In These Times offers its 22 picks for Obama's Administration. Have you picked your own preferences? If passionate, have you communicated your choice somehow to the transition team? It ain't illegal to push a bit - there's more to democracy than just voting. So let Barack know you still care - write in who you want or perhaps who you don't want. Productive kvetching, rather than just kibbitzing from a safe distance.

Okay, no, this won’t be Michelin’s Guide to finer Chicago restaurants. Just noting via Shakesville what Rahm brings to the table. (Except for that missing finger bit - lost somewhere in the hors d’oeuvres I suppose). Melissa’s interesting observation is that Obama picking Rahm implies Obama will likely govern to the left - why else would he need an enforcer? (For those not paying attention the last few years, Democrats have gotten used to turning to the right as the sun proceeds across the sky, something like the petunias in your flower bed).

My own hope is that Rahm will help provide some message unity (including even knowing the message) so that Democrats will start acting a bit more like a unified team - make your complaints in the locker room or practices, not in the huddle or during the play. Of course Rahm could try working with consensus, but these are Democrats after all - E Pluribus Discordius - so make my new White House puppy a pitbull for a change.



Update: Chris Bowers from OpenLeft notes some reasons to be concerned about the pundits’ view of Rahm’s effectiveness and his loyalty. And I’ve seen elsewhere the humorous view that Rahm is a Washington outsider or the Clintons’ guy, when he significantly changed over the course of the last 10 years. Oh well, hope and pray to your Ouija board religiously.

And I haven’t seen any comments on Michelle recently, but I commend her for what must have been a tough transition, which included making stump speeches without making unfortunate headlines. I was quite critical of her back in May or so, and it seems like Obama’s handlers figured out the same thing. Barack is quite good at avoiding slips, but it’s a quality you especially develop from practice, something Michelle hasn’t had that much of. But it’s also a matter of defining the message control, to be aware of what types of phrasing to steer away from and how to frame your overall message. Anyway, kudos to her - I’m sure it hasn’t been easy.

[Desi: PS - I really hate that stupid sexist t-shirt ad to the right ===>

talk about anti-progressive]

Dear Desi,

The Huffington Post is reporting that in their meeting today, Reid told Lieberman that he had to step down from his position as chair of the Homeland Security Committee if he remained in the Democratic Caucus.  Lieberman did not accept this offer, which means that his only redress is to go around Reid and petition the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee to keep his seat.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/06/lieberman-tries-to-cling_n_141876.html

We've watched for years as Joe called war opponents traitors, lied about wanting to bring the troops home to get elected, stabbed Democrats in the back and did everything he could to keep Barack Obama out of the White House.  Lieberman laundered smears that even McCain wasn't willing to launch himself.

No way.

Make no mistake about it -- Lieberman was openly threatening the Democratic Caucus in his press conference today. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvTXn7wm-60

Enough is enough.

Please sign the petition to the Steering and Outreach Committee, telling them it's time for Joe to go.

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/petition/nomorejoe

Jane Hamsher
firedoglake.com

[Desi: PS - I really hate that stupid sexist t-shirt ad to the right ===>

talk about anti-progressive]

One of the sad stories of the last 2 years has been how Blue Dog Democrats have sabotaged the Democratic "majority" by voting along with Bush most of the time and acquiescing to unreasonable Republican demands. What's worse, is it damages the Democratic brand, bogging us down with defeats that were Republican inspired and being the fall guys for Republican election propaganda.

Their party ended Tuesday, and not just because of a change in President. As Chris Bowers points out, Blue Dogs stayed even while various real progressive groups made gains. In a heavily Democratic House, they've just pushed themselves into irrelevance. No great love lost, think of them as Lieberman's love children in the lower house, hopefully having more time to spend with their families.

But instead of everyone thinking so admirably about "rising above party lines", perhaps we can think of it as sinking or slinking below the lines, below obligation, betraying a contract. I support Democrats to act like Democrats, and while that may have some shades of divergent meaning, it's not as Claire McCaskill seems to think, that Bi-partisanship 'R Us. I can split my ticket if I want to - I don't expect the Party to do it for me. That doesn't mean riding roughshod over the opposition, but it also doesn't mean simply splitting the difference Dutch Treat. Quite frankly, we've taken a lot of shit over the last 8 years, and we're not just going to gladly toss back lots of thanks and free bennies and consolation prizes. In short, we should govern as Democrats in a respectable, responsible fashion for the conditions at hand. Where that means reaching across the aisle and engaging cooperation, fine. Where it means simply respectfully informing of intentions without too significant opposition input, fine as well.

Matt Stoller at OpenLeft is also hoping for the more accomodating, less abrasive Van Hollen as Rahm's replacement at DCCC. I'm a bit worried about Emmanuel - he was a bit to suited to the prevailing wisdom of the old politics and going along with the views of the punditocracy in Washington, along with ruffling a few feathers. (I don't mind ruffling feathers for the right reason, but Emmanuel for one wasn't a strong supporter of the 50-state strategy). But hopefully this is the right place for Emmanuel and Van Hollen.

On the Senate, Georgia goes into runoff (uphill, but now that they know what the stakes are?), Merkley takes Oregon, and Minnesota is bunkered down into recount with lots of spoiled votes. I take it that Stevens barely stands in Alaska - WTF? - and will be replaced by some GOP schmuck by Sarah Palin.

I'm chuckling over the anecdotes that are coming out now that the race is finished - Sarah didn't know who was in NAFTA (3 whole countries, that's tough), that Africa wasn't a country, that she went even crazier on clothes than reported - something like the Beverly Hillbillies and Rodeo Drive/Nieman Marcus? I've been reluctant to criticize on clothes because of the sexist discrepancies on what's required for a woman vs. a man, but when your clothing expenses start hitting the $10,000/day mark for a 2-month campaign, perhaps this really is some kind of psychological problem. I'm afraid (*not*) that she's hit the Dan Quayle level of parody without managing to actually win the job. (But did manage to declare war against Iran in the process - you go, girl). She may be around to rally the base in 4 years, but that would mean an increasingly irrelevant base if true.

Update: I should be much more careful buying the pile-on on Palin. I've seen way too many stories like this about different candidates Rep and Dem that were nonsense at base, and especially once the campaign ends, everyone wants to show how witty and top-notch they were and how it was the *other* people that screwed up. I still think she's become a bit of a larf, but then I'm biased, and over 4 years she may manage to redeem herself quite a bit. For all the complaints about her, McCain simply sounded old and winded, superficial and uninteresting every time I listed to him over the last 6 months or so, and what can she do to spruce *that* up? He chose her, she didn't choose him, and considering where she came from she did a pretty bang-up job. If you can get past that *you* are not her audience.

Someone sent me an excerpt from Newsweek today that humored me:

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me ... answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

Aside from finally hearing the Big O drop the F bomb, I was reminded of analogous statement from Dick Cheny from 8 years ago:

"Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.

I think they're both right, just as arguing whether Al Gore overran the carbon credits for his house by flying while promoting his book. The difference is, Cheney never promoted a sound, comprehensive energy policy and now we desperately need one.

But as the Mighty Quinn knows, it's not going to be done in dribs and drabs. Recycling and solar and whatever all sound nice, but you have to look at the numbers. The HUGE numbers. All the factories and rice in China, all the cars in LA and Mexico City, all the heat for Europe and Japan and Russia, all the cooling for Dubai and Qatar. Using solar power and switching to energy efficient lightbulbs (and I'll be damned if I'm not out a small fortune in short-life crappy dim energy efficient lightbulbs, but I digress) will not find a suitable replacement for the internal combustion engine, and that's only one of our energy problems.

And this is only one of our major issues, but just to point out - the guys on the other side aren't always wrong, and the guys on our side can sometimes get mired down in style over substance, and for real solutions we may have to accept a little less romance and a little more practicality and seriousness.

Now Recommend this post or my Wiemaraner puppy will make scarey ghoulish faces at you and piddle on your keyboard.

I was looking at MSNBC's figures on exit polls as
a followup on an earlier post (Women Not Counted Out)
on high female support for Obama in early voting.
What I don't know is if exit polls reflect the approximate
percentage of the gender of voters.

If so, I get Obama's support in a few interesting states at:

Georgia - 60.9% female
North Carolina - 58.9% female
Indiana - 55.5% female
Missouri - 55.5% female

In other states (like Florida or Ohio for example), the gender balance
is much closer. Am I interpreting this accurately?

Also Chris Bowers at OpenLeft notes that he managed to put together quite
accurate election projections based on easily available public information.
A good step for transparency in elections and understanding the system &
wishes of voters. (I.e. we no longer have to rely on pundits & media spin to predict
which way the electorate's going)

Dragged my daughter out of bed to watch Obama's speech live - of course she mainly cares about seeing his kids and finding out they'll be getting a new puppy for the White House. (Oh-oh, what's that daddy, can we get one too? Where's the remote, time to switch channels). But very exciting for her - got to show her the difference between a Democratic crowd and a Republican one, Biden's mother was great on stage looking confused, amazed, pleased all at the same time.

Obama's speech straight on - we've come so far, but here's where the tough part starts, bring us together, restore our prosperity. McCain - deep congratulations and pledge to work together. The McCain crowd - lots of boos.

But we've got a problem, folks. McCain won 47.4% of the vote as I'm writing this, Obama 51%. With McCain's rather poor campaign, a deeply unpopular President, a messy bungled war, a corrupt administration that just dropped the economy in the gutter, and the best organized opposition campaign run probably ever. A 4% difference, i.e. a 2% shift and they're tied.

Ah, but do we? It is true that that signals a rather conflicted, divided populace, and at first glance my stomach was sinking like with the very modest gains of 2006 despite all the scandals (like, what do these people have to do to lose office?) [Late upadate: a lot, looks like Ted Stevens as a convicted felon is likely to win office, but still 28% of precincts to support. Georgia looks gone, but very tight races in Minnesota and Oregon. Wait, Merkley got the late counting districts - she wins. Franken looks a winner but likely will be a recount. Georgia looks lost. Another "every vote counts" year. And we're still stuck with Lieberman. But still, that puts us at 56 + 2 in the Senate? 57 if Alaska goes our way? F'ing brilliant.]

But take a look at the house electoral map at say CNN. Some surprising things are taking place in our "Red vs. Blue" paradigm. Arizona - 5 of 8 Dem. Colorado - 5 of 7 Dem. Utah - 1 of 3 Dem (a lot of territory). New Mexico - 3 of 3 Dem. Idaho - maybe 1 of 2 Dem? Iowa - 3 of 5 Dem. Texas - 12 of 32 Dem. Georgia - 6 of 13  Dem. Iowa - 3 of 5 Dem. Indiana - 5 of 9 Dem. Arkansas - 3 of 4 Dem. West Virginia - 3 of 4 Dem.  Tennessee - 5 of 9 Dem.  Virginia - 7 of 11. And so on.

So while it's true there's some resistance out there, and it would be stupid to discount the organization abilities of the Republicans and the whacko far-right conservatives, the huge swaths of "red states" paraded around over the last 8 years has disappeared. Sure, some places have huge geographical areas under 1 congressperson, and even many of these house seats are about dead even, but that's the point - it's much more a populace divided than parts of the country vs. others. And the results are in - the Democrats are more inspiring by about a 2 to 1 margin in terms of districts won. Of course that doesn't mean each district is 100% blue either. But it's the core of our national political breakdown.

It doesn't look like we'll make 60 seats in the Senate, but a shift from 49 Dem 2 Ind to 56 Dem 2 Ind (fingers crossed) will still make life much easier for a Democratic president. I'm glad Obama focused on the fact that this is where the chance to make the dream starts, not where it finished - where all the new nuts and bolts have to fall in place, where a huge shift from campaigning to governing will take place. I hope the knee-jerk "let's just start compromising in the name of bi-partisanship" folks like Claire McCaskill get shoved aside, but I have no doubt that there will be a lot of compromise necessary. McCain is not our enemy - he's kind of a puppy on top of a volcano. Yeah, sometimes he bites and is ill-behaved, but there's a far uglier crew in the background that didn't like him and sure as hell doesn't like Obama. And they'll be doing their best to derail this administration from the beginning. Be prepared, pitch in. It's gonna be tough work, but we're in for the long haul.

Some might accuse me of "it always comes back to the Clintons with you", and I suppose they might be right. I'm thinking why I'm in a congratulatory mood today, and I suppose the biggest influence is indicators that Obama is adopting much of Hillary's domestic policy, that he's getting on famously with Bill, that he relied on the Clinton economic team to ride through the rough meltdown a month ago. But it's a bit more than that.

Reports are that Obama studied up on how to approach Bill, not diving into policy but feeling him out more on his historical view, his anecdotal thoughts, a more general "what do you suggest?" Perhaps it comes from his organizing and fund raising background, hitting up local political leaders, figuring out what's their priority, their sweet spot. Whatever. It's been a long time since I've seen a politician act like they needed to study someone, to draw them out, to closely analyze a situation. Him/herself. Even with Hillary, I have a nagging curiosity as to what her campaign strategy meetings were like back in January. How come she didn't have the budget numbers at her finger tips? How come she didn't pull the information out of her advisors, how come she couldn't figure out which team leaders were struggling? Perhaps it's simply a different style, perhaps he gets it from his basketball background, but Obama as everyone knows ran a better ground game, and continues to run one - he knows the fast break, running out the clock, playing formation, fighting for the boards, throwing a few elbows, and simply controlling the game - and likely will continue to. But part of the importance to me of that ground game is he's listening - not just his advisors, not some Karl Rove or Dick Cheney that has it all in hand - but him. He's not Uncurious George. As someone (AA?) recently mentioned, one of the amazing things about Obama's organization is that he was organizing Democrats - i.e. herding the proverbial cats. With Republicans, you mention "cut taxes" or "fight terror" and they line up like penguins. With Democrats, they start to scratch each others' eyes out except for the ones who go line up with the Republicans.

So I suppose I'm now comfortable with Obama the Analytical, the questioner, the game-planner. I won't like all of his platforms, but I expect I'll like enough of them and he won't have quite as many crap positions thrown on him as he does now, and he'll have more room and power being in office with a majority to broker his own strong hand. But he knows very well that he's dealing with a still quite conservative country, and I don't think he'll be doing anything that truly surprises anyone. Which is fine by me. A modest, prudent and efficient government is pretty much what I want. No more surprises, boring but efficient bureaucracy with a modicum of out-of-the-box thinking. I don't think Obama's terribly ideological, or perhaps I think he's quite non-ideological but ideological enough. Which also protects us from the most dangerous of possibilities - someone who takes himself too seriously, too intent on forcing some hare-brained scheme down our throats, someone convinced of his own infallible nature. (Hear that, George?) Obama tasted defeat in 2000 and it improved him. (George never tasted defeat that actually touched him, and would never acknowledge it - all of his failures were bailed out by friends and family).

In some ways what I do hope for is the era of the super-efficient 50-state bean counters. I want e-government and electronic medical records and veterans benefits and policy papers and opinion polls in general peoples' voices and preferences and complaints and the various government feedback that affects them to flow like a seamless mesh, like the Bulls in their glory days. Perhaps a bit too dreamy, but Obama's ground game has been good, and it seems likely that that hyper-efficient infrastructure and approach can be applied in part to modernize governing - not just "internet" but data mining and semantic analysis and nets and Site(government)-Enabled-Optimization and click-thrus and niche markets and PayPal and Facebook. For 150 years we've been comparing the making of laws to the preparing of sausage, and perhaps it's time to shift to something more modern, more fast food drive-thru restaurant chain at its worst, something a bit lower cholesterol and lean cuisine if done better. Not everyone's cup of tea, but at some point the doctor speaks and you have to listen - a diet or government of fatty sausage is simply not healthy, no matter how much you've acquired the taste for it. Stay tuned.

It's become a bit of an illusory overstatement to think of The Greatest Generation as having all the answers, of having an easy time of it, of having a Leave It To Beaver/Happy Days kind of quaint existence. It's also somewhat true that we assign a lot to the 60's what really happened in the 50's. While Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy symbolized and wrote about the Beat Generation, there were a lot of people on the move in the post-war years, hipsters and rednecks and big city and small town folks with combinations of big dreams and simple curiosities and a basic need for survival. And much of what's best about our concept of progressive liberalism came about during those days of heightened prosperity and deepened thoughtfulness and basic confronting of the teeming hordes and the rapidly evolving world shoved into an odd combination of materialism and emerging idealism.

I don't know much if anything about the Dunhams' politics, but I do chuckle a bit when I hear that Ann Dunham was "from Kansas". Sure, like a little less than the Joads were from Oklahoma, moving out at 3. Her mother Madelyn Dunham came of age during the war, one of the women who got jobs on the assembly line while the menfolk were off in Europe fighting. Following the war finds the Dunhams making a series of hops across the west trying to keep a tough furniture profession on track, with Mrs. Dunham providing backing the hard way from restaurants to just enough college and finally all the way from the bottom up to a nice VP position in the bank business in Hawaii.

You have to sympathize with the Dunhams, having their "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" moment in 1960, 7 years before the movie, leaving their 17-year-old daughter pregnant and unwed and temporarily setting her back from college. But they managed their way through the crisis, supporting their daughter as she continued on with her anthropology interests and her journeys off to Indonesia and southeast Asia. Even supported her enough to take in her son when things didn't seem to be going so well in Jakarta. I don't know if the Dunhams were "liberals" but they seem to have had a practical flexible handle on living and maintaining a sense of what's important, possibly from their own time on the road, possibly from their own disrupted roots.

In any case, Madelyn Dunham has become something akin to a modern day Moses, wandering the desert for so many years, ending up raising the child born in the reeds, and just catching a glimpse of Canaan as he crosses the River Jordan, knowing she wouldn't make it there herself. Perhaps it's best this way - she'll only know the promise of what's to come and not the inevitable tough and annoying and disappointing details. And it gives a moment to reflect on who she was or seems to have been - a woman who embraced or at least managed change, provided support to husband and daughter and grandson through uncertain times, who added to the new adage, that behind every good man are a few good women. So over the next days Madelyn Dunham will be laid to rest and Barack Obama will kick some royal ass and the rest remains to be written. It may be a tad Hollywood, but it seems to be the best story Obama's come up with. With Toot and Ann's support. God speed.

Okay, if you voted already, too late, but if you haven't - well, if Oprah's vote can disappear, yours can too. Not too much you can do about it this time - our lame-ass Democratic representatives let any solution die and of course our Republican representatives were jut fine with it.

But if you video your vote and document problems, you can upload the video and perhaps one of our initiatives in the next 2 years will be to fix our screwy voting machines. Funny that the nation that created the internet also created digital voting fraud and simply dysfunctional voting machines. Thumbs dabbed in ink in Iraq is safer and more exact. Another example of the cruel paradox of our legacy.

Daniel De Groot at OpenLeft examines the timing and intent of Cheney's endorsement, and comes up with the revenge theory. Not a bad one at that. It's worth remembering that in the first year of the Bush Administration, following marching orders was such a priority the Republicans gave up a Senate majority just to punish someone who veered from the line.

McCain's disobedience on torture stands as a stark insult to Cheney's vision of ultimate unquestioned VP authority, the extra-constitutional office. And at a time when any comment from a Democrat was laughingly dismissed as supporting terrorism and being weak on security. Sound familiar? Just a year ago, Scooter Libby's obstruction of justice felony conviction to shield the VP's office in criminal secrecy was met by what? Oh yes, an almost-pardon and a lot of pats on the back and excuses by the "liberal press" whose kids go to school with Scooter's. This is our whorish past-dysfunctional stew we have in Washington.

While I'm not a McCain fan, and think that most of his maverickism is pure marketing and (was) a mushy wet kiss from a bored and fickle press, his efforts on stopping torture and reforming campaign finance were good courageous acts, fighting against his own party and his own political interests. And while I typically just give a nod to people's private lives, I do think the McCains' adoption of a black (Bengali) girl is also an unusual step for a Republican and admirable in several ways.

So as McCain deservedly goes down in flames tomorrow, remember that once upon a time not too long ago, he did a couple of important things right, when quite a few of our own party were ducking for cover. In short, McCain is way too flawed to be president, but he's still a relatively decent human being.

Okay, let the food fight begin.

So Jabba the Hut has weighed in, endorsing the now silver-haired Luke, "remember the terrorism line, Luke, remember the terrordome". Too late for the now tarnished Death Star, electricity cut off for several years, once shit-hot gleaming metal finish rusting. Princess Leia traded in her light saber for an over-under sawed off shotgun - "for recreational purposes, you understand" - but it's not enough to face the waves of new anxious Storm Troopers.

Ah well, Cheney, the mystery man of the White House, will be some kind of history come January. I figure he came out now to endorse simply because it doesn't matter. The weird one is that just 28% of white people who attend church regularly support Obama. The good news is that's a pretty tightly defined demographic, so over time when perhaps the Barackolypse doesn't bring in all the Four Horseman (tax hikes, Sharia Law, ban on guns, gay boy scout teachers) they'll settle down a bit to an anti-Obama bloc of just 60% or so.

Meanwhile, good new self-produced ad on Prop 8.

Winners & Losers of Campaign 2008? (Is it too early to start tabulating?). Drudge tarnished, Oprah brand tainted, Fox/MSNBC/CNN diminished, Samantha Powers & Wes Clark sidelined, Clintons halfway out of re-education camp, Sarah Palin will be Danger Mouse for years to come, McCain will be the new mascot for "nice guys finish last" (skillful marketing whether you like him or not), the Chicago School of just about anything is now in, the Iraq War still crazy after all these years, Warren Buffet the new more acceptable - to the right - George Soros, bloggers like Atrios-Digby-FiredogLake-Shakesville-Openleft-MyDD for helping shape and cut through the debate, Politico for finding a  fairly neutral ground to report from, McClatchy for providing an independent voice on Iraq, MoveOn sidelined.

Name your own poison/pleasure below. And thanks to OpenLeft & Public Enemy for the title. And thanks to George the Curious Monkey Bush for providing the surreal background to what could have been an uneventful prosperous 8 years. You can keep the W's on your keyboards as souvenirs. We'll be throwing the lot out and fumigating anyway.

Update: As I mentioned in a comment, Glenn Greenwald has really shone on the blogosphere these last couple of years. Hard to believe that it took blogs to actually follow scandals like the prosecution of Scooter Libby, when the DC press was all aghast that one of their buddies would actually be indicted. Two years ago TPM Muckraker shone on collating all the existing scandals.

Update 2: In followup to my earlier posting on the large margin for females in early voting, wow! Look at those numbers in Georgia!  Women make up 63% of the early black voters,  56% of early white voters.  So let's see how women fare in new policies and in the divvying up of incoming administration positions - so far not too impressive share of the pie (since I assume Treasury will definitely be a man, Chief of Staff seems likely to go to Emmanuel, etc.), so might be a good time to put on the pressure for those you want before all the cherry spots are gone. But in any case, one of the big winners of 2008 - early voting! Vote early, vote often as we always said. Who needs the holiday rush to the polls? If you can't do it mail order, at least get it out of the way before November.

Update 3: who I'd like to be big losers would be the Blue Dog Democrat and of coure the biggest dog Independent, Joe Lieberman. But I haven't been able to figure out these last 2 years whether they were so clever or the Pelosi/Reid/Hoyer axis was so weak and ineffectual. We'll have to save some of our predictions until that important detail gets worked out. While I haven't been a big fan of some recent Obama positions, it wouldn't sadden me to see him instill some voting discipline in Congress. (Along with actually have Democrats remember their lines in front of the press, like the important lower end of the tax hike figures for Obama's tax plan. Richardson, Biden? To the principal's office, now. And bring your coats, you may be going home for the day.)

Update 4: A late entry big winner - the War in Iran!!! Yes, folks have been trying to proclaim it inevitable ever since Kyl-Lieberman, but no matter how many times we seemed close to the starting gate, it remained a non-starter. Until Sarah grabbed the bull by the horns and said what we've all been thinking for years - "Hey gang, we're at War with Iran!!!" Now that's just a tad maver-icky assuming the war powers as VP candidate even before you're elected, but I'm sure Cheney would approve - it seems to fit his style to a T.

Update 5: The death of the undecided voter. Once seen as weighing the scales of Solomon, pondering and considering in deep reflective wisdom, the undecided voter can now be summed up as David Sedaris in the New Yorker does: Think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?" To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked. Or as I see it, "Hi, I'm not a disgusted non-fundamentalist moderate, nor a progressive, nor a die-hard Republican nor a member of the armed services nor someone who can read the papers and interpret simple obvious facts by myself. I must be a _ _ _ _ _!!!"

Update 6: On the remaining to break side, it's hard to see yet how the youth turnout will actually go. Some are claiming business as usual, others are predicting much higher than usual. Does early voting hinder or help? I can't imagine it not being a record year, but... Big losers? Conservative religious fundamentalists. Perhaps the biggest winners - moderate conservative Republicans - that will be Obama's swing target group over the next 2 to 4 years. The Rove tactics were the dog that didn't quite bark this year - why not? I think they didn't believe McCain could win anyway, didn't really want him to win, enjoyed saddling him with Sarah like a 150-pound anchor to swim with in rough seas, and well it doesn't affect Rove's legacy anyway. Final tally for America - now okay to be black, not so good to be Muslim. As if we didn't see that coming on 9/12.

Update 7: Super cool, I've been enjoying OpenLeft's personal campaign ads, and now David Sirota (not always my favorite, I have to admit) has one on how New Yorkers can vote for Obama but still send a special "but make mine progressive" message along with it. So basically the candidate sees not one lump of votes, but a few lumps of votes from different sources. Nice to not just be lost in the crowd.

Update 8: The 50 state press. Well, it wasn't as thorough as we might have hoped, it was certainly much more advanced than 2004 & 2006, thanks in part to the early efforts of the Net Roots, having a riveting primary the first part of the year, and just in general having better candidates and worse prevailing conditions. But the lesson should be learned - don't give up early, keep the pressure up and capitalize on your opponent's mistakes, and support those lower-tiered candidates as well - they're the future bread-and-butter.