A Halloween triple-header:
1) Florida GOP county chair spells out the terrifying threat–all these black people, they just keep voting! And college students! Help! Don't they know Obama is a closet Stalin? He'll take away their freedom of speech! [Does he really, truly believe that last one? Hasn't he ever noticed what liberals actually believe?]
Text from his email, actually in all caps:
THE THREAT:
HERE IN TEMPLE TERRACE, FL OUR REPUBLICAN HQ IS ONE BLOCK AWAY FROM OUR LIBRARY, WHICH IS AN EARLY VOTING SITE.
I SEE CARLOADS OF BLACK OBAMA SUPPORTERS COMING FROM THE INNER CITY TO CAST THEIR VOTES FOR OBAMA. THIS IS THEIR CHANCE TO GET A BLACK PRESIDENT AND THEY SEEM TO CARE LITTLE THAT HE IS AT MINIMUM, SOCIALIST, AND PROBABLY MARXIST IN HIS CORE BELIEFS. AFTER ALL, HE IS BLACK–NO EXPERIENCE OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS–BUT HE IS BLACK.
I ALSO SEE YOUNG COLLEGE STUDENTS AND THEIR PROFESSORS FROM USF PARKING THEIR CARS WITH THE PROMINENT 'OBAMA' BUMPER STICKERS. THE STUDENTS ARE ENTHUSIASTIC TO BE VOTING IN A HISTORIC ELECTION WHERE THERE MAY BE THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT.
To which the Ten Gallon Liberal can only say, we here in the 21st century welcome you to the 20th.
2) Meanwheel, McCain goes all pre-emptive on that very freedom of speech thing, kicking out people who look like they might consider protesting at his event. More of the same, indeed.
3) Just when I go thinking my fellow Texans might have gotten over some of their political insanity, a poll comes along and tells us that 23% of them believe Obama is a Muslim. My great state, always at odds with reality. The only thing worse than a "low-information voter" is a "wrong information voter," ne c'est pas? But at least the enchiladas rule down yonder, and that's worth a great deal.
10/31/08
Obama really does have a new flag…
I'm proud to be a Southerner, despite the weirdness of that distant land. And no, that's not my house. (Hat tip to Jonathan Martin at Politico)
10/29/08
Let's not bring in those particular sheaves…
After eight years of Bush, we know well the reasons to fear a fundamentalist neophyte taking the reins of American power. But Sarah Palin appears to be so fundamentalist (here's a Newsweek story about it), so ill-informed, and so much a theocrat that all of us who are not Christian fundamentalists bent on creating a pre-apocalyptic, theocratic America should adamantly oppose her.
Her background is deeply frightening when it comes to religion. It's possible that Palin continues to be associated with these churches and somehow does not agree with their theology. But those of us who disagree with such theology don't often manage to exist in that environment–it's just too frustrating, too full of fearmongering.
And I ought to know–if you hadn't noticed by now, I grew up in the Southern Baptist church, where my (moderate) father was a minister, and I was often exposed to fundamentalist extremism. It's really not something you want imposed upon you. Really.
10/29/08
The McCain Hail Mary?
That, or: Thursday night, CNN reports that McCain commandos parachuted into Damascus disguised as falafel salesmen and emailed to McCain HQ pictures taken from a tree near the presidential palace. These reveal Jeremiah Wright and Howard Dean meeting with Syria's President Assad, Hamas, Osama bin Laden, Che Guavara and Dracula. In the corner is a blurry figure, lanky, with big ears and a big smile. A few staticky moments of audio reveal only the phrases "raise their taxes till their gums bleed," "NASCAR sucks," and "Nailin' Palin," followed by maniacal laughter.
These are cut with footage of hip-hop dancing, howling wolves and mushroom clouds and turned into a 60-second ad with the tagline: "Be afraid of the dark."
At least that's what I'm figuring.
And on an even more serious note: vote suppression is still threatening this election. It ain't over till it's over.
Again and again, the pattern emerges: ACORN flags their own suspect registrations, as they are required to do. Republicans hype that into the specter of "voter fraud." And it is a specter–for one example, as the New York Times reported, "After the 2004 election in Ohio, for example, the Brennan Center found a voter fraud rate of .00004 of a percent, saying, 'Americans are struck and killed by lightning about as often.'"
Nonetheless, Republicans selectively move to block ACORN registrations in important places in order to remove new, mostly African-American voters from the rolls. They're like the gym teacher who really wants to fail the entire class because his whistle is missing at the end of the semester. And maybe somebody did. But maybe it's behind the radiator, too.
Saturday in Pennsylvania, the GOP moved to examine a list of 140,000 registrations in four Pennsylvania counties. Percentage of population that is African-American in the four counties:
Philadelphia County: 42.5 percent
Allegheny County: 12.2 percent
Dauphin County: 16.2 percent
Delaware County: 14.2 percent
But apart from that perhaps/perhaps not significant set of data, it bears noting that Obama is ahead in eastern Pennsylvania (where you'll find Philadelphia, Dauphin and Delaware counties) by large margins. In western PA, he's way ahead only in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh).
The court ruled against the GOP's request to expedite their case.
But it bears noting that all of this furor about registrations seems to come only in key states, only in key counties, and only with an organization that registers mostly low-income voters who are likely to support Obama. Our voting system is screwed up in many ways, but such carefully applied pressure by the GOP is at best disingenuous in light of the many abuses evident in places like Ohio in 2004, where then-Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell did a great deal to keep African-American and poor voters away from the polls. Would that the Democrats had screamed bloody murder about that like the Republicans are doing now. The basis for election challenge is clearly being laid. This is dangerous territory. Even in a time when polling reveals stunning dissatisfaction with the wreck Bush has made of our country, the GOP finds it hard to believe that a large majority of people really don't like their policies.
Perhaps they need a reverse Stuart Smalley moment–"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, but doggone it, people really don't like me."
I hope that our next president pushes for real changes in the administration of voting rights–it is, after all, the foundation of democracy. We've been through the whole "poll tax" business before. That time, it took an amendment to solve it.
10/28/08
