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Tuesday, November 4, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We have witnessed history.
And President-elect Barack Obama understands that. But as he pointed out in his speech Tuesday night in Chicago’s Grant Park, this election is not the change that we seek. It sets the stage for change, but it is not the change. That will be more difficult.
No one can know how Obama will perform as president. Obama himself cannot know or even pretend to know. The challenges that he faces, that we face, are too profound for such conclusions. As he acknowledged, he will make mistakes. But he is an intelligent man, a caring man. And I confess that I do not understand those who fear him as a danger.
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The (non) fat lady sings …. very well
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Roll the credits, folks. It’s over. Fox has called Ohio.
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Fox: Fair, balanced and very very blue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Boy, those folks on Fox look glum. No, glum doesn’t do Bill Kristol’s face justice.
They look like their favorite dog died. It’s a funeral there. All that’s left is to throw dirt on the coffin. Barack takes New Mexico, Minnesota, Wisconsin.
You can read the electoral map on Brit Hume’s face. It’s blue.
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Still nothing definitive, Va. and Ohio dangling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Well, still nothing definitive. Things seem to be going as predicted. Elizabeth Dole has lost in North Carolina, Mark Warner has won in Virginia, but those two Senate seats had been baked into the predictions, so to speak. Waiting for a call on Virginia or Ohio, but Pennsylvania has been called by MSNBC and ABC, and McCain had put at lot of effort into that state. Doesn’t appear to have worked.
Georgia way too early to call, either presidential or Senate. Could be a long night before the home game is decided.
UPDATE: CNN just called New Hampshire for Obama, which closes off another escape route for McCain. Something big has to break for him — several somethings — and so far none have.
UPDATE II: McCain needs to take every swing state — a total of 90 electoral votes — and then get another additional 23 EVs from states that have been leaning toward Obama. Of those leaners, three have been called — Pennsylvania (21), New Hampshire (4) and Maine (4). All for Obama.
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A referendum on the modern GOP
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In today’s Guardian, Sidney Blumenthal makes an argument that readers of this blog will find familiar: The election of 2008 marks the end of the Reagan era.
Says Blumenthal:
“Today’s election is poised to end the Republican era in American politics - an era that began in reaction to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the Vietnam war and the civil rights revolution, was pioneered by Richard Nixon, consolidated by Ronald Reagan, and wrecked by George W Bush.
Almost every aspect of the Republican ascendancy has been discredited and lies in tatters - its policies, politics, and even its version of patriotism - down to the rock-bottom notion that progressive taxation itself, initiated by a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, who John McCain hails as his personal icon, is unpatriotic.”
As Blumenthal notes, it’s ironic to have McCain “make the last stand on behalf of a party he has been at odds with for virtually his whole career,” but that in itself demonstrates how disconnected the party has become from the American mainstream. Its only chance for success was in picking a candidate who made his name as the anti-Republican, and even that ploy has failed.
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The Obama effect on Ga. turnout
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pollster.com’s Brian Shaffner does a brief analysis of Georgia’s possible impact on tonight’s outcome, and comes up with a rather startling number:
“In 2004, 834,331 African Americans voted in Georgia’s presidential election. Already this year, 705,203 African Americans have voted early in that state.”
According to Shaffner, if the black vote in Georgia comprises 30 percent of today’s turnout, “there is a reasonable chance that Obama can win Georgia and that a landslide may be in the offing. To do this, he needs to perform slightly better among whites than Kerry did. According to exit polls, Kerry won just 23 percent of the white vote in 2004; Obama would need 27-30 percent of the white vote to capitalize on the high turnout among blacks (or he would need Bob Barr to peel away a significant share of McCain’s support). This is still a bit of a long shot, but Georgia has one of the first poll closings, so it will give us something to look for during the 7pm-8pm hour.”
It’s been a long time since Georgia got much attention in a presidential race. And if our Senate race ends up in a runoff, we’re gonna get more attention than we ever wanted between now and December.
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Report from the polling madness
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just got back from voting. I showed up at 7:30, voted at 10:15, so two and a half hours at John Hope Elementary in intown Atlanta.
Where did you vote today, and how long did it take?
Also, in a little aside, I note that the Investor’s Business Daily poll, the one that has been drawing so much interest on the conservative side because it was supposedly the most accurate in ‘04, and because it showed a race as close as two points just a couple of days ago, now puts its final margin at seven.
Funny how that happens.
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Some people scare too easily
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The alarm radio went off at 6 a.m. and the first sound I heard was the voice of Barack Obama saying something about having traveled to every corner of this great country, etc. Typical end-of-the-campaign stuff.
I turned it off, but I think we’re going to be hearing that voice a lot over the next four years.
That prospect has some people downright terrified. One of them is Jonah Goldberg at Townhall.com, who writes today in a piece headlined “Sorry, but Obama scares me.”
(UPDATE: Townhall.com has since posted a correction. The piece it originally attributed to Jonah Goldberg was instead written by David Limbaugh, which I actually find reassuring. I had been surprised and dismayed to see something like that under Goldberg’s byline, which is why I commented on it; it is no surprise whatsoever to see it under Limbaugh’s. So for the rest of the piece below, substitute Limbaugh for Goldberg. I’d pull the whole thing down, but then folks would miss the correction.)
Buck up, little Jonah. Take a bravery pill. Somebody pat the boy on the head and tell him it’ll be all right. The tall black man won’t hurt him … much.
But really, you can tell Goldberg is shaking at the knees.
He writes himself a darling little melodrama, casting America as the victim who is beaten down year after year at the hands of dastardly Democrats. Their plan is to whip the American people “into a frenzy of desperation, setting the table for a charismatic leader to deliver us from the despair they’ve manufactured with relentless precision.”
And you know who that charismatic leader will be: Cue the organ and fog as the villain enters stage left, complete with swirling cape and handlebar mustache, ready to tie Lady Liberty to the railroad tracks.
Or, as Goldberg puts it:
“Barack Obama, with his mysterious past and messianic aura, then burst upon the scene … as if the script had been written just for him.”
This mysterious messiah has mayhem on his mind. After stealing the election, Obama’s going to turn us communist. He and his brutal thug tactics are going to silence any opposition to his power, yet in his dreamy naivete about good and evil in the world, he will also disarm us unilaterally and leave us defenseless.
Apparently, Obama is that rarely seen combination of Mr. Rogers and Stalin.
Goldberg even complains about Obama’s “sordid background in ‘community organizing’.” “Sordid community organizing?” What does he think Obama was organizing? Orgies? Voodoo ceremonies? Republican fundraisers?
Get a grip, son.
Goldberg goes on to call Obama Marxist, reckless, misguided, “the most radical man ever to run for this office credibly.” But that’s OK. When Goldberg wakes up tomorrow morning, he can add another name to that list: Mr. President-elect.
