Karl Rove is predicting that Obama will win the election, with a 338 to 200 electoral vote victory.
Of course, people still wearing their tinfoil hats will probably say that this is a cynical ploy to get voters to stay home, to benefit down-ticket Republicans.
Prove them wrong. Go vote.
However, if I were being cynical, I’d just say that this is a ploy to drive traffic to Rove’s website.
“Actually, there is a good chance that we could go to bed tomorrow night and not know who’s running the country. Just like it’s been for the last eight years.” -Jay Leno
“Who are the real winners in this election? Don’t ask me. Ask Joe the Plumber’s agent.” -Stephen Colbert
“Today Barack Obama campaigned in Florida and Virginia. And McCain campaigned in two states: panic and desperation.” -David Letterman
“Did you get any of those annoying robo calls? You know, those phone call recorded messages from the candidates. I got them all weekend. I even got one from Ralph Nader’s campaign. Turns out it wasn’t recorded. It was Ralph calling personally from a pay phone.” -Jay Leno
“Sarah Palin is going to celebrate the end of the campaign. She charged one last $1500 blouse to the campaign. So, got that out of the way.” -David Letterman
“This weekend at a John McCain rally, Arnold Schwarzenegger said that Barack Obama needs to exercise more because his legs are too skinny. Then he said: `Now behold, the awesome physical specimen that is John McCain!'” -Conan O’Brien
“I don’t want to say that the Obamas are overly confident, but they’ve already agreed to let Oprah use their house in Chicago as a place to keep her dogs.” –Jimmy Kimmel
“According to recent news reports, Bill Clinton has now become an adviser to Barack Obama. Bill Clinton is giving advice to Barack Obama. Do you know who is really upset about this? Michelle Obama.” -Jay Leno
“This is my first election, not sure what supposed do on Election Eve. Are there traditions? So you hang your ‘chads’ over the fireplace? Leave stuff out for your favorite candidate? Maybe a sandwich for Obama. That is a thin man …. McCain, leave him some food, nice warm mug of creamed corn … Tasty. And you don’t need to chew.” -Craig Ferguson
Much thanks to Daniel Kurtzman at about.com.
Two weeks ago, the Palin campaign told several reporters that a summary of her medical records would be made public before Election Day. Well, that day has come, and nothing appears to be forthcoming.
Did they have any intention of releasing those records? Or did they just lie on purpose to get people to stop asking? (All three other candidates have released some records, although McCain didn’t actually release them, he just let a few reporters look at them briefly).
This is especially suspicious because there are some strange inconsistencies concerning Palin’s recent birth.
But if they didn’t want to release her medical records, then why did they lie about it? (There is no law requiring them to do so, although most candidates for the presidency or vice-presidency do release such records.)
I am reminded when the Troopergate report was released, which concluded that Palin violated Alaska ethics laws, but Palin insisted that she was cleared of all legal or ethical wrongdoing. Is it just easier for her to lie?
UPDATE: Late Monday night, Palin finally released a summary of her medical history. I take everything back.
The Republican National Committee issued a press release this afternoon, announcing that they were filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission because Obama used campaign resources to fly to Hawaii a week ago to visit his ailing grandmother.
Just about the same time Obama announced that his grandmother had died.
oops.
The Obama campaign did respond that the trip had been vetted with lawyers beforehand, and was allowable.
Vetted. You’d think the Republicans would be on top of that word by now.
“I was thinking about dressing up. And I really wanted to be scary. I thought I would dress up like George W. Bush. Then I realized: John McCain took that costume.” -Hillary Clinton, campaigning in Ohio.
“I had two kids come by for Halloween, one dressed as Mickey Mouse. The other dressed as a volunteer, trying to register him to vote.” -Jay Leno
“Hey, did you see Barack Obama on the news? He took time out to take his kids trick-or-treating, that was nice. But he’ll only let them take candy from households making over $200,000 a year.” -Jay Leno
“Barack Obama made a special stop in Chicago, so he could see his daughters in their Halloween costumes. Isn’t that nice? Apparently, Obama’s daughters wanted to be a princess and a fairy, but he made them dress as hope and change. And they were pissed.” -Conan O’Brien
“As you know, tonight’s the night kids going around asking for handouts. Same thing Wall Street did about a month ago.” -Jay Leno
“McCain got in the Halloween spirit. He thinks he’s going to make a surprise comeback in the final moments of this election. Just like the corpse in a horror movie.” -Bill Maher
“The top-selling political costume this year is Sarah Palin. They had to put a special warning today, they told Sarah Palin’s traveling press corps — don’t dress up as an animal, or she might shoot you.” -Jimmy Kimmel
“Happy Halloween, everybody. Man, I saw the scariest costume. A little kid knocked on my door dressed as a 401(k). Scared me half to death.” -Jay Leno
“Look, would I rather be on three major networks? Of course. But I’m a true maverick – a Republican without money.” -John McCain on “Saturday Night Live”
“McCain’s last plan to catch fire in this election is, apparently, Saturday night, he’s going to go on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ And he wants to deliver their famous line, ‘Live from New York, it’s way past my bedtime!'” -Bill Maher
“And this week, John McCain said people who live in coastal states like Florida should get more of the money from offshore drilling. I think that’s called ‘spreading the wealth around,’ isn’t it? And today, Barack Obama’s campaign accused John McCain of looking in the rear-view mirror, which would make McCain the only guy over 70 who actually does that. Think about it.” -Jay Leno
“At a campaign rally on Thursday, Senator McCain called Joe the plumber up to the stage, only to discover that he was not at the rally. In fairness to Joe the plumber, he did say he’d be there sometime between noon and 6:00 p.m.” -Seth Meyers
“This Sunday, daylight saving time ends. John McCain quickly condemned it as a redistribution of sunlight.” -Seth Meyers
“I think this says it all about the difference between the two parties. McCain is campaigning with Joe the plumber, Obama is down in Florida campaigning with Al Gore. One guy won the Nobel Prize in climate science. The other guy can get a fork out of a garbage disposal.” -Bill Maher
“In a speech yesterday, Joe the plumber said that John McCain is a real American. And who better to say who is a real American than a fake plumber?” -Jay Leno
“John McCain says Joe the plumber is his role model, and today says he wants to take him to Washington if he’s elected president. Not a bad idea — they’ll need someone to install the safety rails on the White House toilet.” -Jimmy Kimmel
“And this Joe the plumber, he thinks he’s a celebrity now. He hired a PR firm. He has the same publicity agent who represents Eddie Money and Grand Funk Railroad. I think he can officially stop worrying about his taxes going up.” -Bill Maher
“Joe the plumber still in the news. I’m tired of Joe the plumber. I want him out of the picture. But Joe the plumber has signed with a talent agency, because he says he’s interested in eventually becoming a country singer. Yeah, which may sound crazy, but remember, Kenny Chesney started out as Ken the asbestos remover. Then he transitioned, it all worked out” -Conan O’Brien
“God bless John McCain. You know, I’ve got to give McCain credit for ignoring the polls and fighting on. The guy’s a fighter. I mean, he’s been declared dead by the pollsters, and twice by his own doctor.” -Jay Leno
“Well, gosh, only four more days, and then Sarah Palin has to give all those clothes back.” -Jay Leno
“Palin has had another tough week. One of McCain’s big supporters, former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, was asked if she was ready to be vice president. He said, ‘Of course not.’ Not just no, ‘of course not.’ And they asked Palin what she thought of Eagleburger. She said, ‘It went well with fries and a light beer.'” -Bill Maher
“While speaking at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania, which is Pittsburgh Pirate territory, Sarah Palin was booed when she said that she was thrilled to be here in the home state of the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies. Though, in fairness to Palin, she’s not used to states with more than one city.” -Seth Meyers
“It’s funny, the rats are already deserting the sinking ship. McCain’s people are behind the scenes, scapegoating Sarah Palin. They have called her, so far, a ‘whack job,’ a ‘diva,’ and ‘going rogue.’ You know, say what you will about the Democrats. At least when they hook up with an unstable woman, it’s just for a blowjob.” -Bill Maher
“As you know, a lot of voters in Florida have already cast their ballots using early voting. And here’s the weird part. George Bush was declared the winner again.” -Jay Leno
“Daylight savings time, change your clocks back. … If there’s one thing we need, it’s another hour of 2008. President Bush has already turned the clocks back to 1929.” -David Letterman
“Think about it. In less than a week, President Bush will be a lame duck, as opposed to just being a lame president.” -Jay Leno
“How many watched Obama’s big TV special this week? Well, it was on seven stations, you could hardly avoid it. But it was interesting, because he did a half-hour infomercial. … Never mentioned McCain, never mentioned Palin, never mentioned George Bush. Or as Shakespeare people call it: history, comedy, and tragedy.” -Bill Maher
“It was reported today that 33 million people saw Barack Obama’s infomercial. 33 million people. Very successful, yeah. As a result, John McCain’s thinking of making one, but his is for the Craftmatic adjustable bed.” -Conan O’Brien
“Apparently, McCain’s plan to destroy the Obama campaign by calling him a socialist is not exactly catching fire. Possibly because most voters under 40 think a socialist is someone who spends a lot of time on Facebook.” -Bill Maher
“Oprah Winfrey says she plans to attend Barack Obama’s election night rally in Chicago. That’s great, yeah. So, win or lose, Obama’s going home with a new car.” -Conan O’Brien
Our anachronistic Electoral College makes no sense any more.
The Electoral College is left over from the days when presidents were elected by appointed representatives from each state. Each state gets a number of electors to the Electoral College equal to the number of Representatives and Senators it has in Congress. This distorts how much influence each state has on picking the president not only because of the extra two Senators, but also because states with extremely low populations still get at least one Representative. As a result, voters from states with very low populations tend to be over-represented in the Electoral College, plus there are rounding errors. This is shown in the following chart (from the New York Times):
The light colored numbers in each state show how many actual voters are represented by each Elector, with the size of the state showing the relative influence of each voter. The least represented voters this election are in Florida, where each Elector represents 479,878 voters. The most represented voters are in Wyoming, where each Elector represents 134,783 voters. That means that each Wyoming voter has 3.56 times more say than a Florida voter over who will be the next president!
So much for “one person one vote”. This is way worse than any voter fraud we have ever seen — can you imagine the uproar if we found out that people from certain areas were voting three times instead of once?
I know, I know, I run a blog called “Political Irony” but sometimes something comes along that is so ironic that it boggles even my jaded mind. Esquire Magazine has a fascinating report on the political views of white supremacists, racists, and other hate-mongers and finds that many of them are supporting Obama for the presidency! Here are some of their views:
Rocky Suhayda, chairman of the American Nazi Party:
White people are faced with either a negro or a total nutter who happens to have a pale face. Personally I’d prefer the negro. National Socialists are not mindless haters. Here, I see a white man, who is almost dead, who declares he wants to fight endless wars around the globe to make the world safe for Judeo-capitalist exploitation, who supports the invasion of America by illegals–basically a continuation of the last eight years of Emperor Bush. Then, we have a black man, who loves his own kind, belongs to a Black-Nationalist religion, is married to a black women–when usually negroes who have ‘made it’ immediately land a white spouse as a kind of prize — that’s the kind of negro that I can respect.
Tom Metzger, director of White Aryan Resistance and former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan:
The corporations are running things now, so it’s not going to make much difference who’s in there, but McCain would be much worse. He’s a warmonger. He’s a scary, scary person–more dangerous than Bush.
Erich Gliebe, chairman of the National Alliance and former pro boxer with the nickname “The Aryan Barbarian”:
Obama might be a better candidate for our cause because he’s racially conscious. … I give Obama credit, he seems to have stuck to his guns as far as pulling the troops out of Iraq. He’s a very intelligent man, an excellent speaker and has charisma. John McCain offers none of that. Perhaps the best thing for the white race is to have a black president. My only problem with Obama is perhaps he’s not black enough.
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