Hey there kids and kids at heart! Are you looking for ways to amuse yourself while watching the election results come in? Election night is incredibly exciting but it does involve a lot of waiting around and listening to news anchors fill time with discussion. If you have a little ADD like I have, then you may enjoy filling in your own US map as the networks call states.
Here is a great printable map of the USA. Just buy some crayons and color Obama states blue and McCain states red. Don’t forget that Maine and Nebraska split their electoral votes so there could be some purple!
My friend Total BS and I went canvassing in Pottstown, PA a few weeks ago, but I never got around to writing about it. It was an amazing experience and one that I won’t forget. I’ll never forget the woman who earned less than $7,000 a year and struggled to support herself and her four adorable children. I won’t forget the relief she felt when I told her that, no, Obama would not take money from her paycheck to pay for other people’s abortions.
I won’t forget the man who scared Total BS and I half to death when he said that he didn’t want Obama to take away his guns (one of which was a machine gun) and when he said that Biden’s Violenece Against Women Act was the law that put him in jail three (yes, three) times. I also won’t forget the door (yup, only one) that got slammed in our faces. I won’t forget the odd sensation that came over us when we realized we were more comfortable canvassing in the low-income Pottstown than we were in the upper-class neighborhood of Limerick, despite the fact that the neighborhoods we grew up in were much more similar to the upper-class Limerick.
I won’t forget the tears that came to my eyes when we discussed the war in Iraq with a woman who had just seen two of her friends travel to Afghanistan (with their year-old baby in tow) to do humanitarian work. I won’t forget the long talk Total BS and I had with the libertarian who wanted to vote for Obama and was convinced Obama would win PA, but decided to vote for Bob Barr because he felt the need for a viable third-party candidate in future elections. I won’t forget the man who yelled at his dog, “sic ‘em” when we told him we were from the Obama campaign. Finally, I won’t forget the sensation of hope (yes, hope) that coursed through my veins as Total BS and I knocked on more than 150 doors for Obama.
I never got around to writing much about that weekend, but I’m not the only person who was moved by canvassing for Obama. Read one undecided voter’s experience. He felt a lot of what Total BS and I felt.
I want to take a few minutes to remind everyone that there are good people on both sides of the aisle. Just because someone isn’t voting for the same person you have chosen doesn’t mean they are the enemy. It doesn’t mean they are automatically bigoted or racist or stupid or socialist.
Also, a victory by the other candidate – whether it be McCain, Barr or Nader – isn’t a sign of the apocalypse. It just means that our country will be going in a different direction for the next four years. Yes, it would be a crushing defeat, but it will NOT signal the end of the world in the same way that an Obama victory will also NOT signal the end of the world.
The fact that you and someone else have chosen to vote for different candidates just means that you value and prioritize different things. People voting for McCain aren’t the enemy. In many cases, they are our friends and our families.
In a sad commentary on what a Sarah Palin vice presidency would be like, she was pranked by Justiciers Masques, what the New York Times calls “a pair of Canadian comedians, notorious for pranking politicians and heads of state.” The comedians called Ms. Palin on Saturday and pretended to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Apparently, even the governor’s staff had no idea that they were being punked when accepting the call. Apparently the incompetence is at all levels of the McCain-Palin ticket.
Tim Russert passed away on June 13, 2008. Given how far we have come in this election and all the things that have transpired that seems like an eternity ago. But I still miss him. Tom Brokaw has taken up the reins temporarily by moderating “Meet the Press” and he has asked tough questions and kept people on their toes, but I still miss Tim Russert.
Tim Russert did not let those politicians who appeared on Meet the Press get away with dodging his questions. And I guarantee he would have made an issue of the fact that Sarah Palin did not appear on Meet the Press.
As we approach election day I realize that although we have been without Tim these many Sunday mornings, this will be our first election night without him. Remember his white board? Using a low tech white board he declared that election 2000 rested on “Florida, Florida, Florida.”
Florida, Florida, Florida!
When I sit down with my family and friends to watch the election night returns I know that something will be missing because Tim won’t be there with us as the network calls states and adds up red versus blue on the big NBC map.
Here’s Tim getting John McCain to eat his own words earlier this year on Meet The Press. I can only dream of what he would have done to Palin.
If you had any doubts about it, last night Barack Obama delivered his “Closing Argument” and it couldn’t have made his case for why he should be president any better. If you missed it, watch it here.
The text below comes from an e-mail a friend forwarded to me. It has some valid points. What if things were a little different and roles were reversed? How would this year’s presidential campaign be different?
Ponder the following:
What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?
What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?
What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?
What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to painkillers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)
What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
What if Obama couldn’t read from a teleprompter?
What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?
What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?
What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money from beer distribution?
What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?
You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?
This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.
Educational Background:
Barack Obama:
Columbia University – B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)
vs.
John McCain:
United States Naval Academy – Class rank: 894 of 899
Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester
North Idaho College – 2 semesters – general study
University of Idaho – 2 semesters – journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College – 1 semester
University of Idaho – 3 semesters – B.A. in Journalism
Education isn’t everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.
If you’re a baby boomer or if you like old TV shows like me, you’ll love this video. Watch Ron Howard, Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler voice their support for Barack Obama. There’s nothing like seeing Opie, Andy Griffith, Richie Cunningham and the Fonz come together to rally for change!
I’m voting I voted for “That One” We’re coming down to the wire, and, before the weekend hits, I want to make a last-minute plea to everyone to VOTE EARLY. There is still time to vote early or to vote absentee in most states. Most states have “No Excuse” absentee or early voting, meaning you don’t need a reason for casting an early ballot. In other states, you’re supposed to have a reason, but the range of reasons is pretty broad. In Virginia, for example, the fact that you won’t be able to make it to the polls because of your work hours is a legitimate reason to vote early/absentee.
I voted in person in early October, and there wasn’t a line. There will be lines now, but they still won’t be as bad as they will be on Nov. 4. And it looks like many places will have in-person early voting for the next two Saturdays (Oct. 25 and Nov. 1). For more information on voting early/absentee, check out your State Board of Elections web site by looking it up here or use Obama’s early voting assistance web site.
“But, Ripley, they won’t count my absentee vote unless there’s a tie!” It is an urban legend that early and absentee votes are counted only in the case of a tie. They are counted just like regular votes. NPR covered this issue in a voting FAQ earlier this month.
Reasons to vote early/absentee:
1. You won’t have to wait in line for God-knows-how-long to vote on Election Day. I had to wait for almost two hours on primary day this year, and I went relatively late in the morning. It’s going to be much much worse on Nov. 4.
2. You can do something else on Election Day to help the campaign: drive other people to the polls, make last-minute calls to remind people to vote, be a poll observer, travel to a swing state where your help is needed more, or do something else to get out the vote.
3. There aren’t enough poll workers. Voting early reduces lines at the polls on Election Day, which not only alleviates pressure on the poll workers, but also frees you up to be a poll worker, if you so choose.
4.There aren’t enough polling machines and the ones we do have are not reliable. In 2004, Ohio became the Florida of the presidential election, with massive problems with their polling machines causing havoc, uncertainty and disenfranchisement throughout the state. Whether or not these problems cost John Kerry the election is still hotly debated.
5. You will have time to correct any problems with your voter registration. In the unlikely event that there is a problem with your registration, you will still have time to correct it if you vote early. If you don’t find out about a problem until Election Day, you most likely will have to fill out a provisional ballot, which is counted only once the problem is resolved. And provisional ballots are more likely to be rejected even though the vote might be valid.
6. Early voting neutralizes voter intimidation, voter caging, and other shenanigans designed to suppress (mostly Democratic) votes. For information about the range of problems that could happen on Election Day, check out this report from electionline.org and the Pew Center on the States and this report from Common Cause and the Century Foundation.
7. The more people who vote early, the more people willvote. There is a record number of newly registered voters this year. Many of these first-time voters won’t realize how long the lines will be. These new voters are more likely to be discouraged by the prospect of waiting in line for hours to vote and are more likely to leave without voting. This is especially true if the weather is bad on Election Day. If you don’t vote early for yourself, do it for others!
8. Because it helps the Obama campaign. Early voting is a keystone of Obama’s election strategy, and the campaign has set up a special web site to help people vote. If you don’t want your data to be added to his database, visit your State Board of Elections web site by looking it up here. So I can’t stress it enough: vote early. Do it for yourself. Do it for others. Do it for Obama/Biden. Do it for America’s future!
~Ripley
“Your ass is already on the line. The only question is, what are you gonna do about it?”
