An Open Letter to Virginia

Dear Virginia,

You mean a lot to me. You educated me from grade 3 through college and my aborted master's degree. Many of my fondest memories are of times spent in Virginia. I met my wife there, and we started our lives together on your side of the Potomac.

You mean a lot to the country as well. Sons and daughters of Virginia guided us to independence, crafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and set the foundations of our judicial system. You gave America its first African American governor. You gave us Five Guys.

But, you have a dark side, too, Virginia. America's first African slaves came off the gangways on your shores. You certainly weren't eager to accept racial integration. Without you there would have been no Confederacy, a fact you seem awfully proud of to this day. Virginia, you have a disturbing number of monuments celebrating and roads named after the leaders of America's most violent insurgency. Don't even get me started on Lee-Jackson Day.

The larger point, though, is that you have often set the pace for the country as a whole. Tomorrow, you have the chance to make history yet again by voting for Barack. Sure, we can win without you, but you can settle the election before many in the West even get to vote.

Regardless of what you do, I will always have love for you. But, I'll be a little prouder of my affection should you help usher Barack into the White House.

Sincerely,

Dave

More on Voting

The big story here in Colorado, aside from the GOP efforts to invalidate voters, is early voting. The Rocky Mountain News lead story today talks about how nearly half of Colorado voters have already voted. Nice.

But, there's also some troubling news today. In Atlanta, voters are having to wait 8-10 hours(!) to vote. Don't fret, though, in the 'burbs, the wait is much shorter. We'll probably see this problem all over the country on Tuesday--including Gary, where Team Sassy will be doing GOTV work. We'll have to be awfully persuasive.

Morning Roundup

With 6 days to go, McCain still hasn't made up any ground in Ohio (a new CNN poll of polls shows) --Obama 50-44. He ain't doin' so good in Florida either.

Yes, as expected the national trackers are tightening (even Kos's daily poll now only shows a 6 point spread, it had been more than 10 a week ago) which is giving me kind of a queasy feeling. And no one likes queasy sassy! But, as Nate says, the state numbers are still way in Obama's favor and that's really all that matters. Then why do the damn national polls!!!!

On that point, WaPo has a good article today on the accuracy of the big polls, particularly going after the McCain campaigns assumption that the race is tighter than it is being reflected in the polls b/c most of the undecideds are white and leaning R. Not so fast, says Nate, provided that were true (and it very well could be) it would only give McCain at most one point (and Nate was being generous).

More interesting stuff about early voting. "More than twelve million voters have already cast ballots in the presidential contest, according to one estimate, and new data from the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll shows these voters breaking Democratic by a wide margin."

Arizona is a toss-up! McCain's up by 2 points. Day-umm.

And early voters numbers are still making me happy. From Gallup

The voter preferences of the group of 1,430 individuals who have already voted and who were interviewed by Gallup between Oct. 17 and Oct. 27 show a 53% to 43% Obama over McCain tilt.

Among the group of those who say they have not yet voted, but will
before Election Day, the skew towards Obama is more pronounced, at 54%
to 40%. By comparison, those who are going to wait to vote on Nov. 4
manifest a narrower 50% to 44% Obama over McCain candidate preference.

Morning Roundup a little late--Sassy's been busy!

Nate's analysis of yesterday's polls. Money quote is the last sentence.
"If the balance of today's national polls contain better news for McCain, the balance of the state polls show Obama continuing to perform very well in several swing states. Obama now has 15-point lead in New Hampshire according to the Boston Globe / UNH poll, which had generally contained good news for McCain earlier in this cycle. PPP puts Obama up by 9 in Virginia, while two new polls also show him with significant leads in Iowa.
Counteracting the Obama trend sightly are new polls in Wisconsin and Missouri, which show somewhat better numbers for McCain than other recent polls of those states. However, that is not enough to prevent McCain's win percentage from drifting downward to 3.3 percent."

More comforting polling analysis from Rasmussen:

Today is the 31st straight day that Obama’s voter support has stayed between 50% and 52%. During that period, the number voting for McCain has stayed in the 44% to 46% range every day and the gap between the candidates has ranged from four to eight percentage points.

However, while the overall levels of support have remained stable, voters have become more certain of their intent. Today, the percentage who say they could still change their mind is down to single digits. Forty-eight percent (48%) are now certain they will vote for Obama while 39% say the same about McCain. One month ago, while Obama enjoyed a five-point lead overall, just 41% of voters were certain they would vote for him. At that time, 39% said the same about McCain (see other recent demographic highlights and trends).

Meanwhile, an Arizona poll for the Democratic strategy firm Project New West shows John McCain ahead by just 4 points there, and a couple of other polls showing a close race in McCain's home state are apparently on the way. In terms of our model, the principal effect of the Arizona polls is really not on the Grand Canyon State itself, where our model remains skeptical of an Obama upset, but rather in terms of its neighbor New Mexico, where our it is now (even) more optimistic about Obama's chances.



Nate also debunks the premise behind an article on Salon about the Bradley effect in the 2006 elections. Basically, the writer (a Repug, sooprize sooprize) cherry-picked the polls he used to make his point that several black candidates lost by larger margins than predicted.

Voter turnout in one county in Florida spurs talk of an upset Obama win.

An interesting article by the NY bureau chief for WaPo about how the rise of Obama is still only an American story.

Obama to give his "closing" speech today in Ohio which will include themes of hope, unity etc. McCain to continue talking trash and generally bitching and moaning.

Todd: Dems "Have Already Done Twice as Better"

I kid, because Chuck Todd is so freaking smart. Below is a clip of Todd on today's Morning Joe. In it, he talks about how well the Dems are doing in early voter turnout out ("twice as better") and that the McCain ground game is non-existent. It's wild.



And, yes, I know I'm unleashing a barrage of posts today. Let's just say that I'm having a hard time focusing on my actual job because of the flood of interesting political developments today.

Shaming Nonvoters

You may have already seen this, but MoveOn has a new web ad that you can customize to shame nonvoters. It's hilarious. And, if you know anyone likely not to vote, I highly recommend watching the one I made and customizing it for your friend(s)/loved one(s).

Evening Roundup--15 Days to go People!!

This article by John King (one of the few pundits I actually trust) about what McCain needs to do to win the electoral college is a very good reminder of how hard it will be for McCain to make that happen. Honestly, after I read through it the first time I couldn't even see how he could do it (I mean, he's relying heavily on VA and PA).

A new CNN poll shows that over 60% of voters think McCain has unfairly attacked Obama (up from 42 percent in September and much higher than the 39% who think Obama is unfairly attacking McC). This polls also found, very significantly, the poll showed that 47% think Obama would make the stronger leader with only 44% thinking McCain would be (that number is down from 60% in September--a huge drop).

Palin lies like a rug (as Andrew Sullivan says, she may be a better liar than even Clinton).

Alec Baldwin writes about Palin's appearance on SNL.

More good news on early voter turnout. A reader on Andrew Sullivan's site writes:

I work at a Florida county library where they're holding the two-week Early Voting, and we've had a long line of voters from opening until now, close to six hours. Our sliding doors have been propped open. At one point it went out into the parking lot, about 80-90 people deep.

We've been tempted to go out to the line and say, "Guys, you can do this over the next two weeks! There's no real rush!" Deal is, we've never seen lines like this before, definitely not for the actual election days in November... We're guessing this year's election is going to see massive turnouts.

Afternoon Round Up

Much more alarming ugliness today: Repugs are protesting against voting in NC; McCain is leaning towards bring up Rev. Wright; and a Obama canvasser was allegedly assaulted in Racine County Wisconsin.

Also, there is irony: on the day that the McCain campaign alleged that Obama must have broken laws to raise $150 million in September, it was revealed that they sent a solicitation for donations to Russian ambassador to the UN. Sure, it was probably a mistake, but soliciting from foreigners is illegal.

But, my favorite thing from today was this analysis of how awesome the Obama approach has been. In a nutshell, they have a message and an approach they've stuck with throughout, while McCain's flailing like an idiot. Good stuff.

Couple Things

First, from TPM, Dems are leading Repugs in early voting in IA, OH, and NC, so far.

Second, in an ABC/WaPo poll, 60% of respondents said that the Ayers issue is not a legitimate factor.

Finally, my beloved Red Sox lost game 7 to the admittedly exciting Rays last night. But, that means I can focus even more attention on the campaign.

Taxes

To add to Ilsa's daily round-up, I saw a couple interesting things on taxes this morning. The Washington Monthly has an interesting post about McCain and Barack's statements about taxation. I guess McCain described Obama's plan for a middle class tax cut at "welfare." The timing couldn't be better as Barack's giving an address today in St. Louis that highlights the difference between the two candidates' plans: "who we're cutting taxes for."

But this little tidbit is my favorite. Joe the Plumber admitted yesterday that he'd benefit more from Barack's tax plan.

Now, I'm off to vote!

UPDATE: The early voting site was packed! They had 10 machines going and a decent-sized line waiting for them to open up. Very cool, and well worth the wait to cast my vote.

Chicago Judges

Because Bridget and I rode with Alderman Joe Moore (and five crazy people) to Iowa to canvass for Barack a while back, we get regular e-mails from him even though we don't live in his district. Today, Joe saved Ilsa hours of work by sending around the judicial evaluations of the Chicago Council of Lawyers with the recommendation to follow their lead. Joe's a good progressive guy, so I feel pretty good taking his advice. Enjoy.