If you run for senator of Minnesota, lose a close race after a recount confirms you got fewer votes than your opponent, lose the ensuing legal actions you take, and leave the state you ostensibly want to represent with half of its due representation in the Senate for months, just let it go because man, it’s gone.
(And before anyone mentions Gore, I’ll just point out that Bush was inaugurated on January 20 2001. He wasn’t held up from assuming the position. The legal matters were settled in a quarter of the time as this Minnesota bullshit. Meanwhile, Coleman [and other right-wing lunatics like Corwyn] have been keeping Minnesota from having both its allotted senators represent its interests in the Senate for months. It’s April now, for fuck’s sake.)
Easily amongst the most problematic result of the Obama victory last November is this attitude that racism has somehow vanished from the country. Everything that’s rooted in protecting minorities from discrimination is going to be met with “oh shut up we have a black president now.”
If you don’t believe that, take a gander at this. A challenge to the 1965 Voting Rights Act is making its way to the Supreme Court, based on nothing but the fact that we have a black president so apparently racial problems have disintegrated.
The court will decide the constitutionality of a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that seeks to protect minority voting rights by requiring a broad set of states and jurisdictions where discrimination was once routine to receive federal approval before altering any of their voting procedures.
Okay, fair enough. So let’s peep at the 1965 VRA itself. Wikipedia, as they so often are, have been kind enough to make a handy dandy list of the states and jurisdictions mentioned above. For brevity’s sake, I’ll be pointing out who each state voted for.
Alabama – McCain
Alaska – McCain
Arizona – McCain
Georgia – McCain
Louisiana – McCain
Mississippi – McCain
South Carolina – McCain
Texas – McCain
Virginia, except for eight counties: (Augusta, Frederick, Greene, Pulaski, Roanoke, Shenandoah, and Warren) and three independent cities (Fairfax, Harrisonburg, and Winchester) – Obama
Are we seeing a bit of a pattern?
I’m in no way suggesting that states that voted for McCain should be subject to the VRA simply because they voted for McCain. Far from it. However, look at the lede from the Washington Post article again:
The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to examine whether a central component of landmark civil rights legislation enacted to protect minority voters is still needed in a nation that has elected an African American president.
Well, the vast majority of the states that the Voting Rights Act affected, in fact, didn’t elect an African American president. If you want to argue that the VRA is no longer needed in 2009, maybe you can make a case for it, but pointing out that “we” elected Barack Obama and that’s proof of… something… is a faulty argument on its face.
Frank Rich does his normal thang in the New York Times and spends a little while excoriating the right, but in this instance he really comes across a crucial point from the election and its aftermath. Namely it’s an examination of the blaming and mudslinging and internal collapse of the Republican Party. Long read, worth it.
The Republicans did this to themselves, yet a convenient amnesia can be found in conservatives’ post-Election Day soul searching. There’s endless hand-wringing about Bush and McCain blunders and Abramoff-Stevens corruption, but there’s barely any mention of the nasty cultural brawls that defined the G.O.P. campaign narrative this year as the party clung bitterly once more to its 40-year-old “Southern strategy.”
…
Yet the G.O.P. really does believe that it’s all about perception. That’s why its 2000 convention offered a stage full of break dancers and gospel singers, wildly outnumbering the black delegates in the audience. Bush and Karl Rove regarded diversity as a public-relations issue to be finessed with marketing. Round up some black extras! Sell “compassionate conservatism” by posing Bush incessantly with black schoolchildren! Problem solved!
It is all about perception with these people, but Frank skirts around one crucial thing without really catching it.
In the immediate followup to McCain’s electoral obliteration, Rove and other right-wing talking heads immediately gave a crashingly ludicrous analysis: the problem wasn’t that Americans rejected conservatism, the problem was that McCain wasn’t conservative enough. That’s why the squawkboxes and Bill Kristols of the nation are heralding Sarah Palin as though she’s going to bring in a new era of conservative domination.
Frank Rich does his normal thang in the New York Times and spends a little while excoriating the right, but in this instance he really comes across a crucial point from the election and its aftermath. Namely it’s an examination of the blaming and mudslinging and internal collapse of the Republican Party. Long read, worth it.
The Republicans did this to themselves, yet a convenient amnesia can be found in conservatives’ post-Election Day soul searching. There’s endless hand-wringing about Bush and McCain blunders and Abramoff-Stevens corruption, but there’s barely any mention of the nasty cultural brawls that defined the G.O.P. campaign narrative this year as the party clung bitterly once more to its 40-year-old “Southern strategy.”
…
Yet the G.O.P. really does believe that it’s all about perception. That’s why its 2000 convention offered a stage full of break dancers and gospel singers, wildly outnumbering the black delegates in the audience. Bush and Karl Rove regarded diversity as a public-relations issue to be finessed with marketing. Round up some black extras! Sell “compassionate conservatism” by posing Bush incessantly with black schoolchildren! Problem solved!
It is all about perception with these people, but Frank skirts around one crucial thing without really catching it.
In the immediate followup to McCain’s electoral obliteration, Rove and other right-wing talking heads immediately gave a crashingly ludicrous analysis: the problem wasn’t that Americans rejected conservatism, the problem was that McCain wasn’t conservative enough. That’s why the squawkboxes and Bill Kristols of the nation are heralding Sarah Palin as though she’s going to bring in a new era of conservative domination.
I found myself chatting with a few people today, and one thing that popped up was the “leaked poll” that may have inspired McCain’s brilliant decision to go into PA. A theory popped up that may be the most amazing thing I’ve heard in a while.
For anyone who forgot, roundabout October 20th right-wing blogs and media sources pounced in an “internal poll” leaked from the Obama campaign which said that the race was within two points in Pennsylvania. For Democrats it was our worst fear and for Republicans their big dream: McCain could win PA, and had a fighting chance at taking the election.
If, like me, you were paying close attention to the polls via any of the myriad polling aggregate sites, you were probably a little surprised by that. There wasn’t a single poll coming out of any of the various research groups suggesting the race to be that close. Most had it near double digits, give or take a point or two. By most estimates, PA was a safety state, not to mention that it hadn’t gone red since 1988. Moreover, internal polls (as McCain’s so often showed) were usually sunnier toward the candidate, not worse. To confound matters further, Obama’s campaign was typified by its incredible message discipline and airtight seal.
To figure out what happened, it’s just a matter of seeing the aftermath. Thinking they had a shot in a huge state with the potential of swaying its neighbors, McCain dropped everything and immediately sunk all of his time and money into Pennsylvania. The independent polls never budged, with few showing it any closer than ~7 points, but the McCain campaign kept at it, even as North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico began to turn blue.
In the end, it was McCain’s bullheaded refusal to concede PA that left him vulnerable in the six other “swing states”, and very likely caused him to lose all of them. Remember the “run the table” idea? Not only didn’t he get all the battleground states, he got none of them, and it’s hard to think that his decision to devote almost all of his resources into the lost cause of PA didn’t play a large part in that, harder still to think that the “leaked poll” had no part in shaping that decision.
Thus, the head fake. Obama’s campaign leaks a phony-baloney “poll” that leads McCain to think he could win PA. They drop everything and spend the remaining two weeks trying to sway a state that just won’t move in his direction, while Obama and his massive campaign fund begins to eat away at every red state that might go blue.
Dirty trick? Depends on your definition. A fundamental difference between the two campaigns seemed to be that Obama’s people considered the worst polls to be right and so extra fighting was necessary, while McCain acted based on the sunniest potential outcomes. He could have seen that 2% and gone “well that’s great, but all these other polls say it’s not within my grasp, I’ll work on these five other states that I have a better chance in,” but he didn’t. He decided to go off of a single outlier and abandon the smart bets.
Or maybe the poll was just a coincidence. I dunno. What do you think?
I read several web comics. They’re part of my morning ritual. One of them is Little Gamers, an admittedly juvenile comic by a pair of Swedish gamers who make more dick and fart jokes than jokes of any other type. However, this morning I was greeted by this strip, which… well, just read it.
A five point popular spread (just about what we expected), and more than double the electoral votes (which will likely hold even when the last three states come in). No matter how the right tries to spin it, this is a mandate. Traditional red states went blue. Obama conceded zero states that Kerry had won. It’s been 12 years since a huge electoral margin like this. Picked up a few Senate seats and about a baker’s dozen in the House.
The last two, count ‘em two, elections have been big sweeping moves in the blue direction. Let’s recall 2004. We had a president claiming a “mandate” with a bare electoral majority, 55-44 Republican Senate seats, 232-201 Republicans in Congress. That’s a huge presidential swing, nine Senators (currently), and roughly sixty Representatives in the past four years. This isn’t just one reactionary election, the Democrats are taking charge.
I’m not celebrating outside right now, mainly for one reason: I’m exhausted. As this election panned out, I didn’t find myself pumping my fist in the air, yelling in joy. Instead, as each state turned blue on my map, I let out a breath and said to myself “finally.” This wasn’t a situation where I was rooting and hollering. I knew it was coming, I’m just glad it happened early.
Someone on the radio said that this is, in a big way, a conversion from the promise to the actuality. Now when we tell our children “you can be president, too!” then they know we mean it. For once, the idea of “if you work hard enough, you can achieve,” has been proven true.
I predict a great onslaught of comments along the lines of “okay black people, no more complaining about oppression” and things of that nature. It’s going to be expected. Annoying, yes, but it’s coming. Get ready.
More than anything, this is just proof that hope and a positive outlook can prove victorious. No more tearing down an opponent as an anti-American traitor. No more sliming of the opposition as hating the country and being secretly terrorists. I’ve no doubt that many quarters in the right-wing media and blogosphere are howling about how the country is about to die and turn into a communist swamp, but I don’t see them as near the majority.
There’s marching in the streets out here. The local news is, apparently, seeking out black people to talk to because there aren’t any white people who supported Obama.
We’re entering a new era, boys and girls. We’re going to have an ugly two months while Bush throws caution to wind and does everything he can to sabotage Obama’s presidency during his lame-duck period. I’m sitting here, waiting for Obama to take the stage, and frankly I just want to go to sleep.
I learned in just those three hours that this election is not about what we think of as the “big things.”
It’s not about taxes. I’m pretty sure mine are going to go up no matter who is elected.
It’s not about foreign policy. I think we’ll figure out a way to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan no matter which party controls the White House, mostly because the people who live there don’t want us there anymore.
I don’t see either of the candidates as having all the answers.
I’ve learned that this election is about the heart of America. It’s about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten. It’s about those who have worked all their lives and never fully realized the promise of America, but see that promise for their grandchildren in Barack Obama. The poor see a chance, when they often have few. I saw hope in the eyes and faces in those doorways.
More than competing tax plans and exit strategies in Iraq and what leaders we should sit down with under what circumstances, this is a time when the old-style politics of slime and mudslinging, dividing the country and saying “you’re with us or against us” could be defeated. That’s why we have Powell and other conservatives on our side. We’re talking about a lot more than just whose energy plan will be adopted, this is a genuine crossroads that determines where our nation heads from here on out.
I said this was coming, so here it is. This is a pledge I’ve outlined that I’d like all us denizens of the left to follow in the event of an Obama victory. So here goes.
We will not rub it in their faces. As satisfying as it may be to gloat, mock, and otherwise tear into the GOP after Obama takes a huge chunk of the nation, we have to remember that Obama’s message has been one of reconciliation and bipartisanship. Remember, we all win under an Obama presidency, so let’s act like it.
We will not rest on our laurels. Even with an Obama victory and gains in Congress, that doesn’t mean we can all lay back and just wait for everything to get better. Obama winning means our work has begun, not ended.
We will be critical. After the hard-fought campaign and six years of assailing the Republicans for driving our nation into the dirt, it will be heavily tempting to rationalize everything that happens under Obama to avoid making it seem like we were wrong. That’s football politics, and what we want is progress. Whenever things go wrong, we must be just as critical as we were of Bush and the GOP.
We will fight the media harder than ever. If you thought FOX and the right-wing radio heads were hard on Democrats before, just wait until all three branches of government are blue. While before they could claim to represent “real America” that needed protection from the evil liberals, now they can say the evil liberals have subverted America and only they can restore its dignity. They’re about to go on the assault.
We will remember the message, not the man. To me, and dare I say many others, it isn’t Obama himself that is the greatest inspiration, but the message of national unity that he promotes. If ever his words or his actions betray that, we musn’t follow him like Republicans followed Bush when he reversed himself. I know, it’s a lot like #3, but I felt it needed clarification.
We will remember that unity does not necessitate concession. For all the stress of bipartisanship, we can’t forget that we stand where we do under the foolish belief that things will really be better for everyone if things go as we’d like them to. Rather than folding on things in order to appeal to the right, we need to genuinely work to show that our ideas will make things better for everyone. Unite us behind a common cause, not a weak compromise between antagonists.
We will not be dogmatic. At the same time, refusing to budge on absolutely anything isn’t going to help. We have to separate that which we cannot give up and that which is a genuine difference of opinion. We probably won’t be able to change minds on gay marriage, but we certainly could show them that for all their disagreements with it, allowing it to occur won’t cause harm to anyone. Rather than calling for “fairness” in the tax plan, show how it does benefit everyone even if it doesn’t seem to. Not everyone has the same priorities, trying to force ours on them isn’t going to achieve much.
This is just a partial list, feel free to add some.
Easily amongst the most problematic result of the Obama victory last November is this attitude that racism has somehow vanished from the country. Everything that’s rooted in protecting minorities from discrimination is going to be met with “oh shut up we have a black president now.”
Frank Rich does his normal thang in the New York Times and spends a little while excoriating the right, but in this instance he really comes across a crucial point from the election and its aftermath. Namely it’s an examination of the blaming and mudslinging and 
I found myself chatting with a few people today, and one thing that popped up was the “leaked poll” that may have inspired McCain’s brilliant decision to go into PA. A theory popped up that may be the most amazing thing I’ve heard in a while.
I’m not celebrating outside right now, mainly for one reason: I’m exhausted. As this election panned out, I didn’t find myself pumping my fist in the air, yelling in joy. Instead, as each state turned blue on my map, I let out a breath and said to myself “finally.” This wasn’t a situation where I was rooting and hollering. I knew it was coming, I’m just glad it happened early.
No real introduction here, just that 
I said this was coming, so here it is. This is a pledge I’ve outlined that I’d like all us denizens of the left to follow in the event of an Obama victory. So here goes.
