The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08 &#187; Sarah Palin

FLOGGING THE CULTURE WAR CORPSE

Dan Lehr — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:17:57 +0000

(Illustration credit here)

One of the great things about Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish blog is he often makes a great point using a minimum of sentences, as he does here:

“Does Pajamas Media believe that the future of journalism really belongs to Joe The Plumber? Or that this is really worth publishing? It seems to me that the right is still culturally disoriented. If they are still promoting Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber and Ann Coulter and culture-war resentment as their core message, they are obviously in deep denial about what this election really meant. If their only unifying theme is hatred or reified “elite liberals”, they are doomed.

This denial - this calcification of the worst of the right in the last eight years - is the real danger to Republicans. What they need is a grappling with the public policy issues at hand, and an imaginative constructive, conservative approach to them. But the posturing is so much easier, isn’t it? And still, one presumes, really lucrative for a tiny few.”

Calcification: just the right word.

I often pay attention to what this particular segment of the right is saying, & it constantly seems as if their raison d’être is to have something or someone to villify. & Sullivan’s right in pointing out that this has been so entrenched for so long that there are many out there who don’t yet (& may never) recognize what time it is.

To wit:

An added element to this psychology, I’ve noticed for at least the past 6 months, has been the embrace of a kind of identity politics & victimhood which many on the right have for years - & appropriately - used as fodder against the left. & no, they don’t seem to recognize this either.

It has to be someone’s fault. There has to be a scapegoat responsible for the mess we’re in.

Folks, the clash of cultures/values/whatever still exists.

But it’s been heartening to see with this past election that enough people have realized that there are far bigger priorities to tackle at the moment, & that it’s more important to find common ground than to point out differences.

Michael Weiss makes a great point on this score, too:

“The inevitable fallout when a PR neutron bomb like this goes off always puts me in mind of the Wolf and Sheepdog cartoon series Warner Bros. used to run. You know the routine, provided your childhood wasn’t stunted and deprived: two permanent adversaries clock in each day and exchange morning pleasantries (”G’day Ralph, G’day Sam”) before setting to their predictable work. The so-called “liberal elite” must snigger and snark about a duplicitous, posturing everyman who shilled for John McCain pretending he has any credentials whatsoever to be a war reporter. Conservative populists must then rail against said elite, citing the duplicity and unabashed political bias of the “MSM” (that’s mainstream media to you laymen), while claiming that Joe represents a silent majority of Americans and is thus every bit as entitled to cover the Gaza conflict as are, say, Wolf Blitzer and Ted Koppel.

Lost in the melee is the graver question of whether or not a time of war is a time for cultural point-scoring. There is simply no way that PJM didn’t prefigure the tongue-in-cheek headlines that would follow this announcement, which has unintentionally vitiated the blog network’s stated purpose of standing up for Israel. Joe’s become the story, if not the spectacle.”

What do you think?

SARAH FOR SENATE? WILL SHE LOSE IT OR WIN IT?

Dan Lehr — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:09:31 +0000

Two vastly different polls (1st one here, 2nd one here) present an emphatic (& thus enigmatic) ‘yes’ to the question in the headline.

But Nate Silver bursts the bubbles of both the pro- & anti- Palin camps:

“Alaska is perhaps the most difficult state in the country to poll. Its residents are in a strange time zone and keep strange schedules; it has very high rates of cellphone usage; it has highly unusual demographics.”

“Actually, I’m not sure that this one is too hard to adjudicate. The Alaska Standard is an attractive and engaging blog, but its lead author, talk show host Dan Fagan, is most definitely not a fan of Mrs. Palin. In fact, although Fagan is a staunch conservative, virtually all of his posts are anti-Palin in some way, most recently regarding some controversy surrounding Levi Johnston.

Fagan very much is a fan, however, of Lisa Murkowski. Not only that, but Murkowski has written an article for this website, and is listed as one of its contributors along the side panel. The pollster, David Dittman, is also listed as a contributor.

So you’ll excuse me if I don’t find it terribly shocking that when this website decided to conduct a poll, it contained GREAT NEWS!!! FOR LISA MURKOWSKI!!!”

So which poll should we believe?

None of them, naturally.

For Pete’s sake, it’s two years out. Do you remember who the front runner for President was in 2006? It sure wasn’t Barack Obama.

In some ways I’m reminded of a sequence in Peanuts from the early 1970s in which Linus runs for student body president. Particularly Lucy’s polling methods (between :20 & 1:43):

What do you think?

HIGH & LOW WATER MARKS: SARAH PALIN

Dan Lehr — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:58:31 +0000

HIGH WATER MARK

Click here to view the embedded video.

Her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.

LOW WATER MARK

A no-brainer.

MEMO TO SARAH: SURROUND YOURSELF WITH BETTER SPELLERS

Dan Lehr — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:21:54 +0000

Case #1. This calendar, on sale now (sorry, Dad, I didn’t spot in time to fill your stocking). Note how the year is spelled out at the bottom.

Case #2: This interview with Human Events, which ends:

GIZZI: Will you run for higher office, such as the U.S. Senate from Alaska in 2010 [when more moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s seat is up]?

PALIN: That’s not in my sites. There’s so much to do as governor.

uh, that’s S-I-G-H-T-S.

Good grief.

While we’re at that interview, here’s another interesting tidbit:

“The biggest mistake made was that I could have called more shots on this: the opportunities that were not seized to speak to more Americans via media. I was not allowed to do very many interviews, and the interviews that I did were not necessarily those I would have chosen. But I was so thankful to have the opportunity to run with John McCain that I was not going to argue with the strategy decisions that some of his people were making regarding the media contacts?

But if I would have been in charge, I would have wanted to speak to more reporters because that’s how you get your message out to the electorate.”

I don’t know which is worse:

1: that it did not occur to anyone in the higher echelons of the McCain campaign that keeping her out of the media glare would ultimately be a bad thing for their ticket, or

2: that they made a conscious decision to keep Sarah Palin out of the media glare.

What do you think?

CAROLINE KENNEDY & SARAH PALIN

Dan Lehr — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:28:07 +0000

Ms. Kennedy says she wants Hillary Clinton’s seat.

Read the latest here.

Steve Clemons encapsulates my thoughts pitch-perfectly:

“It seems hypocritical to on the one hand challenge Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s qualifications and readiness to have potentially assumed the presidency if something had happened to John McCain and if, of course, their ticket had won on November 4th and then on the other, say nothing about Caroline Kennedy’s dearth of real policy and political experience to assume one of the most powerful offices in the country — even if a Senator is usually not as consequential as a President.

I feel that it’s important that vacant Senate seats be taken seriously by both the Democratic and Republican parties — and selecting celebrity family members from political dynasties feels undemocratic.

Caroline Kennedy — when she shows she has thick-skin. can take tough-minded criticism for the mistakes she no doubt will make, and when she articulates coherent policy views on serious challenges facing the country — may make in fact make a great Senator from New York. I hope that she does and that she grows into the role.”

Hear, hear.

Republicans who can’t figure out why Palin was so unpalatable: while the analogy isn’t perfect, this story (Caroline’s) gets close to defining my opposition to her (Palin) as a candidate.

What in the heck is so wrong about throwing both this New York seat & Illinois’ seat up to voters?

Let the chips fall where they may, & let the next Senators in each seat (regardless of party) earn their place, rather than think it should be handed to them on a silver platter.

PALIN IN THE PEACH STATE

Dan Lehr — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:22:11 +0000

UPDATE: scroll down for a clip.

You still have time (though it’s running out) to RSVP to see her in metro Atlanta. Click here to find out details on Saxby Chambliss’ website.

Palin’s hometown newspaper is puzzled as to why she’s campaigning for Chambliss.

& Donald Craig Mitchell of the Alaskan Dispatch blog says she doesn’t seem to be ready to settle back down into the Alaska governor’s mansion anytime soon:

“My prediction is that for at least the next two years Sarah is going to keep her show on the road because that will be a lot more fun than being Governor of a backwater state that spends most of its time as far out of the limelight in which Sarah has been basking as North and South Dakota do. During the almost fifty years it has been a state Alaska has had nine governors. Other than Sarah Palin, how many people who do not live in Alaska can name one of them? And why should they be able to? Because who cares who the Governor of Alaska is?

That is the obscurity to which Sarah will return if she goes back to her day job. In addition to being no fun, for presidential candidate wannabe Palin, that also is the rub.”

UPDATE: The 1st reports are coming in, read more after the jump (I’ll post clips of her stump speech here once they’re available).

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin implored Georgia Republicans to back Sen. Saxby Chambliss in his hotly contested Senate runoff, telling a cheering crowd today that the first step in rebuilding the GOP begins with the Southern state.
The former vice presidential candidate made her first campaign appearance since the Republican ticket of John McCain and Palin lost on Nov. 4. Palin’s four stops for Chambliss underscored not only the stakes for the GOP in the Senate race but Palin’s popularity within the party. She has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012 - a fact not lost on some Georgia voters.
Several thousand supporters waited in the cold to file into the James Brown Arena in Augusta. Vendors sold bright pink “Palin 2012″ T-shirts and “Palin for President: You Go Girl” buttons. She was greeted like a rock star with chants of “Sa-rah!”
Chambliss is locked in a runoff with Democrat Jim Martin after neither crossed the 50 percent threshold in the general election.
The race will help determine the balance of power in Washington where Democrats are just two votes shy of the 60 votes needed to prevent Republican filibusters. Georgia is one of two undecided contests. A recount is under way in Minnesota in the tight race between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has more.

HERE SHE COMES!

Dan Lehr — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:55:00 +0000

From the NewsChannel9 e-mail inbox:

ATLANTA—U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) today confirmed that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will campaign in Georgia with him on Monday, December 1st.

“I was thrilled when I got the call that Governor Palin would be able to make the trip to Georgia to campaign with me the day before the runoff election,” Saxby said. “Julianne and I are honored that she would take the time to travel to Georgia to tell everyone how important this election is and I know that she will receive an enthusiastic welcome everywhere we go.”

Governor Palin will join Saxby for four public rallies across the state on Monday, December 1st: 8:30 am in Augusta; 11:00 am in Savannah; 1:30 pm in Perry; and 4:00 pm in north metro Atlanta. More specific details on exact locations and how to obtain tickets will be available later this week.

Depend on me to keep you posted about those tickets. Looks like if you live in the NewsChannel9 viewing area, “north metro Atlanta’s” your best shot. Are you going to try to get tickets? If so, I’d love to hear from you!

PARTY WARS: ARE ANTI-ABORTIONISTS THE PROBLEM?

Dan Lehr — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:58:54 +0000

The latest installment of our listening in to the discussions among conservatives about the future of the conservative movement, after the jump.

There’s been a lot of reaction to this column by Kathleen Parker, a conservative who believes the party’s adherence to an anti-abortion platform is what helped ‘do them in’ this year.

Eunomia’s Daniel Larison:

“The argument that opposition to abortion in particular is somehow a drag on the GOP is one that doesn’t seem persuasive even at first glance, and it becomes less so the more one engages it. In state after state, somewhere between a quarter and a third of Democrats right now say that they are pro-life, but for a variety of reasons they remain in the Democratic Party because they find its positions on economic policy, social services and the like to be preferable. The ever-elusive 60-70% of the Hispanic vote that keeps going to Democrats, despite the alleged “natural” Republicanism of this community (a “natural” Republicanism defined by claims of socially conservative attitudes), remains elusive because of other policies endorsed by the GOP. That doesn’t mean that these voters would move into the GOP column even if Republicans altered their views (i.e., moved to the left) on a number of other issues, but it almost certainly does mean that it is not pro-life planks in the party platform that are driving them away. As I mentioned earlier this month, the rising generation is neither more nor less pro-life than its elders, so you cannot blame the loss of young voters on this, either.

The GOP is losing younger voters, but it is not particularly because of its abortion stance. Part of the shift is structural: non-Christians, non-whites and singles are much less likely to be Republican voters, and there are a lot more non-Christians, non-whites and singles among Millennials than in the past. What is notable about this for our purposes here is that despite significant demographic and cultural changes–Millennials are less religious and more ethnically diverse–young voters’ attitudes on abortion are essentially no different from older generations that tend to be more religious and more white. Another is simply backlash against the Bush administration–most Millennials became politically conscious at the beginning of or during the Bush Era, and like all other groups in the country they have soured on the GOP as a result. An important part of this is what happened in Iraq between 2004 and today. Kerry still won 18-29 year olds in 2004, but not by the large margins that Obama did this year. It is partly the case that Bush made most of the 9/11 generation into Democratic voters primarily through his national security and foreign policy decisions, which his other prominent policies did little or nothing to counteract, but these just exacerbated the party’s problem with younger voters that has its roots in demographic and cultural changes.”

CrunchyCon’s Rod Dreher (after a major dip into the sarcasm pool):

“No, I don’t think the social and religious conservatives are blameless. We were part of this coalition, and we didn’t stand up to the party and its leaders when they were doing things they ought not to have been doing. We own our share of this disaster. But it’s objectively absurd to blame us for the GOP’s implosion, and we’d be fools to let that happen.”

George Weigel of the Ethics & Public Policy Center blames Catholics whom he says voted against their faith:

“This year, the pro-abortion candidate carried every state in what Maggie Gallagher calls the “Decadent Catholic Corridor” — the Northeast and the older parts of the Midwest. Too many Catholics there are still voting the way their grandparents did, and because that’s what their grandparents did. This tribal voting has been described by some bishops as immoral; it is certainly stupid, and it must be challenged by adult education. That includes effective use of the pulpit to unsettle settled patterns of mindlessness. This year, a gratifying number of bishops began to accept the responsibilities of their teaching office; so, now, must parish pastors.”

To which Ross Douthat (insightfully, I think) responds:

“In 1980, ‘84 and ‘88, Republican (and pro-life) Presidential candidates managed to capture nearly all of the Midwest and the Northeast, “settled patterns of mindlessness” notwithstanding. Now here we are twenty years later, with FDR and JFK even further in the rearview mirror - and yet Weigel wants to chalk up the Republican Party’s horrible showing in these regions to mindless “tribal voting” among Catholic Democrats? This is self-deception, and it ill-behooves pro-lifers to engage in it. John McCain did not lose this election because the Catholic clergy failed to anathematize Barack Obama loudly enough, or because Pennsylvanians and Michiganders thought they were voting for Roosevelt or Truman. He lost it because his party flat-out misgoverned the country, in foreign and domestic policy alike, and because of late the culture war has mattered less to most Americans than the Iraq War and the economic meltdown. And pro-lifers who see the GOP as the only plausible vehicle for their goals have an obligation to look the party’s failures squarely in the face and work to fix them, instead of just doubling down on the case for single-issue pro-life voting.

No, social conservatives aren’t the problem for the GOP. But they haven’t been the solution, either: Too often, on matters ranging from the Iraq War to domestic policy, they’ve served as enablers of Republican folly, rather than as constructive critics. And calling Catholics who voted for Obama “mindless” and “stupid” is a poor substitute for building the sort of Republican Party that can attract the votes of those millions of Americans, Catholic and otherwise, who voted for the Democrats because they thought, not without reason, that George W. Bush was a disastrous president whose party should not be rewarded with a third term in the White House.”

I think Douthat is exactly right on this last point.

The problem wasn’t Palin, or her stance (symbolic & otherwise) on abortion - it was the fact that for too many people, that stance was “enough” for them, without looking critically at her other skills or abilities. For so many voters, Sarah Palin didn’t do a good enough job demonstrating why she wasn’t a female manifestation/reincarnation of George W. Bush.

It’s not enough to have a candidate “check all of your favorite boxes.” Palin will never, repeat never, succeed until she is able to convince the public she’s competent, capable, &, above all, curious about how to lead this diverse country.

What do you think?

THANK YOU, SARAH PALIN & WHAT’S-HIS-FACE

Dan Lehr — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:34:18 +0000

Above: the “Our Country Deserves Better” PAC thanks Sarah Palin for doing such a great job running against Barack Obama.

Pity that her running mate was such a drag on the ticket.

Let’s see.. what was his name again?

Hm…

Oh! Right.

ABC ‘DESPERATE’ FOR SARAH?

Dan Lehr — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:41:05 +0000

Wouldn’t you be?

From PopCrunch:

“Is Governor Sarah Palin headed to television’s Wisteria Lane?

Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry is reportedly courting the former Republican Vice-Presidential candidate for a cameo appearance on the fifth season finale of the ABC dramedy, airing in May.

Marc is “very hot to trot to have her appear on the season-five finale,” an inside source revealed to the New York Post on Thursday.

“Marc is highly enamored of Sarah and sees her as the ultimate guest star [playing] a similar version of herself. The idea has gone over surprisingly well with execs at Disney, who see it as a blockbuster based on Sarah’s huge ratings on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ “

THIS IS ONLY A RUMOR.

I’ll let you know if it pans out.

ALSO: There is a new ethics complaint filed against the Alaska governor that charges she used state property to promote her national image.

THE LONG-AWAITED 1st SARAH PALIN NEWS CONFERENCE

Dan Lehr — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:14:07 +0000

Well, this is new. Sarah Palin answering questions from a gaggle of reporters.

Do you realize she didn’t do this once during the campaign?

What if Joe Biden was as unknown on the national stage & had tried to do that?

Palin’s part in the conference lasted about three & a half minutes.. & she answered four (4) questions before being whisked offstage.

FAILING THE ‘SMELL TEST’

Dan Lehr — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:45:10 +0000

My suspicion that a rumor out there about Sarah Palin not being able to tell if Africa was a country or continent has proved correct.

Click here to read a story about how the man above helped pull a fast one over much of the mainstream media & the blogosphere.

In this job, you always need to be on your guard. & while the whole ‘Africa’ thing certainly played into Palin’s stereotype, the fact that we didn’t have a real live face making these charges didn’t pass the ’smell test’ with me.

Even though a person can write anything they want about anyone on the internet, it is beneficial for anyone to fall on the side of truth - which is essentially what I’ve been trying to tell you for 9 months now.

UPDATE: While I promise to call out any charge that proves to be untrue against her in the future, now that the “Sarah Palin Media” website has linked this story, I want to make sure you’re clear where I stand on the Palin pick.

Kevin Drum:

“Despite all the grief she’s gotten, I continue to think that the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate represents the breaking of a consensual cultural barrier far more fundamental than most people realize. It’s not just that she was inexperienced (Spiro Agnew and John Edwards weren’t much more experienced than Palin when they ran for VP) but that she was — obviously, transparently, completely — uninterested in and uninformed about national policy at nearly every level. We’ve simply never seen someone so completely unmoored from the normal requirements of national office before. She was chosen purely at the level of celebrity, and an awful lot of people seemed to be just fine with that.”

Andrew Sullivan:

“Let’s be real in a way the national media seems incapable of: this person should never have been placed on a national ticket in a mature democracy. She was incapable of running a town in Alaska competently. The impulsive, unvetted selection of a total unknown, with no knowledge of or interest in the wider world, as a replacement president remains one of the most disturbing events in modern American history. That the press felt required to maintain a facade of normalcy for two months - and not to declare the whole thing a farce from start to finish - is a sign of their total loss of nerve. That the Palin absurdity should follow the two-term presidency of another individual utterly out of his depth in national government is particularly troubling. 46 percent of Americans voted for the possibility of this blank slate as president because she somehow echoed their own sense of religious or cultural “identity”. Until we figure out how this happened, we will not be able to prevent it from happening again.”

It’s entirely forgivable for a politician to be elected to office without much experience (see Jackson, Andrew).

It’s completely unforgivable for a candidate to tout that inexperience or lack of curiosity about the world as a virtue.

I will never defend Palin or what she represents until this changes. & I don’t expect it to. She was an abject embarassment to the Republican Party, who only would have succeeded this year by eschewing the approach & style of governing used by its standard bearer, George W. Bush, for 8 years, & who embraced someone who in reality -fatally- encapsulated that failed model.

The quicker the GOP figures this out, the better.

PALIN’S 1st POST-ELECTION INTERVIEW

Dan Lehr — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:23:34 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: Part 1.

The remaining parts after the jump.

(Conservative) James Joyner:

PLAYING THE BLAME GAME

Dan Lehr — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:57:04 +0000

“I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a 10 trillion dollar debt in a Republican administration? How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration? If we’re talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party at the time had been representing. So people desiring change I think went as far from the administration that is presently seated as they could. It’s amazing that we did as well as we did.”

-Sarah Palin, to the Anchorage Daily News

That’s her take. I’m more in the school of these essential reads:

From the (conservative) Wall Street Journal:

“Their function within the conservative movement is no longer to educate and ennoble a populist political tendency, it is to defend that tendency against the supposedly monolithic and uniformly hostile educated classes. They mock the advice of Nobel Prize-winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders. They ridicule ambassadors and diplomats while promoting jingoistic journalists who have never lived abroad and speak no foreign languages. And with the rise of shock radio and television, they have found a large, popular audience that eagerly absorbs their contempt for intellectual elites. They hoped to shape that audience, but the truth is that their audience has now shaped them.”

“There was a time when conservative intellectuals raised the level of American public debate and helped to keep it sober. Those days are gone. As for political judgment, the promotion of Sarah Palin as a possible world leader speaks for itself. The Republican Party and the political right will survive, but the conservative intellectual tradition is already dead. And all of us, even liberals like myself, are poorer for it.”

(Conservative) Kathleen Parker chimes in:

“Palin covered her inadequacies with folksy charm and by drumming up a class war, turning her audiences not just against elites but against the party’s own educated members. The movement created by that superelite, but never elitist, William F. Buckley Jr. was handed over to Joe Six-Pack. Know-nothingness was no longer a stigma, but a badge of honor.

The Republican Party’s Baghdad Bobism with regard to Palin, a denial so pernicious that party operatives were willing to let her sit a heartbeat away from the presidency in a time of war and financial collapse, revealed what really ails the party. The “P Factor” isn’t a single person but a sickness that will have to be acknowledged and cured—Republicans will be reciting their newly tailored principles only to themselves.”

“…it’s inconceivable that she got elected and re-elected to so many offices over the years, culminating with a state governorship, by being an airhead. She’s obviously quite charismatic and a strong campaigner. And I’m sure she knows Alaska issues backwards and forwards. I saw little evidence, though, that she’s very interested in foreign policy or most issues of American domestic policy. That doesn’t make her a bad person — she’s in the same boat as most Americans on that score — but it made her a bad choice for the vice presidency.”

& finally, (conservative) Rod Dreher:

“The right has developed a vicious habit of tagging any dissenting conservative as a closet liberal. This folly has constructed an airtight bubble around the GOP and conservative leaders, not only depriving conservatism of constructive criticism from within its ranks, but also reinforcing the rank-and-file’s worst instincts. If the election results didn’t convince Republicans that they couldn’t afford to throw people out – especially their intellectuals and people who respect intellect – then their ignorance is invincible.”

What do you think?

SECRET SERVICE BLAMES PALIN FOR MAKING THEIR JOB HARDER

Dan Lehr — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:29:40 +0000

From the UK Telegraph:

“The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.

The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.

Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: “Why would they try to make people hate us?”

…

Details of the spike in threats to Mr Obama come as a report last week by security and intelligence analysts Stratfor, warned that he is a high risk target for racist gunmen. It concluded: “Two plots to assassinate Obama were broken up during the campaign season, and several more remain under investigation. We would expect federal authorities to uncover many more plots to attack the president that have been hatched by white supremacist ideologues.”"

WATCH OUT FOR THE SHRAPNEL

Dan Lehr — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:19:50 +0000

Above: Fox News’ Carl Cameron has an inside tip from a McCain staffer that Sarah Palin

a. Couldn’t name the countries in NAFTA

b. Didn’t realize Africa was a continent, not a country

c. Repeatedly threw temper-tantrums at bad press clippings, &

d. Did not adequately prepare for the now infamous Katie Couric interview.

The New York Times has more here.

While this does conform with other stories about Sarah Palin’s lack of ‘knowledgeability,’ & it definitely adds weight to the story that it’s leaked to Fox News, it’s worth pointing out that post-election revealed internal strife is a common occurrence in a losing campaign.

I would hesitate to call these allegations true until we have a face to put behind these allegations.

Regardless of whether they’re true, I still believe Sarah Palin was an astoundingly poor choice for John McCain. While she provided a temporary boost in the polls, the transparency of this cynical pick on John McCain’s part revealed to voters that he was far more concerned with winning an election than with picking the right person. & that’s a quality -putting winning above all else- we have seen far too often in the current administration, much to the detriment of this country.

& Palin defenders, you need to ask yourselves: how would you have treated a pick like this if it came from the Democrats?

What do you think?

LIVE-BLOGGING THE FINAL DAY, PART II

Dan Lehr — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:03:55 +0000

With 1 Day to Go, a Family Tragedy

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Barack Obama says that his grandmother has died.
The Democratic presidential candidate announced the news in a joint statement with his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng. He said his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had died peacefully after a battle with cancer.
He said: “She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances.”
The candidate learned of her death Monday morning while he was campaigning in Jacksonville, Fla. He planned to go ahead with campaign appearances.
Late last month, Obama took a break from campaigning and flew to Hawaii to be with the 86-year-old Dunham, who helped raise him.

Read Obama’s family’s statement here.

Yes, she did already vote absentee for her grandson.

Election Day Forecast

The Storm Track 9 weather team tells me that the only weather events that might possibly effect voters is some rain that’ll hit eastern NC & eastern VA.

I’m told the rain will be light.. with a year that’s seen turnout busting all records, I hazard a guess that weather won’t play into the final outcome.

Above: Obama in Columbus, Ohio today.

Above: Biden in Lee’s Summit, Missouri today

Above: McCain in Moon Township, PA (I’m still looking for his Blountville, TN appearance on the YouTubes)

Above: Sarah Palin in Jefferson City, Missouri

Read what a former Bush voter in North Carolina found out about voters while canvassing with his wife.

LIVE BLOGGING THE FINAL DAY

Dan Lehr — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:58:38 +0000

What’s going on?

In this post, which will remain up until Tuesday night, I’m pulling back the curtain & showing you exactly what news about campaign 2008 I am checking throughout the day.

The most recent entry will be at the top; to start from the beginning, scroll to the bottom.

& I want to hear what you think! Click here to post a comment.

Calvin Can’t Stop Talking about McCain’s Tennessee Stop

Amazing on a day when his beloved Tennessee Vols are in the news.. Calvin says he’s got a better idea for McCain’s strategy in winning NC & VA than stopping in Blountville:

A campaign stop in the Tri-Cities was bad strategy for McCain, trying to woo SW Virginia and Western NC voters.. True, two of the three TV stations with strong VHF signals (WCYB-TV, Channel 5 and WJHL-TV, Channel 11), do indeed blanket all of SW Virginia and part of Western North Carolina.

But SW Virginia voters work and shop in Tri-Cities, Tennessee. As a result, they are usually politically aligned with their neighbors in Upper East Tennessee.. SW Virginia voters are mostly Republican, voting the same way upper East Tennessee has voted for generations, and this includes absentee voting, early voting, and Election Day-of voting.

A Republican visit by a presidential candidate and covered heavily on Tri-Cities TV, only reinforces the way SW Virginia voters are going to vote anyway.

AND, Tri-Cities stations only get marginally viewership from Western North Carolina counties, and even then, mostly along the TN-NC border, because the mountains cut the signals off.

A much better media consideration for McCain would have been, a stop in Asheville, North Carolina, and then one in Roanoke, Virginia.. The 3 main reasons being:

1) Only two years ago, Western North Carolina elected Democrat Heath Shuler to Congress, and Tri-Cities station signals simply don’t reach that far down into that state. 2) The Roanoke TV market. A McCain visit in Roanoke would have had more of an impact on Central Virginia voters that all watch WSLS-TV, WDBJ-TV and WSET-TV from Roanoke-Lynchburg, and would have given McCain double-coverage, because Tri-Cities TV stations, mindful of their SW Virginia audience, would cover it extensively for their SW Virginia viewers anyway.

3) WLOS-TV, Asheville. With a transmitter signal coming from atop one of the highest points in the Eastern United States, and blanketing ALL of Western North Carolina, a McCain visit would have saturated the western third of the state, including that Democratic pocket that elected Heath Shuler, and also have been covered extensively by the rest of the North Carolina media.

Thanks, Calvin! .

Election Day Times

Mon/2:07pm

Click here for a full rundown of election times in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama & North Carolina.

Mor McCane Mispellingz

Mon/1:49pm

Think Progress has discovered three instances of misspelled words in McCain’s ads that have aired in the last month.

Come on, guys! Do you really have to get them out that fast?

The Dog That Didn’t Bark

Mon/1:23pm

The Politico’s Jonathan Martin speculates what the 2008 campaign would look like if McCain & surrogates used Rev. Wright as an issue more:

“Conversations with a number of veteran GOP consultants indicate that using Wright may have helped McCain with one set of voters — but would have hurt with others and not ultimately proved decisive in a contest subsumed by larger external forces such as the economic crisis and the unpopularity of President Bush and the Republican Party.”

McCain deserves credit for not ‘going there.’

As Liddy Dole is about to find out, attacking someone’s faith only ends up hurting the attacker in the end.

Why’s He in Tennessee Today?

Mon/1:18pm

He’s stopping in Blountville - you can be assured I’ll be looking for clips to post later today.

But why Blountville? He’s got the Volunteer State wrapped up.

Marc Ambinder says:

So why is Sen. McCain campaigning in Blountville, TN?

It has nothing to do with Blountville.

It has everything to do with the parts of rural North Carolina and rural Virginia that share its media market.

NewsChannel9 anchor & expert in all things ‘upper-east Tennessee’ Calvin Sneed says:

“I already knew that.. One-third of the audience that WCYB-TV and WJHL-TV reach are in Southwest Virginia up to Roanoake, and Western North Carolina, within a 70 mile circumference of Asheville. Too bad Kentucky is not a swing state. Those two stations also blanket Eastern-Southeastern Kentucky. I also knew two weeks ago, he’d be coming to Tri-Cities before the end of the campaign.”

Good Gravy!

Mon/1:12PM

As if Georgia’s not enough (scroll down), check out North Carolina’s polls, which have tightened as of today.

Mapping a McCain Win

Mon/11:48am

Nate Silver looks at several computer models. His top projection is above.

If You’re Reading This, You’re Part of the Revolution

Mon/10:47am

Look at these numbers from Pew, which shows internet usage has TRIPLED this year, while TV & newspaper usage remains static.

Truly amazing.

“My Wife Made Me Canvass for Obama”

Mon/10:40am

The Five States to Watch on Election Night

Mon/10:34am

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com (one of the true internet stars of Campaign 2008) says the states to keep an eye on will be:

1. Virginia

2. Colorado

3. Pennsylvania

4. Ohio

5. Nevada

Read why here.

Does Obama Realistically Have a Shot at Arizona?

Mon/10:30 am

Marc Ambinder speculates & has some things to watch in the Grand Canyon State tomorrow night.

Not All TN Polling Times Are the Same

Mon/10:16am

The election director in Polk County, TN just e-mailed NewsChannel9:

Please have Channel 9 broadcast Polk, Meigs, and McMinn County Polling Hours on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, to BEGIN AT 9:00 A.M. AND CLOSE AT 8:00 P.M. Your viewers hear Hamilton County hours and assume ours is the same. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

“Phone Gap” in the Polls?

Mon/10:12am

“The cellphone polls have Obama ahead by an average of 9.4 points; the landline-only polls, 5.1 points.”

- Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight.com

Obama in Cincinnati

Mon/10:03am

Above: Obama in Cincinnati yesterday.

I’m keeping an eye out for clips of the candidates today, so check back later.

McCain in Florida

Mon/10:01am

Above: a midnight rally in Miami, last night.

Where the Race Stands

Mon/9:54am

Above: NBC’s Chuck Todd maps out McCain’s path to victory.

From Chuck & others at MSNBC’s First Read blog:

*** Obama has a clear lead: With just a day left until Election Day, Obama holds an eight-point lead over McCain among likely voters, 51%-43%, according to the final national NBC/WSJ poll before the election. That’s down slightly from Obama’s 53%-to-42% advantage from almost two weeks ago. Still, to put his current lead into perspective, the last NBC/WSJ survey before the 2004 presidential election showed Bush with a slim one-point edge over Kerry, 48%-47%. Bush went on to win that election, 51%-48%. Looking inside the crosstabs, Obama’s advantage is largely based on his overwhelming success with African Americans (winning them 90%-3%), Latinos (68%-27%), and 18 to 34 year olds (59%-38%). It’s about as solid of a three-legged support stool as any candidate could ask for. Obama also wins independents (48%-38%), blue-collar voters (51%-44%), suburban voters (49%-44%), and Catholics (49%-46%). McCain, meanwhile, has the advantage among evangelicals (78%-19%), those 65 and older (53%-40%), white men (54%-42%), and white women (48%-47%). One more thing: 30% say they’ve already voted, and those voters break by an identical 51%-43% margin. One thing that might keep the McCain folks somewhat hopeful about our numbers: We have Democrats with a +10 advantage on party ID; McCain’s team believes the electorate won’t produce that margin tomorrow.

*** Liking McCain but loving Obama: The poll also shows that McCain and Obama are pretty well liked by voters. McCain has a 47%-39% fav/unfav rating, while Obama’s is larger at 56%-35%. But what’s striking is the intensity gap — almost twice as many respondents (44%) rate Obama “very positive” than they do for McCain (24%). In short, McCain’s supporters like him, but Obama’s LOVE him. Think about that 44% number for a minute: Obama’s overall ballot number is 51%, meaning that 86% of Obama’s supporters have a VERY positive view of him. Not since Reagan in 1980 has a base of supporters loved its nominee so much. Also, for the second-straight NBC/WSJ poll, Palin has a net-negative fav/unfav (39%-48%), while Biden has a net-positive one (50%-30%). In fact, if you add up Obama’s and Biden’s favorable scores, you get 106; for McCain-Palin, it’s 86.

Good Grief!

Mon/9:45am

Georgia has become THE state to watch.

Just look at those polls!

It’s quite possible (& I chose it as such in the pool) that it could be the state with the closest margin of victory for either candidate.

The Senate race, I believe, is still Saxby Chambliss’ to lose.. but that prediction gets upended, I think, with an Obama upset.

What do you think?

Where They’re Headed in the Final Stretch

Mon/9:39am

From the AP: “UNDATED (AP) - As if today’s fever-pitch campaigning weren’t enough, the presidential candidates will break tradition and stump on Election Day. John McCain goes to Colorado and New Mexico. Barack Obama swings through Indiana before returning to Chicago. McCain rallied Latino voters just after midnight in Miami. Later this morning, he takes his message to Tampa, then to Tennessee, where he’ll be able to hit the Virginia media market. Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona also will see McCain. Running mate Sarah Palin is trying to woo conservatives in Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada. Obama’s route is geographically less demanding. He rallies this morning in Jacksonville, Fla., and later goes to Virginia and North Carolina. His running mate, Joe Biden, is going to Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Polls show the six closest states are Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio. The campaigns also are running aggressive ground games elsewhere, including Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado and Virginia.”

Tennessee? Yes, McCain will be in Blountville. Read more here.

What’s Gonna Happen?

Mon/9:32am

Click here for a post I added featuring questions for an election night pool that I’m taking part in.

Feel free to register your predictions in the comments section!

When Polls Close Tomorrow

Mon/8:43am

Courtesy of the Huffington Post

This all gets tossed out the window if lines are long.. which may be why we may not know results of the states on that map until well after the polls are supposed to close..

Joe the Plumber Questions Obama’s Patriotism

Mon/8:42am

Above: Joe the Plumber on the Fox News Channel over the weekend.

Palin “Punk’d”

Mon/8:38am

Above: two Canadian comedians fool Palin into thinking she’s talking to the President of France.

That’s a New One

Mon/8:35am

Above: South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, saying the polls demonstrate Barack Obama is “the virtual incumbent,” & thus can’t win in this environment that’s hungry for change.

New Anti-Biden Ad: “Lies & Sighs”

Mon/8:28am

This ad is effective, but made slightly less so by the misspelling on the screen, 0:56 seconds in:

From the Washington Post:

Pennsylvania Republicans Bring Up Wright in New Ad

Mon/8:20am

(Warning: blasphemous language)

Why is Pennsylvania such a battleground? Voters don’t vote early there.

Obamacan Update

Mon/8:13am

Roger Cohen:

“Lifelong Republicans turning to Obama has been one of the themes I’ve picked up in this campaign, ever since, back in January, I ran into Bryant Jones, an Idaho-raised Republican who’d volunteered for Obama in South Carolina.For Jones, it was disenchantment with “my-way-or-the-highway politics and the same old faces.””

“My-way-or-the-highway” politics. That’s a major reason President Bush was such a failure (read more of my thoughts on that here, in yesterday’s post). & I hope that both Democrats and Republicans heed the lesson in this: no matter who is president - but particularly if a President Obama finds himself with a Democratic majority in Congress - we can’t afford to discount a person’s idea because they aren’t a member of the right party. Obama will fall, & fall hard if he tries this. This is the singular reason President Bush did such a bad job - all recent presidents from all recent parties recognized they’d never succeed by paying attention to the needs of just one constituency. UPDATE: Mon/10:23am: More Obamacans explain themselves here & here. .

Why a McCain Win Would Be a Good Thing for Liberals

Mon/8:09am

The conservative New York Times columnist (who bears quite a bit of responsibility for bringing Sarah Palin to the world, not to mention the Iraq war) writes liberals should think the world has ended if John McCain wins, for reasons including:

“It would be a victory for an underdog. Liberals are supposed to like underdogs. McCain is a lonely guy standing up against an unprecedentedly well-financed, superorganized, ExxonMobil-like Obama juggernaut. A McCain upset victory would be a classic liberal happy ending.”

Why She’s Failed to Catch Fire

Mon/8:02am

Of course she’s caught fire among members of the Republican base. But she’s certainly not winning over independents or moderate Republicans (scroll down for a new poll for more on that).

Peter Beinart suggests it may be that her appearance came at the end of the ‘Culture War:”

“Why has America turned on Sarah Palin? Obviously, her wobbly television interviews haven’t helped. Nor have the drip, drip of scandals from Alaska, which have tarnished her reformist image. But Palin’s problems run deeper, and they say something fundamental about the political age being born. Palin’s brand is culture war, and in America today culture war no longer sells. The struggle that began in the 1960s — which put questions of racial, sexual and religious identity at the forefront of American politics — may be ending. Palin is the end of the line.” .

Strategic Strengths & Weaknesses

Mon/7:57am

Great summary of what went right for Obama & wrong for McCain from E.J. Dionne:

ON McCAIN:

“In state after state during the primaries, McCain drew heavily on the votes of independents, moderates and Republicans who were unhappy with Bush. But instead of carrying on as the un-Bush who defied conservative orthodoxy, McCain embraced the right for fear of losing it. He chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, which finally earned him cries of approval from the GOP base but sent moderate voters scurrying Obama’s way.”"

ON OBAMA:

“He saw an opening for a young African American senator with brief Washington experience, realizing that the very unlikeliness of his candidacy would enhance its attractiveness.

He did more than give Americans a chance to ease the burdens of race. He invited them to embrace his very newness and thereby move past the 1960s, the ’80s, the ’90s and the Bush era all at once. “It’s time to turn the page,” Obama would say, and there were many pages Americans wanted to turn.

His post-everything candidacy, wrapped in a powerful rhetoric of hope, was immensely attractive to the young. They became the happy warriors of campaign manager David Plouffe’s meticulously organized national machine. It worked its magic in neighborhoods never before blessed with even a precinct captain.”

Pretty much the race, in a nutshell.

ABC Poll: He’s a Net Positive, She’s a Net Negative

Mon/7:53am

Respondents’ reactions to Sarah Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee, are also closely linked to how much they factor age into their preferences: Sixty percent of those who said age is an important consideration said Palin lowers the odds that they will vote for the GOP ticket. Overall, nearly half of all respondents said they are less likely to vote for McCain because she is on the ticket, a sharp increase from previous polls.

By contrast, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. is a net positive for Obama, even as nearly six in 10 respondents said the senator from Delaware does not influence their views one way or the other.

ABC Poll: McCain’s ‘Socialist’ Attacks Aren’t Sticking

Mon/7:50am

From the Washington Post:

The new Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll puts Obama well out in front over Republican John McCain and finds that Obama has firmly reestablished his advantage on handling the economy, beaten back a challenge on taxes and has an edge in terms of perceptions about which candidate would better deal with an unexpected major crisis.

The McCain campaign, meanwhile, has countered with improved outreach into the tossup states, neutralizing what had been a big advantage for the Democrat 10 days ago. More than a third of all voters in the six states The Post calls “up for grabs” — Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Montana, Missouri and Indiana — said they have heard from the McCain campaign in the past week. That is up sharply from the third week of October and on par with the number who have been contacted by Obama’s campaign.

Obama and McCain roughly split the vote in the six states combined — 51 percent back Obama, and 47 percent support McCain. Overall in the tracking poll, Obama holds an 11-point advantage, at the top end of the seven-to-11-point range he has held since the final presidential debate in mid-October.”

Live from New York

Mon/7:39am:

Watch McCain’s funny Saturday Night Live appearance here. Check this Vote08 post to see a clip of an earlier SNL McCain appearance (he sings Streisand!).

UPDATE/Mon-10:09am

James Fallows says this SNL appearance shows that McCain has accepted defeat.

Essential reading from the dean of the Washington Press Corps here.

2 DAYS OUT

Dan Lehr — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:18:14 +0000

“The Best Race I Ever Covered“

I think David Broder speaks for us all.

“It’s been so rich with precedent and incident — and so very, very long — that we have, if anything, undervalued and even lost sight of its significance at times. In these final hours there’s some sense in pausing, pulling back and taking the broad measure of a contest that’s sure to affect not only this country’s civic life but also its emotional and psychological landscape for some time to come.” - Frank Bruni, the NY Times

Commentary: Why Was He Such a Failure?

[before reading any further: check out this post, in which historian Doris Kearnes Goodwin outlines what makes a great president 'great.']

As much as the right would like to avoid it, 2008 most certainly a referendum on the policies of George W. Bush. He has always had a core of support (& I strongly suspect those hardcore supporters also find themselves rooting hard for Sarah Palin right now), but has had the lowest & most drawn-out approval rating of any modern president.

Why?

President Bush failed as a president because of his inability to adapt to what the times required. & as Scott McClellan famously said in his tell-all earlier this year, his administration conducted business in a “permanent campaign” mode.

President Bush governed on a binary basis. Binary could mean assigning everything a “0″ or a “1″ .. or one could look at it like an on/off switch. The administration either catered to the “1s,” those who comprised the administration, or those who would keep that administration in power either in public opinion or the ballot box, & did the opposite to the “0s,” which at the start of his administration meant anyone who voted for Al Gore (almost 50% of the nation). This ‘binary’ policy applied to foreign policy (”you’re either with us or against us”) & domestic policy (”anyone who disagrees with us aren’t true patriots & want the United States to fail”).

No president before Bush ran the White House so full-throttle in this direction. & only in the last couple of years (roughly since the 2006 congressional elections which reputed this style of government) has George W. Bush begun to reverse this approach’s catastrophic effects.

Bill Clinton was forced to declare “the era of big government is over” after his party’s resounding defeat in the 1994 congressional elections.

George H.W. Bush was forced to renege on his “no new taxes” pledge when it was clear that there was no other option to keep the budget out of the red.

Ronald Reagan had to sit down & talk with Democratic congressional leaders to work out compromises on the budget, tax rates, & election reform.

President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Administration, among other departments that are now viewed by the right as ‘liberal causes.’

My point is that every President necessarily has to bend with the times. Compromises were made for the overall good of the country, even though it meant that any particular president’s ideological beliefs would take a hit.

Not so with President Bush. He was not a president who surrounded himself with people who challenged his assumptions enough. He often “went with his gut” in making decisions, rather than glean empirical data or alternate points of view.

Again, the President has recently turned back on this “black & white” view of the world, & things in many areas of the world have improved. Iraq. North Korea. Iran. We are now involved in negotiations with all three countries, which were earlier deemed ‘the axis of evil.’

We are starting to see a military policy that recognizes that those who practice Islam do not all feel the same way about things, an assumption as silly as assuming the same for all Christians.

This year, thankfully, we are turning the page on a dark chapter in the history of the American presidency. It’s as if Herbert Hoover were elected after the stock market crashed, or James Buchanan were president after the Civil War started.

Either men running for president now would have served us far better in the last 8 years.. John McCain especially. & that’s why part of the Shakespearean tragedy that is John McCain most poignant is the fact that McCain had a decent shot at the presidency back in 2000, right after he beat George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary.

But what happened? Those who favored George W. Bush’s rise to power set in motion an ugly & destructive campaign in the state of South Carolina. McCain’s loss there effectively dashed his hopes for realizing his destiny as the 43rd presidency of the United States.

That in and of itself is tragic. But even more so is the fact that those very forces that kept McCain down 8 years ago joined his campaign late this summer, & have been running it ever since. Considering the personal integrity I have seen in this man for 8 years now, McCain truly struck up a deal with the devil. Everything that happened afterward - the Palin choice, the ‘lipstick on a pig’ distraction, the erraticness of McCain’s campaign of the week of the bailout bill, the branding of Obama as a ’socialist Marxist what-have-you’ - is from the playbook of those who have been in power for the past 8 years.

I suggest making your choice based on how you feel things have been run for the past 8 years. If you are leaning McCain, you have to take a leap of faith that he will upon election immediately eschew these forces at work & become a President who doesn’t put a party’s success over the country’s. & if you are leaning Obama, you have to take a leap of faith that the executive powers that were expanded by an order of magnitude in the last 8 years will not be continued under the leadership of a president from a different party.

No matter who your choice is, I believe that above all else, your vote should be based on which candidate - & as you can read above, an argument can be made for both - would run the nation in a manner that does not resemble the management style of George W. Bush.

That’s my opinion, & you’re free to disagree. Scroll down & leave a comment if you have anything to say. All viewpoints are welcome.

Gleeful & Glum

From the AP:

“That smiling guy walking down the street? Odds are he’s a Barack Obama backer. The grouchy looking one? Don’t ask, and don’t necessarily count on him to vote next week, either. Supporters of John McCain, long less enthusiastic than Obama’s, have become increasingly glum about the presidential campaign in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Saturday.”

Above: home-video from an Obama rally in Pueblo, Colorado yesterday.

Above: McCain in Newport News, Virginia yesterday.

Above: home-video of Biden at BGCU yesterday.

Above: home-video from a Palin rally in Glenn Allen, Virginia yesterday.

VOTE08’s GREATEST HITS

Dan Lehr — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 17:10:52 +0000

Revisit the Debates

Watch the 1st Presidential Debate here.

Watch the Vice-Presidential Debate here. Who won? Click here.

Watch the 2nd Presidential Debate here. Who won? Click here.

Watch the 3rd Presidential Debate here. Who won? Click here.

(image by Matt Brunson)

4 DAYS OUT

Dan Lehr — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:43:29 +0000

(left: image by Matt Brunson. Click on the picture to read our post explaining how they’re the Fantastic Four)

REMINDER: Today is the last day to vote early in Georgia

“Yes We Carve“

By the way, there’s a whole website dedicated to Obama-themed Pumpkins. Click here.

How to carve a McCain pumpkin: click here.

Hamilton County Donor Update

NewsChannel9’s Kim Fields found this info online:

McCain:

# of Contributors: 493
Amount Donated: $265,972.00

Average contribution: $539.50

Obama:

# of Contributors: 1189
Amounted Donated: $233,556.00

Average contribution: $196.43
.

McCain’s Closing Ad: ‘Freedom’

Obama in Iowa

“Or???“

Above: McCain with GMA’s Robin Roberts. What do you think he means?

Gore Stumps in His ‘Waterloo’ State

Above: Al Gore in West Palm Beach, Florida today.

An Unforced Error

From the LA Times:

“On Thursday at a rally in Erie, Pa., Sarah Palin touted the victors in the World Series to thousands of supporters. “I am thrilled to be here in the home state of the world-champion Philadelphia Phillies,” Palin said.

The crowd booed.

Philadelphia is a seven-hour drive from Erie, which is in the state’s far west. Erie’s baseball devotions are split between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cleveland Indians. (Pittsburgh and Cleveland are about two hours away.)”

Hunkering Down

E-mail from a relative who’s an ardent Rush Limbaugh lover, Obama-fearer, & McCain-Palin voter (in that order)***:

“This weekend you should stock up on batteries, canned goods, matches, fill your car with gas, dried beans, corn, etc, jerky, and fill up available containers with potable water. If you have water purification equipment keep it handy. If you have white gas lanterns, stoves, etc, make sure they are in good operation and that you have plenty of fuel by this Tuesday. Having lived through the MLK and the Bobby K. killings, I know it pays to be prepared.”

***CLARIFICATION: said relative says “You got the order wrong. It’s #1) Palin, #2) Limbaugh, #3,497) (tie) McCain and O’Bama-both liberals (but McCain is a couple of points ahead because he would not appoint Hillary to the Supreme Court.)”

Dole Doubles Down

Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video.

The North Carolina incumbent senator airs yet another ad attacking her rival, Kay Hagan.

Thanks to NewsChannel9’s Kim Fields for the tip.

(Not) Covering the Biggest Rumors of Campaign 2008

Politico pulls back the curtain to reveal the biggest rumor tips from viewers that they chose not to cover. Personally, at NewsChannel9 the most common one -by far- we got from callers/e-mailers/Vote08 commenters was the ‘Obama citizenship’ story, about which Politico says:

“So why isn’t this getting wide coverage? Well, first, there’s lots of evidence that Obama was born in the United States, and none that he wasn’t. The campaign handed over an official copy of his short-form birth certificate — the standard document produced by the Hawaii Department of Health — to Factcheck.org. And Poliltico has confirmed the authenticity of a contemporaneous announcement of his birth in the Honolulu Advertiser.”

Two New Obama Ads

Palin on Good Morning America

Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video.

Why Black People Shouldn’t Vote for Obama

Check the latest Georgia poll average here.

An independent ad above says Because Martin Luther King said so.

Obama: “Game Back On” in GA

ATLANTA (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama is putting television ads back up on the air in Georgia.
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Friday “early vote is going extremely well in Georgia.”
In September, the Obama camp took down its ads and moved some paid staff out of Georgia suggesting it was retreating from its pledge to compete in the reliably Republican state.
But new polls have suggested Obama is close to GOP candidate John McCain in the state. And blacks have turned out in disproportionately high numbers for early voting.
Plouffe said the state is winnable, although any victory would be a narrow one.

I’d have to say out of all the states, that one is by far the most interesting.

Obama’s also now buying ad time in North Dakota (!) & Arizona (!!). Read more here.

New Endorsement for McCain: From Obama

NC Senate Race: Hagan Responds to Dole’s ‘Godless’ Ad

Watch the Dole ad in this Vote08 post.

North Carolina newspapers weigh in:

“..worse than dishonest.” - the Greensboro News Record

“..one of the more egregious examples of negative campaigning.” - the Asheville Citizen-Times

“It has no place in N.C. politics.” - the Charlotte Observer

The Center-Right Candidate for a Center-Right Country

Despite McCain’s admission he “doesn’t know much about economics,” Charles Krauthammer argues (somewhat bitterly, it seems) that McCain’s economic plans would be more appropriate given the overall politics of the nation.

Still Undecided?

An AP Poll finds 1 in 7 - 14% - of voters remain undecided, with just 4 days to go:

“Who are they? They look a lot like the voters who’ve already locked onto a candidate, though they’re more likely to be white and less likely to be liberal. And they disproportionately backed Hillary Rodham Clinton’s failed run for the Democratic nomination.”

Kathleen Parker has an exercise designed to help you make your choice.

Yesterday’s ‘Last Day’ to Early Vote in TN

Above: watch our report at 5:30 on what’s on voters’ minds.

Final tally: 67,515 people in Hamilton County voted early. By my calculation (PDF file), that’s 49% of ALL voters for president from Hamilton County in 2004.

Also, early voting in Hamilton County increased by 154% from 2004.

That. Is. Amazing.

Hamilton County Clerk Bill Knowles faxed NewsChannel 9 on Friday to say that he’s placing a police officer on site at the election commission next Tuesday to “safeguard the equipment & ballots.”

She’s Here to Stay

I agree with Eugene Robinson today, who acknowledges Sarah Palin will be a national figure even if her ticket (sorry, make that McCain’s ticket) doesn’t win next Tuesday. Her star is nothing but rising. Those who discount her as a “lightweight” or “bubble-headed” do so at their own peril.

Happy Halloween from Vote08!

[& for those of you who don't honor the holiday - Happy Reformation Day!]