McCain campaign manager Rick Davis:
Obama is running out of states if you follow out a traditional model. Today, he expanded his buy into North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona in an attempt to widen the playing field and find his 270 Electoral Votes. This is a very tall order and trying to expand into new states in the final hours shows he doesn’t have the votes to win.
Margaret Talbot writes about sex in blue and red America. She asserts:
Social liberals in the country’s “blue states” tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in “red states” generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have an abortion.
From later in the article:
The “pro-family” efforts of social conservatives—the campaigns against gay marriage and abortion—do nothing to instill the emotional discipline or the psychological smarts that forsaking all others often involves. Evangelicals are very good at articulating their sexual ideals, but they have little practical advice for their young followers. Social liberals, meanwhile, are not very good at articulating values on marriage and teen sexuality—indeed, they may feel that it’s unseemly or judgmental to do so. But in fact the new middle-class morality is squarely pro-family. Maybe these choices weren’t originally about values—maybe they were about maximizing education and careers—yet the result is a more stable family system. Not only do couples who marry later stay married longer; children born to older couples fare better on a variety of measures, including educational attainment, regardless of their parents’ economic circumstances. The new middle-class culture of intensive parenting has ridiculous aspects, but it’s pretty successful at turning out productive, emotionally resilient young adults. And its intensity may be one reason that teen-agers from close families see child-rearing as a project for which they’re not yet ready. For too long, the conventional wisdom has been that social conservatives are the upholders of family values, whereas liberals are the proponents of a polymorphous selfishness. This isn’t true, and, every once in a while, liberals might point that out.
This is a bad sign:
In a test run for his 2010 re-election against Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, McCain is trailing 53%-45%.
The Chairman of the American Nazi Party, among other self-proclaimed racists, is voting for Obama. It’s called heightening the contradictions – something all good communists and neocons also understand.
Hell’s Kitchen, New York, 1.45 pm.
New York magazine asks bloggers what they are going to do on November 5th. Here’s Ben Smith:
I think the transition is going to be just as breakneck as the election, and that the real lull, if any, will come in June or July of next year. I’ve been doing this since Politico launched in January of 2007, and it’s so metabolic at this point I’m not sure I can really unplug. Also, I’m very boring.
I’m currently running on fumes and without Patrick’s stamina and help would probably be on a stretcher. But adrenaline exists for a reason. It’s balls-to-the-wall till the fat lady sings, or something like that.
The more I think about it the more this election day feels like one giant collective, global puke. That Bush-Cheney thing never quite settled with us, did it? We’ll feel a lot better but a lot more tired once the last heave is over.
Palin supporters’ closing argument.
Freddie attacks Reihan:
Reihan’s argument, such as it is, is that we have not just gone through 20 months of campaigning by John McCain. No, we’ve been laboring under the misconception that the man who appears before us is the real McCain; that crass politician who has stoked the flames of cultural hatred and partisan divide is a construct designed, somehow, merely to win an election, and then be discarded once he ceases to be of use– never mind the utter failure of that construct to actually build any lead in the polls. Reihan avers "We haven’t seen the real McCain in this campaign." Let me be plain: that is a nonfalsifiable, evidence-resistant assertion that can only be supported by faith.
Rob Horning stresses the importance of being able to control facial expressions. When was the last time Nancy Pelosi looked human?
Artist Meg Wachter dumped a smorgasbord of edible products on her friends and took pictures of them. Her explanation:
The thing was that everyone asked me how he or she should react. I had no idea how everyone would respond and told them that I thought they just would react. I think the novelty of how random and unusual the whole ordeal was what contributed to the fun of it. The moment of reaction is what interested me, I suppose.
More images here.
The Dish 