Spot the Idiot

Or spot the racist.

Chris Matthews forgot that Obama was black for an hour.

New Charges against Palin E-mail Hacker

Story here.

Surprise! Media focus on Republican negatives affected voters' perception of issues.

Powerline blog reports:

Here are some highlights of Zogby's poll of Obama voters:

* 57 percent thought the Republicans still control Congress. Note that this is worse than a random result, since there are only two possible answers.

* Only 12 percent could identify Obama as the candidate who said that his energy policies would cause the cost of electricity to skyrocket.

The only issues on which the Obama voters were well-informed (or thought they were, anyway) had to do with Sarah Palin. Thus:

* 94 percent knew that Palin was the candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter, the highest correct score recorded by the Obama voters.

* Likewise, 86 percent knew that Palin was the candidate whose party bought her a $150,000 wardrobe.

Those answers suggest that the mainstream media's emphasis in this election was not exactly on the nuances of public policy. To be fair, though, they probably also reflect where the interests of Democratic voters tend to lie. This one is interesting:

* 87 percent said that Sarah Palin was the candidate who said she could see Russia from her house. Actually, it was Tina Fey who said that. Once again, though, it shows that Palin seemed to be the candidate who made the biggest impression, for better or worse.

It's worth noting that the Obama voters in Zogby's sample were 97 percent high school graduates and--rather shockingly--55 percent college graduates. It's almost enough to make you wonder about the future of democracy.

The source of the anti-Palin rumours...

...outs himself.

Update:

Hoax.

Or not.

Who knows anymore.

Pluralism

A classy clip on the importance of religious liberty and tolerance.



Via Jennifer Roback Morse.

Let's play "Spot the Idiot"

This is ten minute video to get the feeling of what it must be like to be a minority
being threatened by a mob filled with hate.

Gays blockade Mormon temple.

It's interesting to see LAPD on hand in case the mob turned violent.




Via American Catholic.

The Cult of Personality

Tom Smith links to this video where embedded Newsweek reporters discuss what they describe as Obama's "slightly creepy cult of personality":

Evan Thomas
by dollarsandsense123

Liz Trotta pointed out yesterday on Foxnews that while the reporters were willing to talk about "a creepy cult of personality", they didn't include that language or idea in their lengthy post-election report.

Tom Smith writes:

The important point is not that Obama inspired such weird devotion, but that he does so on purpose. That is what the reporters from Newsweek are picking up on. Their distancing themselves from it now -- well MSM bias is old news at this point.

File this under great moments in journalism.

Election Postmortem

Reports of huge voter turnout were fiction. From the Politico:

Despite widespread predictions of record turnout in this year’s presidential election, roughly the same portion of eligible voters cast ballots in 2008 as in 2004.

Between 60.7 percent and 61.7 percent of the 208.3 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, compared with 60.6 percent of those eligible in 2004, according to a voting analysis by American University political scientist Curtis Gans, an authority on voter turnout.

He estimated that between 126.5 million and 128.5 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, versus 122.3 million four years ago. Gans said the gross number of ballots cast in 2008 was the highest ever, even though the percentage was not substantially different from 2004, because there were about 6.5 million more people registered to vote this time around

A .1 percent difference and, nonetheless, the media was still able to spend weeks reporting on the long lines around the country.

I am unendorsing McCain.

This post by Andrew McCarthy crystalizes my McCain conundrum:

Sen. McCain did not allow a nanosecond to go buy without issuing a sanctimonius, full-throated condemnation of any Republican who dared use Sen. Obama's middle name, mention Jeremiah Wright, or otherwise trash The One.

So where is the vigorous defense of his running-mate?

I was never sure when his desire to be feted for "bipartisanship" would cause him to adhere to the double-standard that the media applies to my side of the table.

It's bad enough for the other side to hypocritically hold us to an unfair double standard, but for the people on our team - leading our team - to do the same thing is just a bit too much.

Update:

I think this Ann Althouse post on how McCain lost her vote is fair.

Althouse makes the point that McCain seemed erratic and "unprincipled" in the sense of not having a well-defined set of values from which to operate. The latter bothered me also. So, McCain was for drilling, except in ANWR. He was against gay marriage, but not willing to align himself with propositions that garnered more support than he did. He was for patriotism, but bringing up Obama's association with avowed America-haters was off limits. He is for the First Amendment, but not if it involves political speech near elections. He is against earmarks, but votes for a $700 billion bailout bill filled with them. He is for fiscally conservative spending, but advocates a $300 billion package to buy bad home mortgages.

On the other hand, Obama is even more "unprincipled" in all senses of the word, as the post on Polish missile defense indicates.

No more Senators as candidates.

Wall Street endorses Obama economic policy

Stock Market has record 500 point fall for day after election.

California Initiatives

Go here for a county-by-county breakdown.

Interesting. The Redistricting Initiative, described as a Republican power-grab, by the usual parasites, passed. On the other hand, economic downturn or not, California voters passed tens of billions of bond measures, including one for high speed rail which will turn not a single shovelful of dirt.

On a lighter note

Steven Den Beste points out that Obamam and the Democrats are in an awful place - a place they have always wanted to stay as far away from as possible. Now, they have to produce results.

If it worked for John Wayne, it works for me.

Last night, when my 10 year old was expressing her concern about what it meant that "my guy" had lost the election, I told her that things were terrific. We just had an election where 100 million people turned out to choose a leader and that the greatest power known to man in human history would peacefully transition to a completely different group of people, and how in human history this was so very unusual and such a good thing.

She didn't get it last night, but in time, and with reinforcement, some day she will.

Mark Shea - being a professional cogitator - said the same thing, only better:

"I didn't vote for him. But he's my President and I hope he does a good job." - John Wayne

I think it's really easy to miss the wood for the trees when contemplating this or any American election. Yeah, I think Obama will be a lousy President. But when I consider the fact that neither he nor any President has come to office by a) poisoning his predecessor, b) marshalling an army to lead a military coup that hails him as Supreme Maximum Leader, c) assuming power by taking his predecessor's concubines and bedding them in public before exiling his enemies from their homes, d) creating an army of child soldiers to terrorize, rape and murder in a genocidal rampage, e) rounding up his enemies and sending them to a gulag or forced labor camp, f) sending teams of assassins to drive ice picks through the brains of his rivals, g) being the deranged heir to the throne who appoints his horse a Senator or murders his scheming mother, h) being some despotic potentate whose rule reflects the inexorable will of Allah--or any of the other myriad crappy ways the human race has organized the state in the past, I have to say that I'm grateful.

And:

I had to explain to my kids tonight that when I was a kid, there were still places where Barack Obama could not have drunk from the same water fountain as me, simply because of the color of his skin. They could not, thanks be to God, conceive of anything so stupid and wicked. I am very proud to live in a country that has made enormous strides in making such sinful folly as racism as remote from my children's minds as moon worship. Whatever else may be said about this election, we should be proud that we live in a nation where this sort of satire can now be written and laughed at.

There will be time enough to point out (and fight) the bitter fact that this progress in human rights comes at the cruel expense of the unborn babies Obama utterly disenfranchises from the human family. But we still owe it to our country to applaud this achievement, so remote from what anybody could have imagined even so recently as 1961, the year Obama was born. We have indeed come a long way and it is right to be glad of that.

Amen. There is a fight for the future, but let's hope for the future and also hope that we can finally end the noxious slander that America is a racist country.

Election 2008

Obama wins. Let us pray that he will show a depth of character and commitment that he has heretofore not demonstrated.

There was no PUMA or Bradley effect. The polls were correct.

Obama campaigned as a moderate to center-right candidate - opposed to gay marriage, in favor of tax cuts, etc. Obviously, a man who broke his first campaign promise - to use only public financing - can't be expected to keep other promises.

Public financing of elections is as dead as John McCain's campaign. Obama broke his promise, wallowed in illegal campaign contributions and no one was bothered. The media was silent. Public financing was always a shill to silence conservatives, John McCain's true legacy.

John McCain did not run on conservative principles. He didn't run against gay marriage or abortion. Although he did run on lower taxes, he couldn't "outbid" Obama on that subject and never pointed out that Obama could not be trusted inasmuch as he had broken his first promise on public financing. McCain stayed away from the Reverend Wright and patriotism issue as a true gentleman. He couldn't have lost worse if he had played up the social issues.

The election exposed a deep corruption of the electoral process, such as Acorn, fake registration, double voting, illegal campaign contributions, which must be corrected if democracy is to survive.

Proposition 8 - the Traditional Marriage initiative - gained 52% of the vote, and, thereby failed to meet the 60% threshold necessary for constitutional amendments.

It is good that there is a 60% threshold, because we wouldn't want radical changes being made without broad public support....such as returning the law of marriage to what existed 6 months ago and which has existed for the last two-thousand years.

In other words, because of 4 votes on the Supreme Court, a non-democratic, radical restructuring of society was imposed against the will of the people.

Ultimately, the frustration of the public will by the California Supreme Court may have a demoralizing effect on public confidence in democracy. In other words, if the public feels that they are no longer really sovereign, they may decide that the system is rigged against them and not worth defending. That may be alright if a minority feels that way, but it can't be healthy if it's the majority that decides that they have little investment in the system.

I think I was wrong about Prop 8 Update:

I've looked at the California Constitution.

Cal Const, Art. II § 8 provides

§ 8. Initiative

(a) The initiative is the power of the electors to propose statutes and amendments to the Constitution and to adopt or reject them.

(b) An initiative measure may be proposed by presenting to the Secretary of State a petition that sets forth the text of the proposed statute or amendment to the Constitution and is certified to have been signed by electors equal in number to 5 percent in the case of a statute, and 8 percent in the case of an amendment to the Constitution, of the votes for all candidates for Governor at the last gubernatorial election.

(c) The Secretary of State shall then submit the measure at the next general election held at least 131 days after it qualifies or at any special statewide election held prior to that general election. The Governor may call a special statewide election for the measure.

(d) An initiative measure embracing more than one subject may not be submitted to the electors or have any effect.

(e) An initiative measure may not include or exclude any political subdivision of the State from the application or effect of its provisions based upon approval or disapproval of the initiative measure, or based upon the casting of a specified percentage of votes in favor of the measure, by the electors of that political subdivision.

(f) An initiative measure may not contain alternative or cumulative provisions wherein one or more of those provisions would become law depending upon the casting of a specified percentage of votes for or against the measure.

Cal. Const. Article II, § 10, "Initiative and referendum election procedure" provides:

(a) An initiative statute or referendum approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the election unless the measure provides otherwise. If a referendum petition is filed against a part of a statute the remainder shall not be delayed from going into effect.

(b) If provisions of 2 or more measures approved at the same election conflict, those of the measure receiving the highest affirmative vote shall prevail.

(c) The Legislature may amend or repeal referendum statutes. It may amend or repeal an initiative statute by another statute that becomes effective only when approved by the electors unless the initiative statute permits amendment or repeal without their approval.

(d) Prior to circulation of an initiative or referendum petition for signatures, a copy shall be submitted to the Attorney General who shall prepare a title and summary of the measure as provided by law.

(e) The Legislature shall provide the manner in which petitions shall be circulated, presented, and certified, and measures submitted to the electors.

In other words, it looks like a simple majority is all that is necessary to win, although the standards for qualifying a constitutional amendment by petition are higher.

If so, it takes a trip back to the California Supreme Court to see if they can overturn it. Normally, this would involve finding a violation of the "single subject" rule, but since Prop 8 is one of the shortest initiatives ever written - obviously because the backers knew what they faced - this doesn't seem likely.

So, let's hold our collective breaths and watch in amazement if another new principle of constitutional law materializes. If not, then let's hope that the Supremes will get back to their business of reading the law, not manufacturing social policy.

Election Map

Here is Yahoo's widget.

Scenes from an election




OK, why was he holding a nightstick?



So, the police took away "nightstick guy" but left the "pollwatcher" wearing the quasi-military Black Panther garb?

Huh? So it's ok to have people in white sheets and hoods standing in front of polls? I don't think so.

It sounds like a "one-off" situation, but the insouciant attitude to wearing racists uniforms is bizarre.

We'll know by tomorrow

Interesting point by Sean Malstrom:

am not running for President. You, the gentle reader, are not running for President. The only two people who are running for President, Obama and McCain, are going to states and sending advertising money to other states that don’t even match the public polls. For example, Pennslyvania is colored a ‘dark blue’, yet both Obama and McCain are visiting the state. ‘Dark blue’ or ‘light blue’ is the color of Iowa, yet both Obama and McCain are there. Many polls say that Georgia is a ‘toss-up’, yet neither Obama or McCain are visiting that state. Since the only two people running for President are performing actions entirely differently than the public polling, one can either say that the presidential candidates are just running around states randomly and are dumb, or it is the possibility that the public polling is not accurate.

But what are these "internal" polls and why are they so much more accurate than the ones that public polling provides?

Reading further in Malsontrom's essay:

Obama does not have the Democrat base solidified behind him. In states that massively swung to Clinton, such as Pennslyvania, a sizable number of Hillary Clinton supporters are voting for McCain under the banner of ‘Party Unity My Ass’ or ‘PUMA’s. In McCain Campaign offices throughout Pennslyvania, manning their phone banks, are DEMOCRATS which voted for Hillary Clinton. An unholy alliance has developed between senators McCain and Clinton. Both are friends to one another. Both have a framed picture of the other in their offices. The PUMA story is the biggest one not being told about in this election.

Lying to pollsters is frequent and a necessity in Pennslyvania due to the unions. Many union bosses will call their members, posing as a ‘pollster’, and if the member gives the wrong asnwer, a thug is sent to the house. The Teacher’s Union there has sent strict orders to vote for Obama “or else”.

?????

Hadn't thought of that. It makes sense, and the thought of it may be enough to skew the accuracy of the polls.

And cut and paste this to keep with you through the evening:

In 2004, the media wisely delayed calling states when voting hadn’t been completed (such as Florida in 2000). There will be none of that delay in 2008. I suspect we will have many states called for Obama before the voting is even done. The state that will be erroneously called for Obama will be Pennslyvania. In Pennslyvania, all the Obama votes are mostly in the Philly and Pittsburg area and Obama will comfortably carry those areas. And those areas are the eastern part of Pennslyvania with the western part being more rural. With the ‘Obama leads’ that Philly and Pittsburg area comes in, and the myth that Obama is ahead 25 points (or whatever) in PA being believed by the anchors, they will call PA early. But once all the rest of the state votes, they will have to turn it into a toss-up. They will be EXTREMELY reluctant to call the state for McCain even when the votes clearly show he has won there (and he *will* win there.)

Obama will take New Mexico. Iowa is a true toss-up. Nevada leans McCain. Colorado won’t be called until very late in the night because it will be close. Virginia will go to McCain but the networks won’t call it, because they won’t believe McCain has won it. NC, IN, GA will, of course, go McCain. NH will also go McCain. The Rust Belt will be full of surprises on election night. I expect the traditional blue states to be more competitive than we have seen them over a decade due to very soft Obama support. (I am curious how strong Obama’s vote will be in New York, the state where Clinton is senator).

Electoral maps showing Arizona as a toss-up, and the Obama Campaign spending advertising money there, is arrogance. Presidential candidates never lose their home state (except for Gore in 2000, but 2000 election was anything but normal). Even Mondale, who lost 49 states, won his home state. Those looking to ridicule their political opponents with the inevitable Obama win need to be very careful. Karma is a bitch. The tables will likely be turned around on election night.

And, then, there is this:

But there is a tradition that the campaign in the lead tends to share their internal poll numbers in the closing of an election. I’m hearing much about internal McCain polling, however, this might be the campaign’s way to provide an alternative to the way off public polls.

Ok, I admit, that's weird. We are hearing about McCain's internals, but nada about Obama, and we know that his internals must have had McCain making inroads in Pennsylvania and Ohio, because that's where Obama went to shore up his putatively inevitable win.

We'll see.

My election experience

45 seconds. The guy in front of me was at the wrong polling location; he had to go to the other table.

Pretty typical.

Admittedly, California is not a toss-up state. My vote pretty much went to cancel out that of some illegal alien.

Also, most of the page that had my name were "absentee voters."

The process in California is that you give your name and sign a spot where it has your address. If you wanted, you could pick off a blank name and address and give it to someone outside. If that person showed up later, I wonder if they would then demand an ID card?

Great security.

Scapegoating

This ad against Prop 8 - the Traditional Marriage initiative - would constitute "hate-speech" if it was against one of the approved minorities. But since it only singles out the Mormons, it seems that it's all good.



"Ich bin ein Mormoner" Update:

What the ad reminded me of was "Know-Nothing" Catholic-baiting from the 19th Century. Apparently, our secular betters have returned to that noxious style of propaganda. I also assume that there was a heated discussion whether to have to Mormon missionaries or a Catholic priest at the door.

I'm with Maggie Gallagher on this one:

The voices of tolerance in California are concluding their campaign against Prop 8 with this TV ad, which engages in a level of blatant religious hatred I've never seen in American politics. Ever.

I don't think its been seen in American politics since the late 19th Century attacks on Catholics, which may be why the Catholic Conference in California was so quick to denounce the ad.

It depicts two young Mormon missionaries (they are identified as LDS) invading a home and ransacking their belongings. It's ugly in the extreme.

Remember, a vote for Prop 8 in California leaves same-sex couples protected by full marriage-equivalent civil unions. None of that matters. If you think marriage means a husband and wife you are just like a racist and you can be treated any way they want.

Apparently people who think they are the civil rights movement of the century do not think they have to behave with even minimal decency towards those of us who disagree with them.

These are not some outliers in the wacky blogosphere. These are the leaders of the gay marriage movement in America who made and ran this ad.

A very revealing (and scary) moment.

Exactly. This is an issue that implicates all people of faith - this country does not need to return to the politics of division based on religion.

Predictions

More hope from Bob Krumm