Her Vote Counts Too

As a Republican, one of the ongoing things I've had to live with over the years is the stereotype that Republicans--and those who vote for Republicans--are just not very bright. And that Republicans make it a point to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Well, let me just say that this person (the one in the video) isn't going to be winning any IQ contests in her lifetime either. And you know she's not the only one out there. Indeed, without all of those folks who actually believe that all of their financial problems are just going to suddenly vanish after Barack Obama's victory on November fourth, Obama wouldn't stand a chance of winning.

Just remember that next time you want to talk about what idiots Republicans--and those who vote for Republicans--are. The truth is that both parties have to appeal to morons. Because morons vote too, especially in presidential elections.

Take Five -- Happy Halloween

1. Are you a Republican feeling low? Perhaps this incredibly optimistic outlook will cheer you up. Though, it should be noted, it predicts a Barack Obama victory, so don't get too excited. Plus the Republicans get their butts kicked in the Senate and the House. Still, it's actually more optimistic than what you've been seeing. Seriously. Of course, it's also from Human Events.

2. A reasoned take on the Khalidi video business.

3. Headline on the Tennessean Web site: "Some in Missouri town find Obama revolting". Where is it listed? Under "Nashville Area News."

4. They make Rush Limbaugh look like a mobster in this picture. Probably intentional, by both the photographer and Limbaugh.

5. Ten horror film sites.

Take Five -- Five Days Until The End

1. Aunt B. cried in her car after voting for Barack Obama. I guess I don't get that. I mean, I can see why a black voter would (and presumably some do) get that emotional about voting for Obama, but I don't see why a white person would. Feel good about it? Yeah, maybe. But cry? Huh. I don't know. I'm not saying she's wrong to have done that--emotional reactions are what they are. But it certainly does lend credence to the idea that Obama wins hearts rather than minds. Which, of course, usually wins elections.

UPDATE: Braisted responds. He says he didn't cry after voting but may on Election Night, assuming Obama wins (actually, I suppose he'll cry if Obama loses, too--probably much harder). Well, that I kind of get. Braisted's been with Obama since the beginning. That would be the culmination of a long political battle which he was a part of and on which he spent a great deal of personal energy. Plus he really believes in the guy, while B really doesn't, since she admits (to her credit) that she has doubts about him. So I still don't get why the simple act of just voting for Barack Obama would bring a white person to tears.

2. Sarcastro sees an angle on that Sedaris quote that I had completely missed.

3. Sabato sees a landslide in the offing.

4. "Outlook: If Tuke is a praying man, he might qualify for a miracle. Otherwise, Alexander would seem to be a shoo-in. Aside from a certain potential in Shelby County and in Davidson County (Nashville), Tuke, whose name recognition remains minute, has limited prospects." - Jackson Baker, Memphis Flyer

No. John McCain has limited prospects. Bob Tuke has a snowball's chance in Hell.

5. My Phillies won. Awesome.

I Didn't Vote For Him, But...

...seriously, how could you not like a presidential candidate who does stuff like this?

Huh

It ain't over 'til it's over.

Take Five -- Six Days To Go

1. Note to many Dems/liberals/lefties: you know that David Sedaris squib about the "chicken" or the "platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it"? It's not nearly as funny, clever or incisive as you think it is. Also: undecided voters aren't generaly impressed by hearing one of the candidates they've been mulling over (and who, whether you like him or not, has a biography as impressive--indeed much more impressive to many people--as your guy's) compared to a "platter of shit". Presumably, they don't think John Mccain's comparable to a platter of shit. If they did, they wouldn't be so undecided, would they?

2. You know who we haven't heard much from lately? Michael Moore. Good plan!

3. Actual opening quote from Dana Stevens, absolutely horrendous movie critic for Slate, in her explanation of her vote for Barack Obama: "I wasn't going to include any reason why—because duh..." Seriously: "Duh." This is a grown woman writing for a major publication with an ostensibly intellectual bent. And, naturally, she follows it up with the Sedaris bit. I have little doubt she's also extremely condescending about Sarah Palin in her casual conversations. She probably shouldn't be. Duh.

4. Tightening...

5. The most popular piece of conventional wisdom on the right is that Obama doesn't close well. Well, sometimes the conventional wisdom is correct: he doesn't. Seems so long ago now, but it's still worth noting that the man essentially limped over the Democratic primary finish line in June. Of course, he also still won in the end.

Why I Love Matt Drudge

A headline both full of meaning yet completely meaningless at the same time:

ABCCBSNBCNYTLATWSJCNN
MSNBCAPREUTERSAFPPOLITCO
FTTIMEWASHPOSTNEWSWEEK:
CAN THEY ALL BE WRONG?

Well, sure they could. I mean, you know, not bloody likely, but sure they could. And it would be one of the biggest stories of the decade, behind only 9/11 and Katrina.

It would also be hilarious to watch these guys squirm after basically having called this election three weeks in advance.

Here's hoping, at least on my end.

Take Five -- 8 Days Until Democratic Hegemony

1. "KausFiles Goes Rogue!" Doesn't Mickey Kaus pretty much always go rogue (probably part of the joke, you see)? That's what make him so interesting. And so gosh darned lovable. Here's a bit on alleged GOP vote suppression:

I still don't see what's so terrible about the practice of "caging," which...is when a party sends out "out nonforwardable mail" and "uses returned envelopes to question the eligibility of the addressees." Presumably the evidence provided by the envelopes can be rebutted, and the Democrats could do the same in Republican districts. The adversarial system at work! ...

2. Do I think I overestimated Obama's take last week? Probably. And hopefully! But I'll go down with that ship. Still seems ugly to me.

3. I suspect that after the fever passes (around November 10th) people will look back and see the last few weeks as one of the lowest points in modern mainstream media history.

4. Running the clock out, that's all.

5. Go Phillies! One more to go.

Crystal Ball UPDATED

Popular Vote:

Obama 54%
McCain 45%
Other 1%

Electoral Vote:

Obama: 348
McCain: 190

McCain takes only AK, ID, UT, AZ, WY, SD, NB, KS, OK, TX, AR, LA, IN, KY, TN, MS, AL, GA, SC and FL.

This has all the earmarks of Reagan '80 (read especially the "Background" section) all over again, just going the other way. This is going to be very ugly (or very glorious, depending on your point of view).

John McCain doesn't deserve this, but the timing is what it is. Life would be better had he won in SC back in 2000. At least, that's what I think anyway.

UPDATE: In hidsight, I might make a couple of changes--MT, ND and WV to McCain and FL to Obama. Which is actually even worse, electorally speaking.

Take Five -- 11 Days To Go

Well, let's just call this "Take One" today, because Charles Krauthammer says it all for me on this, a day on which I think Obama may take as much as 54% of the popular vote:

Contrarian that I am, I’m voting for John McCain. I’m not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it’s over before it’s over. I’m talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they’re left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.

I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe — neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) — yelling “Stop!” I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I’d rather lose an election than lose my bearings.

***

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic, soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who’s been cramming on these issues for the last year, who’s never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign-policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of “a world that stands as one”), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as “the tragedy of 9/11,” a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign-policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts, but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?

Read the whole thing.

Closer?

Huh.

I am still pessimistic (from my point of view). But still...huh.

P.S. Check out which religious group has 27% of its voters that are "Not Sure.".

Take Five -- 12 Days To Go

1. Maybe it's because it's early, but I've read this column three times now and I still don't understand it. Looks to me like she spend the whole time talking about how it shouldn't be easy to change the Metro charter by referendum and then concludes by discussing two amendments to the Metro charter that would be improvements to the charter, amendments that are going to be put into the charter by referendum. I guess I'm missing something, but then, I live in Brentwood now, so I guess I really don't give a flip.

2. Not convincing.

3. Definitely worth reading.

4. Also worth reading.

5. Indeed, Sarah Palin is not stupid. Anyone who thinks Palin is stupid really has no idea what a stupid person really is.

Take Five -- 13 Days To Go

1. Tennessee: Lame Hacking Capital of the World

2. A complaint I'm starting to hear more and more that's getting old: that a lot of black voters are just voting for Barack Obama just because he's black. Well, yeah, probably. And really, can you blame them? Not me.

Now, in a perfect world, we wouldn't have this sort of thing going on, but in a perfect world the vast majority of American whites wouldn't have treated black people as a homogenous (and inferior) group for 300-some-odd years. Really, why should anyone be surprised that they themselves (or any members of a race so treated) treat themselves the same way? It's going to take a long time to flush out those wounds and get ourselves to equlibrium. The good news: should Barack Obama win, that's just a giant step in the right direction.

3. Something that occurred to me last night: 24 has dropped off the radar screen lately, but there was a recent time when it was the bane of liberals and lefties. But you know what? 24 was groundbreaking in a major way, featurng not just one buit two black presidents as major characters. The West Wing? An old white guy. Just saying.

4. Non-elitists for Obama.

5. Thsi race remains closer than it appears. But what the McCain campaign lacks is a real ground game. He's got the hope that a 21st century version of Nixon's old "Silent Majority" is sitting out there. Indeed, that's really his only hope.

Take Five -- 14 Days To Go

1. To be filed in the Let's-(Gently)-Irritate-Aunt-B Department:

From Mickey Kaus

Recommended: Tim Noah's 2001 piece on William Ayers' memoir Fugitive Days. A searing and timely review! Noah certainly seems like another pro-Obama Democrat who wouldn't have served on a board with Ayers. He describes Ayers as "self indulgent and morally clueless" and generally treats the ex-Weatherman as a pathetic joke. ... Is Noah really 100% comfortable with a Democratic candidate who didn't? ...

2. A presidential endorsement sure to resonate in flyover country.

3. This cracked me up.

4. Andrew Sullivan continues his (hopefully temporary) descent into blog-o-madness.

5. Apparently, violating a woman is funny. Who knew?

Bill Ayers, Through Another Prism

This is probably not original with me, but it's still worth thinking about...If you are someone who just can't get why some people have an issue with Obama's supposed non-relationship with William Ayers, suppose everything about this story were the same, except for two major differences:

1) Instead of being a member (or whatever you call it) of the Weather Underground, suppose instead that he was a member of a group that bombed (or wanted to bomb) abortion clinics, and

2) Instead of it being a Democrat tied to this individual, suppose instead that it was the Republican candidate.

Now do you kind of get it? You can talk all day about just how intimate this relationship between Barack Obama and Ayers actually was or is. That's a fair discussion. But don't pretend like it's not an issue. You know that if this were about John McCain instead of Barack Obama, and, say, Eric Rudolph instead of Ayers, that Democrats would be going absolutely ballistic.

And, rightly so, no?

UPDATE: B's dissent here. I may have a response; I may not. Depends on available time. As usual, though, her post is worth a read.

Barring Something Astronomical, This One's Over

One, two, three strikes and you're out, as they say. These debates were McCain's last hope and he couldn't pull it off.

Well, one upside for those of us of the Republican stripe is that a Democratic sweep will remind middle-of-the-road voters that Democrats have their problems, too. It will be very interesting to see some of the stuff these guys try to push through in the early days of 2009. A little scary, too, from an economic perspective. Card-check anyone?

I'm (more or less) an employment lawyer by trade, so things are officially looking up for me. As for the rest of you, the ones out there who actually produce goods and services people want to use and enjoy, not to mention those who pay those people who actually produce goods and services people want to use and enjoy, as well as those who provide the capital for the people who pay those people who produce the goods and services people want to use and enjoy, well, good luck with that.

UPDATE: The Gallup "shock" poll, showing McCain only two points behind, was released a few hours after this post. That's helpful. In truth, I do think this is a lot closer than we're supposed to believe it is, but the pessimistic side of me usually wins the day on these sorts of things.

Steyn v. Sullivan

I've been on an Andrew Sullivan hiatus going on two months or so now, after since it became abundantly clear that Andrew had completely given up on even the faintest pretense of objectivity in this election. I do "stop in" from time to time (in the hope--thus far always dashed--that his sanity had returned), but I'm instantly repelled, espcially with regard to pretty much anything he writes about Sarah Palin.

Thus I about fell out of my chair in laughter when I read this gem tonight from Mark Steyn:

"Jim Treacher notes he posted the above some days before the excitable Frank Rich started going on about "Weimar-like rage" and Paul Krugman warned of the Republicans' "insane rage" and the Head of Obstetrics over at The Atlantic Monthly took his head out of Governor Palin's birth canal long enough to apply his forensic skills to "the Hannity-Limbaugh-Steyn*-O'Reilly base" "stoking" and "fomenting" the rage in order to bring on the assassination of Obama.

Sorry, but that's awesome. I guess it takes a Brit to really pop a Brit. (Well, Steny's actually Canadian, but what is Canada really but basically Great Britain with hockey?)

Goodbye, Sarah Palin

Well, that's done. Look, I like Sarah Palin. I'm not among those who say that she's not ready for the national stage, etc. I think she's more than ready for the national stage, but perhaps not as a vice-presidential candidate. She'd be a great Secretary of the Interior, say, or a Secretary of Energy or some such. But what the heck, here she is, and in any case she is to my mind no less qualified to sit around waiting for the Big Guy to kick over then certain other recent vice-presidential candidates I could name. (For you folks on the left who enjoy ripping on Sarah Palin: seriously, there is very little difference between her and John Edwards other than their politics. He was all about style over substance; so is she. And his foreign policy experience? None, just like her.)

But history tells us that once the VP debate is done, so too is the VP candidate, who now gets shipped off to places like Ocala, Florida and Ripon, Wisconsin to rally the troops. For the balance of this period, attention now shifts to the fellas at the top of the ticket. So, goodbye Sarah; we'll see you on the other side.