Obama '08?

@Cycloptichorn,

Now how is okie supposed to be inspired to read that serious piece of journalistic expose about Obama if you go and tell him it's hilarious?

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CNN reporter waits 3 hours on voting line in Florida by David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday October 21, 2008
Early voting is currently going on in many parts of the country, and in some areas the lines are already long. However, the greatest number of problems are being reported from the battleground state of Florida.

CNN's John Zarrella visited a polling place in Broward County, where both parties have been urging their supporters to get out early, for the first day of voting on Monday.

"I always vote early, but I've never seen the crowds like this ever before," one woman told Zarrella.

Zarrella joined the line of those waiting to vote at 11:15. Half an hour later, he hadn't made much progress, though he noted optimistically, "I'm not the end of the line any more."

Zarrella spent the time talking to voters, many of whom were studying samples of the four-page ballot, which is loaded with proposed constitutional amendments that few of them were prepared to say they understood.

After an hour and a half, Zarella reported he was "almost inside the door." However, according to those coming out at that time, "it was a big mess" with "machines breaking."

It ultimately took Zarrella 3 hours and 15 minutes to get to the head of the line. "There are two machines that actually print out the ballots," Zarrella explained, "and both of the machines went down for a period of about 45 minutes."

Technical problems were also noted elsewhere in Florida on Monday. In Jacksonville, some of the vote scanning machines malfunctioned, and seven out of the fifteen had to be replaced because they were rejecting ballots. At Miami Beach City Hall, it was reported that "some of the computers used to check in voters weren't working, though there were no problems with the optical scan machines used to count ballots."

"First day, early problems," Zarrella concluded hopefully. "We'll see what happens as the weeks progress."

This video is from CNN's Newsroom, broadcast October 21, 2008.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CNN_reporter_waits_3_hours_to_1021.html

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@blueflame1,

It looks like they're still living with those paper punch ballot problems. Florida doesn't seem to learn from earlier mistakes and problems.

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@blueflame1,

What I don't get is why people are going to the polling places to vote early when they can do it from the luxury of their own home with an absentee ballot?

Sure, the first time voters need to go in person so they can produce ID, but why is everyone else doing it?

You get pretty much the same security by dropping your ballot envelope off at the desk of the neighborhood post office and asking for a receipt. If you're really concerned, you can also request proof of delivery for a couple bucks and save yourself several hourss of waiting in line.

1 Reply

@Butrflynet,

At least it's a great sign we could have a huge turnout. In Key West the lines yesterday were very long. I'll be voting on Nov. 4th. It's pretty leisurely at my precinct anyway. It looks good for Obama in Florida.

1 Reply

@blueflame1,

The latest polls show Florida is leaning Obama. That's a biggie that McCain can't lose and still win the election.

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@Cycloptichorn,

You are not able to simply declare me to be wrong Cyclops. I didn't say Obama was far left, I said he was as far left as McCain was far right. And I'm talking on the American left/right scale.

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Will the results of these early ballots leak out?

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@Butrflynet,

Butrflynet wrote:

It ain't just Florida. For more than a year now, the Obama campaign has been recruiting volunteer lawyers from every state to help protect the vote in their states.

Not surprising. Investigators too. Joe the Plumber can vouch for that. Kind of reminds one of the old Soviet Union. Don't you dare ask Obama a serious question, and you will have investigators pouring over every shred of your personal life.

I suggest people get used to it, if Obama wins.

1 Reply

@okie,

okie, Joe the "Plumber"? He hates Social Security and Medicare. Do you agree with him?

1 Reply

@blueflame1,

I don't. We've got plenty of both here.

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@Eorl,

And you survived Howard.

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@blueflame1,

Yes. Hope I do as well with the new Christian Right masquerading as the Left.

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I'm from Missouri. I live here in northern Virginia, which according to the McCain, is not the "real Virginia" whatever that means. Anyways, I find myself seriously homesick when I see all the excitement back in MO. I would have loved to have been in STL to see Obama under the arch. I know Missouri, and I know it's people. The rallies in STL and KC are certainly amazing by themselves, but for me they make me super proud.

Found this video about Obama making calls in KC. I can't help but think about the difference between talking to a human being on the phone and having a machine call you.

Pay attention to Missouri.

T
K
O

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Krugman, smart bugger that he is, makes an excellent point (warning) here...
October 21, 2008, 10:35 am

Quote:

The morning after
Four years ago George W. Bush narrowly won the presidential election, and Republicans achieved a 30-seat majority in the House and a 10-seat majority in the Senate. Immediately there was a vast chorus from the commentariat, proclaiming the death of liberalism; America, everyone said, was a conservative nation. I have a whole shelf of books with titles like Building Red America and One-Party Nation.
Maybe the current polls are all wrong. But at the moment they point to an Obama victory by a margin much larger than Bush’s in 2004, plus a Democratic majority of 50 or more in the House and something like 14 in the Senate.
So you know what the morning-after commentary will say " in fact, it’s already started. Yes: it will say that America is, um, a conservative nation.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

Any claim such as "America is a... nation" (like the ubiquitous claims from politicians/surrogates that "Americans want/don't want...") ought to be immediately suspect. They are, first of all, gross generalizations and, secondly, what they are really communicating is, "I would prefer it if you come to believe, with no evidence outside of my authoritativeness, that this statement of my preference is actually a statement of objective fact."

Over the last thirty years, we've seen the conservative movement market, very successfully, the notion Krugman points to. But as Krugman, Chomsky and many others have detailed, the claim is either greatly exaggerated or even false (eg polls on availability of abortion services, polls on universal medical, etc). Marketing-wise, it's really the same trick as "silent majority".

One necessary element of liberal/progressive operations going forward will or ought to be a push back against this notion/marketing trick.

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@Diest TKO,

No, they said "it's not the real America." That's not a Freudian slip, it's something they do very well; try to break up this country between us and them.

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Gingrich, Kristol and Norquist on strategy...

Quote:

Many critics blame former Bush operatives, such as Steve Schmidt, Mr McCain's top strategist, for undermining the senator's bipartisan appeal. "What McCain needs to do is junk the whole thing and start over," Mr Kristol proposed, urging him to reengage directly with voters and reassert his maverick personality.

Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, said Mr McCain should keep focused on taxes after the issue was brought to life this week by "Joe the Plumber", an Ohio tradesman who confronted Mr Obama over his tax plans at a campaign event. "If senator McCain and governor Palin spend the rest of this campaign focused on whether or not politicians want to take money away from you and decide how much you're allowed to keep, I suspect they win the election," Mr Gingrich told ABC.

Grover Norquist, a prominent conservative activist and anti-tax campaigner, said Mr McCain's biggest mistake was muddying his Reaganite credentials by supporting the $750bn financial sector bail-out last month. But he told the FT the election could still be won by casting Mr Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal cut from the same cloth as past Democratic candidates such as John Kerry and Michael Dukakis.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c350e28a-9cad-11dd-a42e-000077b07658.html

Here's an interesting Norquist statement to Politicio in response to Noonan and to a question from politico...

Quote:

Peggy Noonan calls Palin "a mark against McCain." But is it still true that running mates don't really affect outcomes?

Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform:

Quote:
McCain's choice of Palin brought his polling numbers above Obama's--until McCain endorsed the Bush bailout. Palin draws large crowds and has energized Reagan Republicans, gun owners, women and people of faith. Obama knows this and has his surrogates trashing Palin with a "sack the quarterback" strategy most recently joined in by Colin Powell.

She is an asset and the most consequential VP candidate in a generation. The Ds are wise to attack her.

He's saying this to Politico for publication (meaning, for propaganda purposes) so it ought to be seen in that light (eg the claim that Palin has energized women isn't true, it is a talking point designed to establish/forward the Palin brand for this election and, perhaps, for the future).

Norquist is a bloody interesting guy. When the Secret Service two years ago was forced to release logs on WH visitors, Norquist was found to have been at the WH more than 150 times (something like triple the visits from Ralph Reed) and often these visits were 10 to 12 hours in duration. That seems to be a frequency unmatched even by Abramoff (by judicial order, the SS was supposed to have handed over logs on Abramoff two days ago...but I can't find news on what's happening here).

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@Diest TKO,

Diest TKO wrote:

I'm from Missouri. I live here in northern Virginia, which according to the McCain, is not the "real Virginia" whatever that means. Anyways, I find myself seriously homesick when I see all the excitement back in MO. I would have loved to have been in STL to see Obama under the arch. I know Missouri, and I know it's people. The rallies in STL and KC are certainly amazing by themselves, but for me they make me super proud.

I was reading a book last night about the prelude to WWII, and all the politics in Germany and surrounding countries, including the people kissing the ground when Hitler passed by. Would you have also been one of those people?

I am not comparing Obama to Hitler, but I am comparing the mindset of his admirers / worshipers to some of the movements in history. I remember the people swooning over JFK, and other various figures that have come on the scene in America. Think also of pop stars, the Beatles, girls passing out at the sight of somebody. Woodstock, where thousands gathered, I guess for the excitement, looking for something to validate their existence, I am guessing. Roll the tape again to the St. Louis arch. Reading history reminds me that there are lots of people that are somehow validated by excitement, the political winds that blow, and frankly I have never understood it. I never got caught up in the Beatles, JFK, the drug scene, or none of the above. I remember loving a Reagan speech, but I would not worship the man, the focus was on something else, that something else being principles far above any man, including Reagan.

I fail to see why any person should worship any politician. Obama is a man, with feet of clay, lots of clay, a man that has gotten where he is by playing on people's emotions, their insecurities, their unhappiness. Change, change to what? When I left home this morning, my wife said I love you, and I thought, yes, this is a beautiful world, a beautiful country, with freedom, a beautiful day, and frankly I am sick of a demagogue that shouts change, change from what, changed from the most beautiful country ever known to mankind, to what? I guess to a world where the unhappy, the unvalidated, the have nots, the malcontents, to spread the wealth around, to take what you and I have, to give it to the malcontents to further their own political power.

Obamaites, all caught up in Obama mania, go ahead and attack my summary of this, but it is not without the benefit of living lots of years and observing what has happened for a few decades. Another point, the 60's radicals mindset is part of what is driving this whole thing. Obama comes to us as a malcontent, appealing to the unhappy, the unvalidated, the malcontents, and I guess there are alot these days. I happen to think this is very dangerous, and guys and gals, do not claim you were not warned.

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@okie,

Quote:

I was reading a book last night about the prelude to WWII, and all the politics in Germany and surrounding countries, including the people kissing the ground when Hitler passed by. Would you have also been one of those people?

I am not comparing Obama to Hitler

Yes, you are, asshole. Cut it out. There have been plenty of popular leaders who weren't brutal dictators.

Quote:

Another point, the 60's radicals mindset is part of what is driving this whole thing.

No, it isn't. You don't have a clue what motivates Obama supporters, Okie. You honestly don't 'get it.'

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

The Obama movement is based upon emotional connection, a malcontent appealing to the unhappy and malcontents out there, that want what somebody else has, not based on that of reason, cyclops. I hope you have a wonderful day, cyclops, I hope electing Obama will give you a sense of validation and happiness? I have pretty much given up on the malcontents. I will cast my vote for McCain Palin, but beyond that, I have no power over any of this, but don't say your weren't warned. And I will not cut out expressing my opinion. You would love to shut me up I am sure, but as long as I am free to do it, I will talk. If I reach just one person, it will have been worth it.

2 Replies

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