Post-Election Speeches & Indecision 2008: America's Choice

President-Elect Obama's Victory Speech



Senator McCain's Concession Speech



Indecision 2008: America's Choice

Here are my favorite moments from last night's Indecision 2008: America's Choice special hour-long live broadcast:

3. Aasif Mandvi reports from Al Qaeda headquarters



2. Larry Wilmore and Wyatt Cenac take over



1. And the winner is...



The complete hour-long broadcast can be watched (or watched again in case, like me, when you watched it live you were a little distracted since you were also on your laptop flipping through 10 tabs of different sites' election coverage) here.

10:01 PM - "Game, set, match. Point."

Obama is the projected winner of the election.

Woohoo!

Congratulations, Senator Obama... or, I should say, Mr. President-Elect!

8:20 PM - Fox News projects Ohio for Barack Obama

Flipping through the channels, I just saw that Fox News has projected Ohio for Barack Obama. A minute later MSNBC did as well. I think that's the election.

Election predictions

Over at HuffingtonPost.com they have compiled predictions for tomorrow's elections from 26 pundits. Only 1 of the pundits, Fred Barnes, predicts a McCain victory, with an electoral college count of 286 for McCain and 252 for Obama. These are the exact same electoral totals that Bush beat Kerry with in 2004, although I assume he has PA going to McCain, and Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada going to Obama. In any case, if he seriously expects this, I think he's delusional, even if by some miracle he turns out to be correct (similar to how a person who buys a Powerball ticket and honestly expects to win is delusional even if against 150,000,000 to 1 odds they end up winning). The next lowest predicted electoral college count for Obama is Charles Mahtesian who has Obama winning 311 to 227.

Here are my predictions.

Winner: Obama
Electoral College: Obama 349 McCain 189
Senate Seats: 57 Democrats 41 Republicans 2 Independents
House Seats: 260 Democrats 175 Republicans



The two states I'm most uncertain about for the presidential election are Missouri and North Carolina.

For the Senate, the best chance for the Democrats to reach 60 is probably Jim Martin in Georgia. The polls indicate that Saxby Chambliss has increased his lead over the last few days. I'd really like to see Martin win that one even if the Democrats don't hit 60, so I'll be watching for results from that one. I'd also really like to see Kay Hagan trounce Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina. The latest poll numbers have Hagan leading by 5 points, her largest margin since polling began in May. But as with all the races, it's not over until all the votes are counted.

Tomorrow I think I'll stop at the store and get a bottle of Crown Royal. If things go as unexpected, I'll have a drink or two to celebrate. If not, I'll finish the bottle.

Bill the bomber is a dud

Electoral-vote.com reports that Rasmussen Reports recently asked questions about William Ayers in their polling, and found that Palin & McCain's guilt by [weak] association strategy against Obama is a miserable failure:

Rasmussen Poll on William Ayers

With the McCain campaign talking about 1960s radical William Ayers all the time, Rasmussen ran a poll to see what people think about him. Not surprisingly most people have an unfavorable view of Ayers that cuts across gender, age, ideology, income, race, education, and everything else. Ayers is not going to win the camper-of-the-week award. However, a more interesting question is whether all this talk of Ayers helps or hurts the McCain campaign. Republicans think it helps the campaign by 2 to 1 while Democrats think it hurts McCain's campaign by 8 to 1. Independents thinks it hurts by nearly 2 to 1. In a similar vein, 47% of self-identifying conservatives thinks it helps the campaign vs. 29% think it hurts. Among liberals the numbers are 7% and 79%. Among moderates 20% think it helps and 58% think it hurts. Thus among moderates, talk of Ayers hurts McCain by nearly 3 to 1. There is no correlation with income or education. So why does McCain keep harping on this point? Is it trying to solidify his base and doesn't give a hoot about the independents? The numbers show this is a terrible strategy as it plays to the people who are already going to vote for him but it works badly with the critical independents he desperately needs. Could it be that Steve Schmidt has drunk his own Kool-Aid and really and truly believes that talking about Ayers helps him? Surely he has the same numbers Rasmussen does. Sometimes ideology gets in the way of running an effective campaign.

While the unprecedented smear campaign against Obama primarily by Palin and also to some extent McCain should never have occurred in the first place because it's dishonest, dishonorable, and just plain ridiculous, now there's proof that it's bad politics, too.

While McCain recently repudiated a woman at a rally in Minnesota about Obama, saying to her, "No, ma'am, he's a decent family man, a citizen, who I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues," he and Palin have yet to do so to a national audience. Since it doesn't seem likely that they'll do so before election day, it is important that both he, and to an even greater extent Palin, very clearly reject and repudiate the smears they've made. I assume they'll try to pass the blame it on the supporters for connecting the dots of their statements, similar to the way Bush acted sheepish several years ago when he came out and said, "This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda," despite the numerous insinuations of exactly that that he and others in his administration made in their campaign for war.

The real Batman

Best speeches of the 2008 Democratic National Convention

Here are my favorites of the ones I've watched.

5) Michelle Obama


4) Hillary Clinton


3) Bill Clinton


2) John Kerry


1) Barack Obama

Speaking of web videos...

Saw this video on Digg tonight:



Pretty good video. Two things:

1. At about the minute mark, they play a short clip from McCain's May 2008 appearance on SNL, where he jokes about his old age. Obviously he was trying to use humor to convince people that his age didn't matter or at least to not seriously consider it. While I disagree with the vast majority of McCain's positions on the issues and think he would be a terrible President, I certainly do not wish McCain harm or ill health. However, considering that he's running for President, his age and health must be examined seriously. After all, if Democratic candidate Paul Tsongas had been elected President in 1992, he would have died 2 days before the end of his first term ended in 1997. McCain will be 72 next month, and if he wins the election in November (shudder) he would be the oldest person to ever be elected President. While McCain's mother Roberta is 96 years old and still going strong, McCain's father lived to be 70, and his paternal grandfather lived to be 61. The stunt McCain pulled in May, releasing over 1,000 pages of documents covering his health from 2000 to 2008, and then giving journalists a few hours to review them certainly did nothing to allay these concerns about his health.

2. At about the 1:30 mark, there's a clip of McCain talking about how sending a man to Mars is a worthwhile ambition. While McCain doesn't get into specifics about this, or why it's important, other than that it would be a great accomplishment, I agree with him on the importance of this. While the cost would no doubt be great, I think it would be worth it. Quite simply, I think that colonizing the solar system, primarily Mars and the moon, as soon as possible is critically important for insuring the long term survival of the human race.

"The less you know, the more you should pretend to know."

Today Now!: How To Pretend You Give A Shit About The Election

Mc****

Short post about the Presidential race

So Obama has the Democratic nomation all but locked up, and now the media are trying to hype an Obama / Clinton "dream ticket." While Clinton as his VP candidate would help Obama more quickly unite Democrats behind him, Clinton supporters are going to come around and support him eventually simply because he's infinitely better than McCain. The racists who woun't vote for Obama because he's black, such as many of the people in yesterday's West Virginia primary, probably wouldn't vote for him in the general election no matter who the VP candidate was. The best thing I can see possibly coming out of Clinton's refusal to admit defeat and drop out of the race is if she gets Obama to adopt some or all of her health care proposals, which is the one issue on which I greatly prefer Clinton to Obama. As for who Obama's VP choice should be, there are a ton of reasonable choices, one in particular that sounds promising is Ohio governor Ted Strickland.

A few thoughts on the 2008 presidential election

Over the past few weeks Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has shot up in the polls despite being outspent by his rivals, a distinct lack of organization, and most notably a string of exposés of questionable things he did as governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. Today I read a particularly damning and exhaustive article about Huckabee's term as governor on salon.com. The article was originally published November 13, 2007, but was just posted on Digg.com today. Here's the link to the article:

The dark side of Mike Huckabee by Max Brantley

While this and the other recent articles exposing Huckabee's record as governor of Arkansas are interesting, frankly, I think everyone needs to shut the hell up about what a terrible person and candidate Mike Huckabee is until the primaries are over. If Republican primary voters haven't figured out already how awful he is, and by his recent rise in the polls they have not, then they deserve to be stuck with a horrible candidate. After the heartbreak and disbelief of the election being stolen from Al Gore in 2000, and the depression after John Kerrey lost a close race in 2004, I would like nothing more than the Democratic nominee, whoever he or she may be, after emerging from a difficult primary process, to have a cakewalk to the white house facing Mike Huckabee. While it seems likely that the Democratic nominee will become president no matter who the Republican nominee is, he would no doubt have an easier time pushing his agenda if he were to get 300, 350, 400, or even 450 electoral votes. Plus, if Huckabee was the Republican nominee, as knowledge of his misadventures as governor of Arkansas grew, and horror spread at the prospect of President Huckabee, this would probably help Democrats in Senate and House races, hopefully helping them to get a filibuster proof majority of 60+ in the Senate and an even larger majority in the House. Surely the major reason for the negative approval ratings of the Senate and House has been their inability to get things done with the Republicans not letting anything move forward, not the Democratic agenda. What an appropriate rebuke for the Bush administration than for him to be turning over power to a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate and House that the Republican minority can't stop.

As for the Democratic candidate, I think John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hilary Clinton would all do a fine job as president. Even though Clinton is the most conservative of the three, it seems pretty clear that she'd have the most difficult time in the general election. If Huckabee does indeed get the Republican nomination, The Last Thing In The World I'd want is a close race heading to election day. So that leaves Obama and Edwards, and I'm currently leaning towards Edwards. For the longest time I was hoping that Gore would run again, and if he did Obama would make a good vice president. Then after 8 years of experience as vice president, he'd have the experience in governing, as opposed to just legislating, to be a great, as opposed to just good, president. While I prefer Obama's personality to Edwards', I agree more with Edwards on the major issues, and I also think he'd have a more aggressive leadership style. This was made perfectly clear when Obama attacked Paul Krugman after he criticized the obvious deficiencies in Obama's health care plan. Obama seems sincere when he says he wants to put an end to the partisanship that have marked the Bush years. This is what people say they want, but then they also say that they don't like mudslinging in campaigns, even though the evidence clearly shows that negative ads work. After 8 years of the Bush administration, I think the first thing we need is not less partisanship, but a quick reversal of all the horrible policies that Bush has enacted. Then when Bush's policies have all been nullified and replaced with progressive alternatives, then we can try a less partisan adminstration. While it isn't as attractive as the no longer possible Gore / Obama, I think Edwards / Obama is the best option available.

So, in short:

1. Huckabee sucks, but please stop telling everyone until the primaries are over.

2. Edwards / Obama '08!

Would Hillary lose to each of the major Republican candidates?

Today on Digg an article was posted with a new poll by Zogby suggesting that Hillary Clinton would lose to all the major Republican candidates if the election were held today.

From the article:

In the new survey, Clinton trailed Senator John McCain 42 percent to 38 percent, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani by 43 percent to 40 percent and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney by 43 percent to 40 percent.

She also lagged behind former Arkansas Republican governor Mike Huckabee by 44 to 39 percent, and former Senator Fred Thompson by 44 to 40 percent in hypothetical general election matchups.

So Hillary trails in each of the match-ups among those with an opinion, with the percentage she trails in each match-up ranging from 3 to 5 percent.

But I think the key number here is the percentage of undecideds for the various match-ups, which ranged from 16 to 20 percent.

With the anti-Bush, anti-Republican mood of the country as strong as it is, I would guess that the undecideds, if forced to choose (as they would have to if the election were actually held today), would overwhelmingly break for Hillary, giving her the election easily.

The article also states that Obama and Edward both have leads over every major Republican candidate among those with an opinion, but if does not state how big the margins are, or what percentage of respondents were undecided.