First EVs

CBS has called Vermont for Obama and Kentucky for McCain.

8-3, McCain.

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, John McCain, Politics

posted by jbrzoska @ 7:04 PM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

With .00000000000000001% of the Vote In...

McCain leads by about 32,000 to 28,000 (thanks, Lexi).

It's over! :)

UPDATE: In those #s, Obama is up two points in Indiana. (fingers crossed for him and Mike Montagano)

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, John McCain, Politics

posted by jbrzoska @ 6:49 PM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

From the Mouths of Conservatives -- COMMUNIST! COMMUNIST! COMMUNIST!

From a McCain rally yesterday in Denver:



(Hat tip, Digby)

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, John McCain, Mouths of Conservatives, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 6:41 PM Trackback Link 3 comments links to this post

Six Reasons the Race is Over

... and why I'm concentrating on the Congressional Races...

From Charlie Cook, summarized nicely by Electoral-Vote.com:

1. No candidate this far back two weeks out has ever won.
2. Early voting is going strong and even if something big happens, those votes are already cast.
3. The Democrats have a 10% advantage in party registration; in 2004 it was even.
4. Obama is outspending McCain 4 to 1 in many states.
5. There is no evidence for the so-called Bradley effect in the past 15 years.
6. Obama is safe in all the Kerry states and ahead in half a dozen states Bush won.

If McCain were to win at this point, it would be the comeback to end all political comebacks. It just isn't going to happen. I'm going to put a wager on it -- if McCain does win, the background image on my blog for the next year will be me wearing a McCain-Palin T-shirt. Nah guh happen.

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 9:20 AM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

You Don't Have To Vote to Be Cool

A couple weeks old, but I'm just catching up on Daily and Colbert since the move, and this was amazing.

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Humor, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 5:51 PM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

The Great Schlep In Action

From Ben Harris at JTA:

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Jewish, John McCain, Judaism, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 3:30 PM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

Roll With It, Johnny...

Awesome.

(hat tip, Howie)

Labels: 2008 Election, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 1:37 AM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

A Reverse Bradley Effect?

For the politically uninitiated, the Bradley Effect is named for Tom Bradley, the former mayor of Los Angeles who ran for governor of California in 1982 and lost even though he was winning significantly a few days before the election. Since then political conventional wisdom would have it that going into an election, a black candidate needs to have a fairly large lead in the polls to compensate for the number of people who tell pollsters they will vote for the black candidate to avoid admitting that they will not vote for a black candidate.

Politico has some numbers and data that show that the "Bradley Effect" may have been simple polling error, and that Bradley's opponent actually did close the gap in the days before the election.

Jeff, a business associate of mine in my Albany office, floated an interesting idea yesterday. I'm not sure that I agree with it, but the essence of it is that there might be a "Reverse Bradley Effect," where people don't want to admit they MIGHT vote for a black candidate but vote for Obama because they feel like it's in their economic self-interest. Some interesting evidence from Ben Smith at Politico, about a focus group's reaction to a McCain ad:

Reagan Dems and Independents. Call them blue-collar plus. Slightly more Target than Walmart.

Yes, the spot worked. Yes, they believed the charges against Obama. Yes, they actually think he's too liberal, consorts with bad people and WON'T BE A GOOD PRESIDENT...but they STILL don't give a f***. They said right out, "He won't do anything better than McCain" but they're STILL voting for Obama.

The two most unreal moments of my professional life of watching focus groups:

54 year-old white male, voted Kerry '04, Bush '00, Dole '96, hunter, NASCAR fan...hard for Obama said: "I'm gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He's gonna be a bad president. But I won't ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President."

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack.">

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 12:40 PM Trackback Link 1 comments links to this post

Blood for Oil?

Did anyone else notice that while talking about Biden not being qualified because he voted against the first Gulf War, McCain said that we went to war to keep our oil supply from being disrupted? (thanks to Steve for the link)

He voted against the first Gulf War. He voted against it and, obviously, we had to take Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait or it would've threatened the Middle Eastern world [oil] supply.


Also, after the debate, CBS got Joe the Plumber on the phone and:

1. He was asked about if Obama's $250,000 tax bracket would affect him, and he said, something to the effect of, "No, but it's a slippery slope -- if he decides now that $250,000 is rich, next he'll decide that $100,000 is rich, and then who knows?" No mention of employees or an actual business.

2. He compared Obama to Sammy Davis, Jr.

Oof. One hell of a campaign surrogate.

UPDATE: Looks like Joe isn't even registered to vote.

LATER UPDATE: He actually is registered to vote, and a Republican. Not only that, but he's a staunch right-winger who is against Social Security... and aside from that, he's a relative of Charles Keating! And a schmuck.

But he's Neil Cavuto's "kinda plumber...":



EVEN LATER UPDATE: It's been pointed out that there's no solid evidence on the Keating relation yet... at least for sure that Joe and Robert Wurzelbacher are related (Robert Wurzelbacher is, for sure, Keating's son-in-law). But I'll keep you posted.

Labels: 2008 Election, Democratic Party, Economy, Foreign Policy, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 9:00 AM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

Quick Debate Reaction

I'm heading to Albany for a couple of days early tomorrow, but before I hit the sack, I just want to echo what Nate Silver said:

"Congratulations, President Obama."

A twenty-six second summary of how this one went (watch McCain's face):

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 12:03 AM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

I Think I'm In Love...

My favorite line: "Don't switch horses in midstream! Get an older horse who would take twelve years to cross that stream. 'Cause he's old!"

Labels: Humor, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 12:28 AM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

Like Rats...

(hat tip, MyDD)

LATE UPDATE: A list of the rats... (thanks, Ted)

Labels: 2008 Election, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 2:04 AM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

My Friends, My Friends...

I don't have a lot to say about the debate tonight, other than I think Obama won by a bit (the poll or two I've seen seem to indicate he won by a lot more). McCain's last chance to make this a contest is at next week's debate, but I think this one's over. More tomorrow.

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 12:50 AM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

The Ground Game

When it comes to elections, The term "ground game" refers to the campaign activities of people on the ground -- people making phone calls, registering voters, staffing field offices, etc...

The Republicans' ground game is usually a force to be reckoned with, and the Democrats' has often been so-so. Thanks to people like Howard Dean and Barack Obama, the Democrats' ground game is incredibly strong. It's been that way for Obama's whole campaign. He's been opening offices in every state, many in which Democrats don't normally compete, like Indiana. But I'd been under the assumption that the Republicans' still were doing pretty well on the ground. Yesterday, Sean Quinn of the amazing FiveThirtyEight.com dropped a bomb on that assumption:

Something interesting is happening with John McCain's campaign. Up until now, we've had no trouble gaining access to field offices and volunteers. Here in St. Louis, we were told by Tina Hervey, Missouri Republican State Party Press Secretary, that she had never heard of FiveThirtyEight, and while they trusted Politico, we were people who they had to decide whether we "shouldn't or don't need to be talking to." (McCain's Missouri press secretary actually works out of Iowa, and did not return calls or email.) I told Tina that's not a story we wanted to write, that this was our first Republican resistance, and that while she may not have heard of us, we'd probably go over 2.5 million site visits this week, now that we're regularly past 400,000 per weekday. I told her I'd hold off writing her flat refusal and give her the opportunity to change her mind.

No budging. We were told that we’d be asked to leave public field offices we now attempted to visit. We did not get any promised follow-up helping get access to the post-debate Palin rally last night, and we were locked out. Hmm.

Let's be clear. We've observed no comparison between these ground campaigns. To begin with, there's a 4-1 ratio of offices in most states. We walk into McCain offices to find them closed, empty, one person, two people, sometimes three people making calls. Many times one person is calling while the other small clutch of volunteers are chatting amongst themselves. In one state, McCain's state field director sat in one of these offices and, sotto voce, complained to us that only one man was making calls while the others were talking to each other about how much they didn't like Obama, which was true. But the field director made no effort to change this. This was the state field director.

Only for the first time the other day did we see a McCain organizer make a single phone call. So we've now seen that once. The McCain organizers seem to operate as maitre Ds. Let me escort you to your phone, sir. Pick any one of this sea of empty chairs. I'll be sitting over here if you need any assistance.

Given a choice between taking embarrassing photos of empty phone banks, we give McCain's people the chance to pose for photos to show us the action for what they continually claim we "just missed." No more. We stop into offices at all open hours of the day, but generally more in the afternoon and evening. "Call time," for both campaigns, is all day, but the time when folks over 65 are generally targeted begins in late afternoon and goes til 8 or 9pm. Universally, McCain's people stop earlier. Even when we show up at 6:15pm, we're told we just missed the big phone bank, or to come back in 30 minutes. If we show up an hour later, we "just missed it" again.

The McCain offices are also calm, sedate. Little movement. No hustle. In the Obama offices, it's a whirlwind. People move. It's a dynamic bustle. You can feel it in our photos.

Up to this point, we've been giving McCain's ground campaign a lot of benefit of the doubt. We can't stop convincing ourselves that there must -- must -- be a warehouse full of 1,000 McCain volunteers somewhere in a national, central location just dialing away. This can't be all they're doing. Because even in a place like Colorado Springs, McCain's ground campaign is getting blown away by the Obama efforts. It doesn't mean Obama will win Colorado Springs, but it means Obama's campaign will not look itself in the mirror afterward and ask, "what more could we have done?"

You could take every McCain volunteer we've seen doing actual work in the entire trip, over six states, and it would add up to the same as Obama's single Thornton, CO office. Or his single Durango, CO office. These ground campaigns bear no relationship to each other.

This may be shaping up to be a serious blowout in Obama's favor...

UPDATE: For an example of how good Obama's ground game is, check this out.

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 12:26 PM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

High Technology Political Communications

I didn't watch much of the Democratic Convention, because, ironically enough, I was too busy trying to keep up with what the political blogs had to say about it. I do have to say, though, that I think Biden was a pretty good choice for VP; if nothing else, he'll make a great hatchet man for Obama.

When Obama announced his selection for VP, he made history by doing so to his supporters through text message.

I hear that along the same lines, McCain will be making his announcement by carrier pigeon. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: It looks like I missed one doozy of an acceptance speech by Obama.

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, John McCain, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 7:42 AM Trackback Link 1 comments links to this post

Am I the Only One Not Surprised?

Just got back after a month of self-imposed hiatus from politics after Hillary dropped out of the race. Obama appears to have tacked to the center since then; for example on the surveillance legislation and faith-based initiatives.

All of the long-time Obamaniacs seem to be surprised by this (I'm not one of them, remember)... I'm not. I've always been a little uncomfortable with him (and Hillary) because he's just not really a liberal. Remember his 2004 keynote speech at the DNC?

We liberals are not going to love him as President, but after 8 years of Bush and faced with 4 more in McCain, Obama's still pretty damn appetizing...

Labels: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 8:36 PM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post

Here Comes McCain Again

Video #2 from the McCain Girls... it's been tough to find because YouTube took it down, but I dug it up again for the time being.



Are they for real? I still don't know. My guess is now probably not, but either way, they're a political phenomenon. Either they think they're doing something to help their candidate and are so unbelievably mistaken, or it's an incredible piece of subversive reverse psychology, demonstrating just how square John McCain is -- it really fits in with his geezerness.

Labels: 2008 Election, Humor, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

posted by jbrzoska @ 12:41 AM Trackback Link 0 comments links to this post