Voting the slate

For any voters in PA- there's a text message floating around claiming that voters in PA can't vote a straight Democratic slate or else Obama won't get their vote. This is a ploy by the GOP to prevent Obama coat-tails- voters can vote a straight slate without any problems.

Home Stretch: Ohio update

From Marc Ambinder:

Today as of 3 pm, the Obama Campaign gotv operation in Ohio knocked on 1 million doors, with another shift still to go.

That means that they probably had at least 20,000 to 40,000 volunteers out knocking on doors today.

One day short...

Joe Klein says it better than I could:

Word comes that Barack Obama's grandmother has died. The timing is ridiculous. But think, for a moment, if you will of Madelyn Dunham, a white woman from Kansas, strolling the aisle of a supermarket, or having lunch in a coffee shop, with her grandson--way back at the turn of the 1970s, when such sights were uncommon, even in Hawaii. Think about what her friends might have thought, or said, about her...situation. Think about what she poured into the child during the years when her daughter was in Indonesia and she was the closest thing to a mother that Obama had; think about the impact that she and her husband had on creating the man we've come to know, and the satisfaction she must have felt in her dying days.

Some politicians simply are larger than life. Their stories are the stuff of high drama. Over the past few days, I've been hearing about the high emotions out in the field, as volunteers flood Obama offices to help canvass--and, in some places, find they have to wait on line for a spot on a phone bank. It is almost banal at this point to say that this has been the most remarkable election I've ever seen. It's been a privilege to be a small part of it, to have had a ringside seat. And now, there is a sense that tomorrow will be the sort of day none of us ever forgets, one way or another--a day of reckoning, in the purest sense, when we will suddenly see ourselves and our country differently, for good or ill.

It will also be the first day that Barack Obama lives without the presence of the woman who was his surrogate mother. How sad for him, how remarkable that it would happen this way.

Home Stretch: Iowa update

A Canadian friend is canvassing in Iowa writes in writes that:

from the home stretch in iowa are looking positive. I think the promotion of absentee voting has been critical, and I have been chasing in ballots for the last two days.

Fivethirtyeight.com has Iowa polling at a composite 54-43, so it should be good to go, but it's definitely a good idea to chase down absentee ballots (as I know from experience in the 2000 Florida race). We're down to the wire, so anything we can do to lock down the states leaning Obama is time well spent.

Having Iowa solidly in Obama's column has been a big advantage over last cycle. Having the Kerry states plus Iowa puts Obama at 259, which means that to win we only need Virginia, Ohio, Florida or North Carolina (or gets a tie in CO), without having to rely on winning two of those states.

Don't panic

Tocus has been on how the race is tightening, but the thing to remember is that Obama is doing better right now (in state and national polls) than Bush in 2000 or 2004.

Dems run nasty ads too...

The GOP hasn't been the only party running really foul ads this cycle- this one in the Kentucky Senate race, gay-baiting Mitch McConnell, is one of the worst I've seen:

One good thing about the McCain campaign is that they have largely resisted the GOP's worst instincts to gay-bait- there could have been a lot of nasty ads about prop 8, nationalizing the California gay marriage issue. It's to McCain's credit that this hasn't happened, and to the discredit of Dems in Kentucky that they're running this nonsense.

Obama talks about his aunt

For folks who haven't been glued to the TV or internet lately, the big attack on Obama recently has been that he has a Kenyan aunt who has lived illegally in the US for some time. This of course ties into the general "Obama is not American" line of attack- and now smears him as either being or supporting illegal immigrants.

Obama with Katie Couric on his aunt, who is allegedly an undocumented immigrant (via Ambinder):

Couric: YOU HAVE AN AUNT WHO'S BEEN LIVING IN THIS COUNTRY APPARENTLY ILLEGALLY, AND YOUR CAMPAIGN SAYS ANY AND ALL APPROPRIATE LAWS SHOULD BE FOLLOWED. SO WOULD YOU SUPPORT HER BEING DEPORTED TO KENYA?

Sen. Obama: If she is violating laws those laws have to be obeyed. We're a nation of laws. Obviously that doesn't lessen my concern for her, I haven't been able to be in touch with her. But I'm a strong believer you have to obey the law.

There's some evidence that the leak of the immigration status of Obama's aunt came from somebody in the Bush administration:

But note the way in which AP seems to have obtained the information. High up in the story, it reports:

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one a federal law enforcement official. The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release.

In other words, it looks like someone in the Bush administration leaked the information, with the goal of throwing a last-minute wrench into Obama's campaign. And someone else confirmed it, with similar motives.

Home Stretch: Ohio update

Two Ohio polls today show the state tightening up. One has Obama up by 6, the other has McCain by 2 (although this poll has a small sample size, and the pollster- Mason Dixon, has shown a 2-3 point lean toward McCain, so this one might be more realistically thought of as even or a slight lead for Obama, with a 5-6 point margin of error).

On the GOTV front, I have a friend who's doing voter protection in Ohio, and he tells me that things look good around Kent and Toledo, but there are some reports of voter suppression efforts in Cleveland.

Dedication 2

Just spoke with a disabled Obama voter, who was worried because he can't stand for more than half an hour. He's planning to head down to the polls at 5 and bring a chair to sit in outside so that he's the first person to vote.

I'd be interested to see whether similar calls are coming into the McCain phones.

Dedication

I just got finished speaking to a woman whose sister has end-stage liver cancer, but wants to vote. Her sister entered the hospital last week with a fever, and has gotten steadily worse and is now essentially paralyzed, only able to communicate by blinking or nodding her head.

Her sister called the voter hotline hoping to be able to help her sister vote. Three calls later, and after talking to about 10 different lawyers here, the sister is going to print out an absentee ballot form with an attached section for voters who can't sign their own names, and a designation form that would allow her sister to designate her as an agent for election purposes. The sister is going to get these forms signed, have a doctor or nurse write a note attesting to the illness, and take them tomorrow to court in Philadelphia to try to get an absenteen ballot so her sister can vote for Obama.

Home Stretch- Scranton, PA

Report from my fiance's parents, who are volunteering in Scranton. A woman came into the Obama Scranton office this weekend reporting that two white men were going around housing projects and predominantly Hispanic and African-American areas, telling folks that due to high turnout their neighborhoods will be voting on Wednesday.

The Obama folks helped the woman put together a flier in English and Spanish reminding people that everyone votes on Tues, and urging them to call the Obama office and the police if they see the people who have been spreading the false information about voting.

Home Stretch: PA update

In the voter protection hotline call center, and it's fairly slow at the moment. Lit with the hotline phone number on it was spread all over Philly today, but I imagine many people will wait to call until Monday or Tuesday. It's a bit frustrating to be in here not accomplishing anything when I could be out knocking on doors or making calls. Yesterday in our downtime we called through the list of volunteers who were interested in driving voters to the polls, so hopefully the GOTV folks will have similar projects today.

In better news, Philly seems much more pumped about Obama than the city was about Kerry four years ago. Many more people seem to be wearing Obama buttons and stickers, and there are more signs in store windows.

Palin fooled by wily French Canadians

Palin was pranked by a Quebeois comedy duo, one of whom pretended to be Nicholas Sarkozy, and spoke to them for 6 minutes.

Early in the conversation, the fake Sarkozy tells Palin one of his favourite pastimes is hunting.

"We should go hunting together," she offers. "We can have a lot of fun together while we're getting work done. We could kill two birds with one stone."

Audette then jokes that they shouldn't bring Cheney on the hunt, referring to the 2006 incident in which the vice-president shot-and-injured a friend while hunting quail.

"I'll be a careful shot," responds Palin, who praises Sarkozy throughout the call.

"I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally, and your beautiful wife, oh my goodness," she says.

The faux Sarkozy also left some clues that he was not to be taken seriously-

He identifies French singer and actor Johnny Hallyday as his special adviser to the U.S., singer Stef Carse as Canada's prime minister and Quebec comedian and radio host Richard Z. Sirois as the provincial premier.

PA update

I'm doing mobile updating from Philly. We're in the voter protection call center, fielding calls from around the state from voters on questions ranging from "where do I vote" to "I'm a prerelease convicted felon in a halfway house, am I allowed to vote?". A bit slow now, but this weekend the campaign is dropping 5.6 million pieces of lit with the hotline number, so we'll be hopping tomorrow.  Pretty good way to make sure you get out your new voters.
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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Home Stretch: Virginia Update

A guest post from my friend PB in Virginia:

First, in the city centers, Obama support is strong. In Charlottesville, at least, there is not a McCain sign to be found. But of course that's a college town. A friend works in Fairfax, and daily notices a trend in yard signs: Obama, Obama, Obama...turn onto rural route 17, and it's solid McCain. VA is the most purple state in the Union, but only from a distance. Red and Blue don't mix well down here. I think this is largely a consequence of Yankees moving in and voting blue; the "natives" are still solidly conservative.

Second, McCain's message is truly working among the Red crowd: they were (for the most part) quite convinced Obama is a socialist, and have taken his "spread the wealth" comment very seriously. The more astute among the guys I talked to (like my friend who used to work in the Bush 41 white house) are not worried that the socialist state is going to happen anytime soon--he realizes that Obama won't be able to wave a wand and make it happen, given the economy--but he is sure that a second-term Obama president with a strong mandate and an improved economy would try to socialize medicine, increase welfare, etc. They generally point to his history of making statements like that to show that his underlying desire is precisely that. Some were scared it will happen sooner rather than later, but the general feeling was that of fear that the nanny state is coming.

The question of taxes is charged, but admittedly somewhat skewed in this crowd: they are all farmer boys, but are also government contractors and former military. All of them own quite a bit of land and built and cultivated it themselves. Most actually do have a yearly income of over $250k and enough wealth to be upset about redistributions schemes. One told me "right now I pay more taxes than some people make. I pay more taxes than three families combined. Why is he coming after me for more? If this happens, I'm going to quit my job and retire. It's just not worth all the work." I know in the past you and I have talked about farm subsidies making hypocrites out of middle america when they attack government programs. This was not the case here, though, since none of them take subsidies.

Guns came up breifly, and probably only as a joke: "if he's elected, I'm hiding my ammo..." (This was a shooting trip so our guns were actually leaning on the porch railings with us while we talked). Everyone laughed, but I don't think they really think he's going to take anyone's guns away, but again their big concern was not Obama's first term, but his putative second, during which he would feel more confident that he could take a leftward turn.

I talked about voting for republicans for other offices, but the idea isn't popular in VA: they are all Warner fans (as nearly all of us are), but hope he'll be a moderate Democrat and block hard turns to the left.

The best conversation was in foreign policy, and here I wasn't even close to the expert in the room. My one friend in particular works in some capacity for the government that he can't tell us about, and as I said worked in the intelligence branch for Bush 41's White House. But his take on foreign affairs is this: He's scared of all of the candidates. McCain for being too stubborn and crazy, Palin for the liklihood that she would try to be too tough with no sense of nuance, Biden for generally being useless, and Obama because "he would be perceived as weak." The rest of the crowd agreed, at least with the last comment, but at this point the conversation turned to Palin.

She really is loved by many people here. Her message of "regular folks" is working well with "regular folks." She has in fact convinced them that knowing nothing about Washington is a qualification: she was described as "refreshing," "smarter than you think," "a real tough lady," a "victim of the press," etc. During the foreign policy discussion we mentioned how Reagan was both tough but also intelligently pliable: they felt she could do that too. (The fact that Reagan was also not an "expert" helped prove to them that it's possible to be a great foreign-policy leader with no experience). When I pointed out that I would be scared to have her across the table from Putin (bringing up how Truman was rolled over by Stalin at Postdam largely through inexperience), everyone agreed in theory, but pointed out that she would get good advisors to help her, and asserted that it would be better to have a bit of a loose cannon facing Putin than a man who might be weak and vacillating. Then they started saying "why don't you think she's qualified?" I said just listening to her talk and ramble told me she had no real ideas, just catchphrases. That got the conversation back on Obama: he has no real depth, he's just all nice words, and "I don't really know who he is yet, it's all just words with him." Some contended that they actually liked Palin over McCain, and wished she were heading the ticket; they pointed out that McCain was to some degree responsible for much of the mess in Washington, and they like the idea of fresh blood more than anything else. One argued that Palin was exactly what Jefferson wanted in a president: a regular person from the country who comes and goes without being stained by politics. I pointed out that what Jefferson meant by "farmer" was a "farmer" like he was; highly educated, polished, etc., not just anyone. After all, he called Jackson the worst possible choice for president.

That won that point, but I perceived the underlying reasons for these feelings, and here it is. I think that the Left is responsible for the attitude I saw in these men, along with geography and a sense of tradition. When TV pundits insult Palin (and I think with good right--but now I realize the effect it has), they are insulting these men, and millions like them. They are saying that they are not qualified to lead in a democracy. Many of them were veterans, and the insult stung deep. It is galling to these men, I perceived, to be told that people like them are unqualified by people who have never risked anything, or gotten their fingernails dirty. They also live in a world (I've pointed this out before) where your nearest neighbor is a mile away or more. Government is not a helping hand here; its a nosy neighbor. (I grant that farm subsidies make this picture complicated, but here it was not an issue). Rugged individualism isn't just a catchphrase with them--they literally carve their fields out of forests; I've helped them do it! They wonder "if I work so hard, and scrape so hard, why doesn't everyone?" Their fear of socialism, I'm sure, stems from the hatred of free-loading in a world where shirking of work cannot be hidden and is deeply resented.

In short, when they see Palin, they are willing to look past her incredible lack of qualification and say "at least she understands me; she knows what its like to be looked down on." That I am convinced is her appeal. It is irrational, I know, but then again what is, in politics? That is why the R ticket will pull well down here no matter what. It's all the more obvious in virginia, where a "regular guy" now sees McMansions and Beamers everywhere. They get a sense of satisfaction sticking it to "those people," who, of course, are sitting around in their living rooms with a sense of satisfaction about sticking it to the other "those people."

Now, at the risk of romanticizing all this, there is some fair hypocrisy. It is wrong to pretend Obama is all catch phrases and Palin is not. It is wrong to turn a sense of injury into a cause to else a president (in fact that is frightening, and isn't that what most of NYC is doing?). It is wrong to ignore qualification for a weak sense of "I feel like she does." Yes I have insulted Palin, but we should really ask ourselves why people like her: dig a little deeper and I see that she supplies a need in these people that Obama never can. The need to feel important.

I'm supporting Obama. But talking to these guys you can see why many don't, even if they don't realize why they don't. It's not going to be an easy win for him. I am a bit worried that the last minute decision won't be "he's black." It will be "he looks down on me."

That's my take.