Link blag

ABC: talks to Rahm

TPMCafe: 'I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear...'

FiveThirtyEight: If you subtract 9.3 points from Obama's total margin in all 50 states, he would have still won.

Will Wilkinson: Atheistic societies are better. However -- and this is the interesting part -- minority atheists underperform in majority religious societies like America's.

Daniel Larison weighs in on the Douthat vs. Kmiec abortion/Obamacon issue. It's a pretty interesting read, along with one of the comments.

Sign of the times: Investment bankers are absent from this year's white truffle auction.

The American Prospect grades the election theories like the Bradley Effect, PUMAs, etc. The winner? Not really a theory, but always trust Nate Silver!

A day at The Daily Show: the writers have a panel discussion on the present and future of news comedy

Link blag

NYT: Stinging Talk About Obama? Never Mind Now

There is a great tradition of paint-peeling political hyperbole during presidential campaign years. And there is an equally great tradition of backing off from it all afterward, though with varying degrees of deftness.

But, given the intensity of some of the charges that have been made in the past few months, and the historic nature of Mr. Obama’s election, the exercise this year has been particularly whiplash-making, with its extreme before-and-after
contrasts

Prop 8: Andrew says to chill. V.C. proposes civil disobedience instead of an anti-Mormon backlash. Coates continues to wrestle with the now painfully obvious African-American anti-gay bigotry.

Jonathan Chait, TNR: Republicans are slow learners who don't understand that Palin == Bush.

V.C. Obama won't repudiate Bush-era legal opinions

Politico: Obama has historic youth mandate, margins four times greater than JFK.

Culture11: Top 11 Ways President Obama Will "Change" the Executive Branch

The Obamas on election night

There's a big Flickr gallery with 5,000 pages going back to the start of the campaign. Here's the crew watching returns on election night:





7 year-old Sasha's expression is just adorable:







Here's one of my favs, they're watching McCain's concession speech. It must be a little unsettling listening to the crowd boo:





Above is the team that really did it. From left to right, Robert Gibbs, communications director who will become press secretary; David Plouffe, campaign manager; Barack Hussein Obama, president-elect; and David Axelrod, senior strategist who will come to Washington and be a senior advisor and "assistant to the president".

The later may not sound grand, but according to Ambinder:

Assistant to the president is a very coveted post with quasi-institutional prerogatives; assistants can (if the Obama administration chooses to continue the practice) pop in on the president whenever they want, and they're given review privileges over everything that goes out in the president's name.

Another thing to note about Axelrod is that he and Obama are both good friends with Rahmbo, and share a policy vision. Seems like it'll be a powerful trio for getting things done.

As for Plouffe's future, Klein comments:

He says he won't be working in the White House. This may or may not be related to the fact that he had a baby girl yesterday, making this a very good week for him.

It's a goddamn SEATING CHART

Noam Scheiber and Marc Ambinder read into the press release. Yglesias yawns.

Quote of the day

"A lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me." --Barack Hussein Obama

That's one for the ages.

Full presser:



Transcript at CNN.

The conservative crackup

Slate is hosting a dialogue. Kathleen Parker's discussion of the Palin factor is very compelling.

Before that, Douthat gets into a scuffle with Kmiec over abortion.

I find Kmiec's position more convincing, but that's unsurprising considering my notion of human personhood (I don't think embryos or early fetuses w/o brain activity are people in any meaningful sense).

The problem, of course, is how to convince the theocratic base that accepting a non-legalistic pro-life position like Kmiec's is a better approach. Impossible?

Radical changes to the U.S. government

A Bush/Cheney/Palin-lovin neocon's worst nightmare!

Will someone please tell me when this honeymoon is going to be over? Not till February? Because I just felt a little tingle that seems to indicate I might be a little proud of my country's government again, and it's a really weird feeling.

Say it loud, say it proud.

To make the point myself, remember these names?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)

Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ)

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK)

Richard Milhous Nixon

George Herbert Walker Bush

William Jefferson Clinton

George Walker Bush (GWB)

Well, the President-elect has his own full name, Barack Hussein Obama.

We didn't dare speak it to loudly during the primary and election, lest it further alienate bigots, but we can do so now.

I'm going to try Loury's idea of -- when using both first and last name -- to also proudly include the middle name.

Say it with me folks: Barack Hussein Obama. Let's not give the bigots any more quarter, and let's politely correct Obama supporters if they continue to think using his full name is disparaging.

Conservative renewal

I'm in David Frum's school which thinks that a less pro-life, more pro-environment GOP would have greater electoral chances. But I guess it's because I'm ideologically aligned with "upper middle-class professionals", as Douthat explains.

His electoral case for keeping a strong pro-life platform in the GOP is sobering and discouraging to those of us who think like Frum. Hmmm.

In watching this diavlog I've become more keenly aware of something banal: the most virulent anti-choicers who are 100% convinced that unicellular embryos == people...these folks are largely incapable of seeing through the Palin farce.

In other words, the nomination of a "proud" pro-life woman like Palin clouded other pro-lifer's minds to absolutely everything else that matters. This is obvious when you really think about it, but I wasn't fully cognizant until I listened to Douthat explain about conservative activists and the Human Life Ammendment and how it cannot practically be removed from the party's platform.

I am more convinced than ever that an uncompromising pro-life position is really eating away at the Republican party's electoral chances. The Dobsonites won't let them nominate a moderate, unifying (John McCain wasn't unifying) figure in the vein of Colin Powell, Condi Rice, or Kay Bailey Hutchison.

But Douthat throws cold water on the David Frum school of thinking. I don't know what to propose in response...at this rate, the Republican party is destined to be a 40% party, and that's not good for conservatism, but how can we possibly convince pro-lifers to work culturally and socially outside the legal system in e.g. promoting adoption alternatives, and not be so virulently anti-Roe? It seems impossible.

Quote of the day

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." --Abraham Lincoln, 1 December 1862

Context here.

Link blag

700 newspaper front pages: from around the world

Newsweek behind the scenes: How he did it (campaign stuff from sources who requested info be held till after the election)

From 52 to 48 with love: Nice gestures.

Historic triumph: sand sculpture in India

New Democratic coalition: It's the suburbs, stupid.

The view from sixth grade Brooklyn: NYT has a profile.

The Klan chimes in on Obama: Watch them squirm.

Obama's tragic victory

Causes obsessive supporters to realize how empty their lives are:



Yglesias reads into the seriousness.

The new American exceptionalism?

V.C. has a post. I noted this piece before the election.

And so this:



Gives way to this:

Young Democrats

Klein:

Over at The Next Right, Patrick Ruffini has some interesting reflections on the importance of an overwhelming youth vote -- though not necessarily an increased youth turnout -- for Obama's victory:

People have been focusing on whether the youth vote was up. It was -- slightly: going from 17 to 18 percent. But the real story about the youth vote is not how many "new" voters Obama got to show up. It's how he produced a gargantuan 25% swing among existing young voters, or those who were sure to vote for the first time anyway.

How big? 18 percent times a 25 percent increase in the Democratic margin equals 4.5 points, or a majority of Obama's popular vote margin.

Had the Democratic 18-29 vote stayed the same as 2004's already impressive percentage, Obama would have won by about 2 points, and would not have won 73 electoral votes from Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, or Indiana.

So, to clarify here: Obama's youth margin = 73 electoral votes. Without the economic crisis, this would have been the difference.

In the House, the youth margin for Democratic candidates was up 18 points from 2004 and 7 points from 2006 (with a 50% increase in the voter pool from '06). The 18-29 demographic's net contribution to Democratic margins in the House went from 12% x 22% = 2.64% in 2006, to 18% x 29% = 5.22% in 2008. How many of our guys lost by 2.6% or less? And it wasn't about "more" or "new" young voters. For the most part it was the same young voters, who were conditioned to vote for Democratic candidates after switching to Obama.

Among voters between 18-29, Obama held an incredible 66-32 margin. But more importantly, congressional Democrats received virtually the same share: 63-34. That suggests that this wasn't just an Obama phenomenon, but that this demographic is firming up a Democratic political affiliation. Which, after the past few years, is rather what you'd expect. But it's worth saying that this wasn't inevitable. There's a belief out there that young voters are always and everywhere Democratic. But that's not been true in recent years:

A fairly good indicator of the health of a party is the attitudes of young voters who are being exposed to it for the first time. In the 1990s, Generation X was coming of political age, and according to polls conducted by the Pew Research group, Republicans held a 1 percent edge in party identification. In 2008, it is Generation Y that is choosing political allegiances for the first time, and these under-30-somethings show an astonishing 24 percent preference for the Democrats. Even Generation X, which gave Republicans a 3 percent edge as recently as 2004, now prefers Democrats by a margin of 12 percent.

Moreover, young voters have become more Democratic by the year. In 2004, Kerry took them 54-45. In 2006, Democrats won young voters 60-38. And in 2008, Obama took them 66-32. As Ruffini says, "18 percent times a 25 percent increase in the Democratic margin equals 4.5 points, or a majority of Obama's popular vote margin. Had the Democratic 18-29 vote stayed the same as 2004's already impressive percentage, Obama would have won by about 2 points, and would not have won 73 electoral votes from Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, or Indiana." Not good news for Republicans, because the thing about young voters is that they're around for a very long time, and even if voting preferences aren't perfectly stable over a life cycle, early party affiliation is a fairly good predictor of later party affiliation.

Early partisan affiliation may have been a good predictor of future affiliation in the past, but I'm not convinced it will be as significant with this generation. If Republicans put the conserve back in conservatism and become tolerant like the British Tories, I think they'll trend back to 50% of this block's vote.

For the moment, neocon and theocratic Republicans are perceived to be ignoring the concerns of Gen Y, and as anti-youth, anti-progress, anti-environment, and socially intolerant (like, anti-gay). So long as this remains the case, you can expect a > 60% youth vote for Dems, probably for the next decade.

Anyhow, welcome to the post-boomer world:


Good cinematography. And Goodbye to All That.

The Enforcer, Chief of Staff

The Daily Beast:

The selection of Emanuel signals that he apparently wants to operate with ideological moderation, speed and skull-cracking political toughness.

“Rahm Emanuel is a preternatural political force, a man of extraordinary intelligence, skill and toughness who has learned about politics and policy on the streets of Chicago and at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. A fascinating choice for Obama as White House Chief of Staff,” Thomas E. Mann, the W. Averell Harriman Chair and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The Daily Beast Wednesday.

Among other things, Obama’s pick of Rahm Israel Emanuel, whose father is of Israeli origin, gives the lie to an endless wild myths that political enemies have tirelessly spread during the campaign that he was supposed to be a closest America-hater and no doubt anti-Semite because of his Kenyan background and boyhood in Indonesia. Emanuel, nicknamed “Rahmbo” by his colleagues, is a quasi neo-con hawk on foreign policy, tough champion of the war on terror,and advocate of crackdowns on crime. Obama was accused of being a “socialist” and hater of big business, but Emanuel was managing director in the Chicago office of a major global investment bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, where he made millions.

Rolling Stone back in 2005:

Friends and enemies agree that the key to Emanuel’s success is his legendary intensity. There’s the story about the time he sent a rotting fish to a pollster who had angered him. There’s the story about how his right middle finger was blown off by a Syrian tank when he was in the Israeli army.

And there’s the story of how, the night after Clinton was elected, Emanuel was so angry at the president’s enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting "Dead! . . . Dead! . . . Dead!" and plunging the knife into the table after every name. "When he was done, the table looked like a lunar landscape," one campaign veteran recalls. "It was like something out of The Godfather. But that’s Rahm for you."

Of the three stories, only the second is a myth — Emanuel lost the finger to a meat slicer as a teenager and never served in the Israeli army. But it’s a measure of his considerable reputation as the enforcer in Clinton’s White House that so many people believe it to be true. You don’t earn the nickname "Rahmbo" being timid.

An NROite is less impressed:

Obama’s apparent selection of Rahm Emanuel for White House chief of staff is an extremely disconcerting (if not wholly surprising) first indication on the “which Obama will we get” question. It suggests both that he wants to be ruthless and partisan and that he does not have a clear sense of how the White House works.

Emanuel was by all accounts a very effective White House staffer in the Clinton administration, and he has certainly been an effective member of the House of Representatives. He is smart and tough. But he has been, in both positions, a vicious graceless partisan: narrow, hectic, unremittingly aggressive, vulgar, and impatient. Those who have worked for and with him come away impressed but not inspired, and generally not loyal.

The White House chief of staff is not a chief strategist or a chief advocate. He is a manager of people and of process. Above all else, he sets the tone internally, and shapes the president’s decision process and the feel of the upper tiers of the administration. Obama is especially in need of someone who will lead him to decisions, because he appears to be intensely averse to making difficult choices—which is the essence of what the president does. His inclination is to step back and conceptualize the choice out of existence, looking reasonable but doing nothing. To overcome this, he will need a chief of staff with a sense of the gravity of the choices the president faces, and one capable of moving the staff to decision, keeping big egos satisfied and calm, and resisting the pressure to be purely reactive to momentary distractions. None of this spells Rahm Emanuel. There is definitely a place for a Rahm Emanuel type of brilliant ruthless shark in a White House staff, but not in the Chief’s office. Not a good first sign.

TPM:

The number one quality in a chief of staff is a recognition that it's not about him -- a quality Rahm "Hamlet" Emanuel isn't exhibiting. He is expressing some serious reluctance about whether he'll accept the position of White House chief of staff: "I do know something about the White House and I have children now. I have a family." The tradeoff for Emanuel is that if he leaves the House of Representatives, he would be effectively giving up on his long-term goal of becoming Speaker.

UPDATE: Rahmbo accepts. Ambers ponders what it means, saying "his management style breeds loyalty," contra the NROite above.

The RNC isn't pleased, but then what realistic pick would have pleased them?

M.J. soothes the netroots.

Sullivan sees good cop, bad cop.

Michael Weiss: Change You Can Motherfucking Believe In.

TNR: Only choice, not just right choice

Megan quirks brow at superficially plausible-yet-contradictory narratives.

WSJ: Glass half-full analysis

More TNR: rounds up foreign reactions (big surprise: Palestinians aren't stoked)

Bill Bennett: Not an inexperienced idealogue

Culture11 thread:

rickm: All evidence suggests that an Obama administration will be a significant improvement from one of the worst Presidents ever.

Joe Carter: All evidence? You mean like putting Rahm Emanuel as the Chief of Staff? Even the Obama-fawning Andrew Sulivan says, “Whenever I’ve come across him, he has seemed like a massive, world class, meshuggena asshole.”

libarbarian: If the crew doesn’t think the XO is an asshole then he’s not doing his job.

Yglesias disagrees with Megan. I think he's right.

Politico: ex-Reagan and Clinton chiefs of staff praise the pick. Sounds good to me.

Election result cartogram

Explanation here.

I will refrain from making a spent-penis joke about Florida.

Palin's extraordinary ignorance (for a national politician)

Now they tell us:



Some of us realized this 2 months ago. Others drank the Kool-Aid -- FOX and most rank-and-file Republicans among them -- insisting that perfectly legitimate questions like those asked in the Gibson and Couric interviews were gotcha journalism.

McCain-Palin didn't deserve 46% of the vote. They got that much by hiding the truth and stoking racial/terrorism fears, among other things.

From the NYT, a map of the areas where McCain performed better than Bush in 2004:



Yglesias jokes:

You can see why John McCain’s principled stand against higher taxes on the wealthy would have a special resonance in this region. Liberals who thought race had something to do with those appeals should be ashamed of themselves.

Today's GOP is a tragic disgrace.

Bachmann wins

47-43. I guess there had to be a black mark on the night somewhere.

On the plus side, the new smaller minority will have virtually no power in the House and she may provide some amusement.

Still sad that such a whack-job would be reelected, but that's partisan politics for ya. I sure don't regret donating to her opponent.

Prop 8 fails?

According to exit polls, it's 52-48. If that holds up I'm not sure this night could get any better.

a massive generation gap: the under-30s voted for marriage equality by 67 to 31 percent. The over 65s voted for discrimination by 57 - 43 percent.

Well, that's the future alright.

UPDATE: unfortunately doesn't look like the count is following the exits...it's flipped to Yes 52.0% No 48.0% Precincts reporting: ~95.0%

Obama's speech

When McCain mentioned Obama's name in his concession, the crowd booed

When Obama mentioned Sen. McCain, his crowd cheered. Make of that what you will...

---

What a speech. Listening to him invoke Lincoln, that greatest of presidents, was fantastic. I don't have any deep thoughts, really just enjoying the moment.

Here's David Kurtz from TPM:

McCain's concession speech

Very gracious and classy. That's the McCain I remember.

The crowd listening to him, not so much. Wither the GOP?

What to say?

Whether you agree with Obama's politics or not, this is an unbelievable historical moment, and so much bigger than myself. But I was part of it. Right now I'm just crying.

E-night log

(much later) Indiana goes to Obama, NC probably as well, MO barely staying red

10:16 Florida goes to Obama

10:13 Colorado goes to Obama

10:07 Virginia goes to Obama

10:00 West Coast polls are closed and called, putting Obama at 284 EVs!! Crowd in Chicago goes wild. World goes wild. We go wild here. What a wondrous night. Our long national nightmare is over.

Photo: Jillian Marshall, an Obama supporter in Harlem, New York, burst into tears at it became clear the Democratic candidate was on the path to victory.

8:39 Minority leader Mitch McConnell keeps KY Senate seat.

8:31 Obama picks up NM as expected.

8:22 Obama takes Ohio!! The cake is baked. Things to watch now are the GA, MS, KY, MN Senate race, Prop 8 in Cali, and the neo-McCarthyism referendum in MN-06.

8:01 McCain holds on to ND.

7:36 McCain holds on to GA.

7:30 MSNBC calls PA and NH for Obama. Kay Hagan wins NC Senate.

Election day factoids

At 11:00 AM, time waiting in line to vote: 4 minutes

At 4:00 PM, time waiting in line to order large one-topping pizzas at the $3.99 Toppers election day special: 1 hr 7 minutes

Number of times I've been asked if I voted today: 9, mostly by total strangers, 2 were definitely Obama volunteers

I missed this

Linus Torvalds endorsed Obama two days ago. He cited the Call to Renewal speech, which I'm also a very big fan of.

And now: Total World Domination! (the geeks will get it)

Wish I could cast this vote

Seen in Alabama

Who did you vote for?

A TPMCafe blogger confesses that he didn't vote for Obama. His reasons are compelling.

From the mixed-signals dept.

Martinsville, Indiana

Photo of the night

Obama sheds tears while talking about his grandmother Madelyn Dunham who raised him and passed away this morning, during a rally in Charlotte, NC, the day before the election.

My prediction

Gut feeling for some time has been that MO and NC will barely go blue and IN barely red. But they're too close to call with any confidence.

If McCain performs better than I expect, I can see him taking Florida, but not much else. If Obama performs better than expected he could take Georgia as the turnout there is insane and Bob Barr is a native son.

I don't think we know enough about what's going on up in North Dakota and Montana, as those are recent shifts.

One day more than some had

Obama's Nevada state director Terence Tolbert, 44, died today from a heart attack.

Obama's grandmother and primary caregiver for many years, Madelyn Dunham, 86, also died today, "peacefully after a battle with cancer".

The day before election day. What an emotional roller coaster that must be...



Need a sliver of good news? Her vote will still count.

One day more

This. Fucking. Election.

Aaaahhh! My eyes!!!!

Understanding Obamacons...

Here's Iraq:

Jeffrey Hart, one of the intellectual founders of modern American conservatism, founder of the Dartmouth Review, and a private source of much intellectual solace these past few years, makes it all explicit:

Republican President George W. Bush has not been a conservative at all, either in domestic policy or in foreign policy. He invaded Iraq on the basis of abstract theory, the very thing Burke warned against. Bush aimed to turn Iraq into a democracy, “a beacon of liberty in the Middle East,” as he explained in a radio address in April 2006.

I do not recall any “conservative” publication mentioning those now memorable words “Sunni,” “Shia,” or “Kurds.” Burke would have been appalled at the blindness to history and to social facts that characterized the writing of those so-called conservatives.

Obama did understand.

In his now famous 2002 speech, while he was still a state senator in Illinois, he said: “I know that a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, of undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without international support will fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than the best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I’m not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.”

Burke would have agreed entirely, and admired the cogency of so few words. And one thing I know is that both Nixon and Reagan would have agreed. Both were prudential and successful conservatives. But all the organs of the conservative movement followed Bush over the cliff—as did John McCain.

Sullivan later posts a couple readers' take.

A President, not a Messiah

Word:

The reason for the wave of optimism behind Obama – just look at the massive crowds across the country this past year – is almost entirely due to the profound national demoralisation of the recent past. Iraq and Afghanistan, Katrina and the financial meltdown, torture and religious extremism: all these have led many Americans to the brink of despair about their own country. A historically unprecedented number of Americans believe their country is on the wrong track and view Obama as the vehicle to repair it.

Among the most enthusiastic Obama supporters, there are tinges of hero worship and aspirations beyond anything any human being can deliver. And the hostility born of dashed expectations is always the worst. People expecting a messiah will at some point be forced to realise they have merely elected a president.

No president will be able to wave the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan away with some kind of magic wand – there are few good options in either conflict, and many potential perils. No president will be able to end a recession with deep roots or alter market confidence in a single speech.

No president can change the Earth’s climate in four or eight years. And when Obama’s limitations emerge, as they will, there is a danger that the powerful expectations of his young base may turn to tears. This is always the risk with political “movements”. They conjure up utopias that can simply never happen.

Between the roiling and increasingly bitter rapids on the right and the left, can Obama maintain a steady course? We cannot know, of course. But the evidence of the past year is encouraging.

What has been truly amazing is the preternatural calm and moderation Obama has shown throughout this volatile and emotional campaign. He has managed to get to the brink of the White House by beating some of the most formidable political machines in America – the Clintons and the Roves – without intensifying the conflict or polarising the country himself.

He seems able to absorb these currents without further disturbing them. Of course, this is much harder in office than in opposition. In office, you have to make decisions that delineate winners and losers rather than make speeches onto which everyone can project their interests. But Obama seems unafraid of his enemies, undeterred by his rivals, and able somehow to stay healthy and cheerful.

His temperamental edge is complemented by his organisational and managerial skills. The most seasoned political observers have been struck by the meticulous professionalism of his campaign; and there has never been a fundraising machine as innovative or as successful as his in the history of American politics.

2 November in 100 seconds

Will somebody please wake me up late Tuesday night?

George Will:

By midnight Tuesday, millions of conservatives probably will believe that the nation, foundering on the reefs of sin, is ruined. And millions of "progressives," emboldened to embrace truth in labeling by again calling themselves liberals, probably will have decided that Heaven is at hand, the nation revived like a flower in an April shower.

I'm with Sullivan:

For me, if Obama is elected, it will feel more like a simple end to a nightmare. The earth has been scorched these past seven years. No Heaven awaits. Just an end to some sort of Hell.

Conservative civil war

Goat beauty!

People take photographs of a Damascene goat, which won the Most Beautiful Goat title, during the Mazayen al-Maaz competition in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The known unknowns

From Ambers:

1. The Obama turnout machine (size, scope)
2. Racism
3. Secret Republican Obama Admirers (The Goodbye To All That Effect)
4. The demographic composition of undecided voters; the ideological composition of these voters; the actual size of this group of voters
5. Whether people assume Obama will win and therefore don't feel compelled to vote for him (the Democratic overconfident effect)
6. A few ballot initiatives (Florida, Colorado)
7. The pro-or-anti-Palin vote (suburban women, jazzed conservative base)
8. The Bradley effect (whites lying to pollsters and saying they have NO opinion when they actually support the white candidate)
9. The Wilder effect (whites lying about supporting the black candidate)
10. The Van Wilder effect (young voter surges in red states like Indiana)
11. Media backlash effect (?)
12. The weather -- (supposedly gorgeous)
13. The Republican depression effect (the counter to the Democratic overconfidence effect)
14. Independent-leaning fiscal conservatives turning Libertarian
15. whether African Americans vote at Census + 0, C + 1, C + 2....
16. The effect of the last-minute McCain television advertising surge
17. Whether such a thing as the Howard Dean-Red-Cap effect exists (i.e, scary college kids trying to get older adults out to vote...and they're resentful)
18. the idea of a unified, uni-polar Congress excites people, turns people off, or doesn't really matter

By #14 does he mean Barr voters? I think so. These are people who would normally have voted Republican (were it not for their disastrous fiscal record over the past 10 years) so each one counts as 1/2 an Obama vote.

Why I'll be voting for Obama

David Post explains:

I’ll be pulling the Obama lever on Tuesday – and quite enthusiastically, too. I consider myself a “pragmatic libertarian” – I’m not a big fan of the state, I believe that power inevitably corrupts, that individuals, when left to their own devices, are capable of remarkable feats of self-organization and problem-solving, and that the freedoms of speech, conscience, and association are, by far, our most precious ones and need to be zealously protected from the folks with the monopoly on coercive force. I haven’t voted for a Democratic candidate for President since 1980 (and I came to regret that one pretty soon thereafter). My personal list of great Presidents is a short one: Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan.

So that’s where I’m coming from, and in my eyes the choice couldn’t be easier. My reasons:

Reason 1 is John McCain. During the two months since he was nominated – the two months during which he (and Obama) got to act “shadow presidents,” and in which we all got to ask ourselves, more seriously than we had been able to before: “If this guy were the president right now, would we like what he’s doing?” – McCain has, time and time again, shown himself to be a panicky, impulsive, shoot-from-the-hip decision-maker, and we don’t need panicky, impulsive, shoot-from-the-hip decision-makers at the moment. I really used to like John McCain a lot. In his role as “maverick Senator,” McCain was a real asset – I think he showed enormous political courage in taking on the culture of earmarks, and in standing up to the more xenophobic elements of the Republican party on immigration, and even on political financing, and I trusted his instincts on the important questions about national security, war, and peace. I also think he’s an immensely likable guy. But with each decision he’s made – his choice of Gov. Palin as his running mate, his almost pathetic reaction(s) to the financial crisis (from his initial “Fire Chris Cox!” to his belated discovery that there’s actually greed on Wall Street – who knew! – to his suspension, and un-suspension, of his campaign), to the choices he made about the overall tone and tenor of his campaign – each one made him less and less credible, in my eyes, as president.

Reason 2 is Barack Obama. The country, and the world, are in a precarious state at the moment, and the prospects for a very dark and gloomy future are very real; it took three years for the effects of the 1929 stock market crash to be felt throughout the global economy, and I can’t help but worry that something similar is on the horizon today. We have, as a nation, become demoralized and pessimistic and cynical about our ability to solve our problems. It’s not just that our “infrastructure” is crumbling, it’s that nobody seems to give a shit. Our belief that we are, in fact, the greatest nation on earth has always been one of our most precious assets – something of a self-fulfilling prophecy that has made us the engine for economic growth, and for freedom, for two centuries. It is becoming increasingly difficult for people to believe that, these days, and when people stop believing it, it will no longer be true. Countries can descend into the ranks of the second-rate in the blink of an eye (historically speaking): it happened to Spain, and to Portugal, and to Argentina, it is now happening to Italy, and it can happen to us.

We need a truly great president right now – and for me, a great president isn’t one who magically solves all our problems, but one who inspires us to solve our problems. No president can get us out of the mess we have made unless he or she can inspire us to do great things, and there is at least some real chance that Obama has it in him; that’s no guarantee that he’ll be a great president, but given the alternative (see Reason 1) that’s plenty good enough for me. I think he grasps the significance of the moment, and I think he understands that ideology is not policy and policy is not ideology. His gift for oratory, far from being the sideshow that some of his detractors claim, is in fact central to the prospects and the possibilities of an Obama presidency. The Great Ones – Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Reagan – have had one thing (and maybe only one thing) in common: the ability to stir us to great deeds with their words. It is, I think, a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for greatness, and Obama’s got it; McCain does not. Obama’s astonishing capacity to connect with young voters is also part of why he might be a great president; like it or not, the young have a bigger stake in the future than the old because they’ll see more of it, and if they are energized to take the reins of power they deserve the chance to do so.

Nor is Obama’s obvious, and profound, appeal to the people of the world irrelevant to my choice. Whatever you, personally, think of Obama or his policies, it is simply an indisputable fact that hundreds of millions, or possibly billions, of people across the globe are damn near infatuated with him, and that the world will, almost instantaneously, become much better-disposed to the United States when he is elected. It’s quite astonishing, when you think about it; he’s the first global candidate for office. There are many good reasons, to be sure, why a (rational) voter in the United States should ignore the views of the French, the Indians, and the Kenyans etc. when deciding for whom to vote in this (or any) election; presidential elections are and should be about our “self-interest,” and there are plenty of good reasons why we don’t give French, Indian, or Kenyan citizens a vote in our elections. But a world in which hundreds of millions of people are far, far better-disposed to the US is a world in which we are more likely to get a handle of serious global problems, from terrorism to the banking collapse to global warming and the energy crisis. It’s just easier for me to imagine, say, the people of Pakistan actually helping us out in our efforts to protect ourselves from the madmen who are taking refuge in their country if they think we stand for something important and that we deserve protection, rather than because Pervez Musharraf orders them to do so. I know that it’s not all about “hearts and minds” and all that, but it won’t hurt.

Reason 3 is Bush. George W. Bush has, almost single-handedly, destroyed (a) the Republican party, (b) our standing among the nations of the world, and (c) our pride in being Americans. His “compassionate conservatism” turned out to be mean-spirited and exclusionary, his attitude towards the people he was elected to serve contemptuous, and his capacity to lead virtually non-existent. His approval ratings are an accurate indicator of how miserably he has performed. I’m not enough of a historian to know whether he’s the worst president we’ve ever had, but he’s on the short list, and he is certainly the worst I have encountered in the 40-some years I’ve been paying attention to this stuff. The Republicans needs to be punished for allowing it to happen.

Reason 4 is energy policy. For my money, this is the big domestic issue for the next several decades, because pretty much all other important domestic issues will turn on whether or not we can solve it. The sight of 10,000 oil-addicted junkies shouting “Drill, Baby, Drill!!” at the Republican convention (repeated over and over again at campaign rallies this Fall) was chilling. The idea that we can drill ourselves out of the economic and ecological hole in which we find ourselves is as wrong as an idea can be (as McCain, before he began pandering, understood quite well).

So I hope he wins. Ultimately, in a democracy, you take what your fellow-citizens give you, and you accept that whatever answer the democratic process has produced is the “right” one. If a majority of the people in this country think McCain is the man to lead them, then so be it; they must view things very differently than I do. But I’m pretty confident that we’re going to be taking the other course, and that we’ll be better off for having done so.

Quote of the day

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." --Voltaire

Obama camp gleefully features Dr. Evil's endorsement of McCain

Said Obama to reporters:

President Bush is sitting out the last few days before the election. But earlier today, Dick Cheney came out of his undisclosed location and hit the campaign trail. He said that he is, and I quote, “delighted to support John McCain.” I’d like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it.

Now that's snark we can believe in.

American exceptionalism

It still exists, in a few ways.

McCain on SNL

A little cheesy at times, like with the pork knives, but overall pretty funny.

James Fallows sees it as proof that John McCain has reached the "acceptance" stage. Amen.

Sarah Palin prank called

A Canadian shock jock convinces Sarah Palin that she's speaking with French President Nicolas Sarkozy:



Wow, just wow, there's no suspicion in her voice, she thinks she's talking to a real foreign head of government. Damn. It's inconceivable that this lady could ever be President.

Here's Klein:

It's fascinating hearing Palin fall onto sound bites in real time. You have to admire the sort of message discipline that connects the career of Carla Bruni to the second wind of of late campaign tightening. But if she jabs her sound bites in with surprising efficiency, Palin doesn't manage to ask a single question during the whole conversation. She's fully reactive -- starstruck by Sarkozy's call, but nevertheless incurious about anything he could possibly tell her.

Meanwhile that's one seriously incompetent staff she's got. No one thought to call the French Embassy and check this out?

The crucial white supremacist anti-semite vote

Coates marvels.

Shameless optimism

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis:

Obama is running out of states if you follow out a traditional model. Today, he expanded his buy into North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona in an attempt to widen the playing field and find his 270 Electoral Votes. This is a very tall order and trying to expand into new states in the final hours shows he doesn't have the votes to win.

Yeah, a terrible thing for the Obama campaign to be competitive in those states at this late point in time!

Ohio GOTV

"118,601. That's a number you should know. That's the number of votes John Kerry lost Ohio by. That breaks down to 9 votes per precinct. Nine votes in your neighborhood."

"So can you get nine votes?"

Klein sums it up:

It says something profound that the least inspiring part of this Ohio GOTV video is the Obama speech. Good organizing is the process of making big problems seems vulnerable to small efforts. This is good organizing.

And the GOP mocked Obama's organizing experience?

Here's Roger Simon of Politico on the significance of Obama's ground game:

Dr. Evil endorses McCain

...the day after Halloween. Fitting?