It's time for a New Election Thread

[LouieB]

In other news - McCain on Letterman tonight - very interesting. Dave was just not gonna let McCain off the hook and let John's natural charisma dominate the interview. I think John was a bit taken aback. Certainly this was not the usual 'puff piece' style of entertainment show interview. Well done, Dave.

I watched most of this. Dave was particulary forthright and even harsh at times. It was a good move on McCain's part to actually show up, since clearly he screwed up the first time.

 

This thing is over......Obama by a landslide.....maybe even Indiana??

 

LouieB

[Sir Stewart]

Regarding the Smith dinner/roast: my friend and I were watching the Red Sox game and happened to switch over to CNN, which had 'Breaking News' (I think they have that title onscreen 24/7) - 'McCain, Obama to speak at Smith dinner' - and once McCain started his shtick (which was very funny), and they showed reaction shots of Obama in white tie tux, laughing, we looked at each other like we were in some alternate universe. The tone was surreal, as if the 2008 election happened 60 years ago and these two were no longer opponents. My friend is a huge political junkie, and I eat up the presidential race every four years, and neither of us could recall seeing any coverage of this dinner/roast in past years, nor had we even heard of it. So I'm wondering - does anyone have any memories of these dinners in past election seasons? Did Kerry & Bush trade zingers four years ago? Reagan & Mondale? WTF?

Also - I like how Sarah Palin jokes are apparently off-limits for both sides. It's like 'yes, we know she's an imbecile, we'll leave her alone.'

[austrya]

Regarding the Smith dinner/roast: my friend and I were watching the Red Sox game and happened to switch over to CNN, which had 'Breaking News' (I think they have that title onscreen 24/7) - 'McCain, Obama to speak at Smith dinner' - and once McCain started his shtick (which was very funny), and they showed reaction shots of Obama in white tie tux, laughing, we looked at each other like we were in some alternate universe. The tone was surreal, as if the 2008 election happened 60 years ago and these two were no longer opponents. My friend is a huge political junkie, and I eat up the presidential race every four years, and neither of us could recall seeing any coverage of this dinner/roast in past years, nor had we even heard of it. So I'm wondering - does anyone have any memories of these dinners in past election seasons? Did Kerry & Bush trade zingers four years ago? Reagan & Mondale? WTF?

Also - I like how Sarah Palin jokes are apparently off-limits for both sides. It's like 'yes, we know she's an imbecile, we'll leave her alone.'

 

Looks like Kerry wasn't invited last year due to his stance on abortion, so Bush didn't go either.

 

I've never heard of it until last night.

[MrRain422]

Was Kerry only excluded for being a Catholic who is pro-choice? Because otherwise I'm not sure why Obama wouldn't have been excluded for being pro-choice as well. I guess in 1996 Clinton wasn't invited because he vetoed a bill outlawing late-term abortion.

 

Mondale opted out of appearing at it in order to prepare for the election, but Reagan appeared without him, and Reagan and Carter both did it 4 years earlier. Truman and Clinton are the only Presidents since 1945 who have not appeared at the dinner at least once.

 

The 2000 dinner is where the famous clip of W. saying “This is an impressive crowd. The haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base" came from.

 

I had never heard of it until last night either. Looks like a lot of fun.

[Winston Legthigh]

Also - I like how Sarah Palin jokes are apparently off-limits for both sides.

 

Obama made a joke about being able to see the Russian Tea Room from the steps of wherever that roast was...

[austrya]

Was Kerry only excluded for being a Catholic who is pro-choice? Because otherwise I'm not sure why Obama wouldn't have been excluded for being pro-choice as well. I guess in 1996 Clinton wasn't invited because he vetoed a bill outlawing late-term abortion.

 

Mondale opted out of appearing at it in order to prepare for the election, but Reagan appeared without him, and Reagan and Carter both did it 4 years earlier. Truman and Clinton are the only Presidents since 1945 who have not appeared at the dinner at least once.

 

The 2000 dinner is where the famous clip of W. saying

[fatheadfred]

John should've realized Dave reserves those interviews for people with whom he agrees.

A comedian, not fair and balanced like the media folk on cable news. It would interesting to see how much influence Leno and Letterman have on people's vote. I read a story several weeks ago that mentioned it, but no 'real' data.

[Sir Stewart]

Obama made a joke about being able to see the Russian Tea Room from the steps of wherever that roast was...

 

Ha ha, forgot that.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

This thing is over......Obama by a landslide.....maybe even Indiana??

LouieB

 

I wish I had that kind of confidence, but I still don't trust the polls as a guideline to the outcome. Gore was ahead by double digits at this point in October 2000.

 

Also, take a quick look at this:

 

www.gregpalast.com/rolling-stone-its-already-stolen

 

Anyone even remotely interested in getting Obama elected needs to pitch in, if they aren't doing so already. He will have to beat McCain by a sizable margin - millions of votes - in order to become our next president, due to the massive amount of voter purging that has gone on around the country since 2004.

 

I'll be out tomorrow campaigning for him here in the Tampa Bay area, and I encourage everyone to do the same in their own areas. There's still a huge need for volunteers. You can sign up at www.barackobama.com and make some calls, go door to door with other campaign workers, etc. Just a few hours of volunteer time can make the difference.

[Sir Stewart]

Anyone even remotely interested in getting Obama elected needs to pitch in, if they aren't doing so already.

 

Indeed. This time tomorrow I'll be knocking on doors in NH.

 

Also - I feel in my gut that if Obama loses, there will be widespread rioting.

[Mrs. Peel]

I wish I had that kind of confidence, but I still don't trust the polls as a guideline to the outcome. Gore was ahead by double digits at this point in October 2000.

 

Also, take a quick look at this:

 

www.gregpalast.com/rolling-stone-its-already-stolen

 

Anyone even remotely interested in getting Obama elected needs to pitch in, if they aren't doing so already. He will have to beat McCain by a sizable margin - millions of votes - in order to become our next president, due to the massive amount of voter purging that has gone on around the country since 2004.

 

I don't understand how this is happening. What is their reason for disqualifying these voters?

[jimmyjimmy]

I'll be out tomorrow campaigning for him here in the Tampa Bay area, and I encourage everyone to do the same in their own areas. There's still a huge need for volunteers.

True.

And don't forget your respective state election boards. They'll need help at the polls.

 

Indeed. This time tomorrow I'll be knocking on doors in NH.

 

Also - I feel in my gut that if Obama loses, there will be widespread rioting.

 

Just to chime in: I've been volunteering for the past couple of months. It's a rewarding experience if any of you are on the fence about this sort of thing.

Be forewarned tho, when you call a little old lady on the phone @ 8:00PM and she insists it's "too goddamn late for this sort of thing" and uses a few colorful choice words to describe you and the candidate you support don't take it too personally.

 

"People" are, you know...nuts.

[Atticus]

Regarding the Smith dinner/roast: my friend and I were watching the Red Sox game and happened to switch over to CNN, which had 'Breaking News' (I think they have that title onscreen 24/7) - 'McCain, Obama to speak at Smith dinner' - and once McCain started his shtick (which was very funny), and they showed reaction shots of Obama in white tie tux, laughing, we looked at each other like we were in some alternate universe. The tone was surreal, as if the 2008 election happened 60 years ago and these two were no longer opponents. My friend is a huge political junkie, and I eat up the presidential race every four years, and neither of us could recall seeing any coverage of this dinner/roast in past years, nor had we even heard of it. So I'm wondering - does anyone have any memories of these dinners in past election seasons? Did Kerry & Bush trade zingers four years ago? Reagan & Mondale? WTF?

Also - I like how Sarah Palin jokes are apparently off-limits for both sides. It's like 'yes, we know she's an imbecile, we'll leave her alone.'

 

saw almost the whole thing, purely by accidental channel surfing. very entertaining. McCain seemed like an entirely different person--actually had command of his own speaking...

[quarter23cd]

I don't understand how this is happening. What is their reason for disqualifying these voters?

Party affiliation?

[John Smith]

Kathleen Parker has another good column today. Read along with the Brooks column of a few days ago and you can easily sum up what has happened to the republican party.

 

WFB Would Be Proud

 

By Kathleen Parker

Friday, October 17, 2008; 12:00 AM

 

Christopher Buckley's endorsement of Barack Obama -- followed by his abrupt departure from the back page of the magazine his father founded, National Review -- has caused a ripple of contempt from the conservative right.

 

Nay, make that a tsunami of hostility. An avalanche of venom. A cataclysm of ... well, you get the idea. People are mad. Good riddance, they say, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

 

Let us proceed, gingerly.

 

I am not a passive bystander to these events. Buckley is a friend, as are other members of his family, especially Uncle Reid, with whom I have worked for several years. National Review is home to many friends, and its online editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez, kindly subscribes to my column. Like Buckley, I have enjoyed a decent fragging for suggesting that Sarah Palin excuse herself from the Republican ticket.

 

What gives here?

 

What does it mean that the right cannot politely entertain dissenting opinions within its ranks? What, if anything, does it portend that Buckley The Younger has bolted from the right, even resigning (with enthusiastic editorial approval) from the family flagship?

 

Some have opined, ridiculously, that Buckley -- son of the famous William F. Buckley (WFB) -- was merely seeking attention. Christo, as family and friends call him, has written more than a dozen acclaimed books, one of which, "Thank You for Smoking," became a movie. In 2004, he won the Thurber Prize for American Humor for "No Way to Treat a First Lady." For 18 years he edited a magazine, Forbes Life, and otherwise seems to be doing all right.

 

Other critics have surmised that Buckley's "betrayal" was a publicity stunt for his newest novel, "Supreme Courtship" (which I reviewed for National Review). When you're as funny and write as well as Buckley, you don't have to resort to stunts. You are the stunt.

 

So why did he do it?

 

Because he had to. It's in his genes.

 

True believers of whatever stripe too often forget that the men and women who create movements are first and foremost radicals. Great movements are not the result of relaxing afternoons musing along the Seine but emerge from flames of passion ignited by injustice.

 

When WFB created the modern conservative movement, he didn't call a neighborhood meeting and whisper, "Come along now." He stood athwart history and yelled, "Stop!"

 

His son, though he customarily takes the more circuitous route to the revolution via satire, is now merely answering WFB's original call to political activism. Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, the younger Buckley said: "I haven't left the Republican Party. It left me."

 

In 1955, when WFB announced his new magazine and explained the reasons for it, he described conservatives as "non-licensed nonconformists":

 

"Radical conservatives in this country have an interesting time of it, for when they are not being suppressed or mutilated by Liberals, they are being ignored or humiliated by a great many of those of the well-fed Right, whose ignorance and amorality have never been exaggerated for the same reason that one cannot exaggerate infinity."

 

Fast-forward half a century, and the old is the new.

 

Radical conservatives are still having an interesting time of it, though these days they are being mutilated by fellow "conservatives." The well-fed Right now cultivates ignorance as a political strategy and humiliates itself when its brightest sons seek sanctuary in the solitude of personal honor.

 

The truth few wish to utter is that the GOP has abandoned many conservatives, who mostly nurse their angst in private. Those chickens we keep hearing about have indeed come home to roost. Years of pandering to the extreme wing -- the "kooks" the senior Buckley tried to separate from the right -- have created a party no longer attentive to its principles.

 

Instead, as Christopher Buckley pointed out in a blog post on thedailybeast.com explaining his departure from National Review, eight years of "conservatism" have brought us "a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance."

 

Republicans are not short on brainpower -- or pride -- but they have strayed off course. They do not, in fact, deserve to win this time, and someone had to remind them why.

 

Christopher Buckley, ever the swashbuckling heir to his father's defiant spirit, walked the plank so that the sinking mother ship might right itself.

 

No doubt his seafaring father is cheering from heaven: "Ahoy there, Christo! Well done, my son."

[Mr. Heartbreak]

I don't understand how this is happening. What is their reason for disqualifying these voters?

I don't know for sure, but I think some of them were people who had moved. When their new address didn't match their voter registration cards, they were not allowed to vote. I read that somewhere a while back. There were some other weird disqualifications too ...

 

Also, don't forget that in certain battleground states, people may face the prospect of standing in line for 10-12 hours. The Obama campaign is encouraging anyone who can vote early to do so. In FL, next Monday is the start of early voting, so there's no excuse not to do it. Why wait until Election Day when you've got two weeks to get it done?

[Mrs. Peel]

Party affiliation?

 

I mean what do they claim is the reason? Incorrect information on the registration forms?

 

EDIT: Thanks, Mr. H. I thought that was it, but I wasn't sure.

[jc4prez]

I mean what do they claim is the reason? Incorrect information on the registration forms?

 

EDIT: Thanks, Mr. H. I thought that was it, but I wasn't sure.

 

 

THIS EPISODE of Democracy Now! features three great peices on how voters are being purged and what you can do about it.

 

 

As for that dinner nobody else vomited a little?

[bobbob1313]

Also - I feel in my gut that if Obama loses, there will be widespread rioting.

 

I would be really upset and disappointed if that happens.

[Sir Stewart]

I would be really upset and disappointed if that happens.

 

Uhh, no shit.

[miss jayne]

Thanks for the posts of the dinner. We, at house of seven, watched that last night and loved it. It is so nice to see both of them roasting each other. It gives me hope for the reconciliation/compromise this country will need on November 5th no matter what happens. At a dinner party the other night (so many of my flatmates friends are comedians or political bloggers that its like being in the middle of a MSNBC broadcast) someone said that the pols mean very little because of the disqualification of voters and challenges that many voters will face at the pols this year.

 

So, thank you to all of you who are working to get the vote out. Now, I am going to fill out my absentee ballot and cancel out My Republican friend's vote on all matters local and national...a ritual that we have been engaging in for the past 15 years .

[Party @ the Moontower]

So to all of you guys crying about voter fraud and suppression, how does ACORN make you feel? Is Rove behind that?

 

Acorn fraud has nothing to do with Obama, and would not produce fake votes period.

• The only fraud committed was against ACORN itself. ACORN hired 13,000 workers to register a remarkable 1.3 million new voters. And a few of them turned in registration forms with inaccurate and even made-up names to get credit for work they didn't do. ACORN fired them and turned them over to the authorities.⁴
  

[*]ACORN reported the fraudulent registration forms. In most states, ACORN is required by law to submit all forms collected whether they appear to be bogus or not

[Guest Jules]

Acorn fraud has nothing to do with Obama, and would not produce fake votes period.

• The only fraud committed was against ACORN itself. ACORN hired 13,000 workers to register a remarkable 1.3 million new voters. And a few of them turned in registration forms with inaccurate and even made-up names to get credit for work they didn't do. ACORN fired them and turned them over to the authorities. ⁴
  

[*]ACORN reported the fraudulent registration forms. In most states, ACORN is required by law to submit all forms collected whether they appear to be bogus or not

[MrRain422]

saw almost the whole thing, purely by accidental channel surfing. very entertaining. McCain seemed like an entirely different person--actually had command of his own speaking...

 

Yeah, he almost seemed more prepared for this than for the debate.

[Party @ the Moontower]

We have some sort of touch screen deal - I don't recall what it looks like exactly.

 

 

In most states you can ask for paper. But where it goes nobody knows.

 

The Ohio primary this spring was my first experience with a touchscreen. It was okay except for the part about not really knowing if anything was recorded or not when I was done.

 

Previously, in Connecticut, I used a lever system that was developed in the Bronze Age. The first time I used one of those, it made such a racket when I pulled the lever that I wasn't sure if I had voted correctly or if I had broken it.

 

In college I always did absentee ballots since I was out of my home state. Paper ballots are nice. Unless you don't trust the Post Office to not lose them. Or somebody on the receiving end to burn/shred or otherwise discard of them. Paper is a pretty fragile thing, if you think about it.

 

 

I can't think of a foolproof method of voting.

 

tatoos