check out this music video a friend of mine made of a Sandman the Rappin' Cowboy song.  the sandman is a trucker from north dakota.  good vid, great tune.  good stuff all 'round 

during the primaries, i was surprised time and again how little attention was paid to the impact of early voting.  much was made of hrc's sudden shift in nh to her being more accessible and "softer", especially her "choke-up" moment.  it was widely suggested that that was what delivered her "comeback" at the last minute and kept her in the race.  others brought up the possibility of a "bradley effect."  i think it was early voting. 

on super tuesday hrc continued to benefit from early voting.  ca, ma., nj (there were others, too) showed this trend.  the weeks leading up to those primaries hrc had big leads in those states which  obama always narrowed, sometimes dramatically (remember ca!), as the primary approached.  as the votes were being counted, hrc jumped to early leads only to see those margins reduced as all the votes were tallied.  because early and absentee ballots are stacked up and ready to go as polls close, they're counted first.  preliminary leads as precincts report reflect the early and absentee ballots.

missouri, on the other hand, was close as could be all night.  obama pulled out a narrow victory there late that night.  the difference: no early voting in missouri.  the result was remarkably similar to polling data prior to voting.  no detectable "bradley effect" either.

florida also provided an interesting example.  it was the only state i actually read any analysis of this phnomenon.  of voters who cast ballots on the day of the florida primary more chose obama than hrc.  her margin of victory was made up of early and absentee ballots.  remember, she maintained huge polling margins for months.  obama made tremendous inroads, but that movement didn't begin until after hundred of thousands of early and absentee ballots were already cast.

i bring this up now because i just caught a clip of chris mathews' "big number."  he claims fully 33% of ballots for this election will be cast early and have just begun in many states.  if the primaries are any guide, obama couldn't have picked a better time to surge in the polls.  get out the early vote!

lots of folks on the east coast will be waking soon.  those who have followed this last act of political theatre will be wondering whether or not john mccain plans to fly south tonight for the scheduled presidential debate.  considering three-quarters of americans polled yesterday think the show must go on, i'll go out on a limb and predict he will.  as a matter of fact, because gambling seems such a sign of the times, i'll give odds:  5-2 looks about right to open.  any takers?

they've got us.  is this bail out the right thing to do in seriously troubling times, or is this another fleecing?  i don't have the foggiest idea.  i've got a better than even-money-hunch that most of you don't either.  the fair assumption is that we've been burned so much by these crooks the past seven-plus years that this must be just another hold up.  the conventional wisdom being don't rush to judgement this time 'round, we've seen this play before.  

but what if these thieves aren't full to the brim with their usual con this time?  what if they're not crying wolf, and debate and thoughtfulness and reason--all of the values so pitifully absent the past seven-plus years--actually hurt our chances of helping out this national emergency?  like i said before, i don't  know the answer.  but i do know enough to know a tight spot when i see one.

jesus, we need a new president.  at this point, the bar is low.  if you were able to internalize a few universal parables as a child, please apply.     

it's official.  the mccain camp is off the rails.  it's a bonafide three ring circus with no shortage of clowns.  i'm dizzy trying to keep up with these lunatics.  what in the name of john jangle jingle heimer shmidt is going on with that crowd?  lawyers for troopergate.  lawyers for tax returns.  foreign policy gaffes about spain.  spain?  the fundamentals of the economy are strong.  the fundamentals of the economy are, of course, the american worker.  christopher cox, you're fired!  don't blink.  can't blink.  maverick reformer pow reformer maverick pow.  maverick.  oh, and the lying and the lies and the lyers.  and my latest new fav is from john blabbering about the merits of drill, baby drill. and i'm serious, if you haven't seen this, seriously, i'm not making this up, the candidate himself said it, i heard him and i saw him, are you sitting down, here it is, and i quote:

you look down and there's fish everywhere, there's fish everywhere.  fish love to be around those rigs.  so not only can it be helpful for energy, it can be some pretty good meals as well.

he said that about the view looking straight down from the platform of an offshore oil rig.  no kidding. 

oh yeah, and lipstick...

what will they think of next?  it's an interesting question really.  interesting, because i don't doubt there is a room somewhere, occupied as i write this, by at least three of these bozos trying to come up with an answer.  at this point i gotta figure they're making it up as they go along.  the script for this moving picture was scrapped sometime between the start of obama's acceptance speech and the fireworks at the end.  hell, they tossed out the story boards, too.  piss on it, they threw away the treatment.  they're in that room, right now, sucking down coffee and pulling their hair out, tossing new pitches back and forth.  they're back to the pitch.  square one.  tomorrow is in a couple of hours and the candidate has got to say something.  and then it'll be tomorrow afternoon. and then it'll be tomorrow night. and the next day, and the day after that, and next week.  man, it's still quite a stretch 'til election day.  who knows what tomorrow brings from this troupe?

billy glad, for one, is convinced sarah palin is the future of the republican party.  maybe, why not?  i'm sure at least one of the jugglers in that room is trying to make the case.  wow.  that's a lot of balls to keep in the air all at once.  john nail , on the other hand, is counting the news cycle when palin gets dropped from the ticket.  why the hell not?   i'm sure one of them is pitching that idea.  maybe it's not the same clown who pitched it last night, or the guy the night before, but it's getting tossed around by someone, for sure.

but like i said, who knows what kind of clownin' is coming our way.  it is coming, though.  and i can't wait to read all about it.  man, this is one crazy election.   

it's right one a.m. here in olympia, washington and for the last couple of hours i've been sitting here in the dark leafing through the posts that have been trickling in.  i've checked out the huffpo, cnn, politico and msnbc a couple of times to see what else is shakin', and i gotta say, it's a wild ride we're on.  but for the first time in a long time i'm calm.  not because i've drawn any conclusions about the outcome of this election, or that my confidence has been bolstered.  i can honestly say i haven't the foggiest idea who might be the next president.  i've got a peaceful, easy feeling because it occurs to me for the moment that it won't be the end of the world if it happens to be john mccain.

don't get me wrong, it'll suck.  but it won't be the end.  it'll just mean that in four years we try again.  and that will be the most important presidential election of our lifetime, just like it was the time before and the time before that.

i remember in 1980 on the night before carter got clobbered by reagan.  carter made one of his last campaign stops in a airplane hanger at boeing field in seattle.  my parents took me and my brother and sister to see him at the rally.  i remember one of the signs someone had hastilly made:  no nukes, no rea-guns!  and i remember how scared i often was of nuclear war as a kid.  the movie 'testament,' the tv movie 'the day after,' a conversation between parents or teachers i'd over heard or even been part of could really get the imagination going.  it didn't ruin me, but it was no fun worrying about it back then.

today i imagine kids must be terrified of global warming or terrorists or old fashioned war.  i don't see how you could hide a kid from that stuff if you tried.  and i'm sure there are some kids of obama supporters who will be all that much more terrified if he loses.  well i've got some good news for them.  mccain/palin, as bad as that would be, isn't the worst thing that could happen to the world.  and if it does turn out that way, well, we'll try again next time 'round.  and until then we'll keep fighting the good fight, same as we'll have to do if obama is elected.  right now, this moment, i'm cool with that.         

a few hours ago the huffpo had a pretty big headline about the palin/gibson interview regarding palin's speculation that obama wishes he'd picked clinton for his vp.  it's vanished without a trace.  i've been checking in for a couple of hours to readf the tpm reaction, but now huffpo doesn't even have it.  wtf

for the mccain camp it's not the surge that's "worked beyond our wildest dreams," it's the g.o.p. pep rally they staged last week.  the trouble for them is that folks are beginning to wake up.  it was pattently obvious to any serious observer from the word go that sarah palin is utterly unqualified to be the vice president.  and now its becoming clear to the casual observer as well.  the tangled web of lies that have been egineered to prop palin up are simply becoming too much to maintain.  they're trying to fool all of the people, all of the time.  as was rightly pointed out once, you just can't do it.