KateAndDally

Dubious Efforts...

As a government relations professional, I think this is a waste of time and good feeling on the part of the pro-life constituency.  If I were an RC, I'd be pretty annoyed that I was being asked to spend time and treasure on a non-existent piece of legislation.

It's almost like saying pro-lifers are too dumb to know better. 

Go Away, Go Very Far Away...

This guy, and this guy...Enough, already.  An in the case of the mayor, the man's powers of persuasion are supernatural.  He convinced someone (why is it always a woman?) to give him a kidney.

Live-Blogging the Returns

I don't think I can stand it much longer....and when we hit 270, am I going to run screaming out into the street?  I think so.  45 years after Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington; 43 years after the Voting Rights Act, after all the arguments about affirmative action and all the court cases and reverse discrimination, after all the resentment and criticism, the US is about to elect a black man as President, not because he is black but because we judged him on his abilities and on the content of his character; and we found him worthy.  This is a great day.

Update

PBS says Zogby and Reuters have Arizona to the "Toss Up" or lesser-evil "Leans R" column, possibly based on heavy Hispanic turnout for Obama...that's what you get for caving in to the immigrant-haters...Tell me why a cohort of conservative Catholics might vote for the more (alarming) socially liberal party...hum, might it be because they sense they aren't welcome in their natural home?  Bite your tongue, Mrs. O. 

Virginia polls close at 7 p.m. EST, but the reality is that anyone in line to vote at 7 p.m. will get to vote, so I'm not hopeful we'll get returns at any time soon...

Indiana polls close early too (some of them -- there's that pesky time zone issue) so we'll be focusing on Indianapolis; and Kentucky will follow after that.

Update

all eyes on black turnout ...Ohio closes at 7:30 EST...all eyes swivel to Ohio...eyes, be careful, don't pop out from all that swiveling...my local election judge just emailed our neighorhood listserv saying "come vote now no lines..." but I voted this morning...  In line at 6:45 a.m. (MD polls opened at 7 a.m .), there were 200 people in front of me, but it went smoothly and I was out of there by 7:30, feeling righteous.

PBS is bragging about their Video Your Vote project, done on conjunction with YouTube, and you can see it here.  Video recordings of the voting experience from around the country.

Update

Still on PBS -- Richard Norton Smith is expounding on how this is a historic election, and feels like another change election, that of 1980.  Well, Duh.

Update

KY for M, VT for O; GA too close to call, as is Indiana (??)

Internets, bloody internets...but it seems to be back up and OBAMA is projected to take PA

O has 103 elec votes, M has 34

Update

Obama has taken New England, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Maryland...toss up states still voting; "lean" states still leaning...(do they ever fall over?)  Good news: Kay Hagen has won NC Senate from "Godless" Liddy Dole, wheee!

Update

Georgia (a "lean") called for McCain, also Alabama and Tennessee and Oklahoma..oh cripes, I can't keep up

Msnbc puts Obama with 175 EVs (electoral votes) and McCain with 70...

Update

OBAMA JUST FLIPPED OHIO!!!! Go, baby, go!  And he's got New Mexico and he'll take Florida and California...he's done it.  HE'S DONE IT!!!!!

Or, as Offering Boy put it, "FINALLY Ohio is useful to us!"

Update

here is an election doggle, with her long nose out of joint (I wouldn't let her flop across the laptop keyboard)

Update

11 p.m. EST - California, Oregon and Washington state polls close -- MSNBC, CNN HAVE JUST CALLED THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FOR BARACK OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!  PRAISE JESUS!

Why Race Matters

Because there is no modern equivalent to an Obama presidency in the developed world.  Think about it -- there's no Pakistani-British or Indian-British politician leading any of the British parties; nor the Irish, Scots or Canadian parties.  Not the Australian or New Zealand parties, either.  There's no leadingTurko-German or Franco-Algerian politician poised to become Prime Minister in those countries.  Because America electing an African-American a mere 43 years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 sends a message that yes, there is such a thing as American Exceptionalism, even if we sometimes misinterpret and misuse it.  We can be that shining city on the hill if we lead by example rather than force of arms.

And because an Obama presidency removes excuses of all sorts -- I can't change myself, I can't change my neighborhood, I can't change my country -- it's so hard.  Yes, it is hard, harder than anything I've ever had to do; but people do it.  Sometimes it's incremental, and sometimes it's Big Hairy Audacious Change.  I don't know what's coming but I can't wait to find out.

The mountain top is so very close.  By tomorrow night we'll know whether we made it to the summit or not.

Voting Bribes

In order to turn out the vote tomorrow, Starbucks, Ben & Jerry's and California Tortilla are offering freebies to anyone who says they voted.  After standing in line all day to vote, you can drink your free coffee whilest eating your free taco and then stop off for free cre cream as dessert! 

Scurrilous...

...And stupid.  Read how the GOP offered $10K to an Oxford professor to compare electronically Obama's Dreams for My Father and Wm. Ayers' memoir with an eye to proving that Ayers wrote both.

Obama Infomercial

big eyed white lady story - health care problems - cute kids, we have the same stick-ums on our car too - TLO is watching w/me - a little off-putting, looks a little too much like an infomercial -- but you have to give him props for taking the risk

Cut taxes - business tax credit for jobs in states -- OH gov strickland, KS gov Sebelius - MA gov Deval Patrick (OK, I'd leave him out)

Larry and Bonita Stewart in Sardinia, OH -- will Larry Stewart come put my floor in?  Rheumatoid arthritis lady -- no medical insurance -- she had to have SOME, didn't she?  Oh, poor guy, he has to work at Wal-Mart to make ends meet...

Health care reform, energy independence...McKinstry; energy efficiency, wind power, solar, help auto cos retool...HOW and WHO PAYS?  New era of responsibility; belt tightening; spending cuts above and beyond cost...line by line budget elimination -- sounds like he's going for line-item veto?  Or counting on "peace dividend," which is bogus as we should remember...

Juliana Sanchez, widow w/2 kids -- education in New Mexico -- works two jobs -- takes teacher training classes -- importance of parents (but what about parents who don't know how to parent?) 

Talking about his father, being defined by dad's absence rather than his presence; that's some picture of him and his dad, you can see BO's face shining with joy...

Improving patient tech; lowers cost $2500 yr, keep coverage and doc; talking about mother's death; hard and sad.  I am my brother's keeper...there is not a liberal America, or a conservative America ('04); working with Lugar on arms control, questioning of C. Rice during her confirmation process

Ford Employee Guy - 3rd generation - KY - Mark Dowell and wife Melinda; he's been cut back to every other week; father and grandfather worked there and received full retirement; wife laid off this summer; works for Union.

Talking about defending liberty, rebuilding military, renewing our global diplomacy, remembers who he's sending into battle --

Everybody here's got a story... and that's the story of America...great line

I am reminded every day that I am not a perfect man, and I will not be a perfect president; but I will open the doors of government and ask you to be involved in govt again.

In six days we can choose hope over fear, in six days we can come together as a nation and once more choose our better history...

Good stuff.  Please God let this best man win.

Wassssssssuuuuuuuuuuupppppppp?!!!!

The boys are back!

Throwin' Her Under the Bus

Has the GOP finally gotten smart about its nutwing faction?  Has common sense finally returned to our favorite conservative political party?  Is sanity on the horizon?  Or, in my giddiness over having hot water, do I overstate, seeing too much in this AP report?

For those of you too lazy to click on the link, Newsweek is running a report from the AP that the GOP has yanked the TV funding they were planning on providing MN Rep. Michele ("Useful Idjit") Bachmann.  Whee!!!!!!

Also being thrown under the bus (it's a long damn bus) are Marilyn Musgrave (CO), Tom Feeney (FL) and Joe Knollenberg (MI).  All three represent increasingly purple districts.  Musgrave is canny but socially intolerant; Feeney has ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff; and Knollenberg, who is also from the religio-conservative wing of the party, is mostly just a doctrinaire Republican from a state besieged by economic bad news.  In a so-called "normal" cycle, they might have close-ish races but they'd prevail.   Probably not this year.  (You notice how I hedge my bets.)

Well.  Sometimes it takes more than one flush to get rid of the crud.  Flush on, GOP!  Flush on!

Election Insanity Continues...

Speaking of idjits ...