Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Cheney and Gonzalas Indicted in Texas

Not waiting for the dust to settle on the election, a District Attorney in Willacy County, Texas has indicted Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzalas on seperate charges related to alleged prisoner abuse in federal detention centers. CNN reports:
The indictment stems from Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group -- an investment management company that reportedly has interests in the prison companies in charge of the detention centers, according to The Associated Press. It also charges Gonzales halted an investigation into abuse at the detention centers while he was attorney general.
That seems to me to be a conflict of interest on Cheney's part to begin with. Cheney's spokesperson indicated that he had not recieved an indictment.

Let's see what he tries to use to avoid this circus.

The Obama Transition

It's been two weeks to the day, and Obama has been busy. Settled is his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, and word has it that his Attorney General will be Eric Holder, the first African-American in that post. Holder was assistant AG under Clinton. Obama had also had discussions with Hillary Clinton, and Bill Richardson. Are the rumors about Hillary being nominated for Secretary of State a result of 'leaks' from the transition team to test the waters? He's even had time to sit down with John McCain, a meeting that must have been a bit awkward for them both.

The buzz on the inaugaration are that the demand for tickets is thousands of times higher than the available seats. Even if you are lucky enough to get a ticket (and who knows how our senators and representatives are going to handle the process), the chances of being able to get a flight, a hotel, and a place to sit (or even stand) are pretty small.

Ted Stevens Career Withering

As the last major block of votes are counted in Alaska today, Mark Begich's lead more than doubled to almost 3,000 votes. That puts him past the margin requiring an automatic recount. It remains to be seen if the Republican party requests one.

Meanwhile, the Alaska Supreme Court delayed issuing an interim suspension of Mr. Stevens law license, giving him a birthday present of a week's delay. According to Alaska law, suspending his license is required upon conviction of a felony. If he were to win his felony appeal, he can then appeal the suspension.

The US Senate also delayed it's vote to oust Mr. Stevens from the Republican caucus, hoping that the election results would make such a vote moot. He would still have the right to vote in the coming week's lame duck session, unless some bold Republican moves to oust him from the senate entirely, which is unlikely.

Mr. Stevens today was insisting that he would win the election. Why can't he just concede and retire like a gentleman? I'm sure his colleagues would appreciate the gesture, and probably find some kind things to say about his long career, ever since Alaska obtained statehood! Instead, he's just withering as we watch.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Count, Count and Recount

The counting in Alaska continues. Good news for Mark Begich(D) who is now up by 1061 votes. Lots more votes to count on Monday and particularly on Tuesday. He's up by .4% so is still in Recount territory. With his momentum, hopefully he will exceed the .5% automatic recount threshold. One never knows about Ted Stevens though. He's appealing his 7 felony convictions, so don't expect him not to demand a recount as well. Can't he just retire PLEASE!

Is America Ready for Same-Sex Marriage?

To disallow same-sex marriage by claiming that gay couples can have all the same rights under a civil union flies in the face of a plethora of civil and equal rights decisions by the Supreme Court. For example, desegregation rulings declared that "separate but equal" is not equal enough under the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. To bar same-sex marriages with this logic would open the door for the return of "Jim Crow" laws against minority groups of all types.

Ready or not, America cannot afford to go backwards to an era of "separation".

California's passage of Proposition 8 poses additional concerns going far beyond same-sex marriage. Using the initiative process to modify the state constitution via a simple plurality vote bypasses the court's jurisdiction and responsibility to protect the rights of the minority against the majority. The proposition reverses the change the court made in determining that the rights of the minority had been abridged. The suit filed against prop. 8 with the court seeks not only to throw out the proposition's results, but will have the effect of throwing out the entire process by which the California State Constitution can be modified. It is a landmark state constitutional question that needs to be answered. The initiative process is too easily influenced by outside special interests. Compared to the process required to modify the US Constitution, it is clearly lacking in the protections and oversight necessary to prevent abuse.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Sarah Palin's Future

As Sarah Palin makes the rounds of the network interviews, it seems as if she can't stop talking. For all appearances, she seems out to prove that she can talk to the media, although from what I've seen, the McCain campaign wasn't wrong to limit those opportunities. I'm still waiting for something coherent or of substance to be uttered by the former Republican running mate, and I've had no indication that it will be forthcoming anytime soon. If she's trying to disprove the polls showing her negative approval ratings and lack of readiness to be president, this media onslaught is not going to help. It may make it worse. She might do well to remember that the those poll numbers got worse the more people were exposed to her, and Obama's campaign really had little to do with it.

If Sen. Ted Steven's lead holds through the inevitable recount, and his felony convictions appeals fail, he'll be expelled from the Senate, forcing a special election in Alaska to replace him. Perhaps that would be the cracked open door Sarah Palin was talking about in recent network interviews that she is looking for her God to show her. She says she will barge through even the slightest opening in a door, clearly indicating that she's interested in a 2012 or 16 race. She would have to resign her position as governor to run for the Senate seat, but would be setting herself up for a future national campaign.

It would also be a good escape from the Governor's office. Since the price of oil has dropped down to around $60, Alaska's budget may actually face a budget shortfall next year with the drastic drop in oil tax revenue. The huge surplus they ran last year, that Palin refunded to Alaskans this year, goes away next year if oil stays below about $70. All signs are that it would be good to NOT be governor of Alaska next year.

Since Palin took office, she bet heavy on the price of oil staying high to pay for the big tax cuts and cash payouts she is so popular for. It looked great short term, but her budget strategy of taxing oil to replace more traditional and stable sources of revenue made government revenue highly dependent on the price of oil, and that has been in rapid decline to less than 40% of it's peak this year. With the current global recession, America's move to diversified energy under Obama's energy plan, and the Alaska natural gas pipeline at least 20 years away, the horizon for Alaska's economic largess is near. They are in an economic crisis, but "the fundamentals of the economy are strong". All of Palin's "experience" may be found wanting.

If she did end up running for the senate seat (and it's not clear that she would even have that opportunity), she could likely be facing Mark Begich, mayor of Anchorage and Steven's current opponent (if he could afford another run). It would not be a cakewalk. The economic reality of Alaska's oil revenue dependence might have started to show up in the state budget, and Palin has not been able to organize a state level campaign organization while running for national office.

As governor, when that extra check won't come next year, the budget is in crisis, and the taxes that were cut are put back in place, her popularity will quickly sour. Funny how a budget surplus, boldly distributed directly to state residents, will become a political liability as her speculation with the state budget on the price of oil comes to light. Using that surplus to ensure stability in the state budget would have been a better choice. Her failure to hedge the state's risk on the volatility of it's revenue stream will cost her political capital.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The Election Isn't Over Till It's Over

What you say?
Yes, the electoral college is yet to vote, and elections are yet to be certified. But we all know the outcome right? Let's look at Missouri.

The race has tightened over the last week. McCain now leads by less than 5,000 votes out of something close to 3 million. There are some 7,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted. 3,200 votes were recently 'found' in the electronic voting machines when it was discovered that they weren't tallied properly by poll workers. Until the election is certified in a couple of weeks, no one can request a recount. Why a recount? What's at stake? Missouri's bellwether status!

More important undecided races (unless your from Missouri of course) are Senate races. In Michigan, there are about 200 votes out of almost 3 million deciding the race between Franken(D) and Coleman(R). The lawyers are now wrangling over the recount process ala Florida 2000. In Georgia, the race is starting all over, with Chambliss(R) getting only 49.8% in a state where a plurality is required to win. It looks like every Republican presidential candidate from the primaries will be down there campaigning - McCain, Huckabee, Guliani and Romney are all slated to hit the campaign trail. Obama is sending aids from his campaign staff to assist Jim Martin (D) in getting all those people who voted for Obama to turn out again for this new battle. Too bad they didn't all vote for Martin to begin with. It seem there were a lot of ballots cast for Obama that didn't vote the rest of the ticket.

Of course, there is still the pending election in Alaska, where recently convicted felon and incumbent Ted Stevens is still leading by a few thousand votes. There are over 90,000 votes yet to be counted (mostly absentee ballots), half of which should be counted by this weekend. His opponent, Mark Begich will probably benefit from the absentee and early voter counts that are going on now. Of course, if things tighten up, there will probably be a call for a recount, and more lawyers arguing and deadlines for election certification looming. In any case, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint (R) is calling for a vote next week to eject Stevens from the Republican caucus. While not exactly expulsion from the senate (the GOP wants to wait until his appeals process is complete), it would remove him from any committees and any Republican only decision making process. At least one conservative Senator has some integrity left.

A lot of pundits are questioning the turnout and results in Alaska. I'm sure that many questions will be asked more aggressively if a recount gets underway. Alaska is the only state that pollsters got COMPLETELY wrong. Turnout was lower than 2004, even with historically large turnouts for caucuses earlier in the campaign season. No one expected such a low turnout. Pollers expected Stevens to lose by double digits.

Personally, I think that the major media projecting the Obama victory as early as 3pm Alaska time might has suppressed a lot of the turnout. None of the media pundits are giving that much weight, but I do remember how loudly people here in California complained when they called elections before the polls closed. They didn't call the election, but it was everything BUT that, and anyone who listened or watched knew it. So, how should the media be responsible? Should they not project results until polls are closed everywhere? Is that realistic? Tough questions. Perhaps they should run a poll in Alaska and actually find out why people didn't vote.

Why does all this matter? Politically, it matters because the Senate is close to a filibuster proof majority. More importantly, it's about the integrity of the election process in general. There is still a lot of suspicion surrounding the voting process and voter suppression tactics that we've seen in 2000 and 2004.

Elections like the Michigan senate race highlight the need to have certainty not only in the result, but also in the process by which that result is achieved, down to the individual ballot. Quite the task, and I'm not sure that the systems we have are completely up to it.

Watch the process closely. It will tell us a lot about what progress has been made. In Michigan, expect that every absentee ballot that was rejected will be challenged, and probably any recounts that vary or ballots that don't scan. At least there are no hanging chads in Michigan, but optical ballots have those little boxes to fill in, so be prepared!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Inspiration

Inspiration is the only word I could come up with to describe the overwhelming emotion when watching Obama's speech in Grant Park last night. It was beyond words. Seeing Jesse Jackson in tears watching in the crowd, history unfolding in front of him, you couldn't help but do the same. Nor could many others. I could only think how lucky I am to witness and be a part of this turning point in American history.

True to form, Obama made his moment about all of us. About all of his supporters, and all that supported McCain too. It was a call to service, a reminder that this is the beginning, not an end, and that history will judge us for what happens next, not for what has just transpired. The real work is coming, and it's time to think about what each of us can do to contribute in the new era that has just now begun to unfold.

There were disappointments too last night. Prop 8 passed in California, with 2 similar propositions passing in other states. It wasn't all bad. Connecticut voted down an attempt at a constitutional convention to reverse their gay marriage laws. New York now recognizes gay marriages from Massachusetts. Today's news is that the 1st lawsuits have been filed with the state supreme court here in California. To allow the majority to strip rights away from the minority by a simple majority vote through the initiative process is antithetical to the role of the judiciary in protecting minority rights. This use of the initiative process to strip away constitutional rights, if allowed to stand, sets a dangerous precedent and would destroy the foundational constitutional principle of equal protection. What would be next? The right to free speech? Could the majority use the same process to say, disallow dissent by minority groups or make it illegal to have an Islamic temple in our state, simply by a majority vote to change the constitution? Scary stuff.

In other news, Michigan became the 13th state to allow the medical use of Marijuana. Life isn't all bad! Hopefully, with the new era, federal arm twisting by the DEA will go away.

About the down-ticket races:

Dole lost. Her "Godless" Sunday school teacher (and democrat) opponent, Kay Hagen, put her in her place. Yes, Dole actually called her "Godless".

There are still Senate races out there in limbo today. There will be some recounts. Franken in Minnesota was within a couple of hundred votes. His incumbent Republican opponent declared victory anyway. In Georgia, Jim Martin (D) held the incumbent Saxby Chambliss (R) to only 49.9 %. to his 46.7 A third party candidate got the rest. This means that there will be a run-off election in 30 days. You need 50%+ to win in Georgia. Forces are gathering to wage this campaign. It's just starting there, and it's all about turnout during a run-off election. In Oregon, Jeff Merkley(D) and Gordon Smith(R) are even. Another recount, and also some issues there with ballots being damaged.

And, of course, there is Ted Stevens in Alaska. Convicted, and re-elected? It's anybody's guess as to what happened there. Beglich was ahead in the polls, but from the MudFlats blog in Alaska:
At last count with 99% of precincts reporting Begich trailed Stevens by only 4000 votes, 46.5% to 48%. But don’t write off Begich just yet. There are tens of thousands of votes yet to be counted - almost 50,000 in all. Absentee ballots have yet to be tallied, and more are arriving daily. In addition, any early votes that happened between last Thursday and Election Eve, are still to be counted. What does all this mean? We won’t know the outcome of this race for two weeks.
Despite what the Pundits on TV say, Palin cannot appoint someone to fill the seat. That issue has been decided by the Alaska Supreme Court. There will be a special election if Stevens wins this one because he'll get expelled from the Senate when his appeal is lost, or he ends up in jail. More drama and bad headlines for Republicans. It would have been so much better if he had bowed out last week. One way or another he won't be seated. It's just a question of who will eventually get that post. Hopefully the Dem will just win, and Alaska can move on.

If for some reason the democrats sweep all these Senate races, they will get to the magic 60 if you include the two independents that caucus with the Dems. I have the feeling that Leiberman will get the boot from the Democratic Caucus unless they need him for this purpose.

It seems there will be no shortage of things to blog about over the next few weeks!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

It's All Over But The Counting

7:05
Ohio goes for Obama ! If the projections hold true, it puts him at 207 without the western states.
With 55 EVs in California alone - we are about done with this whole thing.

I think I'll wait for the numbers to roll in. There are a lot of down-ticket races that are important.

The Election night jitters

5:07pm PST
I can't help it. I'm excited and nervous at the same time, and nothing will settle my stomach until we see the results from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia and North Dakota.
The big guns at FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics are slowly coming in. They seem to be very careful about results.
5:10 pm
I just checked the map at MSNBC - they update every 2 minutes. They are calling PA, IL, NH, VT, MA, CT, NJ, DE, MD and DC for Obama.. KY, TN, SC, and OK for McCain - 103 to 34 Obama. Amazing since there are no vote tallies on their site. Especially interesting is PA.

5:16 pm
MSNBC shows an 8 pt lead in FL for Obama, with 24% reporting, but isn't calling. Not suprised.
They show a McCain ahead in VA by 13 so who knows. I think a lot of this is exit and Absentee data. The VA number is out of sync with the pre-election polls, so I'm thinking you can't trust any of this much... arrgh!!

5:32pm
Flipped back into fivethirtyeight.com and they have Hagen beating Dole in North Carolina - that's good news for Obama too. AP has called NH for Obama. MSNBC has ME for Obama now, and I'm looking at the state data for VA. It seems they've had a lot of problems polling in the south-east today. There's also a report on CNN about voter suppression activities in the same area that are being investigated. In any case, this is going to be a long night for results for VA.

5:38
McCain is planning his post-election for the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix. Most guests in the ballroom, but he won't speak from there - he's got a stage set up outside in a rather small area. It looks like a 'designed for media' type event. Small space - specially picked crowd to fill it, while the rest watch on TV. Obama, on the other hand has got Grant Park in Chicago. Space for 70,000 in the secure area - and probably 1,000,000+ total expected to attend. Some rally.. the coast guard is protecting the lake side, and the Secret Service has swept the secure area. They have snipers on the rooftops and the whole bit. That's going to be a heck of a party.

6:48
Well, MSNBC was wrong about Virginia. It's now all tied up - 7,000 votes out of 3.8 Million.
Some of these early projections seem to be just shadows. Georgia is being flagged for McCain based on rural voting results - but the big suburban counties aren't reporting. I think it's going to look like another Virginia.

6:55
What ever happened to not reporting the results until ALL the polls are closed? Western states are still voting !! This year Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado are all in play.
Well, maybe Colorado was decided yesterday.. they had early voting there that was a very large part of the total vote count.

Anyway - I'll be back to continue this blog later - after the dust has settled a bit.
My nerves can't stand it anymore!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Election Eve

GO OUT AND VOTE !!!! Honor Mrs. Dunham and elect her grandson.

On the eve of this election I can't help but feel that this will be a historic event. For the 1st time, we have an African-American who not only is leading in the polls, but is leading with an outright majority nationwide. There is far more at stake, however. Here in California, there's Prop. 8 (please vote NO), which I will turn out large numbers of evangelicals. The LDS church is joining with evangelicals to fund the 'yes on 8' campaign. They have delved into politics, not something everyone in the LDS church agrees with, for what it's worth. There's Prop. 4 (please vote NO again), which chips away at a woman's right to privacy by eliminating that right for those under the age of 18. It doesn't outlaw abortion, but rather attacks the fundamental right which is the basis of Roe v. Wade. Since when are constitutional rights magically determined by age?
Sneaking in under the radar on what has been a massive presidential campaign, these Propositions are being funded by right-wing and right-to-life PACs from outside of California. In any other election year, there would be a large outcry.

Obama's rally tonight in Manassas, Virginia drew 90,000 people in a county where George Bush won with 69,000 votes in 2004. But that's just the dot on the I. He's been campaigning in states that were 'Red' and turning out record crowds. St. Louis 100,000, 3 rallies in western states that turned out 250,000. It's been that way all across the country, and been that way for weeks. It is the Obama Phenomena. Curious what a crowd of 90,000 looks like in the middle of the night? Here's a picture of part of the crowd posted by a blogger. As far as the eye can see and beyond.



Meanwhile, McCain and Palin are hitting midnight rallies in Nevada and Arizona tonight to crowds of hundreds. Crowds that fit into a high school gym. In Tampa, McCain started the day with a crowd of 1,000 when 10,000 were expected.

The Obama Phenomena is changing the Electoral map. States that haven't been in play for decades, are now 'toss up' or leaning Obama. Not only does that provide a multitude of ways for Obama to get to the needed 270, it's had a dramatic impact on the down-ticket races for Senate and Congressional seats. No one was thinking that we might get to 60 Democratic Senate seats even 6 weeks ago. If you believe the polls, that possibility is very real. Although still not likely, most pollsters get to that number by including "Independents" like Lieberman (what a jerk).

You've probably noticed that I've not been blogging on the polls lately. It's not that I'm not following them. On the contrary.. I watch these sites and read all the data I can.
RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight are two sites run by wonks that crunch numbers to excess. You can watch the campaign maps of CNN and MSNBC. You can look at Intrade Prediction Markets which would have you trade on the predictions like the stock market.

Here's my take on the polls. They show a steady Obama lead nationwide. The variance day-to-day of the tracking polls are all within the margins of error. There hasn't been any indication of a change in trend. Has it tightened up? Maybe. Not significantly. The national polls tend to not include votes for Nader and Barr.. some say that will be 2-3 %. Interestingly enough, most polls show that Nader and Barr overall will hurt McCain more than Obama. More important are the State-by-State numbers. This election is won State-by-State; something we don't have to tell Al Gore. In all of the toss-up states except perhaps North Carolina, Obama holds some kind of lead. Even there and Missouri, McCain's "lead" is less than 1 %. On the other hand, Georgia, North Dakota, Montana, and Arizona are now 'toss-up'; being within the margins of error.

Here's my problem with the polls. They don't reflect those tens of (or hundreds) of thousands of people that are showing up at the Obama rallies. Either voter turnout from these energized individuals will be the lowest in history or the polls are just not paying attention. The polls have their methods and they stick to them. I think they will learn a new lesson this year about how the dynamics of this election are not being reflected in their numbers.

Here's an example:
In GEORGIA- for all pollsters a 'red' state. Latest polls show McCain's lead down at about the margin of error, in some cases down to 1 point. However here's news that the pollsters didn't pick up. We see this reported at FiveThirtyEight.com today. They don't poll, they run simulations based on other people's polling data.

1,994,990 people voted early in Georgia. 3,301,875 total voted in Georgia's presidential race in 2004. That, with insanely long lines for early voters.

On the Road: Atlanta, Georgia details the 550, 000 new voters registered, the 33 offices, 175 staging areas, at least one in every county, and a highly organized and active volunteer organization.

Indeed, Obama is doing better with white voters in Georgia than either Kerry or Gore. In early voting, African-American voting was 35%. 25% is the historic level. As for totals after election day comes and goes, Adelman said, "anything over 30% and we're gonna win."

The other problem I have with the polls is the early voting movement. No one knows how to account for the early voters, especially in the battleground states. It will be interesting to see if they are more influenced by the GOTV from the campaigns than the electorate in general. Many of these voters are VERY motivated; standing in line for hours. Why, I'm not sure. Perhaps it is from the fear of being disenfranchised as happened in some areas in 2004.
In any case, far more people are voting early - 1/3 of all voters in Virginia voted early. So much for the last 72 hour 'push' by the campaigns.

I'm sure there will be plenty of analysis to listen to tomorrow.
I think there is going to be a big surprise. Obama is going to get results that the polls just don't measure.

In the mean time, there is this: Washington lost this weekend. Some say that means a Democratic win (football fans!).

Then there is this - Dixville Notch, NH polls opened at midnight and closed shortly thereafter. Obama wins 15 to 6 (votes!). It's the 1st result of the night, and not necessarily a good bell weather, however they haven't voted for a Democrat since Humphrey in 1968.

Find me blogging the news tomorrow. !!!