Obama will win by 323 to 215 electorial votes. The Dems will hold all the states they had in 2004 and add AK CO IN IA MT NM NV OH VA and possibly NC.
In the Senate, the Dems will pick up 10 seats in AK CO ME MN MS NC NH NM OR VA, leaving themselves one vote short of being fillibuster proof.
In the House, the Dems will have a net pick-up of 18 seats. They will give the GOP a strong run for our congressional district (PA 05), but will probably lose...it will depend on turn out in State College.
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Looking back, it seems that I was too conservative on the EV count. Obviously I am wrong about AK, but I still feel pretty confident about the rest. I'm moving NC to a win and adding MO and IN as strong possibles. Weak possibles are WV, GA, MT and ND.
O 346 to M 192 5.8% spread in popular vote
In the Senate, I am certainly wrong on ME, I stand on predicting wins in AK CO MN NC NH NM OR VA and add GA and MS as strong possibles, meaning there is a shot at being rid of Traitor Joe.
In the House races, I now think 18 is too few, but I am not sure how many more...say a total of 32 seats picked up...
Glenn Thompson (R-unqualified idiot) will win in our local Congressional race, but Mark McCracken will do a lot better than the average someone who has spent less than $1 for every $6 of his opponent does. I say an 8% spread
All the local State House and Senate incumbents will win handily.
The water system finance bond will pass easily.
The Dems will continue to hold all the State row house offices (Auditor General, Attorney General, Treasurer, etc)
The Republican National Committee paid more than $150,000 for clothing, makeup and accessories in September that apparently went to Gov. Sarah Palin and her family, according to an article on Politico.com.
That included $9,447.71 to Macy’s, $789.72 to Barneys New York, $5,102.71 to Bloomingdales; $49,425.74 to Saks Fifth Avenue and $4,902.45 to Atelier.
In one heavyweight shopping trip in early September, $75,062.63 was spent at Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, a host city of the Republican National Convention.
The expenditures were listed on the R.N.C.’s monthly financial disclosure forms.
Update:
NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.
Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency is nothing less than a history-marking event, regardless of how it turns out. For those of us who attended Catholic school in the 1960s, however, the campaign is not entirely unfamiliar.
If you were attending Catholic school at that time, you could subscribe to a comic book called Treasure Chest. As you might imagine, given the time and the audience, there were lots of “educational “and “inspirational” stories in Treasure Chest. As an adult, I would probably find these stories stupid or offensive, or both…if I remembered them. Fortunately, the stories I remember are the ones that slipped in under the radar. There was a series about kids living on a space station that I remember liking, and there was 1976: Pettigrew For President..
From what I’ve been able to put together so far, 1976: Pettigrew For President ran for 10 chapters in 1964. Treasure Chest came out every two weeks, so the story played out over roughly half a school year. The title character was Gov. Timothy Pettigrew, who was running for his party’s presidential nomination in that exotic future year of 1976. I would’ve been in fifth grade when the series ran, but my parents were already wondering how much longer would I be reading those weird funnybooks.
It probably took me a couple of chapters before I realized that there was something strange about “Pettigrew.” We would never see the governor’s face. We would hear his voice as part of a telephone conversation, but, if he was in the room, his head would always be blocked by something, or someone. I knew that the strip’s creators were building up to something, but I don’t think I had any theories about what it was. So I was definitely surprised when, on the last page of the story, as he accepts his party’s nomination, Tim Pettigrew is revealed to be African-American.
I know: to an adult, this all sounds heavy-handed, at best. To a fifth-grader, though, it was anything but, even though we never find out if the governor was elected president. For what it’s worth, there’s a similar reveal in “Judgment Day,” a story that appeared in one of the classic EC science fiction comics. In this story, a man from Earth comes to Cybrinia, a planet where humans had deposited a colony of super-intelligent robots sometime in the distant past. The visitor was to evaluate the culture the robots had developed, to see if Cybrinia was worthy for inclusion in the Galactic Republic.
While many aspects of the cybernetic culture are positive, the Earthman quickly discovers that the robots with orange skins are discriminating against the robots with blue skins. This disqualifies the Cybrinians for membership in the Republic. Throughout the story, the human visitor wears a spacesuit that obscures his face. In the last panel, though, he takes his helmet off and “the instrument lights made the beads of perspiration on his dark skin twinkle like distant stars.”
“Judgment Day” first appeared in 1953, but I first read it in Tales Of the Incredible, a paperback reprint which came out in 1965 (and is sitting beside my computer right now).
Someone named Bob Wundrock—another survivor of the Catholic School system, I’m guessing—has posted some pages from 1976: Pettigrew For President on YouTube. They confirm another memory I had of the series—Pettigrew actually looks a bit like Obama—and they provide some plot points that I’d forgotten.
Pettigrew’s major opponent for the nomination is the ominously-named Senator Oilengass. The governor picks Oilengass to as his vice president , but a typo adds some unintentional humor to the invitation. The word balloon reads: “Senator, will you run as vice-president with me? I’d be proud to have you?”
Go ahead, look at it again. I’ll wait.
Even in fifth grade, I was far enough into comics that I was looking at credit boxes and noticing artists’ signatures. So it registered on me at the time that 1976: Pettigrew For President was drawn by Joe Sinnott. Sinnott is probably best known as Jack Kirby’s inker on the Fantastic Four comic, but he was providing both pencils and inks here.
As for the writer, I still don’t know much about him. He appears to be someone named Barry Reese, but that’s all I’ve been able to find out. For the record, “Judgment Day” was drawn by Joe Orlando. I haven’t been able to find a writing credit for this story either, but stories in the classic EC comics are usually credited to Al Feldstein.
1776:Pettigrew For President may have been an indicator of the liberal trends in the Catholic Church at the time. Or it may have just slipped in under the radar. In either case, the so-called real world is finally catching up to it.
This song hits exactly the right tone about something that has always baffled me about the subject of race in America. Oh I understand the "reasoning" about a "drop" of the fatal blood and all that. But if being white is so superior you'd think that well, the "good" would overcome the "bad'. Seems to me.
Of course that doesn't stop someone who has a cousin who dated a woman who once kissed an Irishman from claiming that that makes him Irish as well.
Oh and by the way, you fucking racist asshats coming out to Gov. Palin's rallies..
These are the people Sarah Palin is bringing out. My God. If I were McCain I'd hang my head in shame that I'm depending on them for their votes. Unbelievably foul human beings.
And all McPalin can talk about is Bill Ayers, a former radical activist who is now a Distiguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. A man who has worked closely with that known bunch of radicals The Annenburg Education Foundation (snark). A man who was named "Chicago Citizen of the Year" in 1997.
The economic world is crashing down around us largely because of the policies championed by McCain and his chief economic wiz, Phil Gramm.
And all they can talk about is this meaningless gossip.
Aping urbanity Oozing with vanity Plump as a manatee Faking humanity Journalistic calamity Intellectual inanity Fox Noise insanity You’re a profanity Hannity
Bring out the fatted neocons. Line up innocent conservative students so that their lives, spirits, and careers may be properly crushed by inappropriate leftist mental touching. Fire up the zamboni. Let the merrymaking begin.
Michael Berube, Penn State's own member of David Horowitz's axis of academic evil and the ONLY person who has ever been able to make it possible for me to both understand a discussion of critical theory and to then have me believe that it in any way matters, has restarted his superlative blog.
At some point, when faced with a particularly hard hitting point from Mr. Biden, Ms. Palin will quietly begin to cry. Brushing away her tears she will then make a speech about how much she loves America and that she trusts in God to show her the way.
This will not be an accident. It is standard Rovean politics.
Bad news for McSame who needed a clear win in the debate that was about his supposed strong suit, foreign policy.
Obama responded with quiet strength when attacked. McSame looked like a chipmunk on meth at some points and as if he was falling asleep at others. He never looked at Obama, averting his gaze in a most curious manner. Obama always turned toward him and looked at him when answering him.
Obama scored his biggest points during the Iraq section, telling McSame that "he was wrong" to take his eye of the ball in Afghanistan, wrong about the WMDs, wrong about our troops being greeted as liberators and wrong about there being no great enmity between the Sunnis and the Shites.
McSame made some strong points during the section on Russia but once again spewed forth the lie that the Russians started the Georgia crisis.
All in all, a credible performance by Obama who clearly looked "presidential', whatever that means.
He scored well with Independents and Democrats. MsSame scored well with the ill-informed and the brain dead.
Now on to Sarah "I can see Russia from my porch" Palin.
An excerpt from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric to be aired later tonight on the CBS Evening News:
COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?
PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada. It-- it's funny that a comment like that was-- kind of made to-- cari-- I don't know, you know? Reporters--
COURIC: Mock?
PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.
COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.
PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia--
COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?
PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.
McSame was a central figure in the first major Republican buyout to save their rich buddies' asses. I guess that's what he means by using his expertise to solve this crisis.
And for the record, McSame has made exactly one vote in the Senate this year. He wasn't present for the GI Bill vote nor for the economic stimulus package vote. What makes this vote so special?
My guess, he wanted to get the debate moved to next week so that they could finese the VP debate off the table. Ms. Palin is clearly not ready for prime time. Her "interview" on CBS was so lightweight that I thought I was watching a bad Saturday Night Live sketch. Nobody in national politics could actually mutter that mealy mouthed bilge with a straight face and mean it, right?
From the 2008 platform of the Republican Party, presented at its convention early in September:
"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all."
Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford has closed to within a statistical tie with Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell in their U.S. Senate race, according to a new poll by SurveyUSA released Tuesday.
With six weeks remaining until election day, McConnell, the Senate minority leader, now holds a 49%-46% lead over Lunsford, which is within the poll's 3.9% margin of error. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll released six weeks ago, Lunsford is up six points, McConnell is down three.
Sacked staff of Italy-based firm lynch CEO in Greater Noida
Pragya Kaushika Posted: Sep 23, 2008 at 0150 hrs IST
Greater Noida, September 22
Sacked employees of an Italian auto-parts maker bludgeoned the chief of the company’s India operations to death following a violent disagreement with the management on the firm’s premises in Greater Noida’s Udyog Vihar on Monday afternoon.
