A Night To Remember

Without comment, I'd like to add this video by Jed Lewison from Daily Kos:

NINE ELECTION NIGHT MAPS

This is information I am furnishing from an email listserv and also from the author himself, William Castronuovo. They give a good overview of what election might might look like. At the end of the post, I've included his nine maps as well.


1.) Attached are nine maps of “possible” election
night Electoral College totals that I’ve created.
The maps resemble the average “trend tendencies”
of national, state, published and broadcast media
and Internet polls as of Oct. 21.

2.) The maps are just an overview for use on
election night — and they were fun to make.

3.) What the attached Electoral maps show:

a) Each map graphic shows the states where
voting has ended using Eastern Time: 7 p.m.,
7:30 p.m., 8 p.m., 8:30 p.m., 9 p.m., 10 p.m., and
11 p.m. ( Alaska polls close at 1 a.m. ET and are
included with the 11 p.m. map ).

b) There are three 11:00 p.m. ET maps
that show: The “likely” Electoral College votes
won; a “plausible” scenario of electors won; and
a most “unlikely” result — but not an absolutely
impossible event. I used the 1936, 1972 and 1980
Electoral College maps as a concept for the “unlikely”
event shown on map plate #9.

4.) At the bottom of each of the nine graphics is
a list of of the considerations used in creating the
illustrated models and a color key.

5.) What’s more, though polls close at scheduled
times, the results needed to call the winner of a
state could take hours — taking into consideration
voter turnout and how close some contests may
actually be by Nov. 4.

6.) However, if a candidate has more than a 5 point
or more lead in a variety of election-eve polls in any
state, that may be a good indicator to weigh.

7.) Ignore the “national polls” all together. Only
monitor the polls taken in each state — we’re watching
only the Electoral College count — not national
popularity. I think the election may be called by the
networks, the Associated Press and National Voter
Service between 10 p.m. and midnight ( 9 to
11 p.m. Chicago time ).

8.) There are zero models that show any possibility
of a 269-269 electoral vote tie.

Enjoy and forward these maps to anyone you’d like,
— William Castronuovo
Columbia, South Carolina

Note: The maps are no longer available

Three Conservative Commentators On McCain/Palin

Peggy Noonan, "It's over"

Watch for yourself:

A Chorus of Millions

While I haven't blogged the last five months, I've made myself a promise to start again.

"We know that what began as a whisper, has now swelled to a chorus that can not be ignored, that will not be deterred, that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, make this time different then the all rest."

OBAMA WINS IOWA

Obama beats Edwards and Clinton to win Iowa by 8%.

On to NH, next week who will win?

Obama Fires Up Iowa

Today in Iowa...

McCain To America..."Democrats want to surrender"

John McCain lies!

At a town hall in New Hampshire, McCain stated, "Democrats want to surrender"

Point in fact, Democrats want to end the war that is causing millions of civilian deaths, the deaths of the thousands of US soldiers and billions of dollars.

"The war has divided us" -John McCain

No, the war has not divided us. George W. Bush has divide us. Senator McCain continues to support the war and George W. Bush's far flung policies.

"Your either with us, or your against us" -George W. Bush

McCain employs many people who were Bush's advisers in the past. If this isn't enough proof that John McCain will continue Bush's policies, I don't know what is.



McCain and his lies

Tom Tancredo's Scare Tactics

Rudy Guiliani is not the only one that can run on the politics of fear. Colorado Congressman and Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo has released a new ad trying to scare people in to voting for him.

Watch the video:

All Eyes on Hillary..A Look Back In Time

The 2008 Presidential Election and the candadicy of Hillary Clinton caused me to look back on another election, that of 1992. I started to go back through old Time Magazine issues and found the article All Eyes on Hillary in September 1992.

ALL EYES ON HILLARY

The G.O.P. hopes to gain votes by attacking her as a radical feminist who prefers the boardroom to the kitchen. But the ploy could backfire by alienating working women.

You might think Hillary Clinton was running for President. Granted, she is a remarkable woman. The first student commencement speaker at Wellesley, part of the first large wave of women to go to law school, a prominent partner in a major law firm, rated one of the top 100 lawyers in the country -- there is no doubt that she is her husband's professional and intellectual equal. But is this reason to turn her into ``Willary Horton'' for the '92 campaign, making her an emblem of all that is wrong with family values, working mothers and modern women in general?

The Republicans clearly think so. Hillary has been such a constant target of G.O.P. campaign barbs that Bill Clinton recently wondered aloud whether ``George Bush was running for First Lady.'' In making her a focus of their attack strategy, the Republicans seem to have calculated that they can shave votes off Governor Clinton's total by portraying his wife as a radical feminist who prefers the boardroom to the kitchen. And they may be right. In the latest TIME/CNN poll, 74% of the respondents said their votes would not be affected by their views of Hillary; but among the remainder, almost twice as many said they would vote against Clinton (14%) as for him (9%) based on their opinion of his wife. If the Hillary factor can mean the difference of a couple of percentage points, it could provide a critical margin in a close election.

The foundations of the anti-Hillary campaign were carefully poured and were part of a larger effort to solidify Bush's conservative base. Republicans dug up -- and seriously distorted -- some of her old academic articles on children's rights. Rich Bond, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, caricatured Hillary as a lawsuit-mongering feminist who likened marriage to slavery and encouraged children to sue their parents. (She did no such thing.) Richard Nixon warned that her forceful intelligence was likely to make her husband ``look like a wimp.'' Patrick Buchanan blasted ``Clinton & Clinton'' for what he claimed was their agenda of abortion on demand, homosexual rights and putting women in combat.

Rarely has the spouse of a presidential candidate been so closely scrutinized and criticized by the political opposition. To a large extent, the controversy swirling around Hillary Clinton today reflects a profound ambivalence toward the changing role of women in American society over the past few decades. Hillary, who personifies many of the advances made by a cutting-edge generation of women, finds herself held up against what is probably the most tradition-bound and antiquated model of American womanhood: the institution of the First Lady.

The President's wife, as Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote, was to be seen and not heard, a discreet adornment to her husband's glory. Never mind that Mrs. Roosevelt broke most of her own rules with her high-profile tours and a vocal interest in civil rights. Most of those who followed in her footsteps remained true to the traditional backseat role, and those who ventured too close to the policymaking arena -- Rosalynn Carter sitting at the Cabinet table, for instance -- were harshly criticized. And there are some sound reasons for concern. The President's spouse is potentially the second most powerful person in government but is beyond accountability. Yet for reasons that are both social and generational, Barbara Bush will almost certainly be the last of the traditional First Ladies. Whoever follows her is likely to shatter the mold -- particularly if it is a woman with the professional achievements, the career ambitions and the activist bent of Hillary Clinton.

Still, Mrs. Clinton would have done well at the outset to have conformed more to the traditional campaign rules for aspiring First Ladies: gaze like Nancy Reagan, soothe like Barbara Bush and look like Jacqueline Kennedy. By not doing that, to some extent, Hillary played into the hands of her critics. At first she seemed insufficiently aware that she was not the candidate herself. Instead of standing by like a potted palm, she enjoyed talking at length about problems and policies. At one coffee in a living room in Manchester, New Hampshire, people were chatting amiably about the cost of groceries when she abruptly launched into a treatise on infant mortality. She sometimes took longer to introduce her husband than he did to deliver his speech. She, and he, should have known that quips like ``People call us two-for-one'' would arouse the traditionalists.

Korean Documentary on Obama/Clinton airs showing footage from Obama's visit in September

KBS aired a documentary about the candidacy of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton Sunday night here in Korea. Of interest was the footage that was shown from Obama's September visit to Portland. The documentary gave quite a bit of background information about the two presidential candidates to a Korean audience that is curious about the potential outcome of next years election.

In one scene from Portland, you can clearly see myself and Todd Barnhart (Blue Oregon contributor and Oregon Obama organizer) talking in the background.

If I can, I'll try to get the video put on YouTube and add a link.

The Backlash Continues, Smith calls MoveOn "stupid and disgraceful"

The backlash against liberal group MoveOn.org continues as the US Senate pushed through a non-binding resolution condemning Moveon's ad slamming General David Petraeus.

While I personally agree the ad was not in very good taste, I believe the US Senate has better things to do then go after political groups. If they had the balls why didn't they go after the Swift boat group that attacked Senator Kerry?

The story from Yahoo News:

Democrats proceed with Iraq legislation
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats defiantly charged ahead Thursday with legislation ordering troops home from Iraq, still lacking the votes to win but armed with the mantra that Republicans, along with President Bush, now own the war.

"They want this war more than they want to protect our soldiers," Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters. "When I say they want the war, they want to protect their president more than they want to protect our troops."

Reid spoke minutes after Republicans successfully pushed through, by a 72-25 vote, a resolution condemning an advertisement by the liberal activist group MoveOn.org. Displayed in The New York Times, the ad taunted Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, as "General Betray Us."

Reid's tough rhetoric reflected frustration by Democrats that more Republicans haven't broken with Bush on the war. Several Republican senators had grown increasingly anxious throughout the summer about the violence in Iraq and lack of political progress in Baghdad.

But despite a small group of challengers to the war, the GOP largely has stood behind Bush. On Wednesday, Republicans blocked legislation by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would have guaranteed troops more time at home. On Thursday, the Senate voted 28-70 to block legislation sponsored by Reid and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., that would have cut off funding for combat in June 2008.

"No matter where my colleagues came down in 2003 about the centrality of Iraq to the war on terror, there can simply be no debate that our efforts in Iraq today are critical to the wider struggle against violent Islamic extremism," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

Sen. Gordon Smith, one of the few Republican senators who supports legislation ordering troop withdrawals, said he thought Petraeus' testimony last week and the MoveOn.org ad were the two biggest factors in keeping Republicans from breaking ranks with the president: Petraeus' testimony because it was persuasive and the ad because it attacked a popular uniformed officer.

"It was stupid on their part and disgraceful," said Smith, R-Ore.

The article went on to say:

In a White House news conference Thursday, Bush said the MoveOn.org ad was "disgusting" and he criticized Democrats for not immediately condemning it.

"And that leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org, or more afraid of irritating them, then they are of irritating the United States military," Bush said.

Eli Pariser, executive director of the liberal group, responded: "What's disgusting is that the president has more interest in political attacks than developing an exit strategy to get our troops out of Iraq and end this awful war."

The resolution sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas condemning the ad drew opposition from Clinton and Dodd.

Obama did not vote on that measure. But minutes earlier, he did support an alternative by Sen. Barbara Boxer that condemned the ad as well as previous attack ads that questioned the patriotism of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and former Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., both Vietnam veterans.

"We're going to be pretty busy if we turn into the ad police," said Boxer, D-Calif.

MoveOn's New Anti-War Ad Uninspiring

I just received an email from MoveOn, which I am a member of, with news of a new anti-war ad. After watching it, I nearly fell asleep. Take a look for yourself:



I was also disheartened by the print ad attacking General David Petraeus with the tagline, "Will General Petraeus, be General Betray Us?"


Petraeus Ad 9/2007 (Note: This is a Pdf file and requires Adobe Acrobat)

Are MoveOn's ads effective? Discuss...

Neo-con Freedom Watch Run Ads in Oregon in Support of the War

I have been sickened by the recent splattering of ads by a group calling itself Freedom Watch in Oregon. According to an article on the Politico website, Freedom Watch is spending $15 million dollars on the pro-war ads. In truth the people behind the group are hard core Bush neo-cons.

They include:

Bradley A. Blakeman (president, a former deputy assistant to George W. Bush).

Ari Fleischer (board member, former Bush press secretary).

Matthew Brooks (board member, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition).

Mel Sembler (donor, former ambassador to Italy who helped finance the 2000 Florida recount battle).

John Templeton Jr. (donor, board member of Templeton Growth Fund and financier of Let Freedom Ring).

Sheldon Adelson, (donor, CEO Las Vegas Sands Corporation and the third-richest American in Forbes magazine's rankings last year).

Kevin E. Moley (donor, former U.S. ambassador to international organizations in Geneva, and a senior adviser to Dick Cheney during the 2000 campaign).

Howard Leach (donor, CEO Leach Capital and former ambassador to France who also helped fund the Florida Recount).

Anthony Gioia (donor, head of Gioia Management and former ambassador to Malta).

Richard Fox (donor, co-founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition).

Gary Erlbaum (donor, owner of Greentree Properties).

Also notable in some of the ads the "big lie" is repeated that Iraq attacked us (alleging they were behind the 9/11 attacks). The ads are being aired in areas where Republicans are vulnerable for next year's election according to the Politico article.

Obviously, the airing of the ads in Central and Southern Oregon are meant to help and give cover to Senator Gordon Smith. Smith, who is facing a tough reelection bid next year has waffled on the war, calling it "criminal" just after the 2006 mid-term election, but continuing to vote for the war.

According to Freedom Watch's own website:

Freedom’s Watch is dedicated to educating individuals about and advancing public policies that protect America’s interests at home and abroad, foster economic prosperity, and strengthen families. Through outreach and education, communications to key members of Congress, and bold public awareness initiatives, Freedom’s Watch is fighting for the ideals and policies that keep America strong and prosperous. We welcome all those who share our values to join our efforts.

Haven't caught one of their ads yet? Then, feel free to click on either of the two ads below to watch:





Feel free to leave comments or throw up as needed....

Pictures from Portland Obama Fundrasier

Here are some pictures I took from up front at the Obama event Friday night. Enjoy!


People waiting in line to get into the event

Me braving the crowd up front to get up close and personal with Obama

Obama speaking to supporters in Portland Oregon with General Tony McPeak in the background

Obama greeting supporers in Portland

Hillary is business as usual, accepting campaign contributions from a fraudster Hsu

More is coming out about Hsu/Clinton fundraising scandal. According to the LA Times, Hsu has delivered bundles of checks to Clinton's campaign from investors he does business with. Although Clinton has returned some of the money, she has not returned those bundles of donations delivered by Hsu.

Hsu is wanted on a benchwarrent from the early 1990's in California for a fraud. He is now in a hospital and will be sent back to California to face up to the charges brought against him.

We know Hillary Clinton has the potential to bring in millions of dollars from rich donors willing to give the maximum amount allowed. This begs some obvious questions:

1) The question is, why is her campaign accepting money from people who are (at best) of a questionable nature?

2) Why Clinton feels the need to cozy up to corporate interests to fund her campaign?

3) How does her accepting large donations from corporations differ her from Republicans?

I have to seriously wonder how the Clinton campaign made such a large error in judgement accepting these donations from Hsu.

[Yes, I am aware that Obama accepted $2,000 from Hsu as well, but promptly returned it. To my knowledge he did not received "bundled" donations from Hsu as Clinton did.]

Discuss....

Obama on International Relations

One of the reasons I am supporting Obama is his stance on how we will bring other countries to the table, versus Bush's wars and the coalition of the willing. Obama quotes President Kennedy, "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."

There are so many situations currently where that attitude would get us further, then declaring war and invading a country. While we are making headway with North Korea, I am still very nervous that things may flare up again (for those who are reading that are not aware, I lived in South Korea for three and a half years and am married to a Korean). I also think there needs to be progress made in terms of human rights violations within North Korea, as they are notorious for how poorly they treat their citizens.

At the same time, we as a nation need to start leading by example. Since the war on terrorism has begun, our military has been marred by the Abu Ghraib scandal as well as secret prisons overseas where torture has been conducted. The sad thing is that it isn't the first nor the last time the US has been involved in torture. Our country has a long history of torture and abuse.

While other presidential candidates and their supporters like to point out Obama's lack of experience (which is a weak argument in itself), he makes up for it in the fact that he surrounds himself with people who have the knowledge in the areas he lacks it. Obama has been a community organizer, a professor of constitutional law, Illinois state senator and US Senator.

If you haven't yet done so, please feel free to visit:

Oregon Wants Obama

Obama 08'

Why vote your conscience when you have a party to tell you who to vote for?

Over at Blue Oregon I was dumbfound by the HC fanclub and their attack dogs assertion that I should vote for her even despite my reservations about her candidacy. After all, President John Kerry did so well in 2004. Wait a second...whoops...Bush won the election.

This was a response to a post about Hillary Clinton organizing in Oregon, in which I replied that 1) I would never vote for her; 2) That I feel Hillary Clinton would not win Oregon due to the lack of swing votes she'd have to get.

This is the same Hillary Clinton that voted FOR the war and refuses to apologize. HC herself said that if people can't deal with that to vote for someone else. The same HC that cozied up to Rupert "Fox Neocon" Murdoch and took money from him. The same HC that takes large donations from special interest. The same HC that has taken large amounts of cashfrom questionable sources (see articles Large donations made by family with ties to Hsu and Hillary donates $23,000 she got from fugitive and Media Matters corrects MSM, donations funneled through the Paw family were kept by HC's campaign)

Yet the HC fanclub says I should vote for the presumptive nominee, the same one being crowned by the MSM and special interest she's getting money from. They have no problem throwing around words like, "arrogant" and "immature". They also have the gal to assume I'd vote for a Republican, which they are deadwrong about.

I'd say in terms of arrorgance and insult, the HC fanclub wins on both accounts.

Weekend Political Roundup September 2nd

Texas Congressman and 10th tier Presidential Candidate Duncan Hunter won the Texas straw poll today garnering 41% of the vote out of 1300 people. *YAWN*

Senator Mark Warner of Virgina won't seek a sixth term leaving his seat open for a challenge for Democrats. Hillary Clinton called Warner, “friend and colleague” and then asked if he was busy later seeing as though Bill had other plans.

The "snow job" is over, White House Press Secretary and former Fox News anchor Tony Snow is leaving September 14th. Snow's departure along with Snoop Rove and others marks a mass exodus of personal leaving the White House.

Everyone's favorite gay senator is stepping down, Senator Craig of Idaho announced he's resigning effective September 30th. Craig, who was busted for soliciting sex in a bathroom in Minnesota and then plead guilty to a misdemeanor. He has denied being gay. He was later seen at a matinee showing of I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry.

"Stack `em, pack `em, and rack `em." He was the tough Air Traffic Controller supervisor in Die Hard 2 and this September coming to a theater near you...Fred Thompson, presidential candidate. Yes, that Law and Order guy is running for President. Maybe Bruce Willis and Arnold will head his campaign committee. The guy has barely begun his campaign but I'm already getting sick of him. Can someone shut him up? He's giving me a ******* headache.