Critblogging the Vote 2008
CNN, Fox calling it, get used to it … PRESIDENT OBAMA. Gloat, mourn, buck up as you choose in comments.
Blair, Four Years of Joe. He doesn’t mean “The Plumber.”
Old News Flash: Dixville Notch votes Democratic for the first time since 1968 … What? Dixville Notch went Democratic in 1968? Hey, who won that year, anyway? … So much for that curse.
Wry observations, snide asides, boundless optimism, pointed links, exit polls, etc., follow the MOST RECENT UPDATES, RUNNING TALLIES:
Running vote/delegate tally stripped across the top at bostonherald.com.
CNN reporting Pennsylvania leaning heavily Obama, projects Ohio for Obama. That’s starting to look like … Obama.
Massachusetts’ anti-income tax Question 1 goes down.
AP: Obama takes Vermont … and can have it. McCain takes Kentucky.
The Street, state-by-state, updating:
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is off to a strong start in the historic 2008 election, with CNN concluding that he will receive 174 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win, while Republican John McCain is expected get 69 electoral votes so far.
ALABAMA (9 electoral votes) — McCain leading in early results.
CONNECTICUT (7 electoral votes) — Obama leading in early results.
DELAWARE (3 electoral votes) — Obama leading in early results.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (3 electoral votes) — Obama leading in early results.
GEORGIA (15 electoral votes) — McCain leading in early results.
ILLINOIS (21 electoral votes) — Obama leading in early results.
KENTUCKY (8 electoral votes) — McCain leading in early results.
MAINE (4 electoral votes) — Obama leading in early results.
MARYLAND (10 electoral votes) — Obama leading in early results.
MASSACHUSETTS (12 electoral votes) — Obama leading in early results.
MICHIGAN (17 electoral votes)– Obama leading in early results.
MINNESOTA (10 electoral votes)– Obama leading in early results.
NEW HAMPSHIRE (4 electoral votes)– Obama leading in early results.
NEW JERSEY (15 electoral votes) — Obama leading in early results.
NEW YORK (31 electoral votes)– Obama leading in early results.
NORTH DAKOTA (3 electoral votes) — McCain leading in early results.
OKLAHOMA (7 electoral votes) — McCain leading in early results.
PENNSYLVANIA (21 electoral votes)– Obama leading in early results.
RHODE ISLAND (4 electoral votes)– Obama leading in early results.
SOUTH CAROLINA (8 electoral votes) — McCain leading in early results.
TENNESSEE (11 electoral votes) — McCain leading in early results.
VERMONT (3 electoral votes) — Obama leading in early results.
WISCONSIN (10 electoral votes)– Obama leading in early results.
WYOMING (3 electoral votes) — McCain leading in early results.
Malkin notes NBC calling Pennsylvania for Obama at 8:15 p.m.
Early exit polling returns show an Obamaward tilt. Bear in mind history indicates these are … meaningless:
UK Guardian, “unofficial” exit polls point to Obama win. Someone tell the Brits there aren’t any “official” ones. Side note: what’s with the Islamic crescent and star logo on that red elephant? Looks like the Turkish flag. Are your graphics people morons or is this some kind of unsubtle “Hussein” gloating?
Weekly Standard links, skeptically, to more Obamist exit polling.
Free Press with some numbers on issues and new voters.
KC Star with an exit poll primer.
The exit polls, once again, can be a problem. John Kerry ran about 5.5 points better in the exit polls than he did in actual votes. The explanation was that his voters were more likely to participate in the polls.
That said, however, we’ll know that it’ll be a bad night for John McCain if networks are confident enough to call states early. One plugged-in Republican tells me the key to what pollsters and the political parties look for can be found in 24 key precincts in five states: Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
They’ll be looking for the answers to three questions:
- Is something called the Bradley effect in play? The theory is that some whites, fearing the perception that they are voting on the basis of race, lie to pollsters and overstate their support for a minority candidate. That supposedly occurred in the 1982 California gubernatorial race, which Tom Bradley lost after leading in the polls.
- Are the numbers moving unpredictably? An example would be blacks supporting McCain in unexpectedly high numbers or married women supporting Obama.
- Finally, the question they’ll be asking is whether new voters are showing up in unexpected numbers. They’re an unpredictable lot.
If the answers are “no, nothing unusual’s happening” the networks will be inclined to early predictions. If something is, they’ll be more cautious, explains my plugged-in friend.
For me, an early call on Florida and Virginia or Pennsylvania for Obama would set me up for a very unpleasant evening.
You will want to be checking in here and here for Blair/Iowahawk at Ground Obamo. They may have some early upchuck poll returns.
Rob Crilly, Times of London, Obama clan sharpens the long knives for big win:
There’s only one thing to take to a Kenyan election victory feast: a goat. Preferably still breathing - “a sign of freshness“ - and with big testicles, apparently the sign of quality breeding.
And so it was that I found myself bouncing along a dirt track towards the ancestral home of the Obamas in a saloon car with the sound of John the goat bleating miserably from the boot.
You’ll have to click in for the art of Rob, Abongo Malik Obama and John the goat.
Lieberman gears up to caucus with the GOP to thwart Dem filibuster-proof majority. Way to go, Joe. Actual quotes at quick glance however don’t exactly to live up to breathless billing by ThinkProgress that Lieberman said “I fear” that “America will not survive.”
OK, blah blah blah below is followed by multiple news and blogging links:
In other early bellwether election news, my kids’ elementary school gives it to McCain, 55-45 percent. Four years ago, they gave it to George Bush by 1 vote.
Hey, who’s that hot blonde in the background?
Hi Erin! How’s it going, Meredith! Voting’s great!
It’s Election Day. Maybe the greatest day of the year. The kids have it off, because in my town we vote at the middle school, and ever since an oldster accelerated into a crowd of kids up in Peabody in 2004, it’s a day off for the whole district. So in a couple of hours my kids will come down with mom and dad to watch democracy in action. We’ll walk through the political pickets, stop an the table with the muffins, and into the gym where the old dears staff the rows of polling booths.
Chris the tree guy showed up with a cord of wood at 7 a.m., because even though we took down a couple of small oaks this year and I had some cordwood left over from last year, I need more. There will be stacking. There is also a matter of leaves that needs to be dealt with. All these are the rites of fall. God, I love this country. I grew up in places that were nothing like this. I remember looking in Dick and Jane books, something like that, at the pictures of picket fences and tire swings and four seasons, thinking, “That must be what the real world is like.” In fact I lived in what most of the real world is like. All around me were palm trees, cobras, water buffalo, mud huts, gangs of men in loincloths hefting baskets full of dirt like some Cecil B. DeMille pyramid-building scene, woman carrying water jars much as they had for millennia and periodically, torchlight processions of self-flagellating Shiites, mobs of angry students that would tear down any sign in English and trash houses that didn’t fly black flags, troops in machine-gun mounted jeeps enforcing curfews after military coups, that kind of thing. I loved living there. The world is a beautiful and terrible place. And every day when I wake up I thank Allah he made me an American.
Some Election Day reading. Here’s how we got here. It didn’t just happen because life is fair. You know it isn’t. Patriots Day.
Here are some young men who fought and died for each other, and for you. One of my favorite Americans, combat infantryman John Eade, talks it: “I Am Going to Die Well.” Here’s another member of Eade’s battalion, 2/7 Cav’s Lt. Rick Rescorla, seen here with fixed bayonet at the Ia Drang. The British-born American got to live, long enough to die an American hero in the Twin Towers, guiding others out. His story presented here with one of the stirring, tragic songs in American history, Garryowen.
There’s a lot of them, guys who voted with their lives. Most of us will have it easier today.
But it is a story that never ends, and you can be grateful we have no shortage of young men and women like him. It was my privilege to ride with some of them, on a day when they expected to die making this world a little better, a little safer, a little freer. Five Years On. Some times voting is an emotionally overwhelming experience and makes me choke up a little, because I’ve gone soft that way. It is impossible on Election Day in time of war not to think about all of them, more than 4,000 in these past seven years, who gave all. For each other, for a lot of strangers, for you.
OK, enough of that. Leaves and stacking, then the trip down to vote. Followed by what I expect will be a very long night at work. More later, as I am able …
Appropos of all that, NPR’s On Point has historian Joe Ellis on this morning talking about American history. You’ll remember him as the Pulitzer Prize winner who lied about being a combat infantryman in Vietnam, but has since been rehabilitated. Not with me. And not only because he lied to me personally about that 20-odd years ago, when I was a reporter in Holyoke, Mass., across the river from Mount Holyoke College. Some gall dredging that guy up to talk about this great nation and the insitutions and privileges for which other people actually fought, bled and died, while he lied.
Voting, Vodkapunidt reports the line at Starbucks was longer over in Vodkaland, or wherever he lives. I’ve never seen the place as packed as it was. We got in and out quick, thanks to a short line in my own precinct. Some of the others wound around the gym, and by the time we headed out, stopping to talk to Quigs the cop on the way, a line was forming out the dooor and out toward the parking lot just to get into the gym.
Lots of neighbors. Devon the 5th grader got Hersheys minnis. Good thing I had her along. She reminded me to vote for the ballot questions, tucked off to the side and on the back. Yes on One: Eliminate the income tax! Do it for the children … that they might some day live in a commonwealth free of hacks and payroll patriots! We had to burn that village in order to save it.
“Daddy, you left some of those blank.”
“Those are Democrats, honey. We leave them blank even if they don’t have opponents so they’ll know we don’t want to vote for them. Now, there are Republicans we aren’t that crazy about, like Jeff Beatty who said dumb things about the Iraq war. But he is running against John Kerry so we’re voting for him anyway.”
Never did get to those leaves or the cordwood. They’ll still be there in the morning.
And last time I checked, it’s still America. Will continue checking that issue through the evening. Here we go with links:
Tim Robbins dejected and annoyed, surprised and dismayed after shouting match over polling place voter intimidation/snafu. Sadly his desire to be arrested was not accommodated.
However, a St. Olaf’s prof has resigned after crowing on HuffPo about vandalizing McCain signs. It’s a learning moment.
Boston Herald: Crush of voters flood state polls.
NYT: Lines and Lawsuits
Theo Spark, strangely reflective today, cites Lincoln:
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative
and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
One problem. Illinois Historical Preservation Agency says Lincoln never said it. Reverend someone else (not Wright) did. Never mind, just keep repeating it. For four years, if you have to. Meanwhile, here’s Theo with more of what we love Theo for … Army wvies get their kit off, and all for a good cause … it’s the Garrison Girls.
Bloodthirsty Liberal with Mr. Obama’s neighborhood, and who showed up at his polling place.
Milblogs liveblogging, “from the not-so-pointy end of the spear.”
Castle Argghhh!!! with some purple-thumbed art and thots.
Nose On Your Face has your historic “Obama Defeats McCain” art.
Gateway: Let the bias begin!
Speaking of which, apparently it doesn’t pay. Wizbang’s got your media schadenfreude. $$$ucky year for the suckups. Also, some shennigans.
Tapscott with a word for his liberal pals: Never!
The Hill: 2004 screamer looks to have the last laugh.
Fred Barnes, WSJ, brace for centrist America’s leftward lurch.
Gateway’s poll and improbable victory roundup includes Fox with McCain camp’s superlative optimism. That’s the spirit. And maybe … shocker, I know … they know something a dozen major polling firms don’t, which wouldn’t be that surprising. Hey, I always try to look on the bright side, too. A McCain loss means four years of sitting back to watch the show.
Say Anything’s got your fraud and skulduggery watch: McCain tries to get milvotes counted and Milwaukee election investigation unit disbanded.
Malkin … with Black Panther intimidation at the polls? They still have Black Panthers? What are they doing … menacing people with their walkers?
Malkin: Election Day, America Votes. Go ahead, make her day, call her “downright mean.”
Hot Air’s open thread.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:39 am on Tuesday, November 4, 2008
11 Responses to “Critblogging the Vote 2008”
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November 4th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I worked the poll here in this district from 6-10 (voting began at 7, and polls close at 7). This is a fairly small, conservative voting district, with a GOP majority. It was amazing. At 6, there were people waiting outside the church. When we opened the doors at 7, the line went all the way around the church and down the street.
At 10, I cast the 396th vote. That’s a huge turnout for this district, a huge GOP turnout. There was no sign of any more “youth” voters than usual. There were some volunteers for candidates standing outside when I left, and both the two Dems and two Republicans agreed that from the reactions of the voters to them as they went to vote, most were voting GOP.
If there is a massive GOP turnout all over the state, McCain has a very good shot at carrying Pennsylvania. I’m seeing similar reports from Indiana, Virginia and Florida.
Also note: The polls assume a huge Democrat turnout and a depressed GOP turnout. That’s not what’s happening here. I suspected as much. That’s how we won in 2004 — huge turnout. I think we’re going to see a huge GOP turnout in all the battleground states. We may also see a huge Dem turnout. That will make the race close; it won’t seal it for Obama. Not, that is, unless the Dems get a bigger turnout.
Don’t look for results from Pennsylvania until late. We’re expecting many polls to still be voting at least until 11. “The polls close at 7″ only means the doors close. Everybody inside still gets to vote. In this district, it will take about 90 minutes to get everybody inside through. In larger voting districts, it will take even longer. That’s going to make “early reports” based on exit polls even more problematic than they were in 2004. Let’s hope the media learned their lesson about that.
I’m going back to work from 4-6. Turnout did slack off from the first hour, but it’s much heavier than any other election I’ve seen here, and people who have been working elections for years say it’s bigger than even what they saw in 2004.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Jules Crittenden, hired by Rupert Murdoch, now working for a former high-level Rupert Murdock executive (someday Rupert is going to buy back the Boston Herald for penny on the dollar if Rupert can manage to buy a Republican who reverse the conflict of interest issue.).
Hired for his right-wing hackery a la Fred Barnes, regurgitates GOP talking points and right-wing propaganda as a full time job.
Jules “job” is just to ride the right-wing gravy train by cheerleading the knuckle-dragging, right-wingnut Palin crowd, that’s how Jules feeds his family.
Independent thought will not be found on this blog.
Jules knows independent thought can turn the base against him in a matter of seconds.
Jules has a family to feed with his right-wing propaganda.
Jules, 3,000 miles is such a long way, perhaps scientists will develop a way for humans to communicate such vast distances near light speed..
November 4th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Hey, how can I get a job working for the mysterious Mr. Murdock? Sounds like fun.
Anyway, I’m not sold on this supposed lurch to the left. Oh, the *government* will lurch to the left if Obama is elected, maybe even if he isn’t - but I doubt that’s happening with voters in general. Remember, the Obama most people think they are voting for is the one portrayed in his commercials, CNN, the networks, AP articles, and so on. That’s the image they have in their heads, and that’s who they are voting for. You know, a cooler Bill Clinton minus the bimbo issues.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Jules, if I promised to write fawning, drool spattering pro-Palin posts, do you think Rove would send me a monthly stipend? A little extra for a new iMac would be a great help.
But nothing on preserving the sanctity of marriage. There are just some things I have trouble convincingly bloviating about.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Dave, go back into your hole please. The mind stench that you bring with you is seriously disturbing your party. Witness the PUMAs.
November 4th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Sorry, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the idea of such an empty vessel being President of the USA.
I fear this guy is going to make G. W. Bush seem like a genius.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Well, The One™ is now President, for better or for worse.
Probably for worse, but we’ll have to wait and see. Although I am more concerned about the psychopaths in Congress, now that they think the coast is clear.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:02 am
Anyone want to start up a Biden pool? How long will it take for the testing to start? We have a NeoSoviet - Venezuela naval training session coming up.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Part of me is thrilled that we have our first black President.
The other part is a little disgusted by who we picked to fill that role, but oh, well.
Maybe all of those hopers and dreamers out there are right, and Obama will turn out to be the centrist most of them thought they were voting for.
If not, it’s going to be hard to hide, now - and as I said earlier, I don’t think that people are as socialist (Marxist, even?) as the current government might lead you to believe.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Apparently there were no riots. I confess I misjudged the African-American community based on past history, and for that I apologize to any who might have been offended.
The upside to the Obama win is that we can now put aside the notion that African-Americans are the helpless victims of white racism. Take that, Europe.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Does this mean we can tell Sharpton, Jackson, Farrakhan and the rest where they can stick their loud petulance? The end of all this is not going to be good for “race relations” (what a dopey phrase), but we should dismantle as many hate-filled constructs those asshats rely on as we can, while we can.