This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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Virginia Sounds the Starting Gun for Early Voting
(Amy Sullivan, Time, 19 Sep 2008)
Even though bags of candy corn and other Halloween treats have barely hit drugstore shelves, Virginia voters will start casting their ballots on Friday at early-voting sites around the commonwealth. Another half-dozen states will open up early voting next week, before the candidates even meet for their first debate of the campaign. In all, 36 of the 50 states will allow early voting this year, including many key battleground states like Ohio and Colorado. As many as one-third of all voters are expected to make their selection before Election Day.
(via Slog)
My own electoral college model has us at an exact tie again today. Given that, it seems like a good time to highlight what 538 is saying about this right now as well:
12th Amendment Update: Tie Probability Continues to Increase
(Nate Silver, fivethirtyeight.com, 19 Sep 2008)
The latest in our occasional series informing you about the country’s worst nightmare: a 269-269 Electoral College tie…
As you may have noticed from our scenario chart, the probability of a tie has increased dramatically in recent days and now stands at 3.2 percent. This is partly because, as we draw closer to election day with the race remaining tight, the probability of any one candidate running away with the election diminishes — meaning that all “close” electoral permutations, including ties, become more likely.
However, there is one specific scenario that is driving this outcome. That is the scenario wherein Barack Obama wins the Kerry states plus Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado, but loses New Hampshire. Of the 320 times that our simulation ended in a tie, this particular scenario was responsible 294 times. Indeed, we presently have Obama winning precisely the Kerry states plus Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado, so all that would be needed to make a tie occur is to flip New Hampshire back to McCain, and entirely reasonable possibility.
…
By the way — the way that the tipping point math works out, about 80 percent of the tie outcomes involve McCain winning the popular vote. This is by far the messier of the two scenarios. Since the Democrats will almost certainly control a plurality or a majority of House delegations in the incoming Congress, a tie accompanied by an Obama win in the popular vote will lead to a lot of fanfare but ultimately little drama — Obama will become the next President. But if McCain wins the popular vote, there will be far more pressure on Democratic Representatives to vote against their party.
Nightmare? Come on, it would be even more fun than 2000. I couldn’t possibly be so lucky as to see two such cases in a lifetime, could I? It would be a blast!
Paul Begala Rips Carly Fiorina
(SilentPatriot, Crooks and Liars, 17 Sep 2008)
On Tuesday, McCain’s Chief Economic Adviser Carly Fiorina told Andrea Mitchell that both Sarah Palin and John McCain were unqualified to run a major corporation. Later in the day on “Hardball,†Paul Begala went to town on Fiorina, arguing that she is a massive incompetent who couldn’t even run Hewlett-Packard herself.
(Actual video is linked from the article above)
Lots of folks online and off are giving their “advice” to the Obama campaign on what they should be doing differently. Of the ones I have read recently, the following from pollster.com had be nodding more than most of the rest. It is worth reading the whole thing in detail. I quote only the major headings below.
50 Days to Go and Obama Hits Back (Softly)
(Steve Lombardo, pollster.com, 15 Sep 2008)
It is noon on Monday, September 15th and things are operating so quickly in the political world that major tactical–and sometimes strategic–campaign changes are happening in minutes (in previous campaigns they used to happen in hours or days). Welcome to politics in 2008. In accordance with the new world order here is our real-time read on what is happening:
- Obama is hitting back, and the mere act of doing so says volumes.
- But this Obama punch seems like a fairly weak body blow.
- We are in a financial meltdown (as of right now the Dow is down 250 points) and Obama is focusing on lobbyists and McCain’s inability to email–this is political malpractice.
- Negative political messages must tap into a pre-existing belief.
- The Obama campaign has been seriously off-stride.
- Obama needs to forget Palin and get back to the economy.
I’ve been meaning to post this one for awhile, just never got around to it:
Montana Constitution Party Submits Presidential Electors Pledged to Ron Paul and Michael Peroutka
(Richard Winger, Ballot Access News, 5 Sep 2008)
On September 5, the ballot-qualified Constitution Party of Montana submitted its presidential elector candidates to the Secretary of State. The party informed the Secretary of State that its electors are pledged to Ron Paul for president and Michael Peroutka for vice-president. Ron Paul was aware that the party planned to do this, and has said that as long as he can remain passive and silent about the development, and as long as he need not sign any declaration of candidacy, that he does not object.
(via fivethirtyeight.com)
Ron Paul is popular enough in that part of the country that his presence on the ballot may actually make a difference of some sort.
A regular reader of this blog… a different regular reader than the one I posted about this weekend, passed this along over the weekend…
Yo Sam,
…
I wanted to let you know that I’m currently a Houston evacuee of Hurricane Ike! My parents and I have left to Austin.
However, one of my friends stayed behind. She lives just a quarter mile away from me in the same subdivision. She’s been covering the storm’s approach, including being enveloped by the eye! For now, she’s without power, but there’s plenty of backlog and I’m sure she’ll be blogging as soon as power is restored. Since we live close to a water treatment plant I can assume we are a priority.
Her blog’s url is: http://www.theophania.net/logos
You have a good weekend!
Looks like they still don’t have power yet… at least assuming that posting on the blog would be a first priority once power was back… which of course it may not be.
“When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Merrill comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.” – The Beatles… sort of.
Good luck to any and all of my former coworkers from Merrill Lynch who are still there.
It doesn’t sound like the coming months will be fun.
For anyone who has no idea what I’m talking about:
Crisis on Wall Street as Lehman Totters, Merrill Is Sold, AIG Seeks to Raise Cash
(Carrick Mollenkamp, Susanne Craig, Serena Ng and Aaron Lucchetti; Wall Street Journal; 15 Sep 2008)
The American financial system was shaken to its core on Sunday. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. said it would file for bankruptcy protection, and Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed to be sold to Bank of America Corp.
and…
Bank of America to Buy Merrill
(Matthew Karnitschnig, Carrick Mollenkamp, Dan Fitzpatrick; Wall Street Journal; 15 Sep 2008)
In a rushed bid to ride out the storm sweeping American finance, 94-year-old Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed late Sunday to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. for $50 billion.
The deal, worked out in 48 hours of frenetic negotiating, could instantly reshape the U.S. banking landscape, making the nation’s prime behemoth even bigger. Early Monday, the two firms said the directors of both companies had agreed to the deal, which will be subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.
It will be a “fun” day on Wall Street today, and a “fun” next few months for anybody at any of the firms involved.
Ah yes, she puts the same effort into picking staff as McCain put into picking her. Excellent.
Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes
Jo Becker, Peter S. Goodman and Michael Powell, New York Times, 13 Sep 2008
So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.
Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.
(via Andrew Sullivan)
You know, I like spaceships. I think I should head up NASA in the next administration. Is that OK with everyone?
The edit I made a few minutes after posting my last post made me think of one other thing. I am so glad that Hillary didn’t win. If Hillary would have won, then even when you include the third party candidates (Barr, Nader, McKinney, etc) there would be absolutely NOBODY on the ballot that I would feel comfortable voting for. I would have gone to the polls thinking every single choice I had was a reprehensible scumbag.
I would have to write myself in, which unlike voting for a third party who actually is on the ballot, really is nothing but a protest.
But I would not have in good conscience been able to vote for Hillary Clinton. During the primaries, I actually said that if she won I would be considering McCain. I probably would have “considered” but his behavior over the past few months (which I admit might have been different if Hillary was his opponent) have made it so now I don’t feel like I could vote for him, almost no matter who his opponents were.
Anyway, Obama won, so I don’t have to worry about that. I can vote for Obama not only with a clean conscience, but with some level of enthusiasm.
I add of course that if he wins and takes office, he will without doubt almost immediately start doing things I disagree with sharply, and then I will of course start going after him for those things.
I suspect if he does win, I’ll start getting upset and disappointed even before inauguration day, when he inevitably starts appointing old school Democrats to cabinet posts rather than truly new fresh faces.
OK, I decided I couldn’t wait to answer that last part from my last post, so here goes. I also emailed this to the anonymous reader, but decided shortly after I started writing it that I would also post it.
“Obama says great and awesome things, but if you told me absolutely everything I wanted to hear, but I think you are full of it, how can I believe you?”
This is indeed the crux of the matter. When one person says one set of things, and one person says another, it is not just a matter of which one says the things you agree with the most, it is also about how much you trust the two people. I disagree with probably more than half of Obama’s policy positions. If you actually look only at positions, there is even a chance that I actually even agree with McCain more often.
But I trust Obama, while to me every bit of trust I *did* have in McCain eight years ago (and I *did* trust him eight years ago) has been systematically eroded by his choices and actions over the last six years.
Meanwhile, while Obama only hit my awareness four years ago, most things (not all) that I have watched him do in the meantime have increased my respect for him and my trust in his ability to make good decisions.
I trust that even when I disagree with Obama, he will be making a well thought out decision backed by evidence and knowledge and doing what he really thinks is right. With McCain, I have no idea what he will do, I distrust the way in which he will make the decision, and have no faith that his motives are fundamentally good.
The thing I wonder, and would be glad to be enlightened on, is for those who, not on policy issues where the arguments are completely different, but on issues of trust and integrity, are supporting McCain over Obama… what specific things had McCain done or said over the last few years to make you have that faith in him? And on the flip side, which things has Obama done or said for you to not feel the same way about him?
Do any of my other readers agree with my anonymous reader? Can you enlighten me?
[Edit a few moments later: I should add that I had the same feeling of distrust with both Bill and Hillary Clinton, which is why I was a constant critic of Bill when he was President, and why during the primaries I was pretty loudly against Hillary, who I thought would be horrible… even though on policy she and Obama match on almost everything.]
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