rid of lawn mowers, so I keep them.

Evening routine: Susan cooks dinner; I make drinks. We stay up all night talking or watching movies. Since we don’t have TV, we watch movies on the laptop. I do this whole arcane thing where I get cords and connect the laptop and the speakers to an outlet. It takes 10 minutes.

Clothing item a talk-show host needs: For me, it is sneakers, which I can wear 80 percent of the time, secretly behind the desk. That reminds me who I am, even though I am dressed up like an assistant principal in order to meet the minimum dress code for being on television.

Art collection: Most of the art in our house was made by Susan, who is a great photographer. She makes these wonderful abstract portraits. We also have a lot of other photos, most by people who are our contemporaries.

Fictional character she identifies with: Wally Cleaver. Cause he is a dork.

Favorite Fox News put-down: I don’t talk much about Fox. That’s more Keith Olbermann, but the only time Fox tried to book me on a show — ever — was for me to comment on Madonna and Britney Spears having kissed at an awards ceremony. I declined.

Favorite Republican: I like the congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, because I understand what he believes, and he is fearless and civic-minded in his beliefs, rather than personally zealous.

Favorite professional memento: I have clown shoes. They were from the first time I was asked to M.C. something due to being a radio personality.

Worst job: I had a waitressing job that was minimum wage; no tips. I had to wear pantyhose and be there at 6 in the morning.

She drives: I have a seven-year-old Ford pickup. Remember, I have to go to the dump.

By her bed: Comic books. I read comics sometimes and graphic novels. I appreciate that genre.

Last big purchase: I just completed one of the biggest purchases of my life, my new chimney. The chimney was made in the 1860s, and the bricks were turning to dust. The new chimney is beautiful and safe, and it was so much money.

Superstitions: Tons. A handkerchief can never be put in another pocket after it has been in one pocket. I don’t walk under ladders. I have items of clothing that are lucky for me. That rotates, but I am luck-oriented.

Favorite recent gift: A very old friend of mine gave me a fishing pole. I’d done a little fishing as a kid. Now, I have started fishing in the rivers around my house. I have my Massachusetts fishing license in my wallet and my pole in the shed.

Procrastination technique: Cleaning. Writing makes me want to blow my head off. If I have a writing project due, I will clean everything around me as a way of avoiding putting pen to paper.

Hobby: I am a hobbyist bartender. I have a liquor cabinet. I research classic drinks from the golden age of American cocktails and I make them for me and Susan.

Favorite obscure liquor: Rhum agricole. It is rum made from sugar-cane juice rather than molasses. It is freaking awesome.

Favorite place to shop: Not applicable. I don’t shop.

Favorite political memento: Two ashtrays from the Watergate Hotel. I bought them on eBay.

Nagging injury: A hurt shoulder from playing high-school volleyball. I can’t raise my right arm above my head while bearing weight.

Postelection plans: One, I won’t do anything I don’t have to for a while. No speeches. Two, Air America is having a cruise with its hosts. I have to do that, contractually. It is sort of work, but it is a cruise to Belize.

From His Pen to G-d's Ears: Alter Says the Country Moving Left

2008-10-19T15:29:00.001-04:00

This Newsweek article by Jonathan Alter posits a left-moving US that give Barack Obama enormous opportunity should he win.

Colin Powell: McCain Attacks "Over the Top"

2008-10-19T14:40:00.002-04:00

This is the most eloquent critique of the last few weeks of McCain/Palin attacks on Obama. Colin Powell's emergence today to endorse Obama was a great development, but this short response to a reporter's question (not his talk show appearance this morning) is even better. Will be interesting to see where Powell winds up in an Obama/Biden administration.

Florida Marriage Ban Could Fail With Your Help

2008-10-19T14:23:00.002-04:00

From the Florida Sun Sentinel via Nadine Smith of Equality Florida writing for Bilerico Project:

Like five others, gay-marriage ban currently lacks support needed to pass
South Florida Sun-Sentinel October 19, 2008

An effort to rewrite the Florida Constitution to prohibit gay marriage is falling short of the numbers needed for victory in the Nov. 4 election, a Sun Sentinel and Florida Times-Union poll shows.

The poll of 600 likely voters shows support for Amendment 2 at 53 percent, less than the 60 percent approval rate required to change the constitution.

This one has a chance if you can help. To donate, click here: https://secure.ga3.org/01/ballotinitiativec4

Weekend Update Skit with Palin

2008-10-19T14:20:00.001-04:00

Here's the second video, I hope.

Palin on SNL: Did It Help or Hurt?

2008-10-19T13:44:00.006-04:00

I promised to post it, so here it is. First video is the opening routine with Tina Fey and Sarah Palin crossing each other like ships in the night. Second video, Weekend Update with Palin at the desk dancing in her chair while Amy Poehler does a great rap routine accompanied by dancing Eskimos and a hunted moose, seems not to be available anymore. I will post if I can.

Did this appearance help Palin (yeah, she's a good sport) or hurt her (by reinforcing the perception that she's inaccessible to the press, that McCain's debate performance was bizarre, that she can see Russia from her backyard, that's she's "hot" with little substance)?

Another Sighting of the "Perfect Storm"

2008-10-18T23:13:00.002-04:00

It's nice to know I'm in good company. Noted progressive philanthropic leader, Gara LaMarche of Atlantic Philanthropies, is also using the metaphor of the perfect storm when referring to the impending funding crisis affecting foundations and the non-profits they support.

"...[M]ost of us have done our work in boom times in philanthropy, with parallel growth in nonprofit budgets. But what we have ahead of us is quite different.

"Virtually every foundation endowment stands at considerably less value today than it did only a few weeks ago, and assuming our institutions meet the commitments they have previously made, which most will, there will be dramatically less money to give out in the next few years, at least. Nonprofits fortunate to have endowments are also hurting -- over the weekend I ran into a friend, the leader of one such organization, who has carefully built a reserve fund in the last several years only to see it drop by 30 percent in the flash of an eye. Such stories will be standard fare in the weeks and months to come.

"Corporate philanthropy will be dramatically reduced, and among those in the financial services industry who have kept their jobs -- or, indeed, their firms -- most will be much less generous in their personal giving. Government revenues and social spending will continue to shrink -- the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities just looked at the budget gaps of fifteen states, from California to Rhode Island, reeling from the credit crunch and found six whose deficits are 10 percent or more of the total budget. All of this will have a sharp effect on the funding and programs of nonprofit organizations. And in what kind of social climate? One in which human need -- foreclosure, unemployment, greater health problems even less covered by insurance, hunger, homelessness, crime and violence -- grows ever more acute.

"What we are facing, then, is a kind of perfect storm...."

-- Gara LaMarche, President/CEO, Atlantic Philanthropies, "The State of Our Union in Crisis: Widening the Lens of Children and Families"

Personal=Political=Polemical

The Trip South

All We Celebrated Was Shabbat

Multiple Realities

Safe Landing - A Tug At My Heart

A Different Country - Just a post before I go

Dusting off this blog

Has Rick Warren Got a Prayer? Frank Rich Nails It.

What Does A Jew Share At Christmas?

A Bucket of Tarnish: Rachel on Obama & Warren

New York Mayor Agrees: Caroline's Outstanding

The man who built a vast financial empire and who has put NYC back on track, agrees that New York and the US Senate need Caroline Kennedy.Bloomberg: Caroline Kennedy "Can Do Anything"

Things you can do from here:

The US Senate Needs Caroline Kennedy

Things you can do from here:

A Real Thanks - Giving

Important update on NY marriage fight

Join the Impact: Oakland, CA

Join the Impact: Minneapolis

Join the Impact: DC

Join the Impact: Iowa City

Join the Impact: Atlanta

Join the Impact: Philadelphia

Join the Impact: Houston

Join the Impact: Anchorage, Alaska

Join the Impact: Madison, Wisconsin

Join the Impact: Boston

Join the Impact: Toronto

Join the Impact: Nashville

Join the Impact: Salt Lake City

Join the Impact: Detroit

Join the Impact: Austin, TX

Join the Impact: NYC

Join the Impact: Grand Forks, North Dakota

Join the Impact: Greenville, South Carolina

Join the Impact: Seattle

Joining Our Fight: Civil Rights Groups Support Prop 8 Lawsuit

Obama To End Abstinence-Based AIDS Education And Family Planning

No Bradley Effect Seen In Presidential Race

What Do I Do When I Get to Minute 16: My Big Fat Gay Blog Piece

Shifting Gears: Transforming Obama's Campaign into a Movement ...

Arianna Huffington: The Winners and Losers of Campaign '08

You're Gonna Love These Kids: Letters to President Obama from 4th Graders in Harlem

Now Let's See Them Call the Fist Bump A Terrorist Symbol

So our children can fly

Voters Around The Country: Long Lines, Historic Crowds

My Voting Experience

Better than that Free Coffee From Starbucks

More Election Related Syndromes: Obama Overload

Simpsons Characters Weigh in on the Election

Today's Polls, 3 AM Edition

Hour by Hour Guide to Election Returns -- Part 1: In...

The Cellphone Effect: No Tightening Here

Yes We Can: Another Inspiring Obama Video

Wanna Chance A Guess?

I Promise: This is the last Palin Video I'll Post

Vote and Get Free Coffee

Affleck as Olbermann on SNL: Brilliant

Brand Name Recognition

Updated Early Voting Data

November 5th Song - Been Saving This for Today

Evita! Evita!

When Do the Polls Close?

Samuel L. Jackson Rocks: But We Always Knew That

Here's the Electoral Map I Submitted: 326 for Obama

Here's My Electoral Vote Map Prediction

Don't blame latinos and blacks if Prop 8 passes

In Case You Missed It

Almost the Last Geeky Electoral College Report

The Endpoint is Near

Early Voting Numbers

The Closer

The Cutest Young Journalist In the US

So Much for the (Older) Jewish Vote Being in Play

Newsweek Poll: Obama Maintains Double-Digit Lead

Success Has Many Parents But Failure is an Orphan

October Surprise Averted

Obama in a Nutshell

You've Got to Be Carefully Taught: "Hit a Jew Day" At St. Louis School

The "Straight Log Cabin Boy" Endorses Obama

The man who built a vast financial empire and who has put NYC back on track, agrees that New York and the US Senate need Caroline Kennedy.

Bloomberg: Caroline Kennedy "Can Do Anything"