Lieberman keeps Committee Chair without penalty

By a vote of 42 to 13 the Democratic Senators in caucus agreed to permit rogue Independent Senator Joe Lieberman to keep the Chairmanship of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The spin out of the Democratic caucus is that he is giving up his seat on the Committee on Environment and Public Works, but as he points out in the interview this morning, because of the additional Democratic Senators Majority Leader Reid has enforced a rule that no Senator can chair more than one Committee. That allows the Chairmanships to be spread around. So the end result is that Joe gets off Scot-free for speaking lies against Obama and for appearing at the Republican National Convention.

Here is the video of the Press conference after the Democratic caucus.



Here is a copy of my letter to Senator Harry Reid.

November 18, 2008

Senator Harry Reid
528 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510

Subj: the refusal of Senate Democrats to act against Joe Lieberman

Dear Senator Reid:

The non-action action to strip Joe Lieberman of an irrelevant subcommittee is quite disgusting. Not surprising, from the spineless wimps in the Democratic caucus, but quite disgusting.

Joe has repeatedly demonstrated that he is not a Democrat, any more than Zell Miller was four years ago. Whatever comity you guys might think that you have gained in not publicly removing Lieberman from one of the most important chairmanships in the Senate, you are going to find out wasn’t worth the price. First, Joe simply is not a Democrat. He has turned on you before, and will do it again. It is only a matter of time. Second, you have lost my support and that of many Democrats.

I do not yet know how that loss of support will be shown, but rest assured I will work to see that you understand what you have done. You may think that because you Democratic Senators are much better than the extremists in the other party that you do not have to represent the Democratic base. You and the other 41 Senators who let Joe slide will find that what you want to do is going to be more difficult. Since we don’t know who the 13 sensible Democrats are, they will also be punished somehow.

I am writing to you because as a Texan I am not represented in the Senate. It is now clear that the same would have been true had Texas had a Democratic Senator. It looks like the closest representative I have in the federal government now is Barack Obama, and he had better act better then you Senators have done to keep any support.

Sincerely,

Here is a copy of my letter to Senator Joe Lieberman:

November 18, 2008

Senator Joe Lieberman
706 Hart Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Subj: Your disgusting behavior and speech in the Presidential campaign

Dear Senator Lieberman:

Apparently you have bamboozled the Democratic Senate Caucus into thinking that you are worth more inside the tent peeing out than you would be outside the tent peeing in.

I listened with great disgust as your friend Harry Reid sang your praises and bragged about your history as a Freedom Rider in the 60’s. That was something to be proud of, but you have ridden it too far. It was four decades ago.

Now you are no longer a Democrat, having been rejected by the Democrats in your state and having defeated the Democratic candidate to get your current Independent seat. You were needed to build a Democratic majority two years ago and you rode the power that gave you. Then you supported the radical right extremists of the Republican Party as John McCain was courting them to defeat Barack Obama for President. America is much better off that McCain and you lost the Presidential election.

Frankly, Senator Lieberman, you cannot be trusted any more than the radical right-wing crazies in the Republican Party. Perhaps you will recognize that the vote to strip you of your chairmanship was a serious rebuke by your colleagues. I doubt that you recognize that. Your power as a Senator has gone to your head, and the rest of us now have to be protected from you. Apparently the judgment of your peers is similarly flawed.

Trust has to be earned. It can be easily lost and becomes very hard to recover. You have lost whatever trust you had with Democrats, and I doubt the Republicans trust you either.

Remember that.

Sincerely,

Alaska Senate seat: Begish lead over Stevens grows to 1,022 votes in Friday vote count

Additional votes in Alaska were counted Friday, and the Anchorage Daily News reports that Begich's lead over incumbent felon Ted Stevens to 1022.

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is in grave danger of losing re-election after Mark Begich widened his lead to 1,022 votes Friday.

More than 90 percent of the votes are now counted, and Friday's count of absentee and questioned ballots could have been Stevens' best chance to make a comeback.

That's because it included all the ballots left from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, where Stevens has enjoyed his most unwavering support.

There are about 24,000 ballots left to be counted, coming from Anchorage, Southeast Alaska and the Kenai Peninsula. The state will tally them all Tuesday.

Dallas Massie, state Republican Party district chair from Wasilla, in the heart of the Mat-Su, said he thought Friday would be a day Stevens closed the gap. The senator, however, saw Begich's lead grow by more than 200 over the margin the challenger established on Wednesday, when post-Election Day counting of absentee, early and questioned ballots began.

This is very bad news for Ted Stevens.

We should get the final results late Tuesday, but right now the Alaska Senate seat held by Republican felon Ted Stevens appears to have shifted to teh Democratic Party.

Republican governors on the outcome of the recent election

Sixteen of 21 current Republican governors met at the Republican Governors Association in a sleek hotel on Biscayne Bay. Here is what some had to say about McCain's loss of the Presidency:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty -- passed over by Sen. John McCain for the No. 2 spot on the presidential ticket and one of nine GOP governors who preside over states won by Barack Obama -- offered a summary of his party's predicament at the governors' opening lunch.

"We cannot be a majority governing party when we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast, we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes states, we cannot compete on the West Coast, we are increasingly in danger of competing in the mid-Atlantic states, and the Democrats are now winning some of the Western states," Pawlenty said. "That is not a formula for being a majority governing party in this nation."

As if that weren't enough, he ticked off a few more challenges.

"Similarly we cannot compete, and prevail, as a majority governing party if we have a significant deficit, as we do, with women, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances. Those are not factors that make up a formula for success going forward."

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, at 37 the youngest of the group, was more succinct: "They fired us with cause." He was referring to the loss of at least six senators and more than 20 House members, the first time since 1932 that the party has lost so many seats in consecutive elections.

These are Republicans capable of being elected governor in their respective states. They are very competent people and do not misunderstand the lessons of the November 4th election.

Let's look at these comments from Republican governors in detail:

• we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast,
• we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes states,
• we cannot compete on the West Coast,
• we are increasingly in danger of competing in the mid-Atlantic states, and
• the Democrats are now winning some of the Western states.

These are geographic indicators. Then there are demographic ones.

• we have a significant deficit with women,
• we have a large deficit with Hispanics,
• we have a large deficit with African American voters,
• we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances.

This is one Hell of a deficit for the Republicans nationally. What do they do to change these deficits?

So far the Republicans seem to be blaming these deficits on not being sufficiently conservative. George W. Bush was not a real conservative, so he failed. They therefore intend to double down on extreme conservatism. When the Democrats offer solutions to the current economic problems, they are largely going to be in the "Hell! No!!" camp, then blame the Democrats for not solving America's economic problems (which they created.)

Anyone think that is going to work for them to return to being a majority party?

Alaska: Begich leads Ted Stevens by "3" votes - recount continues

This is great news. From the Ancorage Daily News

The elections division still has over 10,000 ballots left to count today and thousands more through next week, but the latest numbers show Mark Begich leading Sen. Ted Stevens 125,019 to 125,016.

The new numbers, reflecting nearly 43,000 absentee ballots counted today, are from all over the state. Election night, Ted Stevens led the Democratic Begich by about 3,000 votes.

[ h/t to TPM ]

Al Franken is a slight favorite to win the Minnesota recount

The latest count shows the in the Minnesota race for Senate the incumbent Coleman leads by 206 votes. To call that razor-thin is to insult razors. It's a dead heat.

The excellent website Fivethirtyeight.com has an analysis of the undervote.

There were also about 25,000 cases in which the voter voted for the presidency but undervoted the senate race (consistent with the AP's reportined finding last week). Let's assume that in most of these cases, the voter intentionally skipped the senate race, but that in one-third of cases he did not. This equals another 8,277 votes, or a total of 15,001 cases in which the voter intended to vote for the senate race, but his vote was not recorded.

In not all of these 15,001 cases, however, will the voter's intention be clear. Let's assume that one-quarter of these ballots will be unresolvable, even upon a hand recount. This means that 11,251 ballots will actually be reclassified during the recount, or about 0.4% of the total cast.

Bitwise notes, however, that Franken did in fact perform better -- really, quite a bit better -- in precincts with more undervotes. If undervotes follow the pattern of the recorded votes, then Franken would win 52.5% of recounted ballots (excluding any ballots cast for third parties). This is a significant finding, as these are the first numbers I have seen to break the undervote down to the precinct level.

Most undervotes represent an error by the machine in reading the ballot. Upon visual inspection the intent of the voter is quite clear. (Our optical scan reader in Tarrant County kicks such a ballot back without accepting it. I think that is a setting the election administrator chooses. Does Michigan not use that setting? I called the Michigan Secretary of State to ask (1 888 767 6424), but they are closed for Veteran's Day.) [*]

The question is whether or not Al Franken wins enough of the undervotes to make up what Coleman is ahead on the latest count. If the number of ballots that included undervotes are statistically similar to the rest of the ballots in each precinct, and if the number of precincts with undervotes tended to go strongly for Obama, then the likelihood that a visual recount will shift the overall vote from Coleman to Franken is very high.

How high? Fivethirtyeight.come does a sensitivity analysis. A sensitivity analysis is an estimate of how likely there will be a change in the final conclusion if there are changes in the assumptions in the calculation. The two assumptions evaluated for sensitivity are the percentage of precincts that went for Franken and how many of the questionable ballots themselves are likely to change.

Firstly, let's assume that my estimate of 11,251 recounted ballots is correct and hold this number constant, but vary the share of such ballots that go to Franken. Here are his win percentages under various such scenarios:

11,251 recounted ballots (0.4% correctable error rate)
======================================================
Recounted Ballots
Resolved for Franken Franken Win %
50.0% 1.85%
50.1% 2.93%
50.5% 13.39%
51.0% 44.82%
51.5% 80.18%
52.0% 96.61%
52.5% 99.75%
53.0% 99.99%

Alternatively, let's assume that Bitwise's estimate of 52.5% of recounted ballots being resolved for Franken is correct, but vary the number of qualified ballots:

Franken Wins 52.5% of Recounted Ballots
======================================================
Number of Recounted Ballots Franken Win %
2,500 1.68%
5,000 54.60%
5,623 68.93%
7,500 92.49%
10,000 99.15%
11,251 99.75%
15,000 99.99%
20,000 100.00%

The long story short is as follows: if Al Franken in fact wins anywhere near 52.5% of the undercounted ballots, it is quite likely that he will prevail, even given what I would consider to be fairly pessimistic assumptions about the number of correctable errors. You could halve my estimate of the number of recounted ballots, for instance (to 5,623) and Franken still projects to prevail around 69% of the time. If, on the other hand, Franken only wins say 51% of the undercount, then the precise number of correctable errors is more important.

If there are no other significant factors to consider, then the only reason to disagree that Al Franken is a slight favorite to win is to quibble about the term "slight."

In this case it means "I am reasonably sure Franken has won the recount based on my analysis, but I want to leave room for the possibility that I have overlooked a significant factor or gotten the assumptions wrong somehow." That's what the sensitivity analysis is all about. If the number of precincts that went for Franken differs from the number of ballots the recount gives him in each precinct, that is a key difference. So is the number of qualified ballots. If they break towards Coleman rather than Franken, it changes the outcome. But the odds are on Franken's side. That's why Coleman went to court in his failed attempt to stop the recount.

My bet is that the Democrats now have 58 Senators.

---

[*] When I called, I got an automatic telephone response "The Secretary of State's office is closed today for Veteran's day.] Realizing I could not get through, I said "Curses!"

Without any hesitation the automatic telephone verbal response system responded to me "That response is not recognized."

It seemed almost human.

It looks like Obama's management style has won the big prize

How did Obama defeat first Hillary Clinton and then John McCain supported by the Republican National Committee? Consider this description of Obama's management from Newsweek.

Obama wants people to talk, but he doesn't want to intimidate them. "If you haven't said anything, he'll call on you," says Strautmanis. "He's never said it, but he usually thinks if somebody is very quiet it's because they disagree with what everybody is saying … so Barack will call on you and say, 'You've been awfully quiet'." There are no screamers on Team Obama; one senior Obama aide says he's heard him yell only twice in four years. Obama was explicit from the beginning: there was to be "no drama," he told his aides. "I don't want elbowing or finger-pointing. We're going to rise or fall together." Obama wanted steady, calm, focused leadership; he wanted to keep out the grandstanders and make sure the quiet dissenters spoke up. A good formula for running a campaign—or a presidency.

How effective was this management style? Of the three major campaigns - Clinton's, Obama's and McCain's, which is described as disciplined and close to flawless? Obama's. Consider a few examples.

When everyone was complaining to Obama that McCain was gaining ground on him around the time of the Republican national Convention and were asking - demanding - that he respond somehow he stuck it out and prevailed.

When the McCain camp fielded Sarah Palin and was gaining major ground in the media, the Obama camp was quiet. The desperation at the base of the Palin decision soon became obvious as Palin herself became a major liability to McCain.

Consider the period when the financial markets fell out of bed. After a short time McCain decided to "suspend his campaign and fly back to Washington to deal with the problems." Then he got to Washington and accomplished -- nothing. It was a publicity stunt, one adopted by the losing campaign in a fit of desperation. Obama did whatever he did behind the scenes. It was like Aikido. Obama used McCain's own moves to defeat him.

As the last three weeks leading to the election passed it became clear that the Obama campaign was increasing the pressure. The McCain camp had no effective response and the polls shifted towards Obama. The election confirmed the polls.

Then the first Press conference by Barack Obama after the election demonstrated Obama's discipline and preparation.

The three major campaigns demonstrated the difference in their management by their willingness to leak to the Press. Both the Clinton Campaign and the McCain campaign began to leak like sieves during the final weeks before Obama was chosen as the winner. Obama's campaign has yet to suffer frequent leaks of information that is intended to be kept close. Those leaks are a symptom of both the recognition that the campaign is losing together with weaker management. Was the fact that Obama was winning the key to the few leaks, or was it the better management? That is not clear, because the better management very clearly led to the winning campaign.

It's going to be interesting to see if this winning management carries over into the White House. It probably will. It is a result to a large extent of Obama's personality. The problems in the White House involved in maintaining the same level of control will be greater, but the experience from the campaign should carry over to a great extent.

This Presidential campaign is an interesting study for students of management.

Remember those Republican threats of "vote fraud?" Nothing happened.

There were many fear expressed by before the election that there was going to be massive vote fraud to elect Barack Obama. The previously mostly unknown community action organization ACORN was declared to be threatening "massive vote fraud" even by John McCain. The election is over now, so what happened?

Remember those allegations by Republicans that there was going to be massive vote fraud in Ohio and Minnesota? From Zachary Roth at TPM Muckrake we get this report:

Ohio secretary of state Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, said in a statement released to TPMmuckraker the night of the election: "We have received no reports of election irregularities in Ohio today - and we have been on the lookout for any hint of illegal voting or voter suppression."

And her counterpart in Minnesota, Mark Ritchie, also a Democrat, told TPMmuckraker in an interview that his office had received no reports of voter fraud.

So what about that classic of election voting problems, Florida? We get this report from Kate Klonick also at TPM Muckraker:

"on Nov. 4, there were glitches at individual polling places, but no major problems

From the Miami Herald:

• The only scanner at Coral Ridge Mall in Fort Lauderdale broke and voters had to put ballots in a bin until it was replaced.

• In the David Park Community Center in Hollywood, the first 20 or so voters were handed misprinted ballots listing Amendment 3 twice.

• A poll worker in Sunny Isles Beach was dismissed for being ``rude and overzealous.''

• Two precincts in Palm Beach County opened late.

Statewide, voting went so smoothly that Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning called Election Day ''almost eerily quiet,'' despite an unofficial record turnout.

''It's been a great day for Florida,'' he said.

So all the fears expressed by Republicans of "massive vote fraud" were just hot air. So apparently were the Democratic concerns of vote stealing and vote suppression by Republicans.

At least according to reports so far.

Of course, Colorado Secretary of State apparently DID purge an estimated 35,000 voters from Colorado's voter rolls in direct violation of a court order.

Then there's Wisconsin. Wisconsin's Republican Attorney General, Van Hollern, warned of voter fraud before the election. Afterwards he is reported to have said: "'As far as voting, everything seems to be going very smoothly in the state,' Van Hollen told WTMJ radio."

In Pennsylvania, where Republicans filed several lawsuits alleging threatened voter fraud before the election, there were a few problems.

" Fox News showed footage of a man in Black Panther attire holding a nightstick at the doorway of a polling place. There were long lines at many other locations. And according to voting rights groups, some voters whose names were missing from registration books were sent away without being given provisional ballots, as required. But none of these problems related to voter fraud. "

In Nevada, the previously expressed GOP fears of voter fraud fizzled out. Noting happened.

Indiana? Again, expressed fears by Republican of vote fraud came to nothing.

The threats of vote fraud appear themselves to be the fraud. Had the election been closer, no doubt Republican lawyers would today be in court conjuring up further fantasies of phantom voters swinging elections towards Obama. The convincing repudiation of eight years of Republican Presidential rule made that a waste of time, as John McCain himself recognized when he conceded immediately after the polls closed in California.

No doubt the Republicans are placing the scripts they had intended to use back into storage for future elections. It could in other situations be an effective scam.

The NY Times approves of the Obama win in glowing terms

Nicholas Kristof describes what he calls "The Obama Dividend." He is talking about the return of the idea of America as a land of hope and opportunity instead of greed. Kristof's final statement is quite memorable:

Considering that past, perhaps the most incisive comment on Mr. Obama’s election actually came long ago. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the Hawaii Legislature in 1959, two years before Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu, and declared that the civil rights movement aimed not just to free blacks but “to free the soul of America.”

Mr. King ended his Hawaii speech by quoting a prayer from a preacher who had once been a slave, and it’s an apt description of the idea of America today: “Lord, we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what we gonna be, but, thank God, we ain’t what we was.”

For once Thomas Friedman gets it (mostly) right.

Bush & Co. did not believe that government could be an instrument of the common good. They neutered their cabinet secretaries and appointed hacks to big jobs. For them, pursuit of the common good was all about pursuit of individual self-interest. Voters rebelled against that. But there was also a rebellion against a traditional Democratic version of the common good — that it is simply the sum of all interest groups clamoring for their share.

“In this election, the American public rejected these narrow notions of the common good,” argued Sandel. “Most people now accept that unfettered markets don’t serve the public good. Markets generate abundance, but they can also breed excessive insecurity and risk. Even before the financial meltdown, we’ve seen a massive shift of risk from corporations to the individual. Obama will have to reinvent government as an instrument of the common good — to regulate markets, to protect citizens against the risks of unemployment and ill health, to invest in energy independence.”

But a new politics of the common good can’t be only about government and markets. “It must also be about a new patriotism — about what it means to be a citizen,” said Sandel. “This is the deepest chord Obama’s campaign evoked. The biggest applause line in his stump speech was the one that said every American will have a chance to go to college provided he or she performs a period of national service — in the military, in the Peace Corps or in the community. Obama’s campaign tapped a dormant civic idealism, a hunger among Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves, a yearning to be citizens again.”

None of this will be easy. But my gut tells me that of all the changes that will be ushered in by an Obama presidency, breaking with our racial past may turn out to be the least of them. There is just so much work to be done. The Civil War is over. Let reconstruction begin.

These are not the statements of columnists commenting on the promises of politicians. These are columnists describing what they think the statement from the voters means.

Obama came in promising change, and it got such a glowing reception that his opponent McCain opportunistically jumped onto the bandwagon with "Me too! I'm also for change!" But what is really important is the reaction of the voters and the American public.

Now we need to see what "change" means. The long election has been interesting, but it's just a prologue to what comes next.

McCain created Palin as a national politician; Now his staff wants her destroyed.

The destruction of Sarah Palin as a national Republican politician proceeds. Now that McCain has conceded the election, the McCain staff is really working hard to discredit Sarah Palin. Why not? They knew how she was selected and they have observed her performance closely since the Republican National Convention. She has certainly not covered herself in glory. Did McCain know what he was getting? Frankly I doubt it.

Here is a video description of the Palin mess:



Sarah Palin is now going home to Alaska. She still faces charges that she misused her office to get her ex-brother-in-law fired and her use of Republican credit to buy clothing and stuff from Nieman Marcus and other high-end stores is going to go back with her. She may have local support particularly from evangelical religious groups, but her enemies have been given a lot of ammunition. Since she won the office as a different politician who opposed the entrenched powers, she may not have a lot of clout left to use to go after those people. (I write as an outsider to Alaska politics. I do not know the details. But a maverick who replaces incumbent politicians make a lot of enemies.)

Senator Ted Stevens appears to have been reelected, but the Senate is unlikely to accept him back because of his conviction for being bribed. Alaska law requires a special election when the sitting Senator leaves office. Sarah Palin might try to run for Steven's office. Will the old-line Alaska Republican powers let her have it?

The McCain campaign staff clearly do not like or respect Palin. Their efforts to trash her started on election day. That's going to be hard for her to defeat. But she is a candidate supported by the extremist evangelical right wing, which is why she was initially selected by McCain's staff to be the Vice Presidential candidate. The extremist Evangelical right wing is apparently strong in Alaska. That's Palin's base.

Can the McCain staff destroy Sarah Palin? It's clear they don't like or respect her. Her incompetence may have been the final nail in McCain's coffin. And even if they can destroy her, will it be effective both nationally and in Alaska, or only nationally? I'd bet she is done nationally. Within Alaska she has also made a lot of enemies, but her local support may allow her to survive politically there.

I see three decision points for Sarah Palin. She needs to deal with the ethics challenges immediately. She may try to run for Stevens seat. Then she may run for reelection as governor. If I were the national Democrats I would carefully provide support to her opponents at each of those points. Palin is extremely vulnerable at each of those points.

The efforts of the McCain staff to destroy Palin is a great place to start.

Here's what Barack Obama's win means to me.

I'm age 65. I graduated from an all-white segregated high school and attended Texas A&M as it was integrated. I have believed that there is no American or factual basis for White Supremacy. But I never thought that I would live to see a man with an African Black father and a White mother elected President of the United States.

I haven't seen the polls, but I don't expect that my generation voted for this very amazing man who is Barack Obama. The outcome of this election is a result of our younger Americans.

Modern Americans have done two things. First, they have failed to adopt the racism of their parents. Second, and much more important, they have recognized that the best person who ran for President this year was Barack Obama.

I want to thank the younger voters who I think have come out in unusual numbers to provide American with the wisdom of your individual decisions. You are proving how very important democracy is. A nation does not belong to its leaders. It belongs to its workers and its middle class.

I don't think that most of you younger Americans voted with thoughts or fears of race in your mind. You voted with an understanding that both the understanding of the problems America face and the competence to deal with the problems are what matters in our next President.

America today faces problems, in both in national security and in the economy, which are more threatening that any faced by Americans in two generations. Today we face those problems under the leadership of a man more capable of dealing with them than any other national leader we have had for generations.

Like so many American leaders from the past, Barak Obama comes from outside any significant American family. He has come literally from nowhere to become President elect of America.

I predict that he is going to become one of the most important American Presidents, first because the problems he faces are so very difficult and second because he is clearly so very competent that he can face those problems. As a side effect, he will also help to end the sad American history of racism and white supremacy.

America has once again demonstrated its ability to deal with major problems and adjustments by choosing better leaders. This isn't going to give Obama a walk as President. There isn't any real consensus regarding what problems America faces, and clearly no consensus about what to do about them. But in Barack Obama America now has a President who can often recognize the problems and their solutions. He also has enemies who will do everything possible to keep his from succeeding.

The American people have given Barack Obama strong support to deal with the problems faced by America. But strong opponents remain out there for him to deal with.

No pressure, Barack.

It's going to be an interesting time in the near future.

Obama will be the 44th President!

California closed a few minutes ago, and the projections became 275 electoral votes for Obama out of a required 270.

In 1961 I graduated from an all-White segregated high school in Texas. Segregation, racism and White Supremacy never made sense to me, so I have always favored desegregation. But I never thought that I would live to see an African-American U.S. President. Now I have seen a man who is racially half White and half Black but more important than that who is amazingly competent elected U.S. President.

Obama's race is relatively unimportant. He is a superbly competent individual. Not perfect, but there is probably not another national politician who would be as capable of dealing with the economic collapse the conservatives have left to America as he is. That said, he will not remove the stain that slavery and racism have placed on America. But he has already in many ways redeemed America from the White Supremacist past just by becoming the Democratic nominee for President and now the American President-elect.

John McCain is right now conceding the election. He has begun by discussing the unique achievement of an African-American being elected President. As important as that is in so many ways, what really matters is that no one else who might have run for President is as competent and capable of performing as President in the economic and security conditions faced by our country.

I have supported and voted for Barack Obama for President. I did not do that because of his race. I did it because he is one of the most amazing individuals I have ever observed in national politics. I felt and still feel that Obama is a better candidate than was the very amazing Hillary Clinton. He is also a much, much better candidate than any Republican or conservative, including John McCain. John McCain really was the very best candidate the Republicans could have chosen, but he, his party and especially the conservatives and Neocons are simply not up to the challenges that face the next President of the United States.

In so many ways today has been an amazing day. Barack Obama will now be the 44th President.

It's a good Democratic night!

With Ohio going for Obama, if the remaining states who went for Kerry go for Obama he has the Presidency in a walk-away. Pennsylvania has also been projected for Obama, and the numbers look grim for McCain in Florida. Florida's voting problems are probably the reason why it has not already been called for Obama.

It's the Senate races that now become interesting. Sadly, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky appears to have won reelection, but he was not a likely loss.

The Democrats have gained five Senate seats.

• Mark Udall has won the senate race in Colorado.
• Tom Udall has won the senate race in New Mexico.
• Jeanne Shaheen has won the Senate race in New Hampshire against John Sununu.
• Hagan has won the North Carolina Senate Race over Elizabeth Dole.
• Mark Warner has just one the senate race in Virginia.

The one weak Democratic Senate Race is Mary L. Landrieu in Louisiana. She is reported to be ahead by 1%.

So as of right now the Senate has jumped from 50 - 50 to 55 Democratic and 45 Republican, with many weak Republican Senate seats still to be determined. There will also be a Democratic Vice President in case of Senate ties.

In five minutes California polls close and they kick Obama to 275 of the 270 required electoral votes for President.

---

Addendum November 6, 2008 6:50 am CDT
The Oregonian has projected that Democrat Jeff Merkley has defeated Republican incumbent Senator Gordon Smith. (From TMP Election Central.)

That makes the gain six Democratic Senators.

Will a win by Obama result in both parties moving to the right?

Kevin Drum suggests that an Obama win Tuesday is going to push both the Republican Party and the Democratic party more to the right. The political losses for the Republicans will be among the more moderate Republicans, leaving the extremist right survivors in safe seats, while the Democratic wins in previously Republican districts are going to bring in more
Blue Dog” or conservative right-wing Democrats.

Which "right" will the Republicans move towards? There are at least two major directions the Republican right are moving, and they don't get along with each other well.

One direction is the small government - no regulation right, and the other is the religious right. It was the alliance of these two groups into the Reagan coalition that has given the conservatives political dominance since the Reagan era. At that time the Goldwater conservatives joined with the Christian Coalition to dominate national politics.

But what we saw in the 2007 - 2008 Republican presidential primaries was that those two groups no longer support the same candidates. Romney couldn't get the support of the religious right, Huckabee couldn't get anyone but the religious right, and the Ron Paul libertarians (a consistent 10%) couldn't accept either group.

In the meantime the traditional good-government pro-civil-rights Republicans no longer have political representation through the Republican Party. They disappeared with Lincoln Chaffee; Olympia Snowe and Chris Dodd linger on. Their descendants make up the Northeastern Democratic Party now.

The shorthand "moving to the Right" has become quite meaningless ideologically as the conservative Republican Party has fractionated into different groups of extremists. About the only thing the various groups making up the Republican Party have in common now is an extremist willingness to use authoritarian powers of government to get their own way and the willingness to spend government money corruptly to gain and maintain power.

Kevin’s analysis is a logical conclusion based on the older model of a left - right linear continuum which does not, in fact, exist. It was an artifact of the Cold War, and as a model explained the differences between American democracy and Socialists authoritarianism to some extent. But today the left – right model is as imaginary as the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It no longer explains significant political and economic realities because the Cold War is over and the institutions based on that bipolar world are gone. That means that Kevin’s analysis doesn’t work.

The older stability will be replaced by a new one when new institutions are created that reflect the new political and economic realities. Obama’s anticipated win is clearly being driven to a great extent by his ground game and his broad-based fundraising. His fundraising has permitted the development of a nationwide political organization, one which represents the moderate views of average people. This contrasts with the conservative think tanks which represent wealthy extremists and gives average people a way to effectively block those extremists.

After the election Obama’s organization is going to shrink, but it is not going away. Too many people have been trained, mobilized and motivated, and winning causes people to do the same thing that led to winning. Since the organization is funded primarily by a broad group of small donors it will be a moderate organization which will contrast to the narrow extremist organizations that make up the rightwing think tanks have been created since the Reagan era by wealthy donors. The Obama organization is the framework for a new institutional basis for American politics.

The Republicans and Democrats are not likely to both move “to the right” nationally as a result of this election. What is much more likely is that both parties are going to reorganize themselves. The Democrats are going to establish new institutions that allow them to effectively represent the majority of moderate voters, while the Republicans are going to continue to break up into competing extremist and generally authoritarian groups which will decline in political importance. After about two elections there will be Democrats who disagree with the dominant Democratic positions and who will break away to form new competing parties. Some will move over to the surviving Republican organizations which will become more moderate after the continued losses they are going to experience.

At least that’s what I think is most likely to happen. That’s on a national basis. Locally, of course, remnants of the older party structures will remain for at least a decade, probably longer. The development of a new political stability is going to take a while, and the Recession is going to last a number of years to scramble that development.

McCain's confusing image; The Making (and Remaking) of McCain

McCain's series of conflicting and unconvincing images during the 2008 Presidential campaign is not our imagination. There are reasons why the campaign was such a confused mess. Robert Draper describes the campaign to date.

Today Terry Gross interviewed Robert Draper. Here is her podcast of the interview "The many faces of McCain."

Sarah Palin; designated scapegoat for conservative failure

Poor Sarah. The McCain election campaign is collapsing, the election hasn't over yet, and Sarah Palin is already being blamed for it's collapse!

Yep. Palin is already being blamed for McCain's failure to win. Did she really believe that her presence would turn a disaster into a success? Why did she think they selected her?

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."

A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

As Digby points out:

...it does take a real diva to accept a job for which you are completely unqualified and then blame the people who chose you for failing to properly prepare you for the job.

Apparently Sarah Palin was chosen because she was so dumb that she would accept the strange idea that putting her on a losing ticket would convert it to a winning one. That really wasn't in the cards. What her presence has done was keep the fund raising for a failed Presidential campaign going to the end. But the presence of Sarah Palin was never going to make the McCain campaign into one that wins the Presidency.

The presence of Sarah Palin has two effects. First, it jacks up the fund raising for the end of the campaign and makes the McCain campaign appear competitive towards the end of the campaign. Second, it provides both John McCain and the conservative movement with a scapegoat for why McCain has failed to win the Presidency. The conservatives will blame Palin for their loss, while they continue to try to sell the (failed) conservative ideology.

Sarah Palin wasn't chosen for Veep and not given preparation. She was chosen because she was not prepared. She is the designated scapegoat for the conservative movement.

Panicky right wing goes insane

Jamison Foser pulls together some of the more insane right-wing extremists attacks on Obama. Limbaugh, Savage, Corsi, O'Reilly and others dig deep into their most maniacal imaginative nightmares to try to find some slurs they can spew that will slow the onrush of an Obama victory.

Bad news for McCain camp - real bad news

Martin, Allen and Harris of Politico describe the backstabbing that is going on in the McCain camp as they anticipate a really bad defeat.

With despair rising even among many of John McCain’s own advisers, influential Republicans inside and outside his campaign are engaged in an intense round of blame-casting and rear-covering — much of it virtually conceding that an Election Day rout is likely.

A McCain interview published Thursday in The Washington Times sparked the latest and most nasty round of finger-pointing, with senior GOP hands close to President Bush and top congressional aides denouncing the candidate for what they said was an unfocused message and poorly executed campaign.

McCain told the Times that the administration “let things get completely out of hand” through eight years of bad decisions about Iraq, global warming, and big spending.

The candidate’s strategists in recent days have become increasingly vocal in interviews and conference calls about what they call unfair news media coverage and Barack Obama’s wide financial advantage — both complaints laying down a post-election storyline for why their own efforts proved ineffectual.

These public comments offer a whiff of an increasingly acrid behind-the-scenes GOP meltdown — a blame game played out through not-for-attribution comments to reporters that operatives know will find their way into circulation.

Top Republican officials have let it be known they are distressed about McCain’s organization. Coordination between the McCain campaign and Republican National Committee, always uneven, is now nearly dysfunctional, with little high-level contact and intelligence-sharing between the two.

“There is no communication,” lamented one top Republican. “It drives you crazy.”

At his Northern Virginia headquarters, some McCain aides are already speaking of the campaign in the past tense. Morale, even among some of the heartiest and most loyal staffers, has plummeted. And many past and current McCain advisers are warring with each other over who led the candidate astray.

One well-connected Republican in the private sector was shocked to get calls and resumes in the past few days from what he said were senior McCain aides — a breach of custom for even the worst-off campaigns.

...One well-connected Republican in the private sector was shocked to get calls and resumes in the past few days from what he said were senior McCain aides — a breach of custom for even the worst-off campaigns.

“It’s not an extraordinarily happy place to be right now,” said one senior McCain aide. “I’m not gonna lie. It’s just unfortunate.”

“If you really want to see what ‘going negative’ is in politics, just watch the back-stabbing and blame game that we’re starting to see,” said Mark McKinnon, the ad man who left the campaign after McCain wrapped up the GOP primary. “And there’s one common theme: Everyone who wasn’t part of the campaign could have done better.”

“The cake is baked,” agreed a former McCain strategist. “We’re entering the finger-pointing and positioning-for-history part of the campaign. It’s every man for himself now.”

A circular firing squad is among the most familiar political rituals of a campaign when things aren’t going well. But it is rare for campaign aides to be so openly participating in it well before Election Day.

The civil war developing within the McCain campaign has been clear for a while now. a previous post entitled The fracture points of the upcoming Republican civil war describes additional details.

It's not just the McCain election that is being recognized as close to lost. Other recent events demonstrate how badly the Congressional races are going:

• Reagan Appointee and (Recent) McCain Adviser Charles Fried Supports Obama from the New Republic October 24,2008.
• National Republican Senate Committee withdraws support for GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer.

This is not a good year to be a Republican.

From MSNBC: McCain, Palin not showing cohesiveness, chemistry

This report from MSNBC is not good for the McCain camp.



[ h/t to TPM. ]

Why is there such an apparent bad feeling between McCain and Palin? Consider this example of Palin's total misunderstanding of what the vice President does.



[ h/t to TPM. ]


Palin is a real drag on McCain's popularity - as she should be. McCain's judgment in choosing Sarah Palin is highly questionable.

The fracture points of the upcoming Repbulican civil war

Two weeks from now Obama is going to win the election for President. Is that a certainty? No. But it is most likely. The result will be (among other things) a civil war within the Republican Party. Kevin Drum anticipates the nature of that civil war. But he is oversimplifying the Republican problem. He thinks it will be a civil war between extreme right-wingers and moderates. I disagree.

The Reagan Revolution was based on an alliance between the small government - total deregulation - free marketers; the NeoCons; the southern opponents of the Civil Rights Movement; and the Social conservatives. (There was overlap between the last two groups.) That alliance was held together in 1988 by Bush 41 because he was the direct descendant of Reagan, but he didn't keep the social conservatives in 1992. That loss, plus Ross Perot combined with the economic downturn in 1992 allowed Clinton to win that election in 1992. Clinton then won reelection in 1996 based on incumbency. But in 2000 Bush 43 brought back the social conservatives, which was a key element in "W's" narrow win. Essentially Bush 43 recreated the Reagan coalition. The margin of Bush 43's win in 2004 was his incumbency. But he had no legacy that passed the social conservatives to any Republican candidate in 2008. The big split in the Republican Party was and remains that between the social conservatives and the rest of the Republicans. The old Reagan alliance collapsed during the Republican Presidential primaries in 2008.

The social conservatives would not accept Giuliani (pro-abortion) or Romney (Mormon) under any circumstances. Nor did they find McCain acceptable, though he was not so repellent as Giuliani or Romney. Huckabee was the candidate for the social conservatives, but he never got close to a majority of the Republican voters. McCain was more acceptable to the non social conservative side of the Republican Party than Romney or Giuliani, so he ended up with the nomination by default. But McCain himself was going nowhere until he chose Palin (after the social conservatives vetoed Lieberman.)

Now we are coming down to the crunch, two weeks before the election. The McCain camp has essentially offered the social conservatives anything and everything they want (Palin was the key), so the social conservatives are beginning to come on board. But that capitulation to the social conservatives has lost the moderate Republicans totally. That explains the Colin Powell endorsement of Obama.

In essence the Republican Party of the Reagan alliance (the moderate and right-wing Republicans combined with the Christian Coalition) has collapsed. But it's a lot more complicated than just a far right and moderate right disagreement. It's basically the social conservatives demanding control of the Republican Party and the rest of the Republicans refusing to give it. The extreme right and the moderate right analysis is just part of the "rest of the Republicans." It does not explain what is happening to the Republican Party at all.

The civil war within the Republican Party is going to be between the social conservatives and the rest of the Republicans. Neither side will accept dominance by the other, and without the two combined the national Republican Party will not be able to win the Presidency.

The coming Republican civil war is going to be interesting. Unless something or someone unexpected comes out of the woodwork, the Republican Party is set to go into a perpetual minority status.

McCain's evolution from war hater to aggressive NeoCon who invariably proposes that U.S. military conduct regime change.

McClatchy News has analyzed McCain's history on sending American military to war and found an interesting thing. john McCain has evolved over the years from a reluctant warrior who resisted the quick use of U.S. military force into a hard line NeoCon who strongly supports the use of the U.S. military to enact regime change in nations we don't like.

He [McCain] first gained attention as a freshman congressman in 1983 by breaking with the Reagan administration to oppose an extension of the U.S. troop deployment in Lebanon.

McCain also resisted the use of ground troops to end the 1990-91 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, arguing that U.S. airpower could drive out Saddam's forces. He opposed invading Iraq — which at that time had chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs — because U.S. troops "couldn't tell a Shiite from a Sunni" and Saddam would be turned "from the bum he is" into a "hero" of the Arab world.

Two years later, McCain sponsored a resolution demanding that the Clinton administration immediately withdraw U.S. forces from Somalia after 18 U.S. troops died in a battle with al Qaida-training fighters depicted in the film "Blackhawk Down."

"The American people did not support the goals of nation building, peacemaking, law and order, and certainly not warlord hunting," McCain said in an Oct. 14, 1993, Senate speech on Somalia.

In the same speech, he decried as "baloney" the notion that a withdrawal would diminish U.S. prestige and insisted that Congress had the constitutional power to pull U.S. forces out of unpopular foreign conflicts if the president wouldn't.

The following year, he demanded that U.S. troops leave Haiti. "In Haiti, there is a military government we don't like," The New York Times quoted him as saying in July 1994. "But there are other governments around the world that aren't democratic that we don't like. Are we supposed to invade those countries, too?"

Yet when it came to Iraq, a far more formidable challenge than Somalia or Haiti, McCain embraced the neoconservative belief that a U.S. occupation would foster peace and democracy throughout the Middle East. He also backed the U.S. military's lead role in Iraqi reconstruction, argued that a withdrawal would weaken U.S. stature and, contradicting his statement on Somalia, asserted that only Bush — not Congress — had the authority to order a pullout. (More here and here.)

But then in the 90's McCain came under the influence of the NeoCons.

McCain's apparently ideological shift began after Haiti. His conversion coincided with his becoming president of the New Citizenship Project, a neoconservative advocacy group that was founded in 1994 by columnist Bill Kristol.

The group initiated the Project for A New American Century, led by Kristol and Robert Kagan, a former State Department official who now advises McCain's campaign.

It was a leading voice of neoconservative security policy and an advocate of using force to topple Saddam's and other anti-U.S. regimes. Its founding members included Vice President Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and other key Bush administration officials who pushed the Iraq invasion.

The committee, whose directors included Randy Scheunemann, now McCain's top foreign-policy adviser, was a key advocate for the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which McCain co-sponsored. The act funneled millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and other opposition groups, and made "regime change" the U.S. policy. (More here and here.)

Initially an opponent, McCain became a strong supporter of the 1996 U.S.-led intervention in Bosnia, although some conservatives and U.S. military commanders questioned the country's importance to U.S. security. He also backed NATO's 1999 intervention in Kosovo, lambasting the Clinton administration for a restrained bombing campaign against Serbia, and urging NATO to mount a ground invasion, as well.

Air strikes "needed to be, from the beginning, massive, strategic and sustained," McCain said in an April 1999 speech. "No infrastructure targets should have been off limits. And while we all grieve over civilian casualties as well as our own losses, they are unavoidable."

Responding to the 9/11 attacks, McCain called for unleashing the "full fury of American power" against al Qaida and other radical Islamic groups and urged the Bush administration to make civilian casualties a secondary consideration.

"We cannot allow the Taliban safe refuge among the civilian population," McCain wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 26, 2001, of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. "We must destroy them wherever they hide."

His willingness to tolerate civilian casualties has proven to be off the mark.

Thousands of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past seven years are now recognized as a key reason for the Taliban's resurgence, as popular outrage has brought the insurgents fresh support, recruits and propaganda windfalls.

McCain also argued against fighting terrorism with "half measures," even at the cost of destabilizing pro-U.S. regimes in the Middle East. He insisted that using massive force would convince Islamic extremists and ordinary Muslims that resistance was futile.

"We must change permanently the mindset of terrorists and those parts of Islamic populations" who did not believe that the United States was prepared to "wage a relentless, long term, and, at times, ruthless war," he wrote in the October 2001 Wall Street Journal column.

McCain also used the 9/11 attacks to justify the ouster of Saddam. On Oct. 29, 2001, he said on CNN that there was "very clear" evidence that Saddam had played a role in the 9/11 attacks. There was no such evidence. As soon as there's a government of "some kind of minimal viability" in Kabul, "the next step is Iraq," he said.

In January 2003, as U.S. forces were fighting in Afghanistan and massing to invade Iraq, McCain proposed a unilateral U.S. attack on North Korea if other nations failed to join the "aggressive, multilateral isolation of" the isolated Communist regime.

"Spare us the usual lectures about American unilateralism," McCain wrote in Kristol's magazine, the Weekly Standard. "We would prefer the company of North Korea's neighbors, but we would make do without it if we must."

McCain has since shifted his posture, and he now backs negotiations to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

He's also shifted his position on Iran's defiance of U.N. demands to suspend its uranium enrichment program, which many experts believe is intended to make nuclear weapons.

After rejecting direct talks with Tehran, he now says that he'd hold them at the secretary of state level. He also advocates tougher international sanctions, including limiting sales of gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Tehran, a step that Bush and the European allies have ruled out as too harsh for ordinary Iranians

McCain also wants to slap financial sanctions on Iran's central bank, which Bush and the European Union have resisted, and he's refused to rule out the use of force.

"There is only one thing worse than a military solution," he said in a December 2006 speech, "and that ... is a nuclear-armed Iran."

McCain really appears to be a person who is most influenced by the last person he spoke to on the subject of the use of military force, and the NeoCons have made sure that they surround him in his campaign staff. It isn't like he made his shift away from war-hater as a result of 9/11. His change occurred much earlier, after the American invasion of Haiti. It's not clear what caused the shift in his attitudes, but whatever it was it has been consistent.

McCain is not a man who should be trusted with the powers of the Presidency to start a war without anyone around to stop him.