Joe Lieberman Is a Weenie (Or Holy Shit! Is Obama the Same as Bush/McCain?)

I come down on the side of weenie:

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman took another step Tuesday toward mending his relationship with Democrats, saying that Barack Obama’s actions since winning the presidency have been “just about perfect.”

“Everything that President-elect Obama has done since election night has been just about perfect, both in terms of a tone and also in terms of the strength of the names that have either been announced or are being discussed to fill his administration,” Lieberman said during a visit to Hartford.

Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, was re-elected to the Senate in 2006 as an independent but continues to caucus with Democrats. He supported Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign, going as far as to criticize Obama and make a speech at the Republican National Convention.

It seems that Joe is now bowing down to his new Democratic overlords, just as he did to his former GOP masters.

Joe likes to think that he’s all about political courage, but it seems that Joe is all about Joe and pleasing those in power.

The Future of the GOP?

Krugman:

You might think, perhaps hope, that Republicans will engage in some soul-searching, that they’ll ask themselves whether and how they lost touch with the national mainstream. But my prediction is that this won’t happen any time soon.

Instead, the Republican rump, the party that’s left after the election, will be the party that attends Sarah Palin’s rallies, where crowds chant “Vote McCain, not Hussein!” It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who, observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that “the other folks are voting.” It will be the party that harbors menacing fantasies about Barack Obama’s Marxist — or was that Islamic? — roots.

I’ve been thinking about this and I’m starting to conclude that the 2012 GOP race could easily come down to a three-way between Palin, Romney, and Huckabee. Palin and the Huckster will have the theocons battling it out against Romney, who will represent the party’s old establishment.

In a race like that, Palin would have a decent shot to win the nomination as much of the base will still be angry about the media’s treatment of Palin and their unsubstantiated claims of ACORN-based voter fraud in 2008. Their resentment will linger and fester, causing them to nominate Palin in a final act of “fuck you” defiance that the hard-right theocrats seem to be so good at.

More from Krugman:

But the G.O.P.’s long transformation into the party of the unreasonable right, a haven for racists and reactionaries, seems likely to accelerate as a result of the impending defeat.

This will pose a dilemma for moderate conservatives. Many of them spent the Bush years in denial, closing their eyes to the administration’s dishonesty and contempt for the rule of law. Some of them have tried to maintain that denial through this year’s election season, even as the McCain-Palin campaign’s tactics have grown ever uglier. But one of these days they’re going to have to realize that the G.O.P. has become the party of intolerance.

I think we’ll win tomorrow. But once that happens, the battle will have only just begun.

You think the war the GOP waged on Clinton was ugly? It was nothing compared to what’s coming once Obama is in office. Limbaugh and his ilk will once again go apeshit accusing Obama of being a Muslim Marxist with a crazy Christian preacher who hates puppies and they’ll be crying about Michelle’s nonexistent “whitey” video and they’ll be angry at both of them because they will adopt a breed of dog that the wingnuts don’t favor. Remember how much they hate Socks that cat?

And, worse, the wingnuts will have the help of Fox News to rile up their resentment.

But in their anger, post-rationalism, and pettiness, the hard-right may cease to be relevant, especially if Obama, as expected proves to be a competent leader who inspires our better selves.

I can’t wait for the first GOP presidential debate, which, if this year is any guide, will be held shortly after the 2010 midterms.

An Election Eve E-mail from David Byrne

What can I say? The Republicans have made us less safe than before 9/11, bankrupted this economy, started an illegal war they can’t – and don’t intend to – finish, removed what sympathy (after 9/11) and respect the world had for the US, and have robbed US citizens of many of their basic rights. Global warming? What’s that? Science and education? Investment in our future? No, thanks – we’ll stick with a good ‘ole hockey mom. Ignorant, and fucking proud of it, as is always the case.

Although it looks like a shoo-in, it ain’t over ’til Florida. And there are plenty of racists in this country who will vote against their own best interests. So please, get to your local elementary school, post office, town hall, or whatever, and cast your vote and make this a country we can all be proud of. We can get out of this mess, and life can be better than it is.

David Byrne
NYC

Thanks, David. You summed it up nicely.

Giddy

On election eve, I find that I’m something like a child thinking about Tuesday.

It’s like Christmas, New Year’s eve, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Presidents’ Day all rolled into one.

But I don’t know how well I will cope with the next 48 hours. So much is at stake that I am fully of anxiety.

How are you coping with the next 48 hours?

No Treats for Kids of Obama Supporters

Funny:

If you can’t click the viswo because you’re at work, the basic thrust of the piece it that one Shirley Nagle questioned trick-or-treating kids when they knocked on her door and wouldn’t give candy to kids whose parents support Obama.

She even posted a sign outside her home that read: “No handouts for Obama supporters. Liars, tricksters, or kids of supporters.”

It’s so pathetic, it’s hysterical.

I don’t know if Shirley knows that her batshit crazy side is showing.

Switching Obama and McCain

From the inbox:

Obama/Biden  vs McCain/Palin

What if things were  switched  around?…..

Think  about it.  Would  the country’s collective point of view be different? Could  racism be the culprit?

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 three 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.

Know any undecided voters? This might be a good thing to send them.

Freepers are Funny

One Free Republic wing-nut wrote:

Somebody pinch me and tell me this is all a bad dream. How can so many Americans not be listening to what this guy (Obama) is really saying?

I refuse to believe that America will elect as POTUS this untested, unproven, unknown left-wing radical, who can’t make it one week without another shady association being revealed. This is like the twilight zone.

Of course Obama is going to win the support of the far too many “Americans” who share his ideology, but I just can’t figure out what has gotten into to the rest of the electorate? How can states like OH, PA and VA actually be so close, even in a bad GOP year?

I am fully confident that on November 4th, sober Americans will take their voting responsibility seriously and elect John McCain, a man who made great sacrifice for his country, over this guy who just showed up and wants to “change America”.

But for this election to even be close is a sad commentary on the State of this Union.

“Wake up America!”

In 2000 or 2004, I could have easily written this:

Somebody pinch me and tell me this is all a bad dream. How can so many Americans not be listening to what this guy (Bush) is really saying?

I refuse to believe that America will elect as POTUS this untested, unproven, unknown right-wing radical, who can’t make it one week without another shady association being revealed. This is like the twilight zone.

Of course Bush is going to win the support of the far too many “Americans” who share his ideology, but I just can’t figure out what has gotten into to the rest of the electorate? How can states like OH, PA and VA actually be so close, even in a bad Democratic year?

I am fully confident that on November 4th, sober Americans will take their voting responsibility seriously and elect Al Gore, a man who made great sacrifice for his country, over this guy who just showed up and wants to “change America”.

But for this election to even be close is a sad commentary on the State of this Union.

I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning.

It smells like victory!

Palin Is the Future of the GOP

Heh:

Facing the unhappy prospect of defeat, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin indicated Wednesday that she will not disappear from the national political scene if the GOP ticket loses on Tuesday.

“Absolutely not. I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we’ve taken, that … that would … bring this whole … I’m not doing this for naught,” Palin said in an interview with ABC News, according to excerpts of a transcript released by the television network.

In response, three words: No Fucking Way.

Obama and McCain in Indiana: Still too Close to Call

Hard to believe:

A new poll shows the race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain remains tight in Indiana about a week before the Nov. 4 election.

The South Bend Tribune/WSBT-TV poll released Tuesday found Obama supported by 48 percent of likely voters and McCain supported by 47 percent. The poll, taken Thursday through Saturday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In May, if you asked me who was going to win Indiana, Obama or McCain, my automatic response would be McCain. A Democrat, much less an African-American Democrat winning Indiana? It seemed impossible.

But beyond looking at the polls that look favorable to Obama in this state’s race, I take a look at what I see in the rural city where I work.

City is probably the wrong word. It’s a town of about 20,000 people or fewer. It’s rural and has been solidly GOP in the past. But I drive around and Obama bumper stickers seem to outnumber McCain stickers 5-1 while it’s probably even in the yard sign war. People I talk to seem to be solidly pro-Obama.

This evidence is all anecdotal, and I think in the end, McCain will win the state. But things are looking damn good in a state that Kerry lost by 20 points.

I’ll be taking election day off to get people to the polls. I hope you consider doing the same.

We can do this!

Undecided Voters: Smarter than You Think?

Interesting:

AS we enter the final week of a seemingly endless election campaign, opinion polls continue to identify a substantial fraction of voters who consider themselves “undecided.” Although their numbers are dwindling, they could still determine the outcome of the race in some states. Comedians and other commentators have portrayed these people as fools, unable to choose even when confronted with the starkest of contrasts.

Recent research in neuroscience and psychology, however, suggests that most undecided voters may be smarter than you think. They’re not indifferent or unable to make clear comparisons between the candidates. They may be more willing than others to take their time — or else just unaware that they have essentially already made a choice.

I’ve always assumed that people who were undecided this late in presidential races were, how shall I delicately state this?

Um, idiots?

Maybe I’ll have to cut them a little more slack in the future.

Neuroscientists have begun to tease out the brain systems that make decisions. Even when it takes no more than a second, decision-making is thought to involve two parts, gathering evidence and committing to a choice. In tasks as simple as deciding whether a shifting pattern of dots is moving to the left or to the right, brain activity in the parietal cortex rises as evidence is gathered, eventually reaching a tipping point (though it’s not yet known which brain regions drive the final choice).

Inherent to this process is a trade-off between speed and accuracy. Commit early and you can get on with your life. Take more time and you might make a wiser or more accurate decision.

I’m not sure it’s as easy as this writer sees it. I committed to Obama over a year ago. If I had taken more time, I might have decided on Clinton or Dodd, or maybe even Gravel. But get on with my life? Nah, I’m a political obessive who can never get on with life during a campaign even after making a choice.

Since a commitment to John McCain or Barack Obama is not required until Nov. 4, for the greatest accuracy, one should gather evidence until that date.

Um, no. If a voter is paying attention, he or she knows where the candidate stands on issues important to  her well before election day. She also has a good idea of the candidates’ tempraments, and how they might govern.

So then why aren’t there even more undecided voters? In measurements of decision-related neural activity, after there is enough evidence to reach a person’s decision threshold, his brain can ignore further input even when it might improve accuracy. The brain goes ahead and decides, freeing up mental resources to deal with other problems.

This logic suggests that undecided voters might simply require a higher degree of confidence before they commit. Pollsters know this, and so push “uncommitted” voters to state a preference. Although this approach may seem heavy-handed, it gives a fairly accurate reading of a candidate’s support. In psychological studies, people who describe themselves as undecided often reveal a pronounced preference when they are forced to choose. When someone reports being only “moderately sure” of a decision like whether to accept a new job, his eventual choice is all but certain.

So in other words, undecided voters probably subconsciously know how they are going to vote, but are still unable to commit. They may not be aware of that commitment, but just can’t state how they feel.

So is the real answer about uncommitted voters that though they might not be stupid, they’re incredibly unable to listen to their guts to figure out how they are going to vote?

I don’t know the answer. Are they stupid, slow, or unable to process their internal decision-making factors? I don’t think I know any undecideds, but if I did, I might cause shaken baby syndrome in an adult.

The choice between Barack Obama and John McCain seems quite clear to me. One can either embrace the future or cling to the politics of the last 20 years that hasn’t served us all that well.

What’s so fucking hard about that choice?