• Force the Big 3 into bankruptcy
• “New labor agreements”
• Fire the management
• Management/Labor harmony
• Profit sharing for the workers
• A “managed bankruptcy”

I remember Amy Goodman venting her spleen against Bill Clinton for bombing Sudan. World peace was something that could be advocated for in the 90s. Now it’s a joke. I think peace is a high priority, but people who think that just because it worked for Ghandi against the British and MLK against the Americans think it will always work everywhere are just as incorrect and unscientific as people who think war will solve any solution.

That is the problem with beliefs. They need to be reexamined if you are going to hold them in good faith. If they fail, drop them. In the 90s, possibly 15% of the Republican agenda was more reality based than faith based, and in the last 10 years, probably 75% of the liberal agenda was reality based. But that’s not 100%.

Another big issue in the 90s was the environment. Not just global warming. The whole environment. Again, that was possible because the climate in the 90s wasn’t an idiocracy. But the belief of many on the left was that you had to be a vegan that used no electricity not to be scum. Most of those people forgot about the old liberal idea of feeding hungry people. 

This sounds like a bunch of right-wing concern trolling. It would be that if it was just rhetoric, all fake. But the truth is, you have to keep the goal in sight and reexamine your beliefs. I believe we can feed ourselves keep the lights on and not destroy the planet. I’m a vegetarian, but I don’t think meat is murder, even if our current means of producing meat are broken.

I also think we can defend ourselves without waging war for sport.

But looking back over 6+ years of blog archives, I noticed how after Iraq I stopped writing about ideas as much, and more about politics and opposition to Republicans.

When I was walking precincts for Obama, no one at the office asked me what kind of car I had (though it was a Prius), whether I ate meat (though I am a vegetarian), or whether I’m religious. That was because we all banded together to bring home this last minute win, which may actually have been too late—we’ll see.

In the late 90s, though, I was cross examined for ideological purity when I went to meetings like that. I usually left.

I guess it’s time for me to part company with the activist left again, because they’re already becoming a force for division, already launching a fusillade against Obama.

They are really mad because the are being shown that they aren’t as powerful as they pretended to be—just like the ideological right often was. This is childish. They think they deserve an equal return on their investment. No one in politics gets that. You’re lucky to get pennies on the dollar and are more likely to have your dollars simply taken.

But, like children, if you capitulate to their demand for a toy, they play with it for a while and then just want another new one, when other kids get nothing.

Well, kids, we got the equivalent of a new bike, a puppy, a Nintendo, and a treehouse all in one day and we’re mad that we didn’t also get a remote control car.

Seriously—if you give up this easy, get out of politics. There is no “when are we done” or “when do we get our reward.” There is no end game, no teleology. It will go on forever.

My interest in this story is purely that “who farted?” reaction from the lefty blogosphere. They may not realize this, but they probably jumped the shark as “community” or “movement” when they started piling on Obama like he fumbled at a gay neudist football championship in the mud the minute he got 270 EVs on the board.

B-b-b-b-but this isn’t “change?” It’s not? I think it’s magnanimous. What do the kids these days have against the 90s anyway? The music was better, the drugs were more spiritual, our country had a peace dividend…anyway, I’m not exactly sure why this offends so many (former?) Obamites (the same kind of “Obamites” that were hosing us with Pro-Edwards bile up until the Iowa results started coming in) anyway.

As a for HRC supporter, I have marveled at Obama’s flawless execution. Why would I give up on him now?

There’s $700B to Happy Hank and $130B to AIG and so on and so forth, but Congress won’t cough up money for the auto industry?

I’ll be the first to lay blame at the US automakers. The last car they made worth owning was early editions of the Saturn. There should be about 1/10th the number of models and makes. (Mercury/Buick/etc.) Their “all in” move on SUVs was typically short-sighted. Et cetera.

But no matter what you think about American cars, they employ people. They make real things that people need. Can you say that about any of these paper-illusion financial companies?

I think the politics behind this is that the Republicans want to blame the auto industry’s failure on the UAW as a way to block any pro-Union legislation in the upcoming Congress. Of course a large part of this industry’s problems would go away if they weren’t paying for health care for their workers—god forbid an American job should do that…or just in general to make Obama’s job as impossible as possible.

So, even though this industry employs literally millions of people with decent jobs we’re not going to help them, but we’re going to bail out the douchebag brooks brothers mafia that continue to plop out of the anus of B-schools that created this mess in the first place??? While those assholes are whining about their bonuses and lecturing Congress for daring to attach any strings to their bailout, you know lest it fail to instill “confidence” in the market—most of Congress and the press being stupid enough to fall for that, since they actually believe that the “Market” has feelings (will anthropologists in the future think that we all worshipped an invisible, cruel, capricious, sacrifice-demanding God named “Market”?) and that the lede of every trading day news article isn’t essentially written by coin-flip, ouija board, and Magic 8-ball—the guy down the street from you that fixes mufflers at the dealer is getting laid off because GM is delaying rebate payments to their dealers for 2 weeks. Your cousin out east is getting laid of from his factory job.

That’s right. 3 million people—1% of all Americans—depend on the auto industry for their job. No bailout for you! Not even with strings attached. Not even with raised CAFE standards, or plugin and flex fuel technologies, or anything. Nothing.

It’s the final shitburger served up to the dying middle class by the Republican effort to make this country into a banana republic fit for fedualism. And this final shitburger may be more deadly than the other ones.

I’ve gone mute screaming at the pussified weak puny senate democrats to actually force a real filibuster for once. If you were holding out for one, this would be the time. How much money could we raise with pictures of that sagging semen colored multiple chinned shark-eyed dumb fuck Mitch McConnel reading the phone book at 3 a.m. to kill the American auto industry?

P.S. For the love of God—can we PLEASE stop hearing about these asshole “Reagan Republicans” in Michigan now? #%&#$@!@^&*(# Congratulations on turning your state into the first Anglo-American wasteland on the North American continent.

Obama continues to build his team of rivals.

Why do people who have been systematically oppressed seem to—well—systematically oppress when given the chance? In Jewish history, an honest assessment of the behavior of Israel forces one to ask: how can a country filling up with what was left of European Jewry and Jewish refugees from Muslim countries be so numb, so utilitarian about the plight of the Palestinians?

The answer is simple. Oppression and violence literally numb your brain. These emotions operate at a lower, more primitive part of your brain than empathy and logic. When you force people into survival mode, this is what you get. Jews in 1948 were in survival mode.

In truth, the working class in America has been in survival mode since at least the early 1970s. Trade liberalization, no increase in real wages since the 1970s, destruction of entry paths to the middle class, and so on have made workaday America suffer enough to deaden their minds to the plight of others. This phenomenon is not limit to the inner city or to the immigrant worker shanty towns. It’s also expressed in the rusting small towns of the midwest, the Wal-Mart wastelands of America.

When you’re in survival mode, it’s easy to dehumanize others as trying to get a piece of the small crumbs of survival that are out there. It also demands explanation. And to the extent that right wing religion provides that answer—and gives people’s life meaning: it’s not about your physical survival, it’s about your spiritual survival, and for that you have to vote Republican—to that extent, it prevails.

What’s so different about Proposition 8 is that it is not like the Civil Rights movement in the sense  that it has anything to do with the pie. It’s not “allowing” someone else to take part in the New Deal the way Civil Rights was. The difference? People don’t see this issue as part of the source of their pain, they see it as part of their mission that relieves that pain. To uphold what they think is God’s law.

That any oppressed group voted for this initiative in strong numbers is therefore no surprise. But as Rev. Irene Monroe put it Prop 8 is not about black homophobia. Even if blacks had voted against Prop 8 in the 90-100% range, it’s debatable whether it would have passed or not.

Therefore, to the extent that any gay groups are using this to call out blacks, they are only displaying latent racism. It’s probably tough to watch the epoch-making election of Barack Obama on the same night that so many express hate towards you, so to the extent this isn’t based in racism, it’s based on being put into the mode where the lower survival instinct predominates, where those in control of their faculties can control you. So, this acrimony between the gay and black communities is, in my opinion, a symptom of the underlying problem and needs to stop.

It reminds me of black/Jewish acrimony. Blacks are correct to point out that in this country Jews have had an easier time than them; Jews are correct to point out that they were the target of the world’s only industrialized genocide. Comparing oppression as if to somehow create priority only furthers the cycle of pain, it does not transcend it.

Which is why as much as I respect and admire Rev. Monroe, I was frankly a bit shocked at a couple of the things she said on the radio yesterday regarding this.

First, she criticized gay use of Civil Rights era stories, accusing them of “appropriating” them. This is silly. Dr. King “appropriated” the stories from the Bible, some of them Jewish—The Promised Land, anyone? The point is, freedom from oppression is a universal struggle among all of us. It is not something that is the property of any group. The Civil Rights movement is owned by all humanity. To say otherwise is to deprive it of any transcendent meaning and make it just another one of history’s one uppings.

This does point out one big problem with the gay liberation movement. They don’t have the powerful symbols, the Jackie Robinsons, the Malcolm Xs, the Dr. Kings, or the Barack Obamas (lest I “appropriate” the parallel) that blacks had. It shouldn’t be required, but the practical effect would be enormous.

Second, she lectured the gay community on its “white privilege.” That’s picking a fight. See, white gays can “hide.” So, if you can “hide” that makes you more free? That’s nonsense. No one should have to hide. It’s not a feature, it’s a bug. Particularizing a universal struggle like this only once again works on the exclusive/survival level and does not break the cycle. It also again suggests a prioritization of one group’s oppression.

Third, she criticized the gay community for not appropriately reaching out to the black community and using them as tokens. Honestly, if you’re just going to get lectured on “white privilege” I’m not sure that outreach would go too well.

This is not a failure to be imputed to blacks as a whole or as an explanation for their vote. Some of the black leadership groups that one might reach out do come off as insular, just like many Jewish groups, or gay groups. Alas, everyone is mostly into their own problems.

Fourth, Mark Thompson, whom I also respect and admire, insisted that racism can only come from those in power. I strongly disagree. Institutional racism can only come from those in power, but even in one on one relationships someone can have the power to oppress another. And who runs what institution varies from place to place. To say that racism only goes with power again sounds dismissive of the oppression of other groups, even those that might share in some “white privilege” like Jews and white gays. That does not mean the absence of that oppression.

I wish people smart to cycles of oppression and violence would see the conflict between oppressed groups for what it is: divide and conquer.

The genius of King and Ghandi (and the Abrahamic story of the binding of Isaac in the Jewish tradition) is the breaking of that cycle. You have to use nonviolence to break that cycle. You have to refrain from engaging in white/male/straight/christian/ivy league privilege, from democratic majority power privilege to break the cycle of oppression too.

I’m not naive enough to suggest that you can always use non-violence, or that we need to all hold hands and have a kumbaya moment. But cold, calculating strategy requires at least the end of a circular firing squad.

P.S. The Obama era is going to be a tough time for some African-American groups. They are going to correctly point out that Obama’s election is largely symbolic and didn’t put hope back in the ghettoes. And they aren’t going to be heard as well as they used to be. I hope the messaging can be reworked to gain listeners. My suggestion would be the universalization of the struggle in the message, while working towards goals for the particular community. It may sound like a “sell out” but this is going to be a different era.

UPDATE: Can’t do it. I just don’t have enough data at the moment to do it. So no official call using an empirical method, though I will say that I foresee Begich winning.

Hillary’s plan may have had more entry political costs. But that was something to worry about when we thought this election would be close. Obama’s plan means people will often wait until they are sick to buy in, which means that the Republicans get a cost issue built in.

This is very, very good news.

UPDATE: I am informed that we cannot impeach Obama until he’s sworn in. GET ON THE PHONE TO THOSE ELECTORS NOW!

I’ve been for class-based affirmative action since I was in high school, so I’m actually glad to see this. I guess part of me just feels the timing is a bit tacky. I do think that affirmative action is now a politically difficult argument for liberals. Yeah, yeah, I know, I get it. I know why Obama’s getting elected doesn’t help the ghetto. I’m not saying it does. I’m saying Joe the Sixpack won’t get that.

I’m sure there’s a post or seven where I’ve related this. But any of my college friends can vouch that I’ve been talking about this for a while. (:

Plus, I’m not sure people are 100% sure about the optics of fighting over who gets into elite schools. The last go-round was the University of Michigan. Sure, it doesn’t sound like Harvard to some, but take a look at their ratings. They are one of the best public schools in the country.

I feel like this is part of my own personal stump speech, but: if you want equality in college attendance, fix the kindergartens, hell fix pre-schools!

…when God gives you peace from all the enemies around you in the land that יהוה your God is giving to you to occupy as a heritage, you must obliterate the memory of Amalek from under the heavens. You must not forget.

Deut. 25:19

In perpetuating and adapting this great tradition, I will be blotting out the name of Sarah Palin on this blog, because we have been given (temporary) peace from the enemies all around us in a world we have given ourselves. We must not forget.

In the 90s, I had a lot to say about core philosophical values of the liberal mainstream. I argued, for example, for class-based, not race-based, affirmative action and the use of federalism to liberal advantage in liberal states. 

I started a blog with the earliest bloggers, and for a while I was on the blog roll with some of those that rose to blogger-stardom. I was too involved in my education, and later my work-life, to keep up. But the first wave of important blogging arose with the 2000 presidential election. Particularly, Talking Points Memo and the Daily Howler. These, along with Altercation, the Kaus Files, and conservative equivalents largely rose from the ranks of second-string political writers that already had a few bylines to their credit.

Sui generis bloggers, like Kos and those that sprang from him, mostly arose in opposition to the Bush administration in the wake of the traditional media’s utter obeisance to Bush after 9/11. Many of the political blogs at this time were uninfluential, poorly written, and more or less useless. 

For the first time, it’s worth point out, a very old 80s BBS era facility had an important influence on the Internet: the WELL, a San Francisco-based BBS, one of the few BBSes that had nationwide users, in its iteration as an Internet site ultimately became the nursery for literally thousands of blogs. Most pre-Internet computer systems were destroyed by the Internet in its early years—only a very few, like AOL held out for any significant period of time. I note this because BBSes were an early forum for electronic political discourse.

What blogs ended up being part of was the biggest part of the new generation of the Democratic Party, the generation that got us to where we are today. That was: the realization that traditional non-party institutions were not reliable political allies against the manufactured conservative institutions.

• The Brookings Institution is a non-partisan think tank; it is no counterweight to the dozen or so influential Conservative think tanks that are not hesitant about their status as a cog in a larger machine.
• The New York Times et al. are not partisan papers; they are no counterweight to the numerous explicitly partisan news sources like Fox News, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, and so forth. Most traditionally “liberal” magazines, like The Nation of Mother Jones, while reliably liberal, are free agents, and are not part of a liberal movement.
• The American Bar Association is a non-partisan association; it is no counterweight to the expressly partisan Federalist Society, which, over it’s roughly 30 years in existence has been a ticket to insiderdom for conservative law students, and has created a powerful network of conservative lawyers and judges.
• The handful of non-political radio shows that survived the 90s survived by never touching on the subject. For example, liberal firebrand Tom Leykis, who spent hours ripping Rush Limbaugh’s guts out in the late 80s reinvented himself as an overdriven male chauvanist who taught his listeners how to get laid, and lampooned political talk radio as stuff that people “don’t care about.” In other words, there was literally nothing on radio to counter the army of conservative talkers, and little in the whole world to counter it at all.
• The mainline Protestant churches emptied. Younger Christians flocked to evangelical strip mall churches, whose message was extremely conservative. You would hear a quip here and there about Jesus being a liberal, but the only growing liberal religious institution that I am aware of in the 90s was the Jewish Reform movement, which became the largest group by the end of the 90s.

The Democratic conceit that the truth is liberal, and, therefore the reliable establishment institutions like the foregoing would ultimately come around to their position relies on the premise that the truth ultimately matters. In the long, long term it does. In the short 2-4 years of an election cycle, it does not. So, the spin and carefully orchestrated messaging of the conservative movement grew powerful enough to stop Clinton, move him to the right, then impeach him. In the aftermath of the 2000 election, it became apparent that enough of this messaging had permeated the mainstream media and the public at large that the unconstitutional theft of an election would just be another scandal, not a giant deal. It was time to do something.

In the wake of 2000, a generation of liberals awoke to the reality that it wasn’t just their style of politics that was losing, but the entire infrastructure dedicated to their message. Why this hadn’t occurred to them during the 1980s, or why no one had noticed the buildup of partisan Conservative institutions after 1964, is for someone of that era to answer for.

I was on the cutting edge of this work as well; much more intimately, in fact. I founded the chapter of the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy at my law school. I debated the Federalists. I saw my chapter’s postings around school be stolen or covered with obscene pro-conservative graffiti. It was very tough to be liberal in late 2001.  

At the same time, other important liberal institutions rose up. Air America, to put liberal talkers on the radio. The Center for American Progress became the liberal*movement*’s think tank (and gave birth to the fame of Atrios blogger Duncan Black). Though far from complete or powerful even now, the groundwork for a meaningful religious left has been laid, though it is still disproportionately Jewish.

But the most noticeable counterpunch came from the blogs. 

It was the counterweight to conservative-dominated talk radio before Air America and a big part of it afterward. But more importantly, it was bloggers that pointed out how the “so called liberal media” had been corrupted by the need to profit, and took a no holds barred approach to criticizing their coverage. Yes, not everything you read on a blog is true; but everything that is true is almost certainly pointed out in a blog. The former is still true of the traditional media, but the latter is not. The traditional media had a tendency to severely underreport or not report the truth in the 2000s. It’s not so much that they were reporting lies as truth (though they did xerographically report the lies of others), but more that they simply were cowed by the conservatives. Reporting the “truth” meant criticism of the ends-justified means used by Bush to defend America.

The rise of liberal institutions was created in the same righteous indignation that the Conservative institutions were. They also rose during a period of an almost total eclipse of their power, just like the Conservatives.

But what is brewing in the snap-your-fingers instant flash of the Internet age is a scary answer to the question as to whether these liberal institutions have produced elected leaders that are utterly unable to transition from opposition to governance, which was the ultimate and essential failure of the conservative movement.

Almost instantly after he reached 270 EVs on Tuesday night, the opposition blogosphere began new uproars over the appropriate staffing of an Obama administration and howls of protest at the impending selection of Rahm Emmanuel as chief of staff. Already, these opposition-born institutions are showing that they are going to, at best, have trouble supporting the sausage-making of a liberal agenda more than painting a utopian picture on a blank slate in opposition. This same problem had a lot to do with Ralph Nader’s popularity in 2000, which was enough to be a necessary but not sufficient cause of Al Gore’s defeat. Worse, in 2000 these institutions didn’t exist. Will they create an anti-Obama frankenstein that is more like Ross Perot than Ralph Nader in 2012?

And the 2006 Democratic Congress does not appear to be an encouraging answer to the question of the guerillas ability to run the capital either. This is because the Democratic Congress is a dangerous blend of old school holdouts whose seats are so safe they have little if anything ever to fear, and who come from the pre-institutional, establishment era, and the new group of opposition-born members. There are not many members of the Democratic caucuses in either house whose seat they took from the Republicans during the Clinton era.

The old group are likely to reject a forceful Obama program, or amend it to death; the latter are all too likely to reject it as not radical enough. The former group wouldn’t move to impeach Bush when the public supported it; the latter did it before it was shown to be accepted by the public and could have damaged the party’s prospects of retaking the White House.

The bloggers will likely support the more radical group of Congressmembers who can cling to their utopian opposition style within the majority by offering amendments that will get rejected. These opposition minded bloggers will most likely not be able to learn vicariously that the progressive agenda moves forward much much faster with a Democrat than without one. Unfortunately, some aren’t even old enough to remember that that’s what Clinton did in an era of conservative ascendancy. When he and Gore weren’t liberal enough, they cast them away. Again, it’s unknown how this will apply in the liberal institutional era. Not being conservative enough did hurt Bush in 1992, but even the most ugly conservative bloggers came around to reluctant support of McCain in 2008.

I’ll use the analogy of airspeed versus groundspeed. If your airspeed is 200 mph in a 100 mph headwind, you are only going 100mph groundspeed. Clinton faced a massive, organized, and ruthless headwind, yet still had a positive, if small, groundspeed.

Obama has a tailwind, much of it from the liberal institutions and their supports, including the bloggers. Whether that wind stops blowing or changes direction altogether is too early to call.

But as Alex Bennett pointed out during the election, he wouldn’t lose his shtick if Obama won, because others, he will always be too far to the left, but also because he’s not part of a liberal institution that would check his criticism, like Air America. I’ve heard comedians worry that without Bush they’ll lose their shticks too. 

The question is whether or not fear of losing their shticks will cause them to put self over cause and begin a self-immolating criticism of Obama before he has even taken office. So far the signs don’t look good. Maybe things will improve when the Right starts its first bona fide attacks on Obama as President and people get defensive. We’ll see.

But if the last 8 years don’t give you pause about “heightening the contradictions” and their cost, then nothing ever will.

http://omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2835&u_sid=10481441

It’s the liberals.

Are you people fucking serious? If ever there was a time to STFU it is now. Two days after America restores itself after this nightmare and you’re already going to call plays from the booth?

Ugh.

Seven months ago…Judge Posner clamored for re-regulation, beating his economic soulmate Bubbles Greenspan to the punch by six months.

Nine months ago… still in the heat of the primaries, I said here’s $5 Obama won’t repeal NAFTA. I stand by that prediction, and I stand by the prediction that Obama is not a liberal. But he simply transcended those old categories by creating new ones. What I had wrong (and I wasn’t alone, but Mr. MacGregor called it) was that this was a new era election, not an old era one.

…at the same time I also congratulated Obama for winning 2008’s “Most important state.” Pretty astute of me, if I do say so.

…and, I said game over to Hillary on Feb. 10. But of course I thought she had it in the bag in the end of January (doh!)

But, once again, Mr. MacGregor kicked my ass and called it (the primary)the whole enchilada for Obama on January 7. (!) Nice.

Can someone please explain to me the late 2007 right-wing Obama moves? I still don’t understand them, or the attacks on now Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, who should be getting a job in this new administration as an apology.

I think the primary was a good thing for Democrats and for Obama. He had to get his polish. And—wow! did he ever get his polish!

Here’s a good one from August 10…*2007* bitching about the Glass-Steagall repeal.

I like this one now: we need “revolution” not impeachment. It was worth the wait.

Anyway, we did a damn good job working up to this. Now I plan to wrap 2008 up and take a break from politics, (re)learn how to play the guitar and get back to my other interests.

Polemic called Kentucky based on benchmark counties at 6:34 est. The Networks waited until 7:01. They beat us by three minutes on Vermont. We called SC at 7:35 and WV and 7:37. CBS called SC at 7:48. We were just about tied on the big load of obvious at 8. NBC called PA before I could even get my spreadsheet fired up. Us 4, Media 2.

Of course, we called the election at 8:02, a full three hours before the nets, but whatever.

We called Indiana at 1:12a.m. est. I don’t have the official time on NBC’s call, but it was around 2:08.

Us 6, media 2.

We called North Carolina at 2:11a.m. est, again, not on a whim, but based on solid data no different than any of the other decisions desks might have. Could we have been wrong? Sure. But our methodology was sound. And we were right. Big scoop here.

Us 7, media 2.

I  recently called NE-02. We’ll see if anyone else follows me, but it’s looking good.

So, what are the conclusions here? To me it’s that the Internet and a decent education let you run the numbers no differently than the big boys do. The only difference is that we don’t feel like we have to wait for the polls to close (e.g. KY), or to heighten the drama. Obama should have been called president when he reached 200 EVs and California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington (all states that would be called on exit and pre-polling, with no data from actual results entered before the call) would put him over the top.

That’s a touchdown. Us 14, media 2.

Now what about before election day? Our map was only off by 13 EVs. Just taking NBC’s gutless map for example, they had Obama with 286 and a bunch of tossups. Make a freakin’ call, pussies. That’s a field goal.

Us 17, media 2.

We also predicted correctly that the Congressional wave would not be as large as some (e.g. Charlie Cook) thought because of the RNC’s decision to pull out of the Presidential race. Cook’s “wave” theory is only predictive if all of the underlying dynamics are the same, because five or six elections is not enough to produce a scientific law. We looked at the polling data, without applying non-scientific biases.

Us 18, media 2.

We immediately recognized <strike>Palin</strike> was a disaster. Unwavering. The media caught on, about three weeks later. Field goal.

Us 21, media 2.

Not bad. It just goes to show you. Data may sometimes give you wrong answers, but people who are on TV aren’t the only ones who can get it. And their countervailing interests go against accuracy and news reporting.

UPDATE: Us 24, Media 2. We beat everyone on NE-02 by about a full day. Lol.

Method: Approximately 17,000 votes to be counted. Obama won early voting 61%. 5,200 provision ballots, assuming 2/3rds validity are split 50/50 (a conservative estimate for) gives McCain +2600+2900=5,500, Obama +2600+6100=8700 for a net of approximately 3,200, or, about 5 times his current deficit of 569 votes.

P.S. Just to brag: we got twothree forecasts wrong here (NE-02, NC and ND) but all of our actual calls, including some made hours ahead of others, have been correct. And they have all been based on data and sound methodology.

But, it’s over, so all’s well that ends well.

robocall1

…and here’s one that I recorded but did not send out.

robocall21

Didn’t know Africa was a country.

Didn’t know who was in NAFTA.

Came out to debate prep in a towel.

Refused interview prep for Couric interview.

Had hissy fits.

Even if all of this is true, none of it is true. It is coming from Mitt Romney loyalists that are doing their best to throw the sinking Palin an anchor and get her out of the 2012 race, which began, honestly, a few weeks ago when the RNC pulled its money from McCain to save its incumbents. 

The fact that these GOP staffers are hitching their wagon to Romney, whom we all couldn’t get enough of, show just how miserable that party is today. I doubt Charlie Crist can survive his “confirmed bachelor” status, but anyway. I would love to see Palin be the nominee—so fight the lies!!!

Raleigh Observer: Unofficial returns show Obama ahead by 13,746 votes.

Trends over the last 14 years point to Obama having a wider lead after the provisionals are counted, said Gary Bartlett, executive director of the State Board of Elections.

“It widens the lead for the winner, no matter who that may be,” Bartlett said.

So, he states a method, and a reason why McCain won’t make up the 13k+ votes. Obama wins NC. It and ND were the only state I got wrong. Not bad. So far as I know, only the NE-2 is outstanding.

That makes the final score 364/365 to 173/174.3, just under a 2-1 EV advantage for Obama.

Update: NE-2 appears that it will go narrowly for McCain. I don’t expect many recounts in the Presidential races, because there aren’t enough close states to matter.

But what should matter is how effective voter suppression was in the Ozark-Appalachian Axis.

UPDATE: AP calls North Carolina for Obama.

After upsetting the Newyarkansas Clintons in the eight overtime of Game 57 in their best 29 out of 57 series to capture the Democratic Conference Championship the Chicago Obamas were strong favorites against the Conservatron Conference Champion Arizona McSames. The Democratic Conference had been outperforming the Conservatron Conference all year. Even though the McSames’ run to the Finals was swift after they recovered from poor play in the quarterfinals, their competition was weak whereas the Obamas emerged from, arguably, the strongest and deepest field in Democratic Conference history.

The talent gap was evident from the drop of the puck. The Obamas scored on their first rush up ice on a patented tic-tac-toe Obama Great Speech to start the general campaign. On the next shift, the Obamas caught the McSames’ Lobbyists skating through the neutral zone with their head done. The Obamas delivered a devastating, Stevensesque clean open ice hit on the Lobbyists by noting that their presence was contrary to the McSames’ famous rhetoric. The McSames’ Lobbyists were concussed out of the game and the referees were forced to pick their teeth off the ice like so many wayward Chiclets.

The McSames’ strategy relied heavily on the Lobbyists’ efforts. The Obamas continued to dominate play and it appeared that it was just a matter of time before they broke the game wide open. The McSames made it to the Finals by adapting, however, and they brought in Steve Schmidt off waivers from the Texas Bushes to change their strategy. Schmidt cut down on the McSames sloppy play and established a forecheck by noting that the Obamas had limited direct foreign policy experience. After a few strong shifts the McSames got too aggressive with their talking point. The McSames careless use of their stick by noting that the Obamas had not visited several foreign countries drew blood and the Obamas were awarded a four minute power play. The Obamas applied constant presure on the first half of the power play and finally scored off a rebound with Obama’s Foreign Tour to take a 2-0 first period lead into the locker room.

The McSames retooled their attack in the intermission and shocked the Obama’s by springing an advertisment short-handed breakaway. The McSames scored five hole with the Celebrity Commercial to cut the Obamas’ lead in half. The unexpected goal appeared to rattle the Obamas, and while the McSames were not generating much offense, they were exceeding expectations by keeping the score close. Despite the Obamas’ almost supernatural talent, by the mid-point of the contest it had become clear that they could not polish off the McSames without the tough, down-low, home spun “grinding,” cycling and forechecking game perfected by the Newyarkasas Clintons that had produced the last National Presidential League champions from the Democratic Conference in 1992 and 1996.

The Obamas successfully integrated the Clintons into their attack during the Democratic Convention. The new teammates produced several strong shifts, and long periods of puck possession, but could not score another goal. Obama’s Convention Speech hit the post.

The McSames immediately reversed the Obamas’ Convention momentum by calling up a little known right-winger named Sarah Nilap from the Melting Tundra League’s Wasilla Meth Houses. Although the Wasilla Meth Houses are a Conservatron Conference farm team, the young phenom had impressed drunken Conservatron scouts with her nice Talent & Acumen for pleasant blathering laced with distilled hatred. The unexpected entrance of Nilap on the first-line as Vice-Presidential Candidate and her controversial family and personal history upended the contest and turned it into a penalty fest. The McSames took control of this narrative in their Convention and produced a goal on a one-timer from the top of the right circle with Nilap’s VP Acceptance Speech. The contest was tied heading into the third period.

The McSames emerged from the intermission with momentum and carried play for the first time in the entire contest, producing scoring chances on  every shift. Their best opportunity came on the Lipstick On A Pig one-timer from the blue line. Several spectators thought the shot had gone in, however, the Obamas’ goalie got a glove on it at the last moment by pointing out its conceptual abusrdity. The play was reviewed for two news cycles before the pundits declared that it glanced off the goalie’s glove, hit the cross bar, and sailed out of play.

The Obamas’ caught a break as the McSames shot the puck over the glass by declaring the “fundamentals of the economy are strong” in the face of the Great Economic Collapse. The McSames flailed about in the ensuing penalty kill, changing their strategy on an almost moment by moment basis. The Obamas kept the puck in the economic zone, and wore out the McSame’s defense finally scoring over the blocker on a give and go with their Understanding Of The Great Economic Collapse.

By this point the Obama’s had figured out that Nilap had good political instincts, but poor fundamentals. Rather than pressing Nilap and allowing her to react using her raw politicism, they forced her to make plays. The new strategy paid off as Nilap muffed a routine break out pass and banked the puck into her own net off a McSame defenseman’s skate by Being A Moron In The Katie Couric Interview. Nilap’s effectiveness was permanently marred by the mistake, and the Obama’s had a 4-2 lead.

The McSames understood that the contest was getting away from them and tried to change the momentum. McSame’s call to “suspend” his campaign forced off-setting penalties and the first four on four play of the contest. Although McSame initiated the four on four, it played directly into Obama’s strength of mental acuity, calmness, and economic understanding. McSame’s strategic errors during the four-on-four led to an easy two on one goal for the Obama’s by Displaying Superior Leadership In Crisis and a 5-2 lead.

The Obamas scoring outburst left the McSames with no choice but to play dirty. A series of high-sticks, elbows, trips, and dives by bringing up tenuous negative Obama associations excited the Conservatron partisans, but failed to intimidate the Obamas. The Obamas erased all doubt in the contest by putting home a backhander off a goal mouth scrum by Winning Every Debate and going up 6-2.

There were only five minutes left in the elimination game. With nothing to lose the McSame’s pulled their goalie for “‘Joe’ the ‘Plumber’” another unknown call up from the Ohio Delusional League. The McSame’s picked up the hitting, and kept the puck in the Obamas’ zone, but they did not get any more serious scoring chances. The Obamas iced the game with an empty net goal from Colin Powell’s Endorsement. The Obamas’ army of volunteers made no mistake in the closing seconds, fighting hard to the end despite the overwhelming lead.

As the buzzer sounded euphoria blossomed throughout the land like a thousand starbursts. After eight years of heartbreak and despair starting with the Texas Bushes controversial “chad in the crease” victory in the year 2000, the Democrats had at last regained President Washington’s Cup!

Chicago Obamas 7   Arizona McSames 2

Scoring Summary

First Period:

Obamas (1) :33, Obama Great Speech (McSame Green Screen, History Making); Obamas (2) 19:22, Obama World Tour (Power Play) (Foreign Enthusiasm, Media Excitement)

Second Period

McSames (1) :10, Celebrity Commercial (Short Handed) (Starlets, Complicit Media); McSames (2) 18:43 Nilap VP Acceptance Speech (Melodrama, Speechwriter).

Third Period

Obamas (3) 2:32, Understanding of Great Economic Collapse (Power Play) (Calmness, Reason); Obamas (4) 7:11, Nilap Being A Moron In Katie Couric Interview (Tina Fey Impression, Blogosphere); Obamas (5) 10:00, Displaying Superior Leadership In Crisis (Intelligence, Planning); Obamas (6) 14:33, Winning Every Debate (Unflappability, Joe Biden); Obamas (7) 18:01, Colin Powell Endorsement (Empty Net) (Call For National Unity, Intelligence).

Attendance - 115 Million

2008 National Presidential League Trophies

Conn Smythe Trophy - Barack Obama

Hart Trophy - Barack Obama

Lady Byng Trophy - Michelle Obama

Calder Trophy - Sarah Nilap

Art Ross Trophy - Obama Ground Game

Vezina Trophy - Hillary’s Establishment Support

Norris Trophy - Bill Clinton

Selke Trophy - Joe Biden

Masterson Trophy - Hillary Clinton

Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard Trophy - Barack Obama

Jack Adams Trophy - David Plouffe and David Axelrod

Holik Trophy - Joe Lieberman