Month: November 2008

Can Obama be serious? Ambers ponders.

A reader writes:

Is is just me, or has Drudge lost some serious credibility this year?

We’ve always known he was conservative, but the media tended to follow his lead anyway. Since the primary, though, his headline choices have been so one-sided (where only outlying polls showing a tight race are printed in red, and bogus controversies like Obama’s 2001 redistribution quote are given a full-day headline), that Drudge’s spell has been broken. He’s not driving our focus anymore. The media seems to be ignoring him, and although I still check his page regularly, he’s no longer my first stop for political news (that’s you and politico). I check in on him with more of a vague curiosity these days, like Huffington Post, to see what the ideologues are talking about. It feels like the end of an era, and I wonder if he’ll come back from it.

I don’t know what happened. I loved the old Drudge Report, and I hope it comes back soon. Maybe he’s positioning to be the opposition to Obama. It will certainly help Drudge if he goes back into opposition. But from there, he needs to channel the smart opposition, not the dumb, paranoid and bigoted one.

George Will:

By midnight Tuesday, millions of conservatives probably will believe that the nation, foundering on the reefs of sin, is ruined. And millions of "progressives," emboldened to embrace truth in labeling by again calling themselves liberals, probably will have decided that Heaven is at hand, the nation revived like a flower in an April shower.

For me, if Obama is elected, it will feel more like a simple end to a nightmare. The earth has been scorched these past seven years. No Heaven awaits. Just an end to some sort of Hell.

Silver:

We can probably assume…that IF the national polls tighten significantly (and to reiterate, the likelihood is that they will NOT), McCain will edge out a victory in North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, North Dakota, Montana, Georgia, and Missouri; put those states in the McCain column for the time being. Likewise, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa all appear safe for Obama, even in the case of significant tightening. Put those in the Obama column.

That leaves our five states in play.

The victory conditions for Obama involving these five states proceed something as follows:

1. Win Pennsylvania and ANY ONE of Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, or Nevada*
2. Win Ohio and EITHER Colorado OR Virginia.
3. Win Colorado AND Virginia AND Nevada.

(* Nevada produces a 269-269 tie, which would probably be resolved for Obama in the House of Representatives.)

One the most conservative voices in the blogosphere takes a stand:

I am angry about the California Supreme Court’s attempt to take this matter out of voters’ hands, and part of me wants to support the measure just to flip the bird to the justices. Ultimately, however, I support the right of homosexuals to marry one another, and so I will be voting no…

The downside of banning gay marriage is that homosexuals are made to feel that they are second-class citizens.

I don’t know whether being gay is genetic, a learned behavior, or some combination of the two — but I am confident that it is something that people do not consciously choose. I certainly did not consciously choose to be sexually attracted to women; that is hard-wired into me somehow. I can’t imagine it’s different for gay men.

 

Since gays do not consciously choose their sexual orientation, refusing to give them access to an institution available to heterosexuals is discrimination. The policy question is whether this discrimination is justified on a societal level.

My conclusion is that it is not.

     

One day, most conservatives will take this position, I believe. But it takes courage to do so now.

And this white middle-aged banker who voted for Bush discovered what’s actually happening:

Instead of walking the tree-lined streets near our home, my wife and I were instructed to canvass a housing project. A middle-aged white couple with clipboards could not look more out of place in this predominantly black neighborhood. We knocked on doors and voices from behind carefully locked doors shouted, "Who is it?" "We’re from the Obama campaign," we’d answer.

And just like that doors opened and folks with wide smiles came out on the porch to talk.

    Grandmothers kept one hand on their grandchildren and made sure they had all the information they needed for their son or          daughter to vote for the first time.                     Young people came to the door rubbing sleep from their eyes to find out where they could vote early, to make sure their vote          got counted.                     We knocked on every door we could find and checked off every name on our list. We did our job, but Obama may not have been          the one who got the most out of the day’s work.

Read the whole thing. It gave me goose-bumps.

Misty Irons notices the contrast between the two campaigns:

The anti-Prop. 8 campaign has been making a tremendous effort to rise above the culture-war ugliness even as the pro-Prop. 8 campaign has been attacking them with all the usual tactics from the playbook of 1985. Aren’t the differences between these two campaigns telling? The fact is, the gay rights movement has grown up and gone to college, while the religious right continues to roam the playground looking for someone to bully. After all, it’s the grown-ups who want to get married. The adolescents, with their limited imaginations, will sneer at talk of committed love, always thinking it has be a cover for some baser agenda.

Olympia, Washington, 5.45 pm.

Howard Gleckman suggests propping up the economy by keeping the campaign going after Nov. 4th. Aaaaaggghhhh!

David Jefferson got married in California last week:

It’s difficult to explain how it feels now, as Jeff and I face the possibility that our marriage could lose its validity come next Tuesday. The absurdity of having the most personal aspect of your life determined by a ballot proposition is best summed up by the slogan on a T shirt I saw a gay man wearing this month: CAN I VOTE ON YOUR MARRIAGE?