No matter how big Obama may win in this ideologically polarized race, no matter how many polls show America is a fundamentally progressive issue on major issues, we are told that the only Responsible and Serious thing to do is govern as a country club Republican.
Salaam writes: Here's where we take off our Democratic party hats and put on our Progressive Movement hats. It's going to take considerable advocacy and effort to force Obama to actually represent the voters who elected him. Obama will be pounded heavily by Republicans - both within and without the Democratic party - to ignore his progressive mandate.
David Sirota writes: Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) delivered Democrats' election-day message this morning on Fox News. Officially speaking for the Obama campaign, McCaskill told Fox that Barack Obama's first order of business as president is to appease Republicans and start filling his cabinet with them.
FOX: If [Obama] wins tonight, what do you expect to happen Wednesday Thursday Friday from a President-elect Obama?
MCCASKILL: He will surprise America how quickly he will try to reach out to the millions of people who are voting for John McCain today - and the milions of people who have questions about his leadership. He'll want to reassure them, and he'll want to find Republicans to work with him in his cabinet.
FOX: You don't predict it's going to be "we have a mandate, were going to govern from the left" you think its going to be more of a bipartisan lets-sort of heal and bring everbody together?
MCCASKILL: He will pleasantly surprise everyone who votes for John McCain today.
Ummm...what about the millions of people who, ya know, voted for Obama? Don't we count for something? I mean McCaskill's statement is really not encouraging for the millions of voters who are supporting Obama because he's a self-described progressive Democrat. And while McCaskill's message is shrouded in the argot of conciliation, it's not merely a conciliatory statement - it's a partisan and ideological one.
McCaskill is channeling the "Center-Right Nation" meme we've been seeing through the whole media in the lead up to this election (and by the way, I don't necessarily ascribe it to Obama himself - I continue to hope he will resist it). Again, no matter how big Obama may win in this ideologically polarized race, no matter how many polls show America is a fundamentally progressive nation on major issues, we are told that the only Responsible and Serious thing to do is for a President Obama to eschew claiming any obvious progressive mandate, and instead govern as a country club Republican.
What this analysis fails to consider - or deliberately ignores - is that the entire "center" has shifted. So while I agree with folks like Salon's Joan Walsh that there's no conceptual problem with an Obama presidency being populated by "centrists," there is a conceptual problem if those "centrists" aren't actually in the center of American public opinion. That is, if these "centrists" are actually corporatists whose free market fundamentalism on economic issues is well to the right of public opinion.
Sure, Democrats seem poised to make gains in "red" states and "red" districts. But as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) displayed so well in his silly and stupid declaration about the Patriot Act in 2006 - many of these "red" states and "red" districts are incredibly progressive in supporting strong privacy/civil liberties protections and opposing corporate-written trade policies championed by so-called "centrist" Democrats and Republicans alike. Come on out here to the traditionally "red" swaths of Colorado or Montana, and try running for office bragging about NAFTA or the Patriot Act - ie. D.C.'s definition of "centrism" - and you better get ready to get crushed at the polls.
I would say I was surprised that McCaskill decided to use her role as Democrats' election-day spokesperson to insist that a Democratic win will prioritize the very Republican governance that has become so unpopular. But then, I've been around this crap for too long to be surprised.
It seems no matter how hated George W. Bush and the Republican Party are in the country at large, no matter how an election may pivot on that hatred, the political Establishment of both parties is ideologically loyal to conservative corporatism. Indeed, that is the power of money - the power of the hostile takeover, if you will. And that means the uprising that this election season has stoked will need to become all the more intense starting tomorrow if we are to make sure a (hopefully) President-elect Obama doesn't spend the first days after the election constructing another conservative Presidency - only this time, building it with bricks and mortar marked "progressive." I don't think he personally wants to do that - but as we can see, there's already enormous pre-emptive pressure on him to walk down this rightward path.
Looking for leaked exit poll results from the Obama-McCain presidential race? Sorry to break the news, but until at least 5:00 p.m. today you are out of luck.
Following the 2004 election, when partial and misleading results leaked out at mid day, the network consortium that conducts the exit polls decided to restrict access to a small number of analysts in a "quarantine room" for most of the day. During the primaries this year, and presumably tonight as well, they release their results and vote estimates to producers and reporters at the television networks and other subscriber organizations about 5:00 p.m. eastern time. While some of that information will no doubt leak before 5:00 p.m, anything you see before that time claiming to be an "exit poll" is probably bogus and certainly not part of the official network exit poll apparatus (Tom Webster, an employee of Edison Research, blogged some details about life inside the quarantine room just before the Super Tuesday primaries).
A few other tips:
1) An exit poll is just a survey. Like other surveys, it is subject to random sampling error and, as those who follow exit polls now understand, occasional problems with non-response bias. In New Hampshire (in 1992) and Arizona (in 1996)* primary election exit polls overstated support for Patrick Buchanan, probably because his more enthusiastic supporters were more willing to be interviewed (and for those tempted to hit he comment button, yes, I know that some believe those past errors suggest massive vote fraud -- I have written about that subject at great length).
2) The networks rarely "call" an election on exit poll results alone. The decision desk analysts require a very high degree of statistical confidence (at least 99.5%) before they will consider calling a winner (the ordinary "margin of error" on pre-election polls typically uses a 95% confidence level). They will also wait for actual results if the exit poll is very different from pre-election poll trends. So a single-digit margin on an exit poll is almost never sufficient to say that a particular candidate will win.
3) Watch out for "The Composite." As they have for the earlier primaries, we expect the web sites of CNN, MSNBC and CBS to post exit poll tabulations shortly after the polls close that will update as the election night wears on (we will post links and commentary here, so we hope you'll plan to check back in later tonight). Those data are weighted to whatever estimate of the outcome the analysts have greatest confidence in at any moment. By the end of the night, the tabulations will be weighted to the official count. Typically, the first waves of exit poll tabulations (including most that leak before the polls close) are weighted to something called the "Composite Estimate," a combination of the exit poll data alone and a "Prior Estimate" that is based largely on pre-election poll results. So if you look to extrapolate from the initial tabulations posted on MSNBC or CNN (as we have done here at Pollster each primary night this year), just keep in mind that in the estimate of each candidate's standing in the initial reports will likely mix exit poll and the pre-election poll estimates (not unlike the kind we report here).
Salaam writes: Election day rumors are unreliable, so don't get upset by them. That doesn't mean I'm not curious about them and interested in monitoring them.
Truth2Tell at Democratic Underground reports: I just got this word from the coordinated campaign office in Washington State:
The "Houdini System" - the national automated system being used by the Obama campaign (not sure in how many places or everywhere) to manage GOTV track backs crashed overnight. I am being told they do not expect the system to be back up by end of day.
Here in King County, more than 300 poll watchers have been trained this last week to watch polling places and call data back into the Houdini system. Thousands more volunteers are on standby to call and doorbell outstanding voters. Most of these poll watchers failed to receive their assignments and data sheets overnight. Many have still not been told where to report at this time (8AM Pacific, 1 hr after poll opening).
It looks like no track backs will be used in King County today for GOTV.
Does anyone else have any information on this? It sounds like this was a nationwide collapse of the system. I hope this won't impact Ohio, Florida, etc. in a severe way, if they use Houdini.
For many people the effort to reshape the country, to get it back on track, to end the descent into corruption, cronyism, and a creeping anti-constitutionalism, began years ago and required real risk and sacrifice. By comparison, voting is easy.
David Kurtz at TPM writes: A nice view from my hotel room, past Obama headquarters across the street, where the lights never turned off, to the lake. A warm glow of a sunrise on a balmy fall day. It makes me reflective.
I'm hoping, of course, that today will be a fresh start, a first step toward national renewal. But of course those first steps have already been taken by millions of people, on their own, in their own different ways, over the past four years. Today is neither the beginning nor the end, but just an important landmark along the way.
My own first steps were not heroic or graceful, a series of small stuttering steps that eventually led to big changes. I was practicing law in Missouri, more or less happily, and enjoying our two toddlers, when Hurricane Katrina hit my home state. It was wrenching to watch from afar, a maddening combination of an intimate knowledge of the people and the place, a powerlessness to help, and a growing rage over the inhumane response and the cynical indifference.
Katrina crystallized for me what I wanted for myself. Within a year I'd decided to leave the law and return to journalism, trading a stable traditional career for a chance with a small start-up, TPM.
I don't mean to put my journey up against the far more consequential and in some cases heroic efforts of so many others. The point is that for many people the effort to reshape the country, to get it back on track, to end the descent into corruption, cronyism, and a creeping anti-constitutionalism, began years ago and required real risk and sacrifice.
As for those Muslims who still cling to the concept that they share the same social values with the Republicans and therefore ought to vote for John McCain--well, they ought to get their heads examined.
Jamal Dajani writes: With all the attention there has been on the voting behavior of different religious and ethnic segments of the population, it is plainly clear that the Muslim vote has been overlooked. There are only a few hours left until the outcome of the most important election of our time, when I, along with more than two million American Muslims will cast our votes, and I'm starting to feel neglected. However, being a Muslim and neglected under the Bush Regime is good...really good. A day without wiretapping, profiling, and harassment...is a good thing.
For the past eight years, Muslims have endured bigotry, Islamophobia, and racism from the Republicans. That's why they are very enthusiastic about this election and will be voting en masse for Barack Obama. According to a Pew Poll, American Muslims will vote 70 to 80 percent Democrat, whereas according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), 78 percent of Muslims voted Republican in 2000.
Why are Muslims leaning towards Obama?
The answer is simple. There is a sense of urgency in the Muslim community because so many issues are affecting them; with the Iraq war and the war on terrorism, they have been victims of anti-Muslim policies of the Bush administration, such as the Patriot Act, secret detentions, and the "secret evidence" laws used against them. Muslims are genuinely optimistic that a sweeping change promised by Obama will restore the civil rights that have been usurped by the Bush administration and end the Islamophobia that has swept the country and been exploited by John McCain during the election.
There are 6-7 Million Muslims living in the United States, with around 2.3 million of them eligible to vote according to some estimates. Several Muslim organizations have been working diligently to "Get Out the Muslim Vote" by helping Muslims to register and urging them to vote on November 4. Leading the pack is CAIR, a non-partisan organization with an overall goal of enhancing American Muslim political and civic engagement, according to one of their representatives. Their volunteers have been spearheading a nationwide strategy to register voters, distribute voter guides, and get out the Muslim vote for the 2008 elections.
Six to seven million might not sound like a lot, but Muslims are concentrated in several swing states like Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia, which just might make the difference. As for those Muslims who still cling to the concept that they share the same social values with the Republicans and therefore ought to vote for John McCain--well, they ought to get their heads examined. This Muslim will not be only voting for Barack Obama but will also be voting against Prop 8 in California. After eight years of divisive politics, it is time for us as a nation to move beyond all forms of bigotry.
Alaska: The only one of the 50 states where secessionists are considered American patriots rather than traitors.
Catholic working class: Synonym for "feminist."
Communist: 1. A believer in a graduated income tax ("Communists" include Adam Smith and 81% of professional American economists). 2. When modified by 'Chinese' : A supplier of retail goods to Walmart.
Friends: Persons whom John McCain does not know and does not actually like very much, but whom he wishes to persuade to vote for him by grimacing at them while gesturing as though he is measuring their waists for new pants.
Georgia: A country that can do no wrong. (Antonym of: Russia, Iran).
Green energy: 1. Nonpolluting, renewable, energy sources such as wind and solar. 2. Pennsylvania coal.
Iran: A largely Shiite country that would attack the United States and impose Sunni Bin Laden rule on us if only they had Bin Laden or any weapons.
Iraq: A largely Shiite country that would attack the United States and impose Sunni Bin Laden rule on us if only they had Bin Laden or any weapons.
Masochist: See "Pakistan."
Maverick: Someone who votes for the status quo 90 percent of the time.
Muslim: A Christian from Kansas who has lived in both Hawaii and Illinois.
Neoconservatism: The theory that Muslims would be grateful if only the United States would invade and militarily occupy them without provocation.
Pakistan: A largely Sunni country that does have Bin Laden and nuclear weapons, but which declares itself an ally of America in the war on terror and allows itself to be routinely attacked by the United States.
Palestinians: Dispossessed, displaced and stateless persons who are ungrateful for their condition and therefore vaguely dangerous.
Zionism: The theory that because Nazis hated Jews, the latter would be much better off all gathered together on disputed land in the midst of 300 million Arabs and Iranians.
There has been almost no discussion in the press about the broader implications of John McCain's military policies.
McCain wants to keep a large military contingent in Iraq for some years to come.
He agrees that more US troops should be sent to Afghanistan. (Obama wants more troops for Afghanistan but will draw down the ones in Iraq so that is a wash).
McCain has joked about bombing Iran, accuses Iran of sending insurgents into Iraq, and pledges to stop Iran's nuclear research program. McCain has said, "There is only one thing worse than a military solution, and that, my friends, is a nuclear-armed Iran."
McCain has all but pledged a war on Iran. (In contrast, Obama says he will conduct direct tough diplomacy with Tehran).
McCain is also a hawk on Georgia in the Caucasus and if he is to remain credible he'd have to increase US troop presence in the Greater Middle East.
Although US military re-enlistments in the ten combat divisions have not fallen in the way some observers had feared, that statistic only speaks to the ability of the US military to maintain the status quo. Even that ability is in long-term question, as African-American enlistments, traditionally a significant proportion, slip.
But McCain is not about the military status quo. He is ambitious for further conflicts. The current US military is too small to handle yet another front, and to maintain, as McCain insists they must, the current ones.
My friends, there is only one way for McCain to make good on his hawkish foreign policy and his virtual pledge of more wars.
McCain will need to institute a draft for young American men (and, given the times, maybe for women as well). See video above.
Ken Silverstein at Harper's writes: One of the lowest moments of this entire campaign has been the McCain campaign's repulsive smear job of Rashid Khalidi. The best remark about the whole episode came from Khalidi himself, who when asked for comment by the Washington Post, replied, "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over."
As I'm sure most readers know by now, Khalidi is the Palestinian American scholar and director of Columbia University's Middle East Institute who Senator McCain recently compared to a "neo-Nazi." McCain's camp has also claimed that Khalidi was a spokesman for former PLO leader Yasir Arafat, though there is no evidence this is true. As my colleague Scott Horton noted:
The McCain-Khalidi connections are more substantial than the phony Obama-Khalidi connections...The Republican party's congressionally funded international-networking organization, the International Republican Institute-long and ably chaired by John McCain and headed by McCain's close friend, the capable Lorne Craner-has taken an interest in West Bank matters. IRI funded an ambitious project, called the Palestine Center, that Khalidi helped to support. Khalidi served on the Center's board of directors. The goal of that project, shared by Khalidi and McCain, was the promotion of civic consciousness and engagement and the development of democratic values in the West Bank.
Consider here, too, the recollections of R. Bruce McColm, who was the president of the International Republican Institute (IRI) - appointed to his post with strong support from John McCain - when it first granted money to Khalidi's group. In an email today, McColm told me:
All our [grant] proposals had to be approved at board meetings with John McCain in attendance and in agreement. John did think highly of these grants. ... Ironically, it was Khalidi's academic background and his known coolness to the PLO that attracted our interest. How strange to see the McCain campaign use Khalidi as a "type of terrorist" with whom Obama hangs around.
A reader wrote to Marc Ambinder and sent the picture above:
I live in the Lehigh Valley region, near Bethlehem, PA. This morning I woke up to find these "League of American Patriots" all over the neighborhood.. Whoever sent these things must have done it in the early morning hours because we had a light rain last night.
In case it's hard to see, some of the text reads: "Black ruled nations are among the most violent, unstable nations in the world." and "Do you really want an anti-White President?"
Today, Vice President Cheney's hometown newspaper, the Casper Star-Tribune in Wyoming, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for president. The paper endorsed Bush-Cheney in 2004. Today's editorial states:
The next occupant of the White House will inherit a national economy that's collapsing and two wars our nation has been fighting for years, depleting valuable resources we need to fix a multitude of domestic problems. Far too many of our nation's citizens live paycheck to paycheck, worried about whether they'll have a job next week or if a medical crisis will bankrupt them.
What America needs most in these troubled times is a president who will move the country in a positive direction. The candidate who is most likely to chart a new course that will lead us to better days is Obama. Moreover, he is the best candidate for Wyoming...
The endorsement comes two days after Cheney campaigned for McCain in Casper. Thus far, at least 50 daily papers have switched from backing Bush in 2004 to supporting Obama.
If you go to the polls tomorrow and have problems with voter suppression or intimidation of any kind, this is what you should do: call 1-866-OUR-VOTE. This is the national election protection hotline set up by the the ACLU, the National Lawyers Committee and other groups. They will intervene and even dispatch mobile legal teams if necessary.
Republicans know very well that the turnout in St. Louis can swing the outcome of every election in Missouri, so they have a well practiced and time-honored game plan.
Update: All polls show the state tied at 49 percent. There will be a hard-fought battle in this state.
Daily Kos diarist Devilstower writes: The City of St. Louis has a population that's roughly 50% African-American. Like African-American populations elsewhere, they tend to vote heavily Democratic. For what it's worth, the rest of the city also votes heavily Democratic. You can bet your life that come Tuesday, voters are going to line up at every polling place in town. And that's the problem.
Republicans know very well that the turnout in St. Louis (and Kansas City) can swing the outcome of every election in Missouri, so they have a well practiced and time-honored game plan.
First, there won't be enough machines. Neighboring counties will have plenty, St. Louis County will be tight, St. Louis City will be woefully short. It's that way every cycle, it'll be that way this time.
Second, Republican poll workers and monitors will be late to arrive. This tactical heel-dragging will help slow the opening of some polling stations, and ensure that those trying to vote before work face frustrations and delays.
Third, Republicans will challenge voters. Not voters of whom they're suspicious, mind you, lots of voters. Particularly older voters who they think seem confused, or voters who already seem steamed about the delays. The goal here is to slow the process as much as possible, so that when voters are coming in to vote after work, the lines are stupendous. This process will continue right up until 7PM, when the polls close.
At that point, there will be thousands of people still in line in the city and county. The local Democratic Party will rush to a judge before the polls close, and get an injunction keeping some polling stations open longer to accommodate the overflow crowds. They'll get the injunction.
The Republicans will be roughly 3.2 seconds behind them, relaying this injunction to an appellate judge. This judge, whether appointed by the Bush administration or the Blunt administration in Missouri, will happily order the polls closed.
Polling places will then be left to interpret these rulings amid a sea of confusion. Close the doors immediately? Let everyone already in line vote but block any more people getting in line? Keep the polls going until they're forcibly shut down? All three options will be exercised, often within a few blocks of each other.
At the end of the night, there will be thousands of St. Louisans who didn't get to vote, Republicans will scream that Democrats were trying to cheat "again," and Kit Bond will deliver a red-faced speech that's slightly less coherent than Sarah Palin on a bender. All of this is as predictable as sunrise.
So when you see the first results come in from Missouri, and they lean toward McCain, don't give up hope. The Republicans may play the same defense they've played forever in the cities, but this year's offensive line is coming at them with an energy they're never going to expect.
People have criticized Obama for his willingness to reach out to America's international enemies, but they've seldom acknowledged that if he's elected, he's also going to have to deal diplomatically with haters in his own country.
Nov. 3, 2008 | Sean Quinn, of the polling site FiveThirtyEight, respected for its obsessiveness and eerie prescience, recently posted a hair-raising story about a pair of Barack Obama supporters. Quinn seems ready to verify its source, but only after the election. At any rate, it goes like this: A man canvassing for Obama in western Pennsylvania asks a housewife which candidate she intends to vote for. She yells to her husband to find out. From the interior of the house, he calls back, "We're voting for the nigger!" At which point the housewife turns to the canvasser and calmly repeats her husband's declaration.
Ah, racism. It's always a step ahead of us. Even before the majority of Democrats decided that Obama was electable despite being the first openly black presidential candidate, pollsters began gradually raising the level of speculation about the tide of bigotry that might overwhelm white voters once they got into that private little booth and faced the prospect of pulling a lever that suddenly seemed to read "Some Black Dude."
For the past six months, though, countless pollsters have shown that the so-called Bradley effect, named after African-American Democrat Tom Bradley, who lost the California governor's race in 1982 to a white opponent after leading in the polls, has ceased to exist, if it ever really did. Most likely, they say, it won't significantly affect the outcome of Tuesday's election. A recent Gallup Poll suggests that the number of all voters who would reject Obama based on his race, and the number more likely to vote for him because of his race, is about the same. (The numbers for those who would vote for or against McCain because he's white are about the same.) In other words, the Bradley effect is neutralized.
Those polls don't mean that racism still isn't alive in America. It is. But it's not as black and white as all the talk about the Bradley effect might lead us to believe. The couple in western Pennsylvania suggests that people can look past skin color while acting in their own best interests. For whatever reason or reasons -- the economy, healthcare, the Iraq war, Sarah Palin -- some racists are determined to vote for the black guy over the white one. A recent photo published in Politico (here and above) shows a Confederate flag proudly flying over an Obama sign in an Indiana home's front yard. Racists for Obama? It's a bracing contradiction and causes us to look deeper into what Obama's candidacy is telling us about race in American life and culture. People have criticized Obama for his willingness to reach out to America's international enemies, but they've seldom acknowledged that if he's elected, he's also going to have to deal diplomatically with haters in his own country.
The Pennsylvania couple's intended vote also suggests that we base our impression of what it means to be racist on a number of false assumptions. To be biased, you don't have to be a muscular guy with a shaved head and a swastika tattoo, or a late governor of a Southern state. You might be a radio personality, or even a liberal guy with a tendency to jam his foot into his mouth.
