2008 Election

A suggestion is being made that even if Scott Brown wins the special Senate election in Massachusets on January 19th that he won't be seated for at least a month.  We've had experiences with special elections in Illinois as well.  In 2008 I recall being at a State Board of Elections meeting discussing the seating of the replacement for Denny Hastert. 

Discussion then moved to the request from the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives for unofficial election  results of the March 8 special election. Member Brady indicated that he spoke with the Clerk’s office and it is their practice to evaluate unofficial results. If it is clear from the unofficial results who the victor is they would act immediately and seat the member.

The House Clerk had submitted a letter requesting a pre-Canvass certification of results which I've attached below.

By unanimous vote the Board decided to submit to the House Clerk the unofficial results of the election.  The vote was not without ramifications according to Foster's wikipedia site.

Although it was initially thought that Foster would not be sworn in until April due to the need to count absentee ballots before the first election would be certified, he took the oath of office on March 11. On his first day in office, he cast the deciding vote to keep from tabling an ethics bill that would create an independent outside panel to investigate ethics complaints against House members.

I have no doubt that a call from our post partisan President will expedite the seating in a similar manner should Brown win.

I tend to not criticize too much for improper use of words, because I've had my share of missteps, despite Fr. Peter's admonition to always keep my dictionary nearby.  But when it comes from a person who is ripping into someone else for being uneducated, it's hard to pass up.

When I heard that McCain campaign manager said that Sarah Palin was "very calm-nonplussed" when hearing of her selection as VP nominee, I got a chuckle.  .  Nonplussed means confused, although Schmidt isn't the first one to get this wrong.  Upon googling I find almost no one seems to have picked up on his mistake and the interviewer seems to have taken the slip up in stride.  The only hit I can find is from the Democratic Underground...so hats off to the grammar police there. 

Of course, our English language is constantly changing and over time nonplussed may actually end up meaning what it doesn't mean and we'll be stuck with an utterly confusing word like cleave or sanction.

Some light reading material for the weekend.

"That's the essence of the bailout: rich bankers bailing out rich bankers, using the taxpayers' credit card."

From Tuesday night's Daily Show:

Now, if you're still reading this I'll assume you've made it through the video without facepalming yourself into a concussion...

So what's this SOFA agreement? It's the Bush "time horizon" that was established in December.

The Daily Show has stumbled on a fact generally ignored by every major news outlet: Obama's Iraq policy continues to be indistinguishable from Bush's Iraq policy beyond parsing words... wait, no even parsing the same words.

For more in the "Change we can be confused in" posts:

• Hope Floats?: Economic woes, hero status, and some eerily familiar deficit promises and other Bush imitations.

• Change We Can Be Confused In: On all sorts of foreign policy and few other policies.

• Non-Believers Too: On reaching out to non-believers.

• More Change We Can Be Confused In: On the inauguration and McCain being tapped by Obama for advice.

• A Tale of Two CnCs: On reaching out the Islamic world.

• Comic Relief: Windows Error: Obama proving that it isn't just Bush who can have embarrassing moments.

Welcome to Bush's 3rd Term:

Yikes!

Our Champaign County Auditor:

Fabri, Wright and Hooper all had filed pre-election reports in mid-October indicating that they had relatively healthy campaign funds.

Fabri's pre-election report, filed Oct. 19, showed that both he and his parents had given his campaign $5,000. In addition, he had received $500 each from the East Central Illinois Building and Construction Trades, Electricians' Local 601 in Champaign and the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union in Savoy. At that time, there was $6,229 in his campaign fund.

Fabri won his general election race over Republican Brad Jones, 38,716 to 36,845. Jones reported spending $14,057 in his campaign and collecting the same amount. His biggest donation was $2,500 from the Illinois Republican Party.

"I had faxed it in," Fabri said Tuesday, "but apparently they're not accepting faxes anymore. I guess maybe they're enforcing that rule now."

But a prominently displayed rule on the State Board of Elections Web site (http://tinyurl.com/b3xces) makes it clear that Fabri would have to file electronically and not by fax.

Discuss.

In today's News-Gazette, Paul Wood writes about the 2008 countywide school sales tax ballot question:

"The margin of defeat in November was less than half of 1 percent, with 38,428 voting against the sales tax and 38,128 voting for it."

This is a misleading characterization of the vote that has been repeated in nearly every News-Gazette story on the topic.  It suggests that 300 out of 76,000 people decided the election and caused the sales tax proponents to lose.  An accurate characterization would be that 38,428 people decided the election and defeated the sales tax proposal.  In other words, just over 50 percent, not less than half of 1 percent.

Spin like this in news articles is dissapointing.   I expect as much from the editorial page.

The NG wants readers to share their stories from Barack Obama's inauguration:

As the nation prepares for Barack Obama to become president, we want to hear from you.

We're going to Washington, D.C., for Obama's inauguration. If you're going, please let us know, so we can catch up with you in Washington.

We're also interested in what hopes you have for Obama's presidency, and we would like to hear from you about that as well.

You can do either by following this link.

After Lisa Madigan got clobbered by the Illinois Supreme Court you'd think our elected officials would be a little more careful about providing Blago with another public relations win.  Jesse White may have done that with his promise to not certify his pick of Roland Burris to the Illinois Senate seat.

It's hard to see how a court would see White's certification of Blago's appointment as anything other than ministerial.  Just as I don't have the ability to kill a County Board ordinance by not signing it, I don't think White can stop this appointment.  Further, the requirement that White certify the appointment may not even be Constitutional.  White's stand, like Madigan's, seems to be taken more for political gain than out of any legal principle. 

And for another fun thought on this circus, imagine that a court does order White to sign the appointment.  Now it gets tosses into Harry Reid's lap.  I'm not sure, but I think that in any lawsuit by Blago against Reid, Madigan would represent the State of Illinois.

That’s my question after reading the latest draft of the legislation to have a special election for the vacant United States Senate seat.  There’s no doubt that the legislation is inadequate as written and leaves gaping holes regarding its implementation. 

What the legislation does is create two scenarios for a special election.  The first is if the legislation is signed on January 1st or before.  In that case we’d have a primary election on February 24th in conjunction with the various municipal primaries happening around the state (and potentially in Champaign and Urbana).  That would be followed by the general election on April 7th, in conjunction with the already scheduled Consolidated Election which already includes every voter in the state of Illinois.

The second scenario kicks in if the legislation is signed after January 1st.  In that case, there will be a primary in conjunction with the April 7th election followed by a special election for Senate only on May 26th. 

The first problem with the legislation is that it gives our current Governor far too much leverage.  He gets to decide when he signs it, if he does, and thereby controls when the election will happen.  He could sign it as late as mid February, leaving the entire state in suspense.  In addition, after he signs it, he would still have to issue writs of election.  The proposed legislation takes that authority away from him should he fail to exercise it, but that particular provision is likely unconstitutional.  So he could sign it and just sit on the whole problem for an indeterminate amount of time.  The optimists in this process (which seems to be most everyone) are counting on the Governor’s rationality and fair play, not unlike what they counted on when they passed a budget that was $2 billion in the red.  Haven’t they learned?

In either case, the legislation gives sweeping authority to the State Board of Elections to write rules to make this whole event come off.  Good luck to them.  Crafting rules that will deal with the incredible time crunch for a primary while not running afoul of the legal requirements for ballot access, voter rights, absentee voting, and other items will be a tough task.  Tough enough that the legislative drafters apparently didn’t want to touch it here in this legislation.

As it stands now, filing for the February election is to close on Monday, December 15th, 71 days prior to the primary.  If the Governor actually signs the bill on Thursday, January 1st, it will be just 54 days prior to the primary election.   Let’s assume that the State Board of Elections has the rules already written to implement this and they meet on January 2nd to pass them.  I think as emergency rules they can be implemented immediately.  So now candidates have to swing into action to get petitions signed and turned in.  Because of the tight schedule, let’s say that the State Board of Elections reduces the signature requirement (2500?) and also requires filing to be done by January 9th.  Some sort of check for compliance will have to be conducted, at least by the State Board and possibly it will be allowed for others to check the papers (a time honored tradition in Illinois).  But let’s say the State Board passes rules that prevent any challenges and eliminates judicial review of the certification and the State Board certifies the ballot to County Clerks on January 12th, just 43 days prior to the primary.  Absentee voting is scheduled to start on Thursday, January 15th.  Ballots have to go out to overseas voters and military personnel. 

So even if the State Board passes rules immediately that include an evisceration of due process rules while liberalizing ballot access, the window to get ballots prepared is minuscule.  Expand the time to do any of these elements (a week to issue writs, a week to pass rules, two weeks to circulate, a week for judicial review) and we’re talking about a primary election that could turn into a debacle.  I haven’t even scratched the surface of the problems here.  And there are additional problems and costs should this legislation get signed after January 1st.

The cost for that potential debacle is about $25 million, at a time that when the state is flat broke, barely able to borrow money, and $2 billion in arrears on our payments to vendors.  Not surprisingly, this bill includes no money from the state to the counties.  So the cost will be passed on to tax payers in each of those counties, at a time when many of them are looking at cutbacks.

And why exactly are we doing this?  I keep hearing that it’s to bring back credibility, or take the taint out of the selection, or some similar sentiment. Is giving voters a chance to vote on the replacement for Obama a good idea.  Of course.  Will it wash away the taint of this scandal?  Of course not.  And at what cost?  And for what benefit?  A narrow window for an election puts an inordinate amount of importance on fundraising.  Barack Obama was able to win the Senate seat four years ago in large part because of his ability to develop a grass roots organization and to reach out to voters individually with personal appearances.  Well, that model won’t cut it this time.  This primary, should it happen, will likely be won by the candidates with the deepest pockets.  I fear that February 26th will be a day of bitter irony for Illinois voters as we nominate candidates for each party receiving less than 35% of the vote.  Think about the joy of spending $25 million to get a face off between Blair Hull and Jim Oberweis. 

There is another alternative.  The party state central committees of each party could meet and nominate a candidate for the April 7th election.  This is how vacancies in nomination are routinely filled in Illinois. Does it take away some choices for the voters?  Yes, it does.  But the legislature, in passing the provisions to fill vacancies, understood that a balance had to be struck between the cost and complications of running a special election and the benefits of giving voters a say in the process.   The cost to do this would drop from $25 million to about $25,000 (the cost of printing about 10 federal only ballots for each precinct in the state).

Every legislator feels the sting of this scandal, even without their personal involvement.  The reputations of those in State government have been battered for the last four or five years.  But giving voters this single vote (the legislation does not provide for this to ever happen again) is merely a bone thrown at disgruntled voters.  This move is certainly not based on some grand principle.  If it was, the same legislators falling all over themselves to give you a vote on this vacancy would support Rep. Mike Boland’s Constitutional Amendment to have special elections for vacancies in the General Assembly.  Not a single other legislator signed on to his HJRCA.

If politicians were serious about reform and the right of the public to have a voice in these matters, they have plenty of ways to accomplish that.  They could send voters Constitutional Amendments for recall, initiative, or a revision of the redistricting process.  They could put the Con Con question back on the ballot and give it a fair up or down vote.

This bill doesn’t make even a pretense of reform.  It’s the equivalent of making up to your wife with a bouquet of flowers that you bought by taking money out of her purse.

Champaign County Clerk Mark Shelden has an interesting post about the number of people who used his website to verify their voter registration, and to preview their ballots before Election Day:

On Monday, November 3rd and Election Day, November 4th we had over  8,000 visistors who checked their voter registration status on our website.  That works out to over 10% of the people who voted on November 4th.

On the other hand, the next step of viewing your ballot to better prepare for the election was taken by only 659 voters during the entire 40 day window when they were available.  I’ve broken down the list by total number of voters in a precinct viewing their ballot (first was City of Champaign 38 with 20) and highest percentage of registered voters viewing their ballot (Raymond with 1.9%)

My familty was responsible for at least two of the ballot previews for CC38.  I thought it was very useful, and I'm surprised it wasn't used more.  Anybody else use it?  Anybody else even know about it?

I wrote a post at my County Clerk blog about lines at the polls.

I plan to pursue some research on this, and as I said there, I still haven't really found anyone who's willing to stand up and say just what is the right amount of time to wait at the polls.  Where is the line between "too long" and "about right".  I think we all agree that when someone waits 5 hours, that's too long.  But is one hour?  One  hour and 15 minutes? 

Also, we didn't hear much in the way of complaints about lines on election day (although some during early voting).  How long did you have to wait, and was it excessive, in your opinion.

With all the post-election finger pointing going around republican and conservative circles, this one seemed fairly unique, the blame God approach:

Giving Up on God
By Kathleen Parker

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

I'm bathing in holy water as I type.

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

Now unless my eyes doth deceive me, I've been getting the opposite impression of how the party is considering their failures, right down to the general public as well if this recent Gallup poll is accurate:

While such polling is hardly revealing of what the future may hold in four years, it shows a strong leaning towards candidates who put their faith front and center in the political arena, not just as a personal virtue, but as a basis for policy. Romney in particular even scored well among the moderate/liberal Republicans polled, though Palin and Huckabee had less support and stronger opposition among them. The so-called 'base' Republicans however support them so overwhelmingly that it leaves them all ahead overall.

Now the current conventional wisdom is that if you get the evangelicals enthusiastic about the GOP candidate, that candidate wins. From the 2004/2000 exit polls and the 2008 exit polls, this recent trend seems fairly obvious. 2004 had a boost in evangelical voting and people who wanted heavier restrictions or total bans on abortion. In 2000 the GOP candidate was behind in the popular vote and just barely squeaked out a electoral college majority that remains controversial to this day. In 2004 the higher turnout among GOP supporters concerned with moral issues produced a fairly solid win. In 2008, the lack of enthusiasm was obvious, even before looking at the exit polls. While the religious break down remained fairly static, there were fewer Republicans who turned out, while Democrats turned out more... leaving far less Republican support among religious voters.

This would seem to make Parker's reliance of the 2008 results as proof of a shift within the public as pre-mature, if not outright bogus.

On the other hand, her long term predictions may have some merit, but their aren't any statistics to verify her crystal ball. While Europe's religiosity has certainly declined over time, other regions have seen religious fundamentalism on the rise. And though the US may be uniquely religious in the Western world, history shows that religious fervor is often given a boost the more its adherents feel their way of life is being threatened. Some may argue that the Reagan Revolution may have reinvigorated the religious trends that emerged from our fight against the 'godless communists' and that bubble may have it its peak with the Bush Administration.

This seems to be wishful thinking of people like Parker who would like to see this election, as many do, as a referendum on one of their pet projects/agendas that generally played little to no role in the outcome. Parker's animosity for the religious is fairly clear from her article:

So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.

Short break as writer ties blindfold and smokes her last cigarette.

Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.

But so far there's nothing to show that the country has become less religious as much as the deeply religious GOP supporters were merely less enthusiastic about a candidate who had scorned them in his previous presidential campaign, and had difficulty convincing them he had changed his ways regardless of how many bones he threw them. And if the Gallup poll above is any indicator, they still strongly favor those who they can trust to always suck up to them.

Further, as late as last year, polls seemed to indicate a revival, of sorts, of the religious fervor that Parker claims to be in recession. From an older post:

Church & State of Confusion

USA Today had some interesting poll figures today:

"Most Americans believe the nation's founders wrote Christianity into the Constitution, and people are less likely to say freedom to worship covers religious groups they consider extreme, a poll out today finds."

...

"Half say teachers should be allowed to use the Bible as a factual text in history class. That's down from 56% in 2000. Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, says the findings are particularly troubling during a week when the top diplomat in Iraq gave a report to Congress on progress toward achieving democracy there. "Americans are dying to create a secular democracy in Iraq, and simultaneously a growing number of people want to see a Christian state" here, he says."

They must be reading a different Constitution than I am...

I just haven't been getting the same indications that the religious right in this country is going the way of the do-do bird anytime soon. If anything the defeat of McCain may confirm to the religious right that they are the part of the base one must have on your side to win nationwide campaigns. Indeed, much of the commentary coming from that side of the aisle puts the blame squarely on McCain's lack of being a 'true conservative.' An issue that was probably the central focus of the Republican primary.

The problem was, of course, that outside of Bush's social conservative credentials, few 'true conservative' types considered him to be one on the primary issue of the 2008 race, economics. And worse, for all of the right-wing commentary during the campaign that ran the gamut of McCain being just another Democrat/RINO or being the anti-christ, McCain still won. Fox itself was often less than subtle in their anti-McCain bias:

C'mon Fox... tell us how you really feel:

John McCain's a Democrat? Right, got it... moving on...

But while everyone from Rush to Hannity to Coulter were outraged that the divided conservative vote led to McCain ascension... their arguments often fell flat due their lumping the various conservative factions as the 'true conservatives.' Rush's RINOs for example were Huckabee, McCain, and Rudy. But these three outperformed his so-called 'true conservatives' of Romney, Thompson, etc. Even among conservative voters:

A look at the States where McCain won shows an average Republican support of 42%... with the closest runner up at 30% (Romney), and the other so-called RINO coming in at 18% (Huckabee).

It also shows that when McCain wins it is because McCain and Romney split the conservative vote evenly at 35% each... with Huckabee coming in with 20%.

Now if they had looked purely at the social conservative angle, as opposed to conservatism in general, they could have made a stronger case. Parker makes a similar mistake but in reverse.

While she'd like to blame Palin for McCain's eventual downfall, the choice was not poor because the public at large had shifted, but because the turnout among evangelicals was so low as to make it too insignificant in gaining enough votes among them to outweigh those her pick would alienate among moderates/liberals/independents/etc. The shift was in the electorate and based on factors prior to the Palin pick that still continued to a large degree afterwards. If anything, Palin wasn't enough, not too much, to get the evangelical base enthusiastic to turn out and pull the lever for McCain, who still remained Judas in their eyes.

Now, as an atheist, I'd be more than enthusiastic to see such shifts in the public that Parker claims to see. But wishing such shifts are occurring doesn't make it reality, and ignoring reality doesn't win elections. Her prescription is a recipe for disaster in the short term, though may become more relevant down the road. For now, the GOP would be committing political suicide to abandon the social conservative base, no matter how much others both in and out of the party would love to see it fade away into insignificance.

As it stands, it's unknown whether the religious trends will be on decline or rise over the next couple elections. It may even go unchanged. History shows us one sure fire way to instigate a fundamentalist revival is to create conditions where they believe that their faith, institutions, and traditions are under attack. And while many of us may want to see some radical change on social policies, depending on how cautiously or recklessly such changes are promoted or implemented, we could end up as the source for a new-found enthusiasm, turn out, and even recruitment among those who disagree with us, not merely academically, but literally with a religious fervor and the conviction that they have divine backing.

The warnings left by the religious and cultural backlashes against westernization throughout history should be remembered. The militant extremes may be rare or unlikely in our society, but the amount of bloodshed that has occurred in other areas of the world over similar concerns should at least be a strong indicator of the power behind the fear of those who believe their way of life is being encircled and snuffed out. Here it is likely to manifest as political power as opposed to violence, but assuming that under pressure it will go silently into the night would be a huge mistake. Especially with such a vast pool of moderates available that could be radicalized.

Just my 2 cents.

If the partisans can agree on anything, it's that the other side is full of idiots. The views of their opponents range from the ignorant hicks or ghetto dwellers whose malicious motivations are beyond the pale if you believe the hype... to the elite in both parties, driven by greed and power or devoid of any true understanding of what America stands for. Regardless of the side, the other side are the ignorant or hopelessly detached from what the "real" people of America want and/or need.

Sadly, it is on this one issue where they agree that they tend to at least come close to being right. Americans are generally ignorant and detached from what America is all about:

Americans don't know civics
By Michelle Healy, USA TODAY

From high-school dropouts to college graduates to elected officials, Americans are "alarmingly uninformed" about the USA's history, founding principals and economy — knowledge needed to participate wisely in civic life, says a report scheduled to be released Thursday.

 

The study, the third in a series by the non-profit Intercollegiate Studies Institute, finds that half of U.S. adults can name all three branches of government, and 54% know that the power to declare war belongs to Congress. Almost 40% incorrectly said that it belongs to the president.

 

Those who have held elected office lack civic knowledge; 43% do not know the Electoral College is a constitutionally mandated assembly that elects the president. One in five thinks it "trains those aspiring for higher office" or "was established to supervise the first televised presidential debates."

And some of the more pressing findings (imo):

• Those with bachelor's degrees had an average score of 57% vs. 44% for those with a high-school diploma. The average score for advanced degree-holders inches up to 65%, or a D.

 

• Civic knowledge declines in proportion to time spent using passive media, such as TV. Reading and talking about history and current events, using the Internet and being involved in political activities has a positive effect.

This may explain a bit of the superiority complex of the internet junkies who seem to have way too much time on their hands to argue this stuff. Here were my test results from the 33 question test (click to see which one I missed):

Not bad, but sadly these are the results of a multiple choice test run by the same folks responsible for the statistics above. Multiple choice both helps and harms the indication of actual knowledge. For instance I couldn't remember the details of a monkey test, but guessed correctly due to the context. I've pretty well forgotten everything the Puritans were pissy about, but got it right out of elimination of the absolutely wrong answers. But the question I got wrong I could have easily written an essay answer, but my choices were peculiar, so I went with the assumption of improper wording instead of analyzing another for trickiness.

Going through what I got right, and why, versus the one I got wrong, I think it's safe to deduct a point from my score. 31 out of 33 still ain't bad given the wide range of subject matter, but what would be the point of anonymous blogging if I wasn't honest with myself, let alone my loyal fans.

In the end we all learned this stuff in school, even public ones, so there is little excuse not to know or remember these things other than life typically gets in the way. Better education is a start, but if you're like me you've probably forgotten most of what you learned. I doubt I could pull off conversational French at this point in my life. How do we remedy the biggest flaw of democracy that has challenged the pundits and the philosophers for eons: the primacy of one's immediate needs outweighing the intellectual demands of democratic input that demands a keen insight into historical, political, and economic realities that make our ballot such a wonderful, yet dangerous, item.

Full post here (NSFW as it includes Bush protests from 2004)

Today's News-Gazette:

C. Pius Weibel was effectively re-elected to lead the Champaign County Board on Tuesday night, with majority Democrats promising to show unanimity.

The full board, which has a 15-12 Democratic majority, will vote on Dec. 1.

Weibel, who lives in Champaign, has been county board chairman for two years. He was challenged in caucus by Carol Ammons of Urbana, who has only been on the board for a few months but is a vocal presence, and Samuel Smucker of Urbana, a longtime union organizer just elected to the board.

The vote proved suspenseful as the first six (of eight needed) went for Ammons. Weibel got eight votes, and Smucker one.

Discuss.

The Champaign County Clerk's office has final 2008 election results.

The countywide sales tax ended up failing by 262 votes.

To hear various partisans and the news media talk about it, elections are filled with partisan manipulations and shenanigans.  This is one of the barriers to achieving better elections.  Too many people are looking to score political points off of election problems and not enough looking to solve them. 

In reality, most election problems don't have a partisan angle.  They are just like any other problem you might find in your office, home or where you do business.  Can these problems be fixed?  Absolutely.  But first it's necessary to cut out the partisan wrangling.

Heather Gerken, a lawyer who worked for Obama this year has an excellent post about election adminstration at Rick Hasen's Election Law Blog.  There are a lot of good points in the post, but these particular lines should be a filter for every partisan and media person when looking at election adminstration problems.

Most of the problems I saw from the vantage point of the campaign's boiler room seem to have been caused not by partisan mischief, but by neglect -- too little funding, too few resources devoted to good planning, even something as simple as not enough poll workers showing up. It confirmed my view that we should never attribute to partisanship that which can be adequately explained by inadequate resources.

Even after it's over, the Obama campaign continues to be the best run I've ever seen:

Gift of office equipment from the Obama campaign thrills Sto-Rox schools.

I have to admit that I didn't get it at first.  So many of my friends seemed so intent on Obama winning before Tuesday night that I thought it was all a little silly.  "What is going to happen if he doesn't win?"  One of my friends asked nervously.  "I guess I'll get up, feed my kid and go to work." I replied, thinking myself quite clever and removed.  I didn't get it.

Don't get me wrong.  I wanted Obama to win.  In fact I gave a relatively large amount of money and a couple of my Saturdays to help the cause.  Supporting Obama was fun, exciting, and important to me.  I didn't do a lot, but I did more than I ever have and much more than most of my nervous friends.  Yet when election night rolled around I found myself somewhat indifferent and over-analytical.  I wasn't passionate about the election either way.  Frankly, I was obsessed with cnn.com's election page, with it's up-to-the-minute results from every county in the United States.  Pretty cool.

And then it happened.  Sometime around 10 p.m. they announced that Obama had won it.  And I had a lump in my throat.  Right now, as I am writing this three days later, I can literally make myself cry thinking about it.  That night, of course, Obama would take the stage in Grant Park, on the shores of Lake Michigan, in Chicago.  My favorite body of water and my hometown.  The importance of the moment was not lost on me.

Why are we crying?  What is it about this man and this election that has elicited such emotion from so many of us?  I don't know the answer to that question.  I think it has something to do with renewal, and with hope.  And I think it has something to do with 9/11, Katrina, torture, FISA, and the new great depression.  This country is hurting right now and electing Obama is the promise of a better future.  The promise that being cynical about America just became lame.  Very, very lame.

A couple of years ago I did some research at the Regional Archives of the Great Lakes Region of the NARA.  The focus of my research was the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC)'s correspondence with African-American workers in the Chicago defense plants during WWII.  Almost every case file in the archives from this period starts with a letter from an average black American to either Franklin or Eleanor Roosevelt.  The letters are almost all handwritten and they are all pleas for help.  One letter was from a woman passed over for a promotion that was granted to a white worker with less experience.  The next from a man who wanted to do his part for the war but could not find a plant willing to hire a black man.  They were like letters written to a friend, asking for a bit of help.

I was amazed by these letters.  Shocked that anyone in this country would be so naive as to believe that a president, in the midst of fighting a war, would have the time to read their letter and help them with their particular employment problem.  "Who are these people," I wrote in my journal one night, "that think the president gives a damn about them?"

I think a lot of us just became people who can believe in America again.  I have no doubt that sixty years from now some cynical young historian may look back on this moment and wonder what the hell we were thinking.  Why in the world an election could make us all cry like little babies.  I sincerely hope that young historian gets an answer to that question in his lifetime, as I have had the answer come to me in mine.

 Republicans Stayed Home=Obama Wins

Report: '08 turnout same as or only slightly higher than '04

A new report from American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate concludes that voter turnout in Tuesday’s election was the same in percentage terms as it was four years ago — or at most has risen by less than 1 percent.

The report released Thursday estimates that between 126.5 and 128.5 million Americans cast ballots in the presidential election earlier this week. Those figures represent 60.7 percent or, at most, 61.7 percent of those eligible to vote in the country.

“A downturn in the number and percentage of Republican voters going to the polls seemed to be the primary explanation for the lower than predicted turnout,” the report said. Compared to 2004, Republican turnout declined by 1.3 percentage points to 28.7 percent, while Democratic turnout increased by 2.6 points from 28.7 percent in 2004 to 31.3 percent in 2008...

“Many people were fooled (including this student of politics although less so than many others) by this year’s increase in registration (more than 10 million added to the rolls), citizens’ willingness to stand for hours even in inclement weather to vote early, the likely rise in youth and African American voting, and the extensive grassroots organizing network of the Obama campaign into believing that turnout would be substantially higher than in 2004,” Curtis Gans, the center’s director, said in the report. “But we failed to realize that the registration increase was driven by Democratic and independent registration and that the long lines at the polls were mostly populated by Democrats.”

And I will remind you again about the popular vote differences for McCain who received 56,904,214 popular votes and Obama who tallied 64,644, 293. That's a difference of 7,740,079, millions less than the population of Los Angeles county, and about half a million less than the population of New York City.

Perspective, people, perspective. The vote on Tuesday was a rejection of Republicans, not, I repeat not an embrace of the man who was endorsed by Hamas. This nation remains conservative and Obama is the recipient of a protest vote against fake conservative poseurs who found it more fun to dabble in "The New Global Order" and to have their pockets lined by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than to honor the legacy of Reagan conservativism, it's that simple."

---excerpt taken from tammybruce.com

As requested several months ago, allow me to bring out Mark Shelden's prediction that Biden was a blunder of a choice and "a dream come true" for the GOP.  Of note is Mark's declaration that :

It’s time to start figuring out how McCain stacks up against Hillary in 2012. 

Care to eat your words, Mark? :)

Something that really sticks out in an after-the-fact kind of way, we have this gem from Dan Fielding when talking about McCain's VP selection (pre-Palin selection):

I guess McCain better not pick Romney or any other GOP primary oppenents who criticized him, eh?"

Right.  He needs a currently serving governor whose support is credible.

There are several other interesting points that are made in the referenced thread, such as the beginnings of Run4cvrlib's seething hatred of the MSM, but I just wanted to point out what was requested, where Biden supposedly marked the downfall of Obama's campaign.