Closing the book on another election

I used to write about politics on this site a lot more than I do now (hardly ever), but a presidential election is a big deal (aren't you glad you have me to confirm these things for you?), particularly one that was this interesting, so a few words would seem to be in order.

First things first - up until the early evening of Election Day, when it was apparent to everyone outside of the Fox News studio that the President was about to be elected to a second term, I thought Mitt Romney was going to be our next President.  President Obama had seemed off his game since his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in early September, where he delivered an uncharacteristically lifeless speech that never came close to threatening Bill Clinton's status as the greatest speaker within the Democratic Party.

After that, he clearly lost the first debate to Romney (I remember texting to a close friend, "WTF is going on?"), and did no better than achieve a draw in the other two.  Well, truth be told I can't really comment on the final debate, since I was devoted to other, more important pursuits - namely, Game 7 of the National League Championship Series.  But I saw enough of the clips afterward to know that it wasn't exactly a ringing victory for the President.  As we got closer to Election Day, I found it hard to believe that Nate Silver's numbers could be that right, and coupled with accurate accounts of Obama crowds that were a fraction the size of those that greeted him in 2008, it just seemed to me that the table was set for a narrow but painful loss.

Needless to say, I was wrong about that, and now Nate Silver is well on his way to becoming the most famous statistician in the world, and since Bill James made a name for himself with his annual Baseball Abstracts.  It's worth noting, for those who might be inclined to poo-poo the field of baseball statistics, that Silver once did a stint with The Baseball Prospectus.

And on Election Night, the President delivered a speech that was so moving and so conciliatory that it did two things - one, it made goose bumps stand up on my back, and two, it prompted me to send an email to another close friend with the comment, "where was THAT Obama during the campaign?"

I won't embed the entire speech here, but you should really check it out, even if you're not a fan of the president, because political oratory really doesn't get much better than this.  If you have just a moment, then fast forward to the final three minutes, which are positively masterful and include these words:

"...We are not as divided as our politics suggest, we are not as cynical as the pundits believe.  We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions.  And we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states.  We are and forever will be the UNITED States of America..."

With that, a couple of random observations:

- I was already well on my way to becoming a Twitter addict, but the one-two punch of Hurricane Sandy and now the election has put me well over the top.  In both instances, Twitter was way ahead of any other medium in reporting what was going on.  An indispensable source of information.

- Karl Rove's meltdown was really something to see.  Given that FOX was already straggling behind the other networks in making calls for the president, it was pretty ridiculous for him to suggest that there might be some ulterior motive in FOX calling Ohio for the president.  If I was a rich guy inclined to throw millions of dollars into the fire of political contributions, I'd sure want some assurance that the guy managing that money knew what the hell he was talking about.

So now, we shall see.  There are plenty of challenges out there, and plenty of people prepared to contribute nothing more than roadblocks to the debate, I suppose in order to prove some sort of point.  It's bound to get ugly very soon, what with the fiscal cliff and all (and now, the whole Petraeus thing), but I'd like to be optimistic that the sides can come together and actually do what the president's campaign promised, which was to move us forward.  Stay tuned.

Election Night Live Blog!

Election night live-blogging was really made for the East coast, where you can comment on all the state polls as they're closing. Here I am, just getting home from work, having changed out of my work suit ("professional dress," in the parlance of my Association), having poured myself a drink (starting tonight with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, planning to work up to something a little more celebratory a little later), and having fired up the computer.

So on CNN, the race currently stands at 199 Obama, 78 McCain. CNN (and apparently, all of the other networks) has just called Ohio for Obama, which means that the night is pretty much over, before it has begun. Absent a sinkhole or a tsunami that takes out the West Coast over the next three hours, the road to a McCain presidency is one that...well, I don't think it exists.

My voting experience this morning was unprecedented. I got to the polls just before 7 a.m., and usually when that happens I am in the "top five" (and have been the first voter on a number of occasions, which comes with the important duty of inspecting the voting machine. Well, today I was #44, which bodes well for a huge turnout.

More to come...time for dinner.

How Fleet Foxes Saved Me From the Presidential Campaign

When the presidential election season began in earnest with the first caucuses and primaries in January, I was filled with an enthusiasm that I hadn’t felt for years. I kept telling my kids, “pay close attention, because a presidential election is never going to get more interesting than the one playing itself out in 2008.” You had contested and interesting races in both parties, you had memorable candidates, you had historic candidates, and you had the prospect of an exciting campaign that would go right down to the wire.

Well, here we are just one day before the election, and I’m so sick of the whole thing that, more than anything else, I just want it to be over. Naïve though my hope may have been, I nonetheless hoped that this year we might be able to witness some real civil discourse and debate about the issues. That was not to be; instead, we got treated to a never-ending game of “gotcha” that had little or nothing to do with substance. And even when substantial issues were the subject, the tone of the attacks – the tone of the discussion – was so vicious and out of proportion to anything resembling reality that it just made my blood boil.

Now that most signs point to an Obama victory, the vitriol is really coming to the fore from the conservative side. Before I go any further, I should say that I have equal distaste for the vitriol coming from a substantial portion of the far left about this election. But this is what I’ve been reading today, and what has me angry enough to stick my head through a wall. And I think what bothers me most is the assumption underlying the thoughts of these authors is that they represent the mainstream of America’s thinking. Some samples:

“I understand that larger and larger swaths of America are turning purple if not blue as affluence coupled with tertiary education and cultural relativism transform more and more people into latte-drinking, NPR-listening, global-warming hysterics who regard Karl Rove as an evil genius and Sarah Palin as an anencephaltic breeding machine on skis.” • Roger Kimball, Pajamas Media

There truly are no gray areas in a mind like Roger Kimball’s. What really bugs me is the certainty with which Kimball writes of these “larger and larger swaths” of America. He clearly knows what is going on in the minds of every single Obama voter. He knows of their lives, their educations, their values, simply by the fact that they’re voting for Obama.

"...If he were telling the truth, I’d applaud him — and the Left would condemn him as a jack-booted racist.

But he’s lying — and all his cultists knows it.

In 2006, Obama marched shoulder-to-shoulder with illegal alien shamnesty activists in Chicago. He supports driver’s licenses for illegal aliens..."

• Michelle Malkin, from a column on her blog about Obama and his aunt.

I'm not going to link to this, but Malkin is easy enough to find if you want to read the entire column. This snippet is just one example of the hatred and the certainty that drive her world, one in which Obama supporters become “cultists.” Frankly, her work sickens me.

And then, over at Dr. Helen’s blog, which is one that I do link to (you can find it under “More Good Stuff” on the left), you have an entire recent discussion about how people should “pull a John Galt” and begin to withdraw from society, and withdraw from the economy to demonstrate their displeasure over Obama’s economic policies, should he be elected President. When I hear stuff like this, I think “what the hell is wrong with you people?” That kind of thinking strikes me as inherently more dangerous – and frankly more elitist – than anything that is coming from the center or the left.

Which is why Michele Catalano’s post from last week, “The Politics of Friendship,” came as such a breath of fresh air. Because this Michele gets it – she understands that there is more to a person than just their most deeply held political beliefs. You can be close friends with someone with whom you have widely disparate political views. But for whatever reason, in the current poisonous atmosphere – to which both left and right have contributed – the possibility of such a rational friendship and discussion is becoming less and less likely.

For me, this was the key portion of Catalano’s piece:

"...It saddens me that the political discourse in this country has become so volatile, so divisive that people are afraid to say who they are voting for. It saddens me that there are an awful lot of stories like mine out there, too many people who have felt a loss over politics. It happens with friends, at work, within families and it saddens me to know that there are way too many people out there who believe that anyone who doesn’t think exactly like they do are idiots. There are no shades of gray with these people. There is no room for differences. There is just this line they draw and if you cross over it, you must be a complete idiot with no redeeming qualities whatsoever..."

That just about says it all. There really is no gray area for these people, and they really are adding nothing to the discourse. They’re just making it harder to find real solutions to some very real problems.

So what, you may ask, does any of this have to do with Fleet Foxes? Well, more than any other single piece of music I’ve listened to in the past month, Fleet Foxes has provided an avenue for escape from the insanity of this campaign. Based in Seattle, the band is probably about to hit it big, because if Rolling Stone writes a feature on you, that usually means something. The band describes its music as “baroque harmonic pop jams,” and that description is as apt as anything that I could come up with. From the first strains of “Sun It Rises,” which sound like something straight out of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, to the end of “Oliver James,” the album is a perfectly realized piece of music, from a band that sounds as if it has been recording for twenty years, rather than just the few that it has been together.

In the Rolling Stone article, band leader Robin Pecknold makes reference to The Beach Boys and Pet Sounds, and you can hear some of that influence on Fleet Foxes, particularly in the harmonies and the falsetto singing. On some songs, particularly “White Winter Hymnal” and “He Doesn’t Know Why,” the only way to do the vocals justice is to call them breathtakingly beautiful. Interestingly, although the band is American, the record makes me think of some British artists of long (and even longer) ago: Aztec Camera, Big Country, and even Nick Drake.

The musicianship is also extraordinary, although it may be too laid back for some – think of a tight as a drum Grateful Dead, and you get the idea. There is nary a note out of place, and that might be off-putting for some. But when you’re looking to escape a poisonous atmosphere like the one surrounding the presidential campaign, I can’t think of a better alternative. The middle section of the album – “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” through “He Doesn’t Know Why” – is probably its strongest, though right now my favorite song would have to be “Blue Ridge Mountains.”

Where the album will stand in my top ten at year’s end is difficult to say, but it will definitely fall in there somewhere. But more than anything else, I thank the band for helping me survive this political season.

Election Night Memories: Part II

The second part of my Election Memories post:

1988. This was another desultory campaign season. Of course, everyone remembers how ridiculous Dukakis looked riding around in a tank, but the thing I remember most is his appearance on "Nightline" less than a week before the election, and how dull and uninspired his answers were. It was painfully clear right then and there that it was over. On election night, we had my parents over for a small election night dinner and viewing party, but the returns were so predictable that we ended up watching a special showing of "The Godfather" instead. Now there was some leadership.

1992. At long last - VICTORY! I admit to being skeptical about Bill Clinton at the beginning, but warming to him over the course of the campaign. I remember the debates as being the most entertaining of my lifetime, with Clinton mopping up the floor with President Bush (who, for some reason, kept looking at his watch as if he had somewhere more important to be), and the surreal interjections of Ross Perot. Election night was a quiet affair, now that we had a baby in the house, but I remember the memorable appearance of Clinton and Gore before a huge crowd in Arkansas shortly after the election was called for them.

1996. The Internet revolutionized election night partying - and this was the first election where California's Secretary of State's office finally got its act together and presented a workable election night returns site. Since the presidential race was a foregone conclusion, the action was in the California Legislature, where the Democrats were attempting to take back the State Assembly after having been swept away by the Republican Tidal Wave of 1994. I watched the returns come in on computer and TV at my office, joined by my other main men Scott and Stephen. I remember how surprised the cleaning crew was to find us eating pizza and drinking beer in our office around 11 p.m., and I remember that moment when it became clear that the Dems were going to take back the Assembly and end the short GOP reign at the top. Of course, with the terrible reapportionment plan of 2000, such excitement is no longer possible in California, which is one reason why I'm supporting Proposition 11.

2000. This was the biggie, of course. Scott and Stephen had made their merry ways out of CSU by then, but our Webmaster extraordinaire Dustin and I had a grand old time, outfitting the conference room with 6 laptops, all connected to the Internet. We followed the California races, we followed various state races, and around 1 a.m. we hooked up to the Secretary of State's office in Florida, to try and figure out what the hell was going on there. And of course, we watched the surreal performance of Dan Rather that night, he pulled enough odd phrases out of his hat to start or end a career, depending on your point of view.

2004. Another quiet night, and another disappointing one, as Kerry (a candidate for whom I had little enthusiasm) slowly sank into oblivion.

Which brings us to this year, and depending on how things pan out, I'm hoping to do a live blog. We shall see!

Election Night Memories - Part I

It was a close race, but I think that politics was my first obsession, just beating out baseball. I have clear memories of election night for each of the presidential election years since 1968, which probably says more about the way my mind works than anything else.

1968. I was 8 years old, oldest son in a family that prided itself on its hatred of Richard Nixon, going way back to the "Pink Lady" accusations of his first Congressional race. I suspect that the famous 1962 "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more" press conference was one of the highlights of my family's political lives. So in 1968 there was no doubt that we were a Hubert Humphrey family. I remember that we got our first cat on Election Day 1968, and of course we named him "Hubert." I remember that my parents let me stay up way past my bedtime, and that when I went to bed - it must have been around 11 p.m. - Humphrey was actually clinging to a slight lead. It probably seems amazing to young people today that California was once a solid "red" state (at least in presidential elections), and Nixon's victory in California was what put him over the top. It would send a shiver down my spine, except for the fact that ultimately, the story had a happy ending.

1972. Several memories of this election year. The Democratic nomination was still up for grabs when the candidates came to California for the June Primary Election, and it was around that time that my family began to gravitate towards George McGovern. I remember a Friday afternoon cocktail party (a staple of those days) where everyone agreed that McGovern was the man. I also remember getting a hard time from some of my sixth grade classmates when I proudly announced that "we" were for McGovern.

That summer was one of the hottest on record in Sacramento. When you look in The Sacramento Bee's daily weather records for mid-July, to this day the highs of mid-July 1972 stand as the highest ever. As it turned out, that week we were up at my grandmother's house in Sutter, which differed from Sacramento in that it never cooled down at night, because the fabled Delta Breezes didn't make their way that far up North. The low temp the night that George McGovern delivered his acceptance speech was 93, and it was quite unpleasant in the house, since my grandma did not have central air conditioning.

That fall, my middle school (known at the time as an "intermediate school") held a mock election, and that was around the time I met Craig, who remains to this day my longest and closest friend. We had the temerity to hold up a hand-made "McGovern for President" sign at the election rally, for which we were roundly booed. Nixon won the election by several hundred votes, but of course we had the last laugh. That election night was a desultory affair in our house, as the scope of the landslide became clear. What I remember about that night is that my mom was sick, so I accompanied my dad to their Tuesday night bowling league, where I was allowed to bowl in her place. That was definitely the highlight of the evening.

1976. After the debacle of 1972, we had vowed that we were going to get really involved in the 1976 election, but those plans were set aside because of our lack of enthusiasm for Jimmy Carter. My parents voted for him and I was "rooting" for him on Election Night, but there was really not much of an emotional connection. I do remember staying up late with my mom until the race was called, and it was really late - had to be after midnight.

1980. I was now at UC Berkeley, and I remember getting into a heated dorm discussion a few weeks before the election on the topic of whether a vote for John Anderson was a wasted vote. As a loyal Democrat I was planning to vote for Carter, which made me unique among the group holding the discussion - they were either for Anderson, or for Reagan. I remember the night of the lone presidential debate being the night that I saw my first Bruce Springsteen concert, and I remember on Election Night joining a impromptu "protest" march against Ronald Reagan. And finally, I remember the next day, when my Comparative Politics professor, Dr. Leslie Lipson, delivered an eloquent, off-the-cuff lecture on why he felt a Reagan presidency was going to be a disaster.

1984. Another desultory Election Night, as the outcome had been clear since...oh, about April. I probably remember less about this night than any of the others.

Wassup? Change.

Hat tip to my friend and colleague Stephanie, who posted this on her Facebook page.

No matter how you feel about this election, you have to admit that this is a great piece of work.

Finally...A Breath of Fresh Air

McCain and Obama at the Al Smith Memorial Dinner.

Both of them are genuinely funny. Now if everyone else could just calm down, the next two weeks might actually be bearable.

Nah...never happen.

My Version of This Weekend's SNL Debate Skit

Or at least the opening of the sketch:

Senator McCain: Well Bob, Americans are angry. And they're hurting. And they're angry. And a lot of the ones I've talked to are hurting. And the rest are angry. And did I mention that they're hurting? And they're angry - especially Joe the Plumber. Joe the Plumber, he's angry and he's hurting. And he's a plumber, and his name is Joe. And he's angry. And he's hurting.

Tonight was the first time during any of the four debates that I found myself frothing with anger. Though I'm a life-long Democrat, I've found myself moving much closer to the center of the political spectrum in recent years. In statewide elections, I've voted for at least as many Republicans as Democrats in the last several cycles, including a vote for the recall of Gray Davis.

But tonight, I found myself utterly appalled and disgusted at John McCain. I'm sorry, but if the man cannot keep his cool in this setting, if he cannot look presidential in the most controlled of environments, how in the world can anyone expect him to remain cool when the situation demands it, and there is no script to follow? I just thought it was an awful performance, and it fills me with dread for the prospect of what the next three weeks are going to look like.

Rosanne Cash for Vice President

Hey, I'd vote for her.

Anger

A very effective expression of anger from Michele at A Big Victory.

"People Who Already Understand"

On Betsy's Page, Betsy Newmark offers the following argument about last night's debate:

I think that the people who think McCain won the night are people who already understand the issues and McCain's positions vs. Obama's. But most people haven't been following this for about two years. They don't know the ins and outs of these questions and haven't heard clips from their speeches over the past two years on taxes and health care and Iraq. They're just tuning in now to find out which of these guys would make a reasonable president. And Obama came across as a perfectly reasonable guy who understands how people are worried about their economic situation and future. And with the lead that Obama has now and his advantages financially plus the winds blowing against any Republican this year, I think we should get ready for an undivided government by the Democratic Party.

I could be interpreting this incorrectly, but it seems to me that this argument is basically saying that the only rational conclusion from a study of the issues and the candidate's positions would be that McCain is the better choice. And if the rest of the electorate had just devoted the time to that study, there would be no question about who the front-runner is today. If that is really the gist of the argument, I think that's kind of crazy. People come at these issues from different points of view and from different experiences. I'm not sure what it adds to the discussion to frame the debate (the larger debate, not the one held last night) in stark terms of "right" and "wrong."

Having said that, I take note of the comment about undivided government, and based on past experience in California share the concern. I worked in a governmental affairs office for 13 years, and know from first-hand experience that divided government, on the whole, is a more efficient and effective government. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it's true.

Random Question

Is Paul Begala really on a first name basis with Barack Obama?

Maybe.

But when you're a "respected analyst" and you keep referring to the candidate by his first name, you sound like an idiot.

Knock it off.

Another Good Debate Comment

...unfortunately, his name escapes me at the moment [UPDATE: Alex Castellanos, on CNN]:

"You don't run the four-corner offense when you're behind."

Woo hoo! An excellent college basketball reference. Wonder how many folks caught that one (of course, everyone in North Carolina got it).

My Favorite Debate Observation (So Far)

"McCain vows that he'll get bin Laden because "I know how to get him." If that's really the case, maybe he could just tell Bush when he gets home tonight? That would save some time."

- The New Republic

Hat tip: Jac.

Shocking, I Tell You...Shocking!

My goodness, the things this nation and its institutions will do to elect a Democrat.

One could argue that this is just further evidence that the ballgame is over. But read on, and I'll let you make up your own mind.

Let Us All Bow at the Altar of Palin

You have to hand it to Hugh Hewitt. One would have thought that he learned a lesson from his credibility-shredding devotion to Mitt Romney earlier this year, but no - he's making the same mistake, and doubling down in the process, with his slavish embrace of Sarah Palin, even while his fellow conservatives jump ship by the boatful. So I give him credit for loyalty, if nothing else.

On his blog today, in a piece written by Bill Dyer, things actually start to get a little creepy:

Gov. Sarah Palin is electrically fresh. And she is the real deal, an authentic three-dimensional person rather than a blank screen upon which to project our hopes. And the important point confirmed by Thursday night's debate is very simply this: Sarah Palin is nothing less than the instrument through which ordinary, non-mystical Americans may reclaim their national government. (Emphasis appeared in the original).

That's some pretty incredible language. Almost makes me want to touch her, just to see if a slight electric shock would run up my arm and cleanse my brain of all the bad thoughts I've been thinking recently. And she's going to do all that as Vice-President? That's pretty damn impressive.

A lot of hay has been made this long campaign about the "Obamessiah." But hey, go no further, folks - the conservatives now have one of their own. Maybe we should just give them both a light saber and see how things pan out.

Cheap Political Joke of the Day.

McCain pulls out of Michigan.

Ready for the punchline? Drum roll please...

A frustrated Michigan could not be reached for comment.

Get it? Get it? I thought so.

And if you're old enough, you will remember where I stole this idea from. If not...do some research!

I Hate to Pile On, But...

...in the end, it's just too hard to resist.

I was impressed with Sarah Palin's convention speech, and thought her selection was a great strategic move. But facts are facts, and there's little doubt that her interview this week with Katie Couric was one of the great political train wrecks of all time.

We live in a polarized world, and everyone these days is certain of their own opinion. I always try to keep a voice in the back of my mind that tells me, "did it ever occur to you that you might be wrong?" Well, in this case I'm ignoring that little voice, because I honestly think that anyone who tries to spin that interview into something positive for the McCain campaign has been snorting something powerful that's really, really bad for you.

Brendan Loy puts it well here, and his post includes some great links.

UPDATE: As far as spin goes, I think this is probably as good as one can do. Unless I'm mistaken, it boils down to "McCain isn't letting Palin be herself." I'm not sure I buy it.

Truly Uncharted Waters

As leery as I am of wading back into the presidential election swamplands, what happened today just demands comment.

Frankly, I am amazed that anyone would think that John McCain's ploy is anything but just that - a cynical attempt to divert attention away from a campaign that has been sinking like a stone in the last 10 days. Obviously, many people disagree. Hugh Hewitt writes:

Today was Obama's Katrina moment and an example of great leadership by John McCain. This contrast was telling and will matter.

I honestly don't get it. I literally cannot fathom how someone can interpret what happened today in the way that Hugh Hewitt has read it.

And when you read the joint statement that was proposed by Obama, it really is hard to view what Senator McCain is doing as leadership. Oneupsmanship, perhaps, and beneath him.

The whole campaign has taken a disgusting turn that will probably turn off more voters than inspire them to get involved. Tragic is not a word that I like to throw around lightly, but we're approaching that level of disappointment.

Amen

Washington Post editorial, September 11:

"It's hard to think of a presidential campaign with a wider chasm between the seriousness of the issues confronting the country and the triviality, so far anyway, of the political discourse."