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Since Mark Warner’s election as Governor in 2001 Virginia has evolved from a solid red state to a “purple” state where Democrats who bring the right message to the voters have a great chance of getting elected. In 2005 I won the race to succeed Warner in the Governor’s mansion, in 2006 we elected Jim Webb to the United States Senate and in 2007 Democrats took control of the state Senate and made considerable gains in the state House.The Obama camp has astutely read the shifting demographics and made Virginia one of their highest priorities, throwing the entire kitchen sink at it in terms of money, top-tier staff, phone-bank targeting, candidate and surrogate visits, voter registration, and of course grass-roots organizing of volunteers. We're talking 49 campaign offices, 23 state party offices coordinated with the campaign, and 40 additional GOTV-only offices, all for a state with "only" 13EV. That's why many political observers were surprised when -- despite all the Clinton talk during the primaries eons ago about "who can win the big states" and how the other states didn't really matter to Democrats -- the Obama camp had instead heavily saturated places like Virginia (and Colorado, with its similar demographic shift) and went straight into general campaign mode after the primaries in those states without ever letting up on the pressure. Thus, should Virginia break its 44-year Republican streak to become the early decisive win for Obama tonight, then it would be a fitting vindication of the clarity in the Obama camp's foresight, the soundness of their strategy, and the competence of its execution. This is a state that Obama deserves to win. And while there won't be enough EVs on the board for the networks to officially call it for Obama until 9PM ET (New York, 31EV) -- or if the race is tighter, as late as 11PM ET (California, 55EV) -- if and when Viriginia (or Florida) gets colored blue on the map, it's time to pop open the bubbly since the rest will become a virtual formality.
Chicago may just be the best city in the country to base your presidential campaign - in terms of the Electoral College - if you count with a cadre of well-trained organizers and volunteers ready to travel a short ways to register voters, knock on doors and help get out the vote in the neighboring swing states.3) North Carolina (7:30PM ET): Virginia is a potential Obama election-clincher and Indiana might be the quintessential "Landslide Barometer" this time around, but North Carolina will measure just how deep of a stake an Obama victory could drive into the Republican long-term electoral map. It's one thing for Democrats to win a solidly Southern state with a popular, centrist white Southern governor, but to do so with an unknown, moderate-liberal Black Northerner with a Muslim-sounding name would be... extraordinary. The reason to follow North Carolina closely tonight is because it represents the very front lines of the new electoral culture war. If there really is to be an "Obama Revolution" akin to the "Reagan Revolution", then North Carolina, with its somewhat favorable demographics, is a natural starting place to crack the South, and whether Obama wins the currently razor-thin race in North Carolina -- and if so, by how much -- will be a harbinger of the electoral landscape to come. If North Carolina gets called for McCain -- especially if earlier than expected -- then the Obama surge could be just a blip on the radar, like Carter in 1976. Since the Democrats are coming off of two extremely large gains in 2006 and now 2008, it will be hard for them to simply hold ground in the crucial 2010 redistricting elections. But: should Obama wins North Carolina resoundingly, then all the states that Obama have narrowed considerably with his sweeping strategy -- states like Montana, North Dakota, Georgia, and even McCain's own Arizona will be truly in play in 2012, and perhaps beyond. And if Obama manages to actually govern well, then North Carolina's margins will be a clue to what coattails he'll have in previously Republican states in the redistricting elections of 2010 that will help tip the balance of power for the next decade.
Then they all gathered around Sonny and Sonny played. Every now and again one of them seemed to say, amen. Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others. And Sonny went all the way back, he really began with the spare, flat statement of the opening phrase of the song. Then he began to make it his. It was very beautiful because it wasn't hurried and it was no longer a lament. I seemed to hear with what burning he had made it his, and what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did. Yet, there was no battle in his face now, I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth. He had made it his: that long line, of which we knew only Mama and Daddy. And he was giving it back, as everything must be given back, so that, passing through death, it can live forever. I saw my mother's face again, and felt, for the first time, how the stones of the road she had walked on must have bruised her feet. I saw the moonlit road where my father's brother died. And it brought something else back to me, and carried me past it, I saw my little girl again and felt Isabel's tears again, and I felt my own tears begin to rise. And I was yet aware that this was only a moment, that the world waited outside, as hungry as a tiger, and that trouble stretched above us, longer than the sky." -- James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues
The terms `President-elect' and `Vice-President-elect' as used in this Act shall mean such persons as are the apparent successful candidates for the office of President and Vice President, respectively, as ascertained by the Administrator following the general elections held to determine the electors of President and Vice President in accordance with title 3, United States Code, sections 1 and 2.
States don’t tally any write-in votes for president until December, and sometimes January. Certain areas of the country illegally don’t count them at all. Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and the District of Columbia all refuse to provide a tally for the declared write-in candidates. . . New York city habitually fails to count any write-in votes for the declared write-in presidential candidates. The Board says it is too much work to take down the heavy rolls of paper from the mechanical voting machines and look at them.
I wonder how well their voter security is.
"Bob, I know it's you under that mustache, but I'll let you vote for Ron twice if you will take your signs off your yard. There are only two of us on that end of the town anyway, and we are on a cul de sac. Who were you trying to convince? Bill, the postal worker? You know he's been a Dem through and through since we had that brawl down at the bar a ways back."
posted by mrzarquon at 10:17 PM on November 3, 2008 [16 favorites]