Friday, October 29, 2004

Wages Slaves, Be Sure to Vote!

Many states require employers to give employees time off to vote.

In Illinois: Employee may take two hours off to vote. Must apply in advance. There is no so specific provision that you will be paid for your time; however, the statute provides that the voter shall not be liable for any penalty for absenting himself to vote. The statute has been interpreted that non-exempt employees will not be paid.

In Kentucky: Employee may take off four hours to vote. Must apply for leave in advance. There is no specific provision that employees will be paid. The statute provides that no person shall be penalized for taking a reasonable time off to vote, unless under circumstances that did not prevent him from voting, he failed to vote. It also states that such a person may be subject to disciplinary action. The Kentucky attorney general has issued an opinion stating that employees of private employers need not be paid for time off taken to vote.

In California: Employee may take time off if there is not sufficient time outside working hours to vote. Employee must give two days notice of need for time off. Employer must post notice of right to take time off to vote 10 days before election. Employee must be paid, for no more than two hours.

In Ohio: Employee may take a reasonable time off to vote. Employee may not be discharged or threatened for taking time off to vote. Violators may be fined from $50 to $500. It is unclear whether employees must be paid. The statute has been interpreted to mean that an employer’s refusal to pay an employee who is employed on other than a piecework, commission, or hourly basis for taking time off to vote, if done to induce or compel a person to refrain from voting or to vote in a certain way, would violate this law.

In Florida: No provision. Figure it out and vote on your own time!

This list shows all the state statutes.

Friday cat blogging

Friday cat blogging

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Bush Takes Shamelessness to a New Low

After spending the last year and a half or so TRASHING the current Democratic leadership and villifying his opponent, Bush has the gall to hearken back to great Democrats of the past (Roosevelt, Truman & Kennedy) -- guess he doesn't think much of old Eisenhower, although his granddad Prescott Bush was quite a fan -- and attempt to make the truly lame case that HE is the true inheritor of Democratic values.

Ha! Double-ha! As NDOL.org says:
We have no way of knowing if the president is going to continue this laughable effort to steal the clothes of great Democrats right up until election day, or if this gambit is as disposable as his 2000 campaign promises to "change the tone in Washington" and serve as a "uniter, not a divider." It is pretty clear that his words in Wisconsin probably didn't reach too many Democrats in real time, since anyone bearing visible Democratic insignia is banned from his campaign appearances. Moreover, he was surrounded on the platform by a host of Republican candidates eagerly seeking to reinforce the GOP's iron partisan control over Congress, a place where Democrats are being treated with a degree of contempt rarely seen since the 19th century.
Vote this man out.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

New Yorker Makes an Endorsement

Usually I resist reading the New Yorker online before I receive the magazine. I love reading the magazine itself. Flipping the pages, seeing what the "talk" is, checking the reviews, glancing at the cartoons, seeing who has the fiction piece that week.

But really, I read on Laura Rozen's excellent blog that the New Yorker has actually endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in its long history. So of course I had to check it out. The editors systematically take down Bush for his lack of "uniting," his ill-advised tax cuts, his environmental policy, his breaching of civil liberties through the Patriot Act, his hostility to science, and last, but not least, his incompetence in monitoring the terrorist threat prior to 9/11, and his complete botching of the Iraq War.

You can read all that bad stuff about Bush yourself. I'd like to tell you what they say about John Kerry:
But when his foes sought to destroy him rather than to debate him they found no scandals and no evidence of bad faith in his past. In the face of infuriating and scurrilous calumnies, he kept the sort of cool that the thin-skinned and painfully insecure incumbent cannot even feign during the unprogrammed give-and-take of an electoral debate. Kerry’s mettle has been tested under fire—the fire of real bullets and the political fire that will surely not abate but, rather, intensify if he is elected—and he has shown himself to be tough, resilient, and possessed of a properly Presidential dose of dignified authority. While Bush has pandered relentlessly to the narrowest urges of his base, Kerry has sought to appeal broadly to the American center. In a time of primitive partisanship, he has exhibited a fundamentally undogmatic temperament. In campaigning for America’s mainstream restoration, Kerry has insisted that this election ought to be decided on the urgent issues of our moment, the issues that will define American life for the coming half century. That insistence is a measure of his character. He is plainly the better choice. As observers, reporters, and commentators we will hold him to the highest standards of honesty and performance. For now, as citizens, we hope for his victory.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Beautiful day. Beautiful family.


Beautiful day. Beautiful family
Originally uploaded by franabanana.

This photo was taken last spring, on a blustery day by Lake Michigan.

Thursday, October 21, 2004

When bloggers make me laugh...

From Attaturk, at Rising Hegemon: Atrios and Steve Gilliard point out that Bush is supposed to be in Crawford on his potemkin ranch this weekend.

Bwah! Potemkin ranch! (Here's the trackback link. We'll see if it works.)

Definition of Potemkin Village: Something that appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance.

Sounds about right.

Greatest Writer of All Time Hates Bush

Yes, I'm quite partial to John LeCarre novels. And John LeCarre's politics have much to recommend them as well, especially when we writes:
Maybe there's one good reason — just one — for reelecting George W. Bush, and that's to force him to live with the consequences of his appalling actions and answer for his own lies, rather than wish the job on a Democrat who would then get blamed for his predecessor's follies.
Read the rest (requires free subscription to LA Times).

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

It Just Goes to Show Ya ... Not All Bushes Are Bad

I like these people. I really like them!

Bush Relatives for Kerry.

Bush Is Not a Man of Faith

As good as Ron Suskind's NY Times Magazine article "Without a Doubt" is, something was just a bit off. The issue left unchallenged is that nearly everyone, including Suskind, takes Bush's profession of faith at face value.

But he is not a man of faith. (See also my earlier post on E.L. Doctrow's elegant bashing of Bush's lack of compassion and empathy.)

Ayelish McGarvey writes oh-so-insightfully inThe American Prospect, taking Bush's faith at face value
is a huge mistake, because when judged by his deeds, an entirely different picture emerges: Bush does not demonstrate a life of faith by his actions, and neither Methodists, evangelicals, nor fundamentalists can rightly call him brother. In fact, the available evidence raises serious questions about whether Bush is really a Christian at all.

Ironically for a man who once famously named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher during a campaign debate, it is remarkably difficult to pinpoint a single instance wherein Christian teaching has won out over partisan politics in the Bush White House. Though Bush easily weaves Christian language and themes into his political communication, empty religious jargon is no substitute for a bedrock faith. Even little children in Sunday school know that Jesus taught his disciples to live according to his commandments, not simply to talk about them a lot. In Bush’s case, faith without works is not just dead faith -- it’s evangelical agitprop. ...

Judging him on his record, George W. Bush’s spiritual transformation seems to have consisted of little more than staying on the wagon, with Jesus as a sort of talismanic Alcoholics Anonymous counselor. Bush came to his faith through a small group program created by Community Bible Study, which de-emphasizes sin and resembles a sort of Jesus-centered therapy session.
...
Save for a few standout reporters, the press has done a dismal job of covering the president’s very public religiosity. Overwhelmingly lacking personal familiarity with conservative Christianity, political reporters have either avoided the topic or resorted to shopworn clichés and lazy stereotypes. Over and over, news stories align Bush with evangelical theology while loosely dropping terms like fundamentalist to describe his beliefs.

Once and for all: George W. Bush is neither born again nor evangelical. As Alan Cooperman reported in The Washington Post last month, the president has been careful never to use either term to describe his faith. Unlike millions of evangelicals, Bush did not have a single born-again experience; instead, he slowly came to Christianity over the course of several years, beginning with a deep conversation with the Reverend Billy Graham in the mid-1980s. And there is virtually no evidence that Bush places any emphasis on evangelizing -- or spreading the gospel -- in either his personal or professional life.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Al Gore Lives in My Heart

From Al Gore's speech at Georgetown yesterday:
It appears to be an important element in Bush’s ideology to never admit a mistake or even a doubt. It also has become common for Bush to rely on special interests for information about the policies important to them and he trusts what they tell him over any contrary view that emerges from public debate. He has, in effect, outsourced the truth. Most disturbing of all, his contempt for the rule of reason and his early successes in persuading the nation that his ideologically based views accurately described the world have tempted him to the hubristic and genuinely dangerous illusion that reality is itself a commodity that can be created with clever public relations and propaganda skills, and where specific controversies are concerned, simply purchased as a turnkey operation from the industries most affected.

George Orwell said, “The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
Give em hell, Al. The Emperor has no clothes! The Wizard of Oz is just a man working the levers!

Friday, October 15, 2004

"We'll always have ... Poland?"

Thanks to my brother Michael (my real brother, not my "bra'"), I will never forget Poland. To have the same experience, visit You Forgot Poland!

Rise Up Against the Corporate Media

Frank Rich writes a powawful indictment of the interests of corporate media in this insightful article:Will We Need a New "All the President's Men"?.
Like the Nixon administration before it, the Bush administration arrived at the White House already obsessed with news management and secrecy. Nixon gave fewer press conferences than any president since Hoover; Mr. Bush has given fewer than any in history. Early in the Nixon years, a special National Press Club study concluded that the president had instituted "an unprecedented, government-wide effort to control, restrict and conceal information." Sound familiar? The current president has seen to it that even future historians won't get access to papers he wants to hide; he quietly gutted the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the very reform enacted by Congress as a post-Watergate antidote to pathological Nixonian secrecy.
Please read it! (The New York Times requires a free subscription.)

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Best Debate Questions Came from Regular People

With the last debate over, Kerry and Edwards did exactly what they needed to do. Even without Bush's Debate 1 Meltdown (Blinky McWired); Cheney's tired growling (Grumpy McScary); Bush's Debate 2 aggression (Shrieky McFury); and Bush's Debate 3 Frat Boy Jokiness (Giggly McCreepy), Kerry Edwards still scored points with specific rhetoric, mature demeanor, and respect for the process and for their opponent. Kerry did not get rattled; he may not have always given the best answers, or responded with the greatest force, but he did enough to show himself as a strong candidate to those voters only exposed to Bush's lies.

Bush will not recover from the impression formed in the first debate; of course his supporters will continue to support him, but he has reached his ceiling.

As for the "debate" format, I say let them all be town halls. The moderators were awful; the town-hall folks were awesome (I guess Gibson gets some credit for choosing the questions. But still).

Lehrer: The questions weren't that bad, but he allowed Bush to jump all over him, taking extra time. Is everyone in the press afraid to challenge Bush?

Ifill played weird word games: Talk about what your ticket would do, but DON'T USE HIS NAME. Easy for Cheney, since he never mentions Bush anway.

Schieffer lobbed multiple softballs to Bush: Do you believe homosexuality is a choice? What kind of issue is immigration? Talk about your personal faith. Your strong woman. BLECH. (Edited to add this link to Somerby's Daily Howler column from Thursday, Oct. 14. Scroll about halfway down to see his criticism of Shieffer's lame-ass questions. He also notes the inherent bias in the questions directed at Kerry.)

Give me the intelligent, engaged voters of St. Louis. They brought specific, direct and tough questions to both candidates. Unliked the overpaid self-important blowhards of Da Media, they were not afraid to confront Bush (or Kerry).

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Quickie book review

I just started reading Joyce Carol Oates' new novel The Falls. It is one of the best beginnings I've read in years. I'm only a few chapters in, and I woke up this morning thinking about the characters. If nothing else is good in this book, it's worth it.

I must stop blogging and read.

Like I Said, These People Are Scary

Nevada. It's the new Florida. From Las Vegas CBS affiliate: Dem Voter Registrations Trashed:
The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.
...
The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate. 
We must take these people down. And keep working for democratic (small "d") values even after the election. These are very very very evil bad folks.

News Flash: Tribune Does Not Like a Republican

Yup, a recent Trib editorial came out against Tom DeLay.
In the clubby halls of Congress, getting spanked by the in-house ethics police is pretty rare. Last week, DeLay was walloped not once but twice, on top of a separate trip to the woodshed the week before. Unfortunately, the Texas Republican's conduct lends support to the most cynical view of how the nation's top lawmakers carry out their duties. And his angry reaction to being admonished by his peers shows that DeLay is too arrogant to mend his ways.
You go, guys.

It would be nice to see the same spanking for Dubya. An endorsement for Kerry, perhaps? Nah, that would be too good to be true.

Slightly Less Cautiously Optimistic Today

A few weeks ago, I told my dad that I was cautiously optimistic about Kerry's chances. I feel even less cautiously optimistic today. Perhaps it's been two solid debate performances from Kerry, along with a weak Dubya in Debate 1, and a mediocre Dubya in Debate 2.

Perhaps it's that Dubya has nothing substantive to offer about himself, his achievements, or his goals -- he merely repeats and repeats and repeats the John Kerry = bogeyman meme until your brains start to rattle around in your head.

Perhaps it's that certain media outlets (see ABC, the Washington Post) are finally "getting" that Bush lies, distorts, misleads, misrepresents, dissembles, falsifies, invents, makes shit up....

Perhaps it's that Bush seems strangely off (or read it here) and possibly wired for sound, and the major media are not ignoring the story.

Perhaps it's the everyone who's anyone is shrill when it comes to Bush's policies on science, terrorism, Iraq, the economy, health care, jobs, and the environment.

I am still cautious because these guys are evil and scary. Sinclair Media is trying to throw the election to Bush by airing a 90-minute Swift Boat Veterans commercial rehashing already discredited lies about Kerry. Bush's support is weakening, but not enough to be comfortable.

And Karl Rove will stop at nothing to win.

Wouldn't It Be Pretty to Think So

Once again, James Wolcott (this link works, too) expresses my deepest darkest desires. There's only one more debate: Frisk Bush! Frisk Bush!

Friday, October 08, 2004

Bush Hates Democracy; Campaign Spokesman Lies

In the ongoing coverage of the Bush campaign, one particular feature has stood out to me. Bush campaign events do not allow dissenters to enter. This has been documented many times, by The Boston Globe; The Washington Post; and even far across the pond in The Guardian.

Apparently, John Kerry puts no restrictions (other than tickets required) on who "gets" to see him on his campaign stops.

Nina Totenberg reported on this story on Morning Edition today. I have paraphrased some of her reporting, but the quotes from the individuals are correct.

I begin in media res with the set-up quote from Bush's campaign spokesman:
Bush campaign chairman Ken Mehlman denies any filtering of crowds: “The crowds aren’t screened. We love the fact that these events are usually huge. We certainly welcome very much folks that want to listen to what the President has to say, regardless of their affiliation regardless of who they intend to support.“

The campaign provided one name of someone who had been kept out of Kerry campaign event, but she did not return calls.

However, there are many reports of people kept out of Bush events. Even high school students.

At Lee Summit H.S. in Missouri, school officials let students out early so they could attend a rally. The campaign ordered the removal of some students because they had buttons or Kerry stickers. The school district did not return calls, but there were reports of youngsters in tears.
Now it’s official. Dubya makes kids cry. Moving along...
Kathy Meade, of Traverse City, MI, Identifies herself as a registered Republican, but is leaning toward On the way into the event, she bought a small Kerry sticker and put it on her lapel. When she went through the second level of security she was told she had to take it off.

“I said, ‘Really? In a democratic society shouldn’t I be able to wear this sticker?’ And at that point, someone else came over and immediately started ripping up my ticket and ripping up my sticker and told me I had to leave immediately.” She was appalled. ...

Barbara Miller of Midland MI calls herself a swing voter who has voted for both republicans and democrats for president. In
August she got tickets to go to bush rally with her husband and daughter. But Miller had on her arm a pro-choice shirt.

“They said, ‘No, we don’t let in any pro-choice non-republican paraphernalia in this event .’” Miller put the shirt on a table and went in without it. But close to the time the president was supposed to arrive, the same man who had stopped her at the door, came over to them and ordered the family to leave. “We said, ‘No, we’re here to see our president.’ We were just dumbfounded. They said, 'If you don’t leave, we’re going to have to call the secret service and you’ll be put in jail.'"
OK, I’m skipping a couple incidents…
Jason Nelson is an iron worker and a first-term county supervisor in Appleton WI. He had been to a small Kerry rally earlier in the day, and had on a Kerry shirt under his long-sleeve denim shirt. When a security search revealed the t-shirt, he like the others was turned away and threatened with arrest when he protested.

“You would have thought that I was like one of the biggest terrorists that was.”

He was directed to a secret service agent.

“He showed me his ID, and I showed him my drivers’ license, and at that point I was telling him, ‘What’s going on? Was this illegal to have this t-shirt on or what?’ And they were e like, “No, we do this for everybody. You just can’t be here.”
And then Totenberg goes to the experts: what's annoying in her wrap-up is that neither seems to point out that only BUSH practices this unprecendented limitation of access and first-amendent rights.

Totenberg interviews the Post’s EJ Dionne, and some guy who works for, get this, the George Bush School of Government. Sure, he’s objective. They point out that campaigns are more scripted and that campaign events play more to committed supporters rather than the general public. OK. That’s probably true. But which campaign requires loyalty oaths? Stops people from attending? Makes high school students cry? That’s right. And it’s not John Kerry.

Yeah, John Kerry lets anyone come in and listen to him – even hecklers. Bush keeps out anyone who even glances to the left.

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Good Men Always Leave ... Bush

Not only has GWB managed to keep and encourage incompetence around him (I've got my Manson lamps trained on you, Condi, Paulie, and Donnie.), he has pushed away, excluded, humiliated and insulted others who have shown competence and effort in moving policy forward.

First, there was John J. DiIulio Jr., who headed up the President's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives for about 6 months. He left for the pat "family and personal reasons," but later wrote to reporter Ron Suskind of Esquire in October 2002, "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus.... "What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis." See the full article here. (Given my previous post, I don't think Machiavelli would very much approve of this administration.) Smears and threats ensued. We move on to...

Next came Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil, who had made a name for himself getting to know Bono and actually seeming to care about debt in the developing world. He was fired from the administration in December 2002. O'Neill told Ron Suskind (Hey! It's That Reporter Guy!) in their collaborative book, The Price of Loyalty:
In the book, O’Neill says that the president did not make decisions in a methodical way: there was no free-flow of ideas or open debate.

At cabinet meetings, he says the president was "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection," forcing top officials to act "on little more than hunches about what the president might think."

This is what O'Neill says happened at his first hour-long, one-on-one meeting with Mr. Bush: “I went in with a long list of things to talk about, and I thought to engage on and as the book says, I was surprised that it turned out me talking, and the president just listening … As I recall, it was mostly a monologue.” (Source: CBS News 60 Minutes, January 11, 2004)
So what happens? O'Neill is smeared, and accused of releasing classifed documents. Anything come of that? Nope.

Next we hear from Richard Clarke, in his book Against All Enemies, and in his riveting testimony to the 9/11 Commission. Clarke said in a March 20, 2004, 60 Minutes interview, " I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on the Cold War issues when they came back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back, they wanted to work on the same issues right away -- Iraq, Star Wars -- not the new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years." What happened to Clarke? Yup! Personal attacks and smears.

Moving along to...military leaders, such as General Eric Shinseki, a four-star Army Chief of Staff, who had the gall to at least be mildly optimistic (but realistic) when estimating that we would need 300,000 troops to invade Iraq. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld went on to publicly rebuke Shinseki and humiliate him by announcing his successor 1 1/2 years before his term was up. As James Fallows noted in a Frontline interview:
When Paul Wolfowitz was asked why he thought Shinseki's estimates were so wildly off the mark, first he used the sort of standard Pentagon line, especially under Donald Rumsfeld, which was really, "The future was unknowable." Of course the future is unknowable, although that line was used to excuse a failure to give any financial estimates, which was more irresponsible than it was unknowable.

Then he went on to say, first, he thought many things would go fairly easily. Countries like France were likely to help us in the reconstruction, that this was likely to go more easily than most people thought. Then he went on to make the crucial point that raised the main philosophical difference between the Army and the civilian leadership. Wolfowitz said he found it hard to conceive that it would be harder to occupy Iraq than it had been to conquer it. This was a thing that was difficult to imagine, he said.

Far from being an imaginary concept, this idea that the occupation was the hard part was the heart of the Army's prewar argument.
Where else to go for people who have abandoned Bush? John Eisenhower, son of a GOP President. Foreign service officers, both Democrat and Republicans. Lots of military leaders (OK, a lot of these guys were never WITH Bush -- work with me people). Families of 9/11 victims.

Bush clearly cannot handle the truth. Faith-based policy, indeed. Now of course, the administration disses its own State Department's intelligence and the CIA. Or distorts them mightily to make their point.

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Veep Debate: Richard III meets Henry V

The thought of watching His Royal Evilness, the Power Behind the Throne, crouched behind a desk, spewing attacks and lies is too delicious to resist. I will watch, perhaps sometimes with my hands over my eyes, Lou Abbott style, in order to blunt the horror, the horror.

My theory is that Cheney insisted on a desk-style talk show format because he is not able to stand for more than 90 minutes. Actually I'm sure it was to blunt Edwards much more energetic and engaging personality. Look, John Edwards can walk around. John Edwards can smile. John Edwards is charming and charismatic. It's like Richard III vs. Henry V (Shakespeare versions, not historical).

Cheney has much to answer for:
  • Where are the WMD?
  • Where is the link between Iraq and al Queda? Why are willing to discuss that fully with minimal evidence, but not to address the links between Saudi Arabia and al Queda?
  • Who did you meet with on the energy advisory council? Why won't you release your notes? Why do you thwart a transparent government?
  • How come you did not listen to advisors in both budgeting money and troops to fund the Iraq war?
  • Where have all the flowers gone?

I'm sure I could spend more time on this, but I have to work today. As the lovely Elizabeth Edwards said in her blog, "Now if we could only get Mr. Cheney to debate for one and a half days rather than one and a half hours." May it be so. Keep him on the ropes, John Edwards, and remember you are doing God's work here.

Monday, October 04, 2004

Why Is Bush's Team So Incompetent?

It's not the team. It's the leader.
Those who think that every Prince who has a name for prudence owes it to the wise counsellors he has around him, and not to any merit of his own, are certainly mistaken; since it is an unerring rule and of universal application that a Prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised by others, unless by chance he surrender himself to be wholly governed by some one adviser who happens to be supremely prudent; in which case he may, indeed, be well advised; but not for long, since such an adviser will soon deprive him of his Government.

If he listen to a multitude of advisers, the Prince who is not wise will never have consistent counsels, nor will he know of himself how to reconcile them. Each of his counsellors will study his own advantage, and the Prince will be unable to detect or correct them. Nor could it well be otherwise, for men will always grow rogues on your hands unless they find themselves under a necessity to be honest. Hence it follows that good counsels, whencesoever they come, have their origin in the prudence of the Prince, and not the prudence of the Prince in wise counsels.
Read Machiavelli's The Prince.

Wish I could say I found this quote myself. Nope. Credit to the most excellent Brad DeLong.

Cautiously Optimistic Election News from my Alma Mater

Well, ya just never know where a tidbit of election info would come from. Here in my inbox this morning was a newsletter from my alma mater, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, College of LAS.

And therein is a link to this article: Kerry vs. Bush-- Past voting patterns give the edge to the Democrats this November. So it seems that one Professor Peter Nardulli has spent the last 20 years of his life analyzes state-wide elections from 1828 to 2000. The conclusion is...
According to Nardulli, the Democrats have not begun a presidential campaign in such a strong position since 1944.

“Practically speaking, all the Democrats need do is win the states in which they have a meaningful normal vote advantage to capture the presidency,” says Nardulli. “If the Democrats can do this they need not win any Southern states in which the Republicans hold an electoral edge, including Florida.”

Moreover, even if Ralph Nader matches his state-level returns from 2000, this by itself will not be enough to overcome the Democrats' electoral advantage in states that are essential to attaining an Electoral College majority.

The Democrats enjoyed such a strong starting position in the 2004 campaign because of the cumulative effects of gradual shifts in normal voting patterns across a wide swath of states outside the South. These trends began in the 1970s, Nardulli says, and “have eroded what once were sizeable Republican electoral advantages in a number of key states.”

“At the national level, the net electoral effect of these gradual shifts is comparable to most critical realignments in U.S. electoral history. Comparable periods of secular change benefited the Republicans in the first quarter of the 20th century and between 1932 and 1976."
Not all is rosy, however, for the Dems:
But does this mean that the Democrats have the 2004 election “sewed up?”

“Absolutely not,” says Nardulli. “The Democrats' edge in the size and distribution of their electoral base does not mean they have a lock on this election. Electoral upsets such as those that occurred in 1912, 1916, and 1976 demonstrate that even overwhelming normal vote advantages do not guarantee electoral victory. State normal vote advantages simply provide parties with ‘comfort margins' that help them deal with election-specific departures from normal voting patterns that are driven by such factors as increases in unemployment, inflation, or crime. Or scandals such as the Teapot Dome Scandal, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the Monica Lewinsky affair.”
Given all the current efforts in voter registration, which seem to be favoring the Democrats, this is cause for hope. Visit Peter Nardulli's web site for more info.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

The Two Faces of Bush

More on the public and private personae of Bush, this time from digsby at Hullabaloo. (Forgive the lengthy quote, but it's all so good...)
The truth is that since George W. Bush entered politics he has always had two faces. In fact, virtually everything you know about his public persona is the opposite of the real person.

He claims to be a compassionate, caring man, often admonishing people to "love your neighbor like you loved to be loved yourself." Yet, going all the way back to Yale, he is quoted as saying he disapproved of his fellow students as "people who felt guilty about their lot in life because others were suffering." His business school professor remembers him saying that poor people are poor because they are lazy. This from a man who was born rich into one of America's leading families and relied on those connections for everything he ever achieved.

He lectures on responsibility, saying that he's going to end the era of "if it feels good do it" and yet he failed to live up to his responsibility as a young man in the crucible of his generation, the Vietnam war. In fact, if it felt good, he did it and did it with relish --- for forty years of his fifty eight year life. He has never fully owned up to what he did during those years spent in excess and hedonism, relying on a convenient claim of being “born again” to expiate him of his sins. Would that everyone had it so easy.

He ostentatiously calls himself a committed Christian and yet he rarely attends church unless it’s a campaign stop or a national occasion. The man who claims that Christ is his favorite political philosopher famously and cruelly mocked a condemned prisoner begging for her life. He portrays himself as a man of rectitude yet he pumped his fist and said "feels good!" in the moment before he announced that the Iraq war had begun. (One would have thought that if there was ever a time to utter a prayer it was then.) How many funerals of the fallen has he attended? How many widows has he personally comforted?

He portrays himself as a salt of the earth "hard working" rancher, clearing brush on his land in an artfully sweaty Calvin Klein-style t-shirt. Yet in the first 8 months of his presidency leading up to 9/11, he spent 42% of his time on vacation. His "ranching" didn't begin until he bought his million dollar property just before he ran for president in 1999. He has lived in suburbs and cities since a brief period in his childhood in the 50’s, when he lived in the medium sized boom town of Midland before going to Andover.

There is no doubt that whether it's a cowboy hat or a crotch hugging flightsuit , George W. Bush enjoys wearing the mantle of American archetypal warriors. But when he goes behind the curtain and sheds the costume, a flinty, thin-skinned, immature man who has never taken responsibility for his mistakes emerges. The strong compassionate leader is revealed as a flimsy paper tiger

Paul Waldman on the Rhetorical Presidency

Paul Waldman at the gadflyer writes a positively brilliant and cutting analysis of the Bush presidency's committment to saying things -- lots of things.
Bush's campaign has come down to this: The things that I say are superior to the things that he says. I will continue to say good things, strong things. Because nothing is more important that what you say. So I'll be saying things. My opponent won't say things the way I will. If you re-elect me, I will continue saying things, giving signals, sending messages. God bless America.
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Say this about President Bush: he says what he says.
Check out the link--Waldman lists the many ways Bush says things from the debate on Thursday.

The Daily Show put together this a cutting satire of Dubya's convention film: George Bush: Words Speak Louder than Actions.

Register to Vote!

The Illinois deadline for voter registration is Oct 5, 2004.

Suburban Cook County voters can check here to make sure they're registered.

Other Illinois voters can look here for county clerk information. Or, go to Move On to start the process.

If you're not registered, you can't vote!

And, if you plan to be out of town, look here for absentee ballot requests (Cook County, IL), or contact your county clerk board.

Friday, October 01, 2004

Marry Me, Jon Stewart!

Woops, I'm already married. And so is he.

Oh well, listen to this great interview of him on Fresh Air, broadcast Sept. 30, 2004. Dave Davies, while he's no Terry Gross, did a nice job.

Wolcott: "The trees are alive with the sound of Kerry"

Please read James Wolcott's assessment of last night's debate. He is a much better writer than I am:
The notion that Bush is "likeable" has always been laughable. It takes a Washington pundit to be that dumb. He's an angry, spoiled, resentful little big man--I use "little big man" in the Reichian sense of a small personality who puffs himself up to look big through bluster and swagger but remains a scheming coward inside--and next to a genuinely big man like Kerry, shrunk before the camera's eyes.