Category Archives: Current Events

Mythology/History In The Making

There are some significant trends in the current election which may well make for a very interesting, and very different, election night:

  • High Turnout
  • Poll Proliferation
  • Early Voting

The turnout in this election is likely to be the highest in modern times, and possibly the highest in American history.  Bill McInturff, John McCain’s pollster, in a somewhat self-serving analysis, is predicting well over 62% turnout.  It is already “Conventional Wisdom” that black turnout may reach 95% in many states.  Whenever an uncontrolled variable, like gross turnout, veers wildly out of standard deviation the polling models used by most pollsters will start to fall apart.

This separation between the polls and reality is complicated in this race due to many factors, some of which the major polling organizations have already prepared for, such as the proliferation of cellphone only lifestyles by younger voters (Pew already is polling cellphones) and some which they cannot adjust for, such as historical shifts in numbers voting.

Another exacerbating influence this year is the proliferation of polls and polling analysis websites.  A good story in the New York Times today reports on this, and with millions of hits daily spread between four or five sites, you know that there are a lot of people getting daily or even hourly updates on the current state of the race.  With as many as 30 polls a day, spread between national and state, and a surfeit of analytical sites, many people are, get ready for this, deciding the news for themselves, rather than relying upon a select reportariat to feed it to them.  Thus more uncertainty.

Lastly, early voting is happening in more states that ever before, and in many states this will lead to more uncertainty on election night than ever before.  “Why,” you might ask, “if people are voting early then we will know the outcome earlier, right?”  Well, not so fast.

While some states have exercised vote-by-mail or other early voting options for many years, like Oregon, and have built their systems around it, other states, like Wisconsin, do not actually have a dedicated early voting system and simply leverage their existing absentee ballot systems.  This can lead to extended waits on election night as these absentee ballots are sorted and counted and apportioned to their appropriate precincts.  This is a wildcard on many election nights, but with early voting accounting for as much as 40% of the tally in some states, expect it to be much worse this time.

Much has been made this year of the “Bradley Effect,” a much discredited theory which states that polls are skewed in favor of African-American candidates because people being polled may lie about their preference.  While numerous studies have shown this to be an untruth, there is significant reportage and first person accounts telling us that the real “Bradley Effect” — the under polling of Mayor Tom Bradley’s gubernatorial opponent — George Deukmejian was due to the failure of Bradley’s pollsters to take account of the high absentee voting that year.

So, what does this mean for you?

  • Well, for starters, pay no attention to the polls.  There is not a single polling organization which has a model which can account for all of this.
  • Secondly, vote!  Nothing can ally your own concerns about the state of the race like voting for yourself.
  • Next, get everyone you know to vote.  They deserve the same degree of surety as you do.  Besides, if you know them the chances are pretty good that they will vote like you.
  • Lastly, don’t expect an early epiphany on election night.  While we very well may know the next President of the United States a week from me writing these words, it may just as well take a day or more to sort out all of those early ballots.

If you, like me, want to see Barack Obama in the Whitehouse come January 20th, please follow those steps.  Please vote, make those around you vote, and then be patient.  This is truly history in the making.

    A Rant and a Question

    Craig Ferguson had a delightful Rant in last night’s monologue, which my buddy Ken B. was good enough to bring to my attention. The YouTube video is here:
    Craig Ferguson Monologue – 9/24/2008

    What I’ve been wondering about is this: We keep hearing from our “leaders” that we cannot allow to let these institutions — AIG, Fanny Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns… — we cannot allow them to fail because they’re too large. Well then, why haven’t any of these leaders proposed new legislation to prevent any more such institutions from ever getting that large again? Why didn’t any of these leaders stand up when all of these mergers were happening over the past 25 years and say, “Wait a minute, if we let these guys merge then sometime down the road they’ll be able to hold us hostage for billions of dollars.”

    Well I guess one of our leaders would have to have been in a position of power for the past 25 years in order to do that, maybe head of the Senate Commerce Committee or something like that. I guess one of our leaders would have to have the heart of a reformer… Uh, Mr. McCain, why are you trying to edge off the stage right now?

    Wise (and funny) Words on a National Calamity

    Your money

    There are wiser folk than Pawn commenting on the current Calamity on Wall Street, and here are some of the gems:

    “After 7 1/2 years of drift, President Bush has finally returned to his compassionate conservative roots with a heartfelt plea to Congress to help a needy and deserving group: those Wall Street CEOs who, for all their hard work, have been unable to lift themselves up by their wingtips,”

    Dana Milbank writes in his Washington Post column.

    And this from Rick Klein over at The Note at Mickey Mouse dot com:

    And maybe we should feel bad for the bailout bill.

    After all, it was born morbidly obese in a town that likes to pretend it’s all about being lean. Its parents never really wanted one like it — and we know they’ll be out of the picture in a few months anyway.

    The men who would be president sure aren’t eager to adopt it.

    And conservative commentator George WIll, over at Real Clear Politics had this to say:

    “The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. ‘Off with his head!’ she said without even looking around.”

    — “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

    Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama. Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated.

    Perhaps the most succinct commentary comes from Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif.:

    “Cash for trash.”

    Nothing makes for tasty bon mots like a certifiable calamity.  Keep it coming…

    Experience Matters

    With the Republican party whipsawing on whether or not experience really matters, I for one am ready to concede that to a certain extent it does. So I would like to propose that as our nation prepares to relive that nightmare from the 80’s — no, not Disco — the Resolution Trust Corporation, I propose that we should lean on some people with experience from that past debacle.

    Neil Bush, for example, George W’s younger brother, who twenty some years ago was a board member of Silverado Savings and Loan when that institution went belly up and cost the American taxpayers a cool $1 billion. I’m sure that Neil could bring his insider’s perspective to bear on this latest bleeding of the American public.

    Or maybe Sen. John McCain? He has first hand experience with the collapse of financial institutions dating back to his service with the Keating Five, working hard on behalf of Charles Keating Jr., chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan Assoc. Even though the Senate Ethics Committee ultimately found that McCain was guilty of “poor judgment,” I’m sure he could rise to the occasion now.

    In all seriousness, though, here’s hoping that Sen. Chas. Schumer, D-NY, is successful in his efforts to get foreclosure relief rolled into any bailout legislation.

    Sarah – Where’s My Dollar?

    Last night, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, bragged on herself for being a reformer saying, ” I told the Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks,” on that Bridge to Nowhere. If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves.”

    Okay, Sarah, let’s see how this worked. You were a small town mayor, whose town of 6,000 had never gotten much Federal largess until you hired one of Sen. Ted Stevens’ favorite lobbyists (yes, that Ted Stevens, the one now under Federal indictment), and then you suddenly got more than $12,000 per capita in Federal bucks. You then run for governor as a reformer. You tell the Federal government that, you know, that bridge you gave us $230 million to build? Well, we won’t build it. Did you return the $230 million to the American taxpayers? No, but you did make a special refund of $1,200 to your fellow Alaskans, most of whom are already earning a $2,000 income directly from the state in the form of oil payments.

    So I don’t care what sport you root for, Sarah, and I don’t fancy pitbulls whether or not they’re wearing lipstick. I just want my $1.00 from that bridge you decided not to build. I figure at least that much of my tax dollars went to fund it.

    Banksy’s Gift

    Sketch for Essex Road

    This article caught my eye in today’s Independent Online:

    When Banksy offered one of his highly sought-after canvases to Labour to auction for Ken Livingstone’s ill-fated re-election campaign, the party’s high command was jubilant.

    They were left with a conundrum, however, when they realised that the secret identity of the famously elusive graffiti artist would cost their hard-pressed coffers tens of thousands of pounds.

    The winning bid for Sketch for Essex Road, a canvas of two children with hands on hearts pledging allegiance to a Tesco carrier bag on a flagpole, was £195,000. But that meant Banksy’s painting would have to be declared as a gift to the party, requiring it to release his true identity on the internet along with hundreds of other donors – blowing apart his well-guarded anonymity.
    He’s anonymous, so Banksy’s gift is impermissible – News, Art & Architecture – The Independent

    Sharp Words From Evan Bayh

    Over at MickeyMouse.com, Rick Klien reports on Matthew Jaffe and Julia Bain reporting on Bob Scheiffer getting this cutting comment out of Sen. Evan Bayh on Face the Nation:

    “We are not all Georgians now,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” per ABC’s Matthew Jaffe and Julia Bain. “If we were Georgians and the Russians were invading our country and killing our people, we’d be in a state of war. And clearly, that’s not what we want. And John sometimes, he’s a good person, but he’s a little bit given to this kind of bellicose rhetoric, which has a tendency to inflame conflicts rather than to diffuse them, and that’s not what you want in a president.”
    Who’s No. 2? Obama Set for VP Pick

    Elizabeth Edwards – Once More The Sting

    Pawn well remembers that night in 2007 when we all learned that Elizabeth Edwards had incurable breast cancer. We all felt for her then, and held a sheltered place in our thoughts and hearts for her. Seems we need to open those same places yet again. Here, from Elizabeth’s latest blog post at DailyKos:

    …we began a long and painful process in 2006, a process oddly made somewhat easier with my diagnosis in March of 2007. This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well.
    Daily Kos: Today

    What a shame that Elizabeth could not get her wish. John, I am sorry you succumbed as you did. Elizabeth, I am sorry your pain must once again be a public affair.

    Brooks on Obama

    Quite the interesting and though provoking piece by David Brooks in today’s Times. In a departure for Brooks, who is given to partisan cuts carefully buried 3/4 of the way through an otherwise thoughtful piece, here he is just thoughtful:

    Why isn’t Barack Obama doing better? Why, after all that has happened, does he have only a slim two- or three-point lead over John McCain, according to an average of the recent polls? Why is he basically tied with his opponent when his party is so far ahead?

    His age probably has something to do with it. So does his race. But the polls and focus groups suggest that people aren’t dismissive of Obama or hostile to him. Instead, they’re wary and uncertain.

    And the root of it is probably this: Obama has been a sojourner. He opened his book “Dreams From My Father” with a quotation from Chronicles: “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers.”

    There is a sense that because of his unique background and temperament, Obama lives apart. He put one foot in the institutions he rose through on his journey but never fully engaged. As a result, voters have trouble placing him in his context, understanding the roots and values in which he is ineluctably embedded.

    Op-Ed Columnist – Where’s the Landslide? – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

    Pawn has read all of those articles he references here, and must admit he is on to something…