Obama

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Political Chatter for October 1

Paul Krugman from Princeton and the New York Times is saying the new Senate bill is worse than the House bill that passed.  He is saying that the Senate bill will pass and than be redone after the election.  Krugman says the bill is designed more to stop the slide than to fix the problem.

The CBS poll is showing Obama up by 9 (49 to 40) outside the margin of error.  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/us/politics/02poll.html?hp   Obama also leads among women and independents, and appears to have narrowed the gap among whites – both men and women.  http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/sepd-elec08.pdf   The InTrade Quote as I write this is 64.1 to 35.7.  Then a new (to me) website has Obama winning by 336 to 202 electoral votes.  http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/today%27s%20polls

I think, I hope, that the McCain campaign is imploding.  I heard on either Rachel Maddow or Keith Oberman that no candidate has ever come back from such a margin so close to the election.  Voting has already begun and the CBS numbers show people have made up their minds.  We shall see if Sarah Palin can make a dent during the debate tomorrow night or of Joe Biden can hurt.

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More on Polls and other election stuff

After posting “reading the tea leaves”, I was checking out AlterNet and ran across several interesting posts.  First was an interesting piece by Joshua Holland about why polls drive us crazy. http://www.alternet.org/election08/99586/why_the_polls_drive_us_crazy_%28and_shouldn%27t%29/?page=1

Holland points out that the daily tracking polls and other national polls, while interesting, don’t mirror how the election will be won or lost.  He argues that one has to look at the individual states – particularly the swing states.

Remember that we don’t vote for president in the United States – we vote state by state for electors who vote for the president.  As I write, [September 20] new polls who Obama up by 9 points in Michigan, 5 points in Pennsylvania and a couple of points in Ohio – all crucial swing states.

He also points out a lot of experts are looking at who can get the voters to the polls on November 4 rather than who is leading in the polls.  So you combine all the new registered voters including new citizens and the new registrants under 35 and get them to the polls and that may be the election.  A lot of the under 35’s don’t have landlines and aren’t polled. 

And what is an election with out some fun?  This link has some great stuff. http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/99057/the_10_most_talked-about_election_%2708_viral_videos_/?page=1  I think my favorites are the Obama/Lion King one by Jon Stewart and the McCain debating McCain one.  Several of the videos are very serious, however, including the one by doctors about the possible state of John McCain’s health.

A few other random thoughts for the day:  When will we get to see Sarah Palin’s  (and Todd Palin’s) tax returns?  Will anyone mention the Keating Five to John McCain?  And since when does thinking about an issue before making a decision as Obama is doing about the Bush-Paulson-Bernanke bail-out proposal a bad thing?  Finally, can the Red Sox clinch a playoff spot tonight?

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Reading the Tea Leaves

 So we are getting to nail biting time in the election and I’m busy studying polls and looking at everyone’s electoral maps.   This week alone we have the revelation the by a slim margin – maybe the margin of the actual election? – more people would rather watch a football game with Obama than with McCain by 50% to 47%.  This morning the Intrade market quotes are Obama 51.5 – McCain 47.3 This is very close to the football poll.  What exactly does that say about us anyway?  The same pollsters http://news.yahoo.com/pollswho did the football poll also found by a larger margin 55% to 44% would prefer to have Obama as their child’s teacher. 

This morning about 5 am when I was unable to sleep, I entered The Fix’s “Pick Your President” http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/pick-your-president/4861/ contest.  I can’t embed the link to my map because WordPress doesn’t do Flash, but I will try to describe my electoral vote picks.  Remember they were made at 5 am on a Saturday morning.  The Fix’s picks as of September 9 totaled Obama 289  – McCain 249.  He included Ohio to put Obama over the magic 270.  The explanation was that the total was 269 and they decided to add Ohio.  The strange, to my mind, thing is that they have New Hampshire going for McCain.

The average from all of us kooks who have submitted maps as of this morning is Obama 286 – McCain 252. But my map is Obama 314  – McCain 223.  I added in Montana because I liked the speech Governor Brian Schweitzer gave at the Democratic Convention.  He’s the ultimate rancher regular guy turned Governor.  (Maybe what Sarah Palin could be when she grows up? Nah!)  Plus, they just elected Jon Tester to the Senate.  I added Virginia because I think that everyone is underestimating Mark Warner’s coattails.  And I threw in New Hampshire.  Montana is really a long shot – but if it goes for Obama, my changes of winning the Pick Your President Contest go up.

It will be interesting to see the polls in the next few days given the implosion by the McCain-Palin ticket this week.

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“Lipstick on a Pig”

Is using this saying sexist?  Slate Magazine has two interesting takes on the subject.  First “the Explainer” talks about the origins of the saying.  There have been variations on the theme for many years.  Ann Richards used it against both Bushes, for example.  http://www.slate.com/id/2199805/

And there is video of John McCain using it specifically against Hillary Clinton’s health care plan. http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid271557392/bctid1784628752

I don’t think of the term, given its history in American politics as being particularly sexist.  It simply means trying to dress something up so people might be fooled into thinking it is something new.  I think McCain was using it as a dig at a health care proposal and Obama was using it to talk about Republican policies generally.  It should be noted that he was speaking in a rural area of Virgina where most of his listener probably got the reference and the humor. In neither case was it used against anyone specific.

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Thoughts on the election and values

What are values anyway?  Aren’t they beliefs that we hold as principles which guide our lives?  Like equal justice and fair play?  Like freedom to make individual choices under law?  Like the right to privacy?

I think Barak Obama is right when he says that we should look at the politics of the McCain /Palin ticket not their personal lives.  And yet I have these nagging thoughts that keep circling around my head.  Sarah Palin does not seem to believe either in abortion or birth control which is her right, but everyone can’t afford to support a 17 year old daughter and her 18 year old husband to be.  And she also doesn’t believe in housing for pregnant teens since she vetoed state funding for the Covenant Transitional House in Alaska.  So, Sarah, what exactly is a poor young woman whose family either cannot or will not support her supposed to do?  Is being a teen mother for the privileged?  And all the Republicans who seem to excuse Bristol (who obviously did not follow the rule of abstinence) by saying, “well these things happen” only excusing young women who are white and middle class?  Sarah Palin would also condemn the young woman who made the difficult choice to have an abortion.

I can’t help wondering what would happen if if the situation were reversed – if the Obamas’ had a teenaged daughter who was pregnant by some kid who was only interested in basketball or hanging out on a street corner in Chicago.  Wouldn’t the Republicans be all over him, condemming this example of black irresponsibility and lack of morals? It seems to me that the so-called family values of the Republicans and Christian right are flexible when it comes to one of theirs, but not so flexible when it comes to people outside the group.

Ellen Goodman has some interesting thoughts about all this in her column in the Boston Globe today.

I shifted into high dudgeon over the Sexism in the Media, Part II, the blogcreeps and cablescum sneering at her beauty queen bio and her working-mom credentials. Then came the news that her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. Immediately, the “family values” folks who have fashioned a political wedge out of moral judgments began insisting that anyone who remarked on this baby bump was an insensitive invader of privacy.

What did James Dobson of Focus on the Family say? This teen pregnancy showed that “she and her family are human.” Tony Perkins at the Family Research Council praised Bristol for “choosing life in the midst of a difficult situation.”

Meanwhile Obama himself, the son of an 18-year-old mother, said strongly that “People’s families are off-limits and people’s children are especially off-limits.” Well, OK. But let’s not forget that it’s the right wing that made social issues into a political issue. The right wing decided that pregnancy was not a matter of private decision-making but a harsh and unrelenting political battle

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/03/you_want_change_how_about_drama/

The bottom line:  I think what Sarah and Todd Palin do with their daughter – which to me looks like exploiting her – is up to them.  But they need to learn to respect those who might make a different choice and to support those families and young women (and men) also.  The two people I feel the most sorry for in this entire business are Bristol Palin and Levi Johnson.

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The Last Night of the Convention

I was just too tired last night to write anything and having overslept a little this morning had to haul myself to work.  But Barak Obama’s speech was all anyone could ask for.  Tough, full of specifics and Presidential.  The policy parts reminded me of a state of the union address.  And he went right back at John McCain.

I had been one of the skeptics about using a stadium.  Was it over the top?  Would it be partially empty?  No on both counts.  I disagree with some critics that the ordinary people who came out and spoke about their problems and why they are supporting Obama were too much like a telethon.  The best line was “I’m Barney Smith, not Smith Barney.”  The only grip I had was the lack of close-ups of the Obama family and then of the united Obama-Biden family at the end.  They seems really far awy on TV.

It is time to get to work to get Obama elected.

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Hillary’s Three Point Shot

The game is tied.  The clock is ticking down.  Hillary Clinton has the ball.  She shoots.  Yes!  Three points!

All the talk and speculation can end now. “No way. No how. No McCain.”  She also asked her supporters if they were in it for just for her or for who she stands for.  After her speech any of her supporter who does not support Obama is either not a Democrat or has a mental illness.  Hilliary gave the speech of her life on Women’s Equality Day.  She was not known for making the “big speech”, but there was nothing awkward or forced last night.  She was forceful and clear about who she supported and why.  You go, Girl!  Bill and Joe have a lot to live up to tonight.

And on to other convention news:  Mitt Romney was evidently on the floor duing Deval Patricks’s speech.  No one can tell me that it was accidental.  The absentee governor trying, unsuccessfully, to take the spotlight from the first Massachusetts governor in a dozen years who is actually governing.  Romney is the governor who went out of state and made fun of the state of which he was the elected governor.  Will he actually be McCain’s pick?  Can’t wait for more “dog on the roof of the car” jokes and more tape of his illegal immigrants working in his yard.

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We have a Ticket

The wait is finally over and Joe Biden is the man.  While I’m disappointed that the pick wasn’t either Bill Richardson or my old friend, Tim Kaine, I understand exactly why Obama picked Biden.  Yesterday all the buzz both at the office and socializing after was about the pick.  I said that I was sure that it was going to be Biden.  I thought Evan Bayh was too conservative and Tim Kaine too inexperienced and that Hillary had too much baggage.  Too bad I didn’t place any bets. 

Watching the Springfield rally today, I realized Biden could play the role that Obama can’t play and still appear “Presidential”.  Biden can go on the attack and link McCain to W and and the wrong direction of the country.  I’m not sure any of the other potentials could do this with the same experience base, the same familiarity with McCain. I think he shores up the Democratic base but I’m still not sure that he can bring along white voters who can’t bring themselves to vote for a black man. 

I know there are a lot of questions about whether Biden can “stay on message” with his history of rambling and putting his foot in his mouth.  I heard one comment (sorry can’t remember who but it on one thousand panelists on MSMBC – maybe John Harwood) that remarks like the Biden’s about not being able to go into a convenience store without hearing an Indian accent might solicit a nod of agreement among those who don’t worry about being politically correct, that they might look at it as just a statement of fact.

But in my neighborhood things are hopping.  I was doing voter registration at the local supermarket this morning.  We were careful to remain neutral, but folks registering and people just passing by expressed many times that they had registered or were registering because of the importance of the election.  We even recruited one of the store workers to help up round up the unregistered.  He said that everyone had to vote because this was a “very important election”.  Lots of people said that they were for Obama and were taking registration cards home to friends and family.  We even had one fellow changing his address because is had been a Biden supporter during the primary and now wanted to be sure he could vote for him.

I think with Barak Obama, the inspirational leader, and Joe Biden, the experienced plain talker, we may have a winning team.

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Clinton, Obama and Race

I’ve been reading this morning about Mark Penn.  Colbert I. King has an excellent column in today’s Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081502825.html?hpid=opinionsbox1  King dissects the Penn memo on using race and points out that the content could be a conversation between Klan members.

 I started out as a Bill Richardson supporter, but because I’m a political junkie was following all the campaigns.  The more I read about the staff supporting Hillary Clinton, the more I understand how poorly she was served and why she lost.  I have no idea how people like Penn were hired for her campaign, but I suspect they were FOB (Friends of Bill).  The nomination was hers to win and, with the help of her “advisors” hers to lose.  I would have loved to see a woman run for the nomination, but never supported Hillary.  I’m now beginning to understand why I felt uneasy about her. I understand that part of politics in winning, but the idea that someone on her campaign actually thought about using race against Obama makes me feel slightly ill. 

And now the Republicans are making fun of Obama’s vacation and his having been raised in Hawaii as being somehow unAmerican.  Haven’t they noticed that Hawaii is a state?

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Catching Up

So, I changed the title of the blog to FortLeft – Bob is FortRight so mine probably reflects my political views more than his which mostly reflects that he thinks he is right 99% of the time.

The Red Sox are hanging in for the wild card and we still have no VP announcement.  Hillary Clinton’s name will be placed in nomination after which she will urge her delegates to move to Obama.  Will this be another embarrassing moment for the Democratic Party?

I got a poll call the other night about local races.  Do I think Deval Patrick is going a good job? Yes.  Am I going to vote for Dianne Wilkerson? Yes.  Will I change my mind? No.  I know that Dianne has had problems with finances, both campaign and personal. But she is so good on the issues.  A leader in the fight to legalize gay marriage and then to repeal the 1913 law I wrote about in an earlier entry.  A big supporter 10 years ago when we were establishing the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women – and I could go on. And she is still interested in very local ideas.  It will be an interesting discussion at the Ward 11 Democratic Committee endorsement meeting.  Sonja Chang Diaz is a would be member of the committee and I don’t know what the protocol is, but I need to find out.  It would be extremely extremely awkward if she is in the room.

Things are finally picking up here in the Obama world.  There is an organizing meeting for Roxbury next week which I will be attending.  We need to coordinate Ward 11 activities – we will be supporting him as the nominee – and the campaign’s activities.  Should be interesting.