Multiple Factors Pushed Voters to Obama (Alec MacGillis and Jon Cohen, 11/04/08, Washington Post)
[H]e appeared to have benefited from deep dissatisfaction with the Republican brand, with 31 percent of voters in tonight's preliminary exit poll results describing themselves as Republicans, compared with 40 percent who identified themselves as Democrats. Four years ago, the numbers were equal.The partisan shift away from the Republicans did not appear to signify an ideological shift toward the left. The proportion of voters describing themselves as liberal, moderate and conservative stayed roughly the same compared with four years ago. The proportion of voters who said they thought the government should do more was higher than in 2004; nonetheless, more than 40 percent thought government should not be more active.
But, in what appeared to be a crucial loss for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), voters almost across the board fled from Bush's winning coalition in 2004. Two in 10 conservatives nationally backed Obama, according to the exit polls, putting him on course to match Bill Clinton's 1996 performance among those voters. .
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Exit Polls: Changing faces of U.S.A (CNN's Joe Von Kanel and Hal Quinley of Yankelovich, 11/04/08, CNN)
In the exit polls reported thus far tonight, 53 percent of whites say they voted for McCain while 43 percent of whites voted for Obama.Obama, however, has a dramatic edge among African-Americans (96 percent), Latinos (67 percent ) and Asians (63 percent). Significantly, America's non-white vote is increasing as a proportion of the entire electorate. In the 1992 presidential election, whites made up 87 percent of all voters. This proportion fell to 83 percent in 1996; to 81 percent in 2000 and 77 percent in 2004. So far in today's exit polling, whites make up 75 percent of the electorate. Projected demographic trends indicate that the proportion of non-white voters, particularly Hispanics, will increase further in the future.
...who writes the first story about how suddenly they like John McCain again?
Guantanamo Revelation: The first of many if Obama wins. (Wall Street Journal, 11/04/08)
According to the six-year narrative of the press and political class, the Bush Administration's counterterrorism policies fall somewhere between the Spanish Inquisition and the Ministry of Love in "1984." So it was something of a shock to read a remarkable front-page story in the New York Times yesterday, the abridged version being: Never mind.In their 1,600-word dispatch "Next President Will Face Test on Detainees," reporters William Glaberson and Margot Williams discover that, gee whiz, many of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay really are dangerous terrorists. The Times reviewed "thousands of pages" of evidence that the government has so far made public and concludes that perhaps the reality is more complicated than the critics claim.
Lo and behold, detainees are implicated in such terror attacks as the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Those with "serious terrorism credentials" include al Qaeda operatives Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and the so-called "Dirty 30," Osama bin Laden's cadre of bodyguards. The Times didn't mention Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, though he's awaiting a war-crimes tribunal at Gitmo too.
Both Barack Obama and John McCain have pledged to put Guantanamo out of business, but, as the Times explains, "the review of the government's public files underscores the challenges of fulfilling that promise. The next president will have to contend with sobering intelligence claims against many of the remaining detainees." Now they tell us.
We're going to try something different this election night (Tuesday, 11/4). Starting at 8:30 PM Eastern, we'll be having live interactive election coverage using the technology from Cover It Live. Starting at 8:30 the CoverItLive widget will enable us to have a live conversation. It would be great if folks would volunteer to be the "reporter" for one network's coverage (post in comments); that way, we'll all keep up to speed on all of the coverage. No special software is required and once we get started, we'll approve your first entry so you can continue to post to the coverage automatically.
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Image by Getty Images via Daylife
She famously referred to herself as just 'an average hockey mom'.And today Sarah Palin certainly played up to that image as she went to cast her vote in the U.S elections, dressing down in a pair of jeans and a hooded jacket.
It also appeared that the Republican vice-presidential candidate, who likened herself to a pit bull in lipstick, had dispensed with her lip gloss in favour of a more natural look as she arrived at her local polling station, Wasilla City Hall, in Wasilla, Alaska.
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Economy Tops Voters' Concerns in Choosing President: Proportion of Black Vote Is Only Slightly Higher Than in 2004 (RUSSELL GOLDMAN, Nov. 4, 2008, ABC News)
The economy is nationally the overwhelming issue for voters casting their ballots in today's historic presidential election, according to early exit polls.Despite the possibility of Obama becoming the nation's first black president, the turnout of black voters as a percentage of the national vote was at 13 percent, just slightly higher than in 2004, according to early exit polls.
The economy has long dominated the campaign, and voters' concerns became heightened when the major banks and credit markets needed a massive federal bailout to avoid a fiscal catastrophe.
An Obama surge on Wall Street, and beyond? (Tom Petruno, November 4, 2008, LA Times)
The stock market today bucked convention with a sharp advance that lifted the Dow Jones industrials 305.45 points, or 3.3%, to 9,625.28.That extended the Dow’s recovery from its 5 1/2-year closing low reached on Oct. 27 to 1,450 points, or 17.7%.
Since stocks began trading on presidential election days in 1984 (before that, those days were market holidays) share prices have mostly moved little while awaiting the outcome. The average move in either direction has been less than 0.5%.
This time around, for whatever reason, some investors were in a buying mood for all sorts of assets they wouldn’t touch during the October meltdown -- including domestic stocks, foreign stocks (European blue-chip shares jumped 4.1%, on average) and commodities (oil futures soared $6.62 to $70.53 a barrel).
Exit Polls: Voters expect higher taxes (Joe Von Kanel and Hal Quinley, 11/04/08, CNN)
Early exit polling shows voters expect a post-election tax increase. Forty-nine percent think their taxes will go up no matter who is elected president.
I went and voted at the High School around 10:30 this morning. It wasn't especially crowded.
NH has done away with the option to straight line vote, so you had to fill in all the bubbles. I confess it was the first time I so much as saw the Republican gubernatorial candidate's name and I read it as Joe Kennedy--though The Wife assures me it's Kenney--which was confusing.
As you left the polling place there were exit pollsters, though they seemed too young to be professional. Maybe it was a class project? Anyway, the final question was: Are you a Dartmouth student? I thanked the kid for asking.
Then there were Obamanoids offering stickers that said: "I voted for change" I wanted one that said "I voted against change" but they weren't on offer.
Even having fairly low hopes for tonight's result it's just too difficult to sit around waiting for results, so I dragged the dog around the neighborhood and then threw stones for awhile. We moved this summer and the beds in front of the house needed serious work. The Wife pulled up a bunch of stuff this Summer to thin them out and for our Anniversary (17 years, miraculously enough) I've been lining them with stones.
Not only did that kill three hours, but, as always, it got me thinking about our forbears. Around here, when you walk off into the woods you are not unlikely to eventually come upon an abandoned and crumbling stone wall. Not only is it humbling to realize that some poor bugger once cleared all the trees, but then he cast up all these stones as he was plowing and used them to build a wall. Not for nothing is this called the Granite State.
Imagine, for a moment, that you were one of these earlier Americans and arrived at this field, facing the prospect of dong all that clearing before you could grow the food you'd require? Try telling them that you're depressed because the election might not go your way this year.
As it happens, our family has been here that long--some lunkheaded ancestor was clearing fields like these hundreds of years ago. Indeed, for something like 176 years an Orrin Judd or two or three has cast his ballot in the presidential election. During just that time they've done so with the country on the brink of or in the midst of Civil War, Jim Crow, depression, WWI, Great Depression, WWII, Cold War, and the late-70s/early 80s Recession, which rather puts a mild economic downturn and nearly casualty-free stabilization efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan in perspective.
Most remarkable though is that for 220 years now we've gone to the polls and elected our own leaders. In that time we've had our fair share of great ones, crappy ones and everything in between. And it hasn't been the least bit unusual for the ones who seem to have greatness in them to turn out awful--Herbert Hoover, anyone?--nor the ones who seemed like mopes or bufoons to change history for the better: Abraham Lincoln? Ronald Reagan? The truly awful human beings have been blessedly rare: only Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon spring to mind. For the most part they've just been decent enough guys trying their best to do right by the country with predictably middling results.
This year's choice doesn't offer us a candidate who you'd expect to be particularly successful. For one thing, neither has the sort of executive experience that ought be the minimum we expect of a guy who wants to be Chief Executive of the Republic. For another, neither
has the sort of governing philosophy that provides the steady grounding and the consistency, even predictability, that you'd like in a leader. There's something unsettling about men who you can have no idea where they'd come out on an issue of first impression or whether they'd stick to their guns on important decisions.
But the flip side of that is that at a time of great partisanship but few meaningful policy differences between the parties, both are pragmatists and compromises and might stand a chance of getting things done. And after 14 years of our politics being guided by big ideas, it's not unreasonable for Americans to want to pause and regroup under a president they expect to be harmless, precisely because he proposes so little.
So, once again, today we pick who we want to lead the country for the next four years. The process isn't always appealing, but it is almost ridiculously open and representative. It is no coincidence that the entire world is fascinated by our elections. Forty years ago tonight, John McCain was a prisoner of North Vietnam. Fifty years ago, blacks couldn't even vote in much of the South, nevermind be the Democratic nominee, like Barack Obama. Tomorrow one of them will be president.
We do a disservice to the ancestors who handed down this incredible system of government if we dwell over much on the negatives and don't pause to think about the positives, which far outweigh the former. We do a disservice to ourselves if we bitch and whine about how this person or that person would have been better or this strategy or that strategy was a mistake or this, that, or the other. Picking discrete pieces of bark off individual trees we may lose sight of the beauty and grandeur of the forest.
If it's never a good idea to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, it's an especially bad one in a democratic republic, premised on compromise and requiring the acceptance of imperfection. Election Day is a time for us to celebrate who we are, what we have, and what we've done and to hope and pray that we do well in the future and hand down to those who come after us a country that's free and fair and safe.
And if we Republicans get our butts kicked tonight, then we congratulate the Democrats, find ways to work with them for the good of the country, and figure out how to whip them next time. That's the fun of democracy.
What Would George Bailey Do? (EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, 11/04/08, NY Times)
So debased had judgment become, and so unpredictable were the consequences, that the safest thing to do was absolutely nothing. Liquidity turned solid; credit froze. And this reflected a collapse not just of business activity but also of trust, or, to use George’s word, of faith.It might seem strange to think of these enormous disruptions as reflections of something so elemental: trillions of dollars are now being expended to re-establish trust? But we can see how this issue came up in earlier periods of cultural transition. Consider Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.” Written at a time when Elizabethan England was being transformed by European trade and its own growing international ambitions, the play can even seem to be about how to create trust in a tumultuous marketplace.
The play lampoons cultural differences in cosmopolitan Venice. A buffoonish Spaniard, a scimitar-wielding Moroccan, drunken Germans, a Jewish usurer — these types are all invoked in the work. But how are such varied figures to interact in “the trade and profit of the city”? Only through the presence of a strong central law that would guarantee trust in the midst of distrust.
Shakespeare, though, does not minimize the difficulties in creating consistent methods for judging, whether assessing products or the people who make them. Are the goods what they seem? Are people? Portia’s suitors are forced to choose a gold, silver or lead casket — uncertain about which will disclose the true image of their beloved. Characters confuse lies and truth, ornament and essence, mercy and ruthlessness. In the midst of all this it is amazing that any kind of social and economic interchange is possible.
Women Carry More Bacteria Than Men (Randolph E. Schmid, 11/04/08, Associated Press)
Wash your hands, folks, especially you ladies. A new study found that women have a greater variety of bacteria on their hands than men do.
"Let This Guy Govern" Again (William Tucker, 11.4.08, American Spectator)
Four years ago on the eve of the 2004 election, I wrote in a Spectator column, "Let's let this guy govern." In case John Kerry won, I said, conservatives should stand by the election without carping about skullduggery or fraud.The Democrats had already introduced this poison into the system by spending four years disputing the results of 2000. My appeal was that Republicans not do the same. If the electorate chose Kerry, give him the chance to impose his agenda and let it play out without introducing unnecessary rancor into the system. All this was tempered, of course, by a fair degree of confidence that Kerry was probably going to lose. (Democrats did not return the favor and people such as Robert Kennedy, Jr. still argue that Kerry actually won in Ohio.)
Now on the eve of the 2008 Election I'd like to write the same column under different circumstances. There is a very strong possibility this time that John McCain is going to lose and Barack Obama will be the next President, bringing in the most extreme left-wing administration since 1932. In the shadow of this event, I'd like to propose a few rules for going into loyal opposition...
It is frequently pointed out to us that if we're going to eagerly embrace the Latinization of America then we'd better get used to soccer.
Then, this Summer, our youngest did a PlaySoccer camp. They bring over a bunch of British college kids to coach and they get to travel around New England for a couple months, staying with local families. The Wife had been yammering about our hosting an exchange student some year, so I got us a coach to test drive. We got a Polish student who's attending the University of Southampton. Sweet guy, but he ate like Beldar Conehead. We more or less had to make him eight meals a day. Anyway...our son had fun and now requires that I play with him on the lawn for an hour every afternoon. Let's just say he has an expansive view of how far the goalie can range and still use his hands...
Finally, one of the neighbors invited a couple of us over this Summer to watch the Championship game of the Euro Cup. So as not to be a total ignoramus I downloaded the semis and watched them first. The British TV site that I use -- http://thebox.bz/ (email me and I'll send an invite if you want to check it out--forget the soccer, you can see the final season of Touch of Frost that just ran there and the new Inspector Lewis's) -- had all the games posted.
Turns out they also post English Premier League games, so, as penance for my many sins, I figured I'd follow the EPL season just for yucks. ESPN 2 also has games on at some obscure time, so I taped them on the DVR. Started out watching full games but even the announcers periodically mention how boring the "action" is. The Brits, fully aware of this, have a show called Match of the Day, that you watch instead. The MoD is really just a ten minute "highlight" from the day's best game and then snippets from all the others, interspersed with classically waspish commentary by former players.
Most won't be old enough to remember this, but back in the days of broadcast TV there used to be a similar NFL show. You'd get your local telecast--maybe--but then all you knew of the other games was the NFL Films version -- This is the NFL. MoD is not dissimilar.
Anyhow, they show goals from the games that no one would ever watch, like those of a newly promoted side called Stoke City. The Potters' are big by soccer standards--when they started an entire team of six footers this weekend it looked like the varsity playing the jv--and they're reasonably physical, all things considered, which helps them in one area in particular: their guys aren't afraid to head the ball. This matters because their entire offense consists of Rory Delap, who is apparently the only guy in the history of soccer who can throw the ball. He basically heaves it in front of the goal and, while the other team looks on in stunned amazement, his teammates just bonk the goal past a petrified goalkeeper. It was funny the first couple times, but at this point everyone knows what's coming, no one has adapted to it, and they're all flabbergasted by it. He pretty much beat Manchester United by himself this weekend, Stoke's two goals coming off his throw-ins which one of the top 4 teams in England showed no interest in contesting.
As it happens, someone has put together a tribute to him on YouTube and it's a hoot--at least until it descends into homoeroticism:
Whoever wins the election today should offer Mr. Delap asylum in America: no one who can throw overhand, like a man, ought to be stranded in Europe, even if he does enjoy the advantage of David and the archers of Agincourt.
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Lessons of the surge (Michael O'Hanlon, November 4, 2008, Washington Times)
[I]nstead of surge, think SURGE:The "S" in surge should be understood as an emphasis on security. This is, as noted, the centerpiece of the strategy. Protecting the Iraqi civilian population has been essential to restore trust in government and trust across sectarian lines, to rekindle hopefulness about the country's future, and restore some degree of normalcy in daily life. In practical terms, among other things it has meant setting up joint security stations across Iraq in the country's urban centers to live and work near vulnerable populations. Increased troop totals have been just part of the story.
"U" stands for unity of effort (as an assistant of Gen. Petraeus' suggested to me). It means Iraqis, Americans and others working collaboratively toward a common purpose. It has led to Americans and Iraqis living together in the joint security stations and patrolling and when necessary fighting together in Iraq's toughest neighborhoods. It has also led to development of a campaign plan that is gradually passing more and more responsibility to Iraqis for all aspects of their country's governance.
"R" must stand for reconciliation. This has been an absolutely crucial aspect of the progress in Iraq since 2007. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has purged many Shia extremist leaders that he considered irreconcilable, and replaced them in many cases with former Ba'athists (most Sunni) with whom he thought he could work. Iraqi and American leaders convinced Muqtada al-Sadr to agree to a cease-fire; the United States also launched the so-called Sons of Iraq program, paying some of the very same tribesmen (generally Sunni) who had been part of the insurgency a couple years ago to cooperate with us in providing security. [...]
"G" stands for government capacity in Iraq. As a key example, while American forces surged by 30,000 in 2007, Iraqi security forces have grown by some 200,000 over the last two years. They now total more than half a million personnel. [...]
"E" stands for excellence in execution. Doing counterinsurgency and stabilization missions correctly is very hard, requiring excellent troop training and leadership at all levels of command.
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India seeks 'velvet divorce' from Iran (M K Bhadrakumar, 11/05/08, Asia Times)
Amid the rubble of the Middle East policy of the George W Bush-Ehud Olmert duo, there has been a true success story. The United States and Israel have largely succeeded in snatching India from the "other" side of the Middle Eastern geopolitical divide. This became evident more than once in the past week.On October 26, US forces based in Iraq attacked the Syrian border village of Sukkaryiah. The attack triggered outrage regionally. Even the Arab League, which has an ambivalent attitude toward Damascus, felt compelled to condemn Washington. But Delhi looked away.
Study: MLB's worst fielder is... (Fan Nation, 11/04/08)
A group that tracks every ball hit in the majors says Derek Jeter is the worst fielder in baseball. Stats guru Bill James, author of the "Baseball Abstract," and a panel of nine other voters, ranked Jeter 22nd among all major-league shortstops, with one calling Jeter "the least effective defensive player in the major leagues, at any position."
THE SUBVERSIVE (MICHAEL LEWIS , 5/25/1997, NY Times Magazine)
By 7:30 we were on the road, and McCain was reminiscing about his early political career. When he was elected to the House in 1982, he said, he was ''a freshman right-wing Nazi.'' But his visceral hostility toward Democrats generally was quickly tempered by his tendency to see people as individuals and judge them that way. He was taken in hand by Morris Udall, the Arizona Congressman who was the liberal conscience of the Congress and a leading voice for reform. (Most famously -- and disastrously for his own career -- Udall took aim at the seniority system that kept young talent in its place at the end of the dais. ''The longer you're here, the more you'll like it,'' he used to joke to incoming freshmen.)''Mo reached out to me in 50 different ways,'' McCain recalled. ''Right from the start, he'd say: 'I'm going to hold a press conference out in Phoenix. Why don't you join me?' All these journalists would show up to hear what Mo had to say. In the middle of it all, Mo would point to me and say, 'I'd like to hear John's views.' Well, hell, I didn't have any views. But I got up and learned and was introduced to the state.'' Four years later, when McCain ran for and won Barry Goldwater's Senate seat, he said he felt his greatest debt of gratitude not to Goldwater -- who had shunned him -- but to Udall. ''There's no way Mo could have been more wonderful,'' he says, ''and there was no reason for him to be that way.''
For the past few years, Udall has lain ill with Parkinson's disease in a veterans hospital in Northeast Washington, which is where we were heading. Every few weeks, McCain drives over to pay his respects. These days the trip is a ceremony, like going to church only less pleasant. Udall is seldom conscious, and even then he shows no sign of recognition. McCain brings with him a stack of newspaper clips on Udall's favorite subjects: local politics in Arizona, environmental legislation, Native American land disputes, subjects in which McCain initially had no particular interest himself. Now, when the Republican Senator from Arizona takes the floor on behalf of Native Americans, or when he writes an op-ed piece arguing that the Republican Party embrace environmentalism, or when the polls show once again that he is Arizona's most popular politician, he remains aware of his debt to Arizona's most influential Democrat.
One wall of Udall's hospital room was cluttered with photos of his family back in Arizona; another bore a single photograph of Udall during his season with the Denver Nuggets, dribbling a basketball. Aside from a Congressional seal glued to a door jamb, there was no indication what the man in the bed had done for his living. Beneath a torn gray blanket on a narrow hospital cot, Udall lay twisted and disfigured. No matter how many times McCain tapped him on the shoulder and called his name, his eyes remained shut.
A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn't long before I found out why: almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain. ''He's not going to wake up this time,'' McCain said.
On the way out of the parking lot, McCain recalled what it was like to be a nobody called upon by a somebody. As he did, his voice acquired the same warmth that colored Russell Feingold's speech when he described the first call from John McCain. ''When you called Feingold . . .'' I started to ask him. But before I could, he interrupted. ''Yeah,'' he says, ''I thought of Mo.'' And then, for maybe the third time that morning, McCain spoke of how it affected him when Udall took him in hand. It was a simple act of affection and admiration, and for that reason it meant all the more to McCain. It was one man saying to another, We disagree in politics but not in life. It was one man saying to another, Party political differences cut only so deep. Having made that step, they found much to agree upon and many useful ways to work together. This is the reason McCain keeps coming to see Udall even after Udall has lost his last shred of political influence. The politics were never all that important.
2012? You Betcha!: And she’ll be a stronger candidate than you think. Does Sarah Palin have Reagan potential? (John Heilemann, Nov 2, 2008, New York Magazine)
Here in deep-blue Gotham, many people assume that her destiny is sealed: a one-way ticket back to Wasilla. But the truth is that Palin is likely to be a significant player on the national stage for years to come. As a galvanizing, maybe polarizing, figure in the conservative movement. As a folk hero on the talk-radio–Fox News right. And possibly, possibly, as the GOP front-runner in 2012.That Palin in the final days of the campaign was already looking toward the next election cycle was glaringly evident—not least in some quarters inside McCain-land, where it caused no small degree of consternation. Her public (via Bill Kristol) challenging of McCain for not bringing up Barack Obama’s association with Jeremiah Wright, her objection to the campaign’s withdrawal from Michigan, her insistence on giving policy speeches during the home stretch, her loud and off-message effort to defend herself regarding her $150,000 wardrobe splurge: All of it seemed focused more on playing to the base or repairing her reputation than on helping McCain to win.
For a candidate whose public image has taken the battering that Palin’s has in the past two months, focusing on the post-election horizon seems both natural and drenched in chutzpah. But Palin surely knows that many prominent figures in the conservative movement—from Morton Blackwell to Brent Bozell—see in her the potential to emerge in time as a next-generation, XX-chromosome Ronald Reagan. Indeed, on November 5, an assemblage of the movement’s leaders will take place at a private weekend home in rural Virginia to begin discussing a way forward for the GOP in the age of Obama (if he wins, that is), with Palin’s role high on the agenda.
The case for Palin as a conservative standard-bearer isn’t hard to discern. She has electrified the Republican grassroots as no candidate has in years. In their size and enthusiasm, the crowds that come to see her on the stump rival or even exceed those that greeted Obama a few years ago, when he first burst on the scene. Her charisma and performance skills, so dazzling when she made her debut in St. Paul, Minnesota, at the Republican convention, were vividly on display when I saw her in Erie. Again and again, she whipped the throng into a frenzy with her barbed attacks on Obama. Her command of right-wing dog-whistle rhetoric is total. Speaking of her devotion to helping special-needs children, she seamlessly inserted a coded pro-life appeal: “John [McCain] and I have a vision of America where every innocent life counts.”
The constituency to which Palin appeals is clear and well defined: populist conservatives of all stripes and Evangelicals in particular.