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November 20, 2008
The wrong way to beg for money
The sad thing is, CEOs of the Big Three auto companies flying to DC in private jets to beg for tax-payer money doesn't surprise me. At all. That's par for the course in today's corporate culture. At least a few Congresscritters put on a good show:
At Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, pressed the private-jet issue, asking the three CEOs to "raise their hand if they flew here commercial.""Let the record show, no hands went up," Sherman said. "Second, I'm going to ask you to raise your hand if you are planning to sell your jet in place now and fly back commercial. Let the record show, no hands went up."
"There is a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hand, saying that they're going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses," Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, told the chief executive officers of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee.
Executive pay has spiraled out of control. I don't buy that "every team needs a quarterback to lead it" analogy. Today's most powerful CEOs are compensated whether they succeed or fail, and the lack of consequences for running a company into the ground has created a stagnant corporate culture that is poisonous to the overall economy.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 3:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Brain/blog types
Via Andrew Sullivan, this website analyzes your blog and categorizes it based on what look like Myers-Briggs personality types. It pegged Ablogistan as INTP, which is the same Myers-Briggs type I got when I took the actual test. Here's the description:
The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 1:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
What about Props 1, 2, and 102?
I'm seeing a lot of petitions going around here on the East coast in reaction to Prop 8, which banned gay marriage in California, most with vague calls to "repeal Prop 8" and no specific indication of how or even to whom the petition will ultimately be sent. Young liberals are fired up and ready to fight for gay rights, but for the most part the movement seems directionless and unorganized.
There's something about the intense focus on Prop 8 that bugs me, though. I agree with the principles, but I can't help but wonder if we'd seem the same passion for gay rights if Prop 8 hadn't passed. What about Prop 1 in Arkansas, which essentially banned gays from adopting, or Prop 2 in Florida and Prop 102 in Arizona, which also banned gay marriage? These equally-repressive amendments have been all but overlooked by liberals outside of the respective states. I understand the symbolism of Prop 8 and the unique circumstance in which gay marriage had previously been legal in California. But I'm also a bit unsettled by liberals' indifference to the rights of gays in the "flyover" states. If we're talking about a civil rights issue, shouldn't the amendments in Florida, Arkansas, and Arizona be just as offensive as the one in California?
Is this just smugness from the blue coasts? "Why campaign for gay rights in Arkansas and Arizona? It's just red states being red states, right?" Or is it because of the lack of leadership? For the most part, the part-time activists don't seem to have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish. Is their goal simply to repeal Prop 8? If so, they're missing the bigger picture and the movement is nothing more than a passing fad. I assume most people concerned about Prop 8 also, deep down, care about gay rights in all states. Even so, no one seems to have an idea for how to achieve that, so they're making a stand in California.
Now is the perfect time for gay rights activists to develop clearer goals. Should they fight marriage amendments state by state? Is a national solution eventually the answer? If so, how? The courts? Federal legislation? The answer isn't to model a movement after the protests and petitions of the 1960s; the model is the Obama campaign. Reach out to red states and religious organizations, rather than help drive the wedge further. Donate money and time, even if in small amounts. That's how you bring about change these days.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 11:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 19, 2008
Who is al-Zawahri talking to?
Al-Qaida's No. 2 released the first message attacking the new President-elect, and he went straight for the race issue:
In an audio message which appeared on militant Web sites Wednesday, al-Zawahri said that Obama is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X. He called Obama a "house negro."He added that Obama's plan to shift troops to Afghanistan is doomed to failure, because Afghans will resist.
The audio plays over still pictures of al-Zawahri, Malcolm X praying, and Obama with Jewish leaders at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.The tape also criticizes Obama for his position on Israel, stating that this proves his "stance of hostility to Islam and Muslims".
Al-Zawahri also urged Muslims to continue attacks against "criminal America".
A little odd, to say the least. Who exactly is al-Zawahri trying to reach with this message? Al-Qaeda is no stranger to meddling in domestic political affairs, and some have suggested he's in part trying to drive a wedge in the black community.
I don't buy that. This sounds like a guy going to extremes to portray Obama as "more of the same," to borrow some campaign jargon. Al-Qaeda has in general tried to portray itself as in opposition to U.S. policy, rather than the nation itself, and here comes a new President promising to change those policies. Well, maybe some of the recruitment pool is intrigued and wonders if it wouldn't hurt to wait and see if policy really does change before rushing off to fight and die in opposition. Maybe there's an added affinity because of his race and what that represents, not only to Americans, but to the world. If you're a No. 2 Al-Qaeda leader, you're worried. Because once you lose momentum, it's hard to get a global terror network going again. So you have to re-vilify the U.S. at every opportunity, convince your troops—not the hardcore, but maybe the young boys drawn but not yet committed to this ideology—that nothing is really going to change.
It's just a theory. But I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a juiced-up PR campaign from Al-Qaeda and eventually hear them come right out and say that Obama is no different from Bush. If you want to vilify someone these days, after all, that's the way to go.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 17, 2008
Live long and prosper
There's been a lot of speculation that Obama may be America's nerdiest/geekiest President. The evidence: His tech savvy, his early days as a comic book collector, the picture of him posing in front of a Superman statute, and finally, this:
He is a big fan of Star Trek. He said himself: "I grew up on Star Trek. I believe in the final frontier." And, when Leonard Nimoy was the guest on NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" in September, he said that he had run into "one of the presidential candidates" and that that candidate had, upon seeing Nimoy, given him the Vulcan salute. He refused to name the candidate, but said he "was not John McCain."
Which got me thinking: Obama will need a radically different campaign message when he runs for reelection in 2012. "Change" only works when you're on the outside throwing rocks at the establishment. As President, he'll need a message that highlights his accomplishments yet conveys to the American people that the best days are ahead.
I guess what I'm saying is, I think the title of this post would look great on an Obama 2012 campaign placard.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 12:08 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
meh
I like new words and all, but I'm pretty indifferent about this.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 11:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 14, 2008
Friday Octopus Blogging
They can open bottles now. Think about the implications of that (see here and here if you aren't afraid yet).
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 11:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Obama's YouTube Chats
FDR had his fireside chats, Obama will have YouTube. His administration plans to bring government into the 21st century in a big way. From the Washington Post:
Today, President-elect Obama will record the weekly Democratic address not just on radio but also on video -- a first. The address, typically four minutes long, will be turned into a YouTube video and posted on Obama's transition site, Change.gov, once the radio address is made public on Saturday morning.In addition to regularly videotaping the radio address, officials at the transition office say the Obama White House will also conduct online Q&As and video interviews. The goal, officials say, is to put a face on government. In the following weeks, for example, senior members of the transition team, various policy experts and choices for the Cabinet, among others, will record videos for Change.gov.
This is, in part, a communications strategy. Obama won an election by tapping into new technologies and social networks, and he'll probably attempt to control his administration's image in much the same way.
But Obama's tech savvy has the potential to improve government transparency. Obama has pledged to use the Internet to shine light on the workings of Washington, and he has previously pushed "Google Government" legislation that would make all government contracts and grants publicly searchable.
I was excited by Obama's focus on transparency and technology early on, and hopefully the financial mess won't overshadow those issues once he is sworn in.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 11:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Iran-Saudi Arabia Cold War
One of the untold stories about the effects of U.S. involvement in the Middle East has been the escalating power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for control of the region. At the height of the insurgency in Iraq, for instance, Saudi Arabia—a supposed U.S. ally—was funneling money and volunteers to the Sunni insurgency to undermine the Maliki government, which it feared could become too susceptible to Iranian influence. The insurgency was prolonged by both countries funding militants in hopes of filling the power vacuum and/or preventing the other from taking control.
It's also happening in Afghanistan, as Iran and Saudi Arabia have taken opposing stances on whether the Afghan government should negotiate with the Taliban. From the Diplomatic Courier:
The talks, held at the behest of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, took place in Mecca during the final three days of Ramadan, which ended on September 29 ... The prospect of some sort of Taliban rehabilitation received a much frostier reception in Tehran. Iran's Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki urged the U.S. against talks, saying that the Taliban's extremism could not be confined to the Middle East and West Asia. Iran's ambassador to the UN said that negotiations would make Afghanistan even less stable. The chairman of Iran's parliamentary foreign policy and national security committee said the talks would spread terrorism.Iran despises the Taliban for three reasons. The first is sectarian. Iran is a Shia theocracy, whereas the Taliban are Sunni extremists who view Shias as heretics ... Not surprisingly, Iran welcomed and assisted the Taliban's downfall in 2001.
A second reason for Iran's posture is the Taliban's involvement in the production and shipment of Afghan opiates. Iran's impact on the Taliban's drugs revenue is one of the untold stories of the war on terror. Even the U.S. has praised Iran's efforts against narcotics.
A third reason that Iran dislikes the Taliban is because it sees the militia as a tool of Arab influence in West Asia. Saudi Arabia and the UAE were among only three countries, the other being Pakistan, to recognise the Taliban's government in Afghanistan.
Iran is locked in a battle with the Saudis for influence in Pakistan. Tehran is favorably impressed by Pakistan's new president Asif Zardari, who hails from a Shia Baluch family. Zardari's prime minister and foreign minister are both drawn from Pakistan's majority Barelvi sect, a syncretic form of Sunnism that shares elements with Shiism (such as the worship of saints). Zardari has publicly pledged himself to the war against the Taliban and has also forsworn violence against India, an old Iranian ally. Since he took office in September, Pakistan's army has waged its most effective campaign against the Pakistan-based Taliban to date, killing as many as 1,000 militants during a summer offensive in the Bajaur tribal agency.
I'm not sure what I think about the Taliban negotiations. That is a group that should never return to power and I have a feeling that if they are given a seat at the table in the Afghan government, it's only a matter of time before an attempted coup. On the other hand, a peaceful and stable Afghanistan may be the only way to completely marginalize their extremist ideology.
The danger in both Iraq and Afghanistan is that the U.S. will make the wrong decisions simply to counter Iranian influence. We, at times, overestimate our influence in the Middle East. Iran's quest for nuclear weapons may be in part about defending itself against a possible U.S. invasion, but it is probably more about muscling out Saudi Arabia as the dominant power in the region.
If we're too singularly focused on preventing that, we may end up just replacing one extremist regional power with another.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 12, 2008
Generation O
The NY Times said what I said about how this election defined a generation, only they said it earlier and better:
These young voters and those slightly older, who together may forever be known as Generation O, were the ground troops of the campaign. They opened hundreds of Obama offices in remote areas, registered voters and persuaded older relatives to take a chance on the man with the middle name Hussein.They saw in Mr. Obama, 47, who was born at the tail end of the baby boom era, the values that sociologists and cultural critics ascribe to them.
Government under Mr. Obama, they believe, would value personal disclosure and transparency in the mode of social-networking sites. Teamwork would be in fashion, along with a strict meritocracy.
The article focuses on the how (i.e., social networking and attitudes about transparency and technology) more so than the why. There's no mention of Bush, and although I think Obama appealed to younger voters on a certain non-political level, the last eight years have defined Generation O's political outlook and perhaps shifted them much farther to the left than they would have been otherwise.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Barack the Lawn Ranger
This is coming from Dave Barry, so I'm not entirely sure it's legitimate, but then again, Ben Smith over at Politico seemed to take it seriously, so I blame my gullibility on him.
Apparently, Obama was once a member of the "Lawn Rangers" a group that "wowed the Midwest corn-festival circuit with their synchronized mowing maneuvers, broom tossing and plunger wagging." I'll let Dave Barry explain.
As you may know, I am a veteran member of the world-famous Lawn Rangers precision lawnmower drill team, whose members march every year at the Broom Corn festival in Arcola, Ill., as well as various other events, depending onhow drunk they arescheduling... The Lawn Rangers perform highly sophisticated semi-synchronized maneuvers with lawnmowers, brooms, and toilet plungers. Membership in this crack unit is a great honor, bestowed only onwhoever shows upvery few people.Today I received an email from Lawn Rangers co-founder Pat Monahan, with a photograph taken in 2003 when the Rangers marched in the Chicago St. Patrick's Day parade. Joining them on this occasion was an up-and-coming Illinois state senator, seen here participating in the rigorous rookie-training program..
If only that image of Obama holding a plunger had surfaced earlier, he might have earned another 1-2% in the popular vote from people looking for a liberal alternative to Joe the Plumber. I just can't imagine why we didn't hear about this before the election...
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 11, 2008
Bionic contact lenses
I figured something like this was coming eventually, but who knew the future would arrive so soon? From Concurring Opinions:
According to Government Technology, engineers at the University of Washington have developed contact lenses with integrated circuitry. Although the lenses have only been tested on animals, researchers are working on having electronic lenses overlay a display over a person's visual field without impairing sight. Researchers hope that the lenses, once completed, will allow users to zoom in on distant objects and see useful facts. Future applications might allow drivers and pilots to see their direction and speed projected across their view or to surf the Web without a monitor. The circuit components would be powered by integrated solar cells and a wireless radio-frequency receiver.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 6:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
It's a new day
The latest from will.i.am
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November 10, 2008
Obama is already meeting with aggressive, unpopular world leaders without preconditions
What will his detractors think? More importantly, what did the two talk about?
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 2:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The death of the poker boom
It wasn't that long ago that you could watch a poker tournament on five or six different cable channels during an average prime time night. Now, you're lucky if you can find three or four. Oh well, I guess all bubbles must burst.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 12:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The change we need
President-elect Obama has hit the ground running and is already preparing plans to close Guantanamo Bay, a move championed by legal scholars (aka elitist terrorist-lovers in some circles) from both parties. But what to do with the detainees?
Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.A third group of detainees -- the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information -- might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans are not final.
The actual structure is yet to be determined, but it's possible that Obama will propose a new court system that will be more transparent than Bush's military tribunals but will stop short of treating detainees as if they have full constitutional rights. Symbolically, though, shutting down that detention center will be an important message to the rest of the world that America has changed, and it will probably help in building the alliances that Obama sees as essential to stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 8, 2008
More history being made
The New Hampshire state Senate became the first legislative body in the country to have a majority female membership on Tuesday. Thirteen of the 24 seats are now held by women. History being made all around.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 7, 2008
The mimic octopus
As promised...
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 2:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Generation Obama
The day after the election, I received an e-mail from my father: "Congratulations to you and your generation. The torch has been passed."
Obviously he didn't mean in terms in governance. Although a torch has been passed in that sense, my generation wasn't the recipient; I'm 26, and Obama is closer to a Baby Boomer than a Millennial (or Generation Y, or whatever we're supposed to be called). But for all the election of the first African-American symbolized, it also represented perhaps the first collective defining action of an entire generation of young voters who brought about this change, and the political implications should scare the Republican Party into some serious post-election soul searching.
It wasn't turnout that did it. Voters under 30 increased from 17% to 18% of the total turnout between 2004 and 2008 (about 22% of Americans are under 30)—an improvement, but not a watershed increase. The graph below by Andrew Gelman (H/T to Sullivan) tells the story.
Obama won two-thirds of young voters. But notice the swing. In 2000, young voters supported Republicans at roughly the same rate as the rest of the population, even moreso than the oldest voters. In 2004, the shift had begun, and Kerry outperformed Bush, but his 54% of the youth vote wasn't enough to actually swing the election. Obama improved on that dramatically, and it wasn't just a matter of the inherent liberalism of youth; if so, Obama's margins wouldn't dwarf Gore's and Kerry's to that extent.
Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini (via Marc Ambinder) explains the implications:
He produced a gargantuan 25% swing among existing young voters, or those who were sure to vote for the first time anyway.How big? 18 percent times a 25 percent increase in the Democratic margin equals 4.5 points, or a majority of Obama's popular vote margin. Had the Democratic 18-29 vote stayed the same as 2004's already impressive percentage, Obama would have won by about 2 points, and would not have won 73 electoral votes from Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, or Indiana.
So, to clarify here: Obama's youth margin = 73 electoral votes.
This is what happens when an entire generation becomes politically aware under George W. Bush; we went in evenly split and came out Democrats. And McCain completely failed to adjust his campaign to this fact.
Voters 18-29 didn't live through the culture wars, so when Republicans sneered about Obama being too liberal, we didn't respond with the anticipated gut-level aversion—the word's negative connotations were developed years before our time and its effects have waned. Portraying Obama as a socialist didn't work either because we have lived most of their lives in a post-Cold War era, and although cognitively most young voters are averse to outright socialism, the term doesn't produce that gut-level fear that it did with previous generations. Virtually every message McCain and Palin concocted was intended for voters of a different period in history.
But the one thing that did connect with young voters on that gut level is a fear of four more years of George Bush, and that's in large part why Obama was so effective in holding onto their support. These are people who became politically aware, for the most part, during Bush's two terms, so their political outlooks have been shaped by the following: Money and lives lost in an unnecessary war, the decline in America's reputation abroad, infringement of civil liberties, the recent economic crisis, demonizing of gays and lesbians, global warming—those are the issues that we have witnessed, and in each case liberals and socialists weren't the villains; neoconservatives were.
George Bush has perhaps defined the political outlook of an entire generation, and the one silver lining to the last eight years is that his mistakes made an Obama victory possible. And Obama has coattails. In the House, the youth margin for Democratic candidates was up 18 points from 2004 and 7 points from 2006.
There's no doubt that Obama's personal appeal had a lot to do with his success, and some of these younger voters will switch parties as they age and other, less-appealing candidates (the John Kerrys of the party) take the helm down the road. But if Obama's presidency is marginally successful, this generation is going to compare the Clinton and Obama administrations with the disastrous Bush presidency and perhaps come to some hard-to-sway conclusions about Republican politics.
So here's what the GOP is looking it: They can either try their best to undermine the success of the Obama administration, or they can retool their platform to appeal to not only younger voters, but Americans across all demographics who have been turned off by the last eight years. Both approaches are already being looked at by factions within the party, and it may take a major civil war within the party for one to win out over the other.
Reform certainly won't be easy. It will require a recognition that most voters live in urban areas, so this divisive "real America versus fake America" dichotomy has got to end. Republicans will have to realize that voters value more than low taxes, and it will need to come up with feasible solutions for healthcare, education, and the like, and truly incorporate the middle class into its ranks. They'll have to realize that younger voters are much more socially liberal than their predecessors, so demonizing their gay and lesbian friends or using the same culture war wedges won't work. And ultimately, the Republican party will have to figure out how to win over minority voters. Statistically, it is a very white party, and demographics will only marginalize it further unless its leaders find a way to win black and Hispanic voters.
I'm certainly not trying to proclaim the end of the Republican party, however. I clearly remember pundits asking in 2002 whether the Democratic party had a future after a major loss, and we clearly have an answer to that today. Democrats will surely lose favor the longer they're subject to the corrupting influence of absolute power, and the pendulum will eventually swing back in the other direction, as it always does. But the GOP has a lot of work to do if it doesn't want these 18-29 year old voters to cement their position as Democrats after this election, or another conservative party to take its place.
I've never liked the terms "Millennial" or "Generation Y", and although it is a bit cheesy and may turn out ephemeral, Generation Obama, as of Tuesday, is the best way to describe who we are and how we will be defined, perhaps for a long time.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 5, 2008
Powell wept
CNN has an interesting post-election interview with Colin Powell, whose endorsement of Obama grabbed headlines a few weeks ago. Keep in mind that this is a man who has been to war, who broke barriers of his own as a general, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and as Secretary of State. His public persona, even in politics, has been that of a stoic warrior. But upon hearing that Obama was the president-elect of the United States, he reacted the way many Americans reacted last night: He wept.
Video below.
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November 4, 2008
"They said this day would never come"
There are a lot of cheesy voters stories being posted today, like this one from an Andrew Sullivan reader:
I live in Lincoln, Nebraska, the heart of one of the reddest states in the country. I have voted in the same polling location for the last 8 years. Every election, my wife and I are the first two people at the poll when it opens (we like to vote immediately). Today, when we arrived a half-hour before the polling place opened, there were already fourteen people in line. The poll workers were astonished, my wife and I were shocked - and the line kept growing. When we left, after voting, the line was longer than it was when we got there. This has never happened before.Ahead of us in line was three-generations of an African American family. It was the first time voting for all three of them. The youngest, who graduated high school last year, was calling his friends and getting them out of bed while we waited in line. He was describing the polling place and giving directions for getting there. After he voted, he had probably the biggest grin I've ever seen.
Today, I'm all about the cheesy. The title of the post was the opening line from Obama's Iowa victory speech, but it seems so much more relevant today.
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Invisible octopi
So, when the election is over and I'm completely tired of writing about politics, there's a chance that I may just turn this into a blog about octopi and their pending enslavement of humanity. Not only are they incredibly smart, strong (they can kill sharks), and easily bored, but some are also effective chameleons. I present video evidence:
Apparently this species was not even discovered until the 90's because any sightings were assumed to be something else. They can also immitate other creatures like crabs and fish. So next time you're in the ocean about to step on a rock or even a mound of sand, just remember that it could be a killer octopus.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 11:23 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
My prediction
My predictions:
I'm probably being too optimistic. Think of this map as his ceiling. If everything goes right for Obama today, this is what it will look like.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 9:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 3, 2008
For Toot
Madelyn Payne Dunham, the grandmother Barack Obama knew as "Toot", passed away one day before her grandson made history. As fellow TMV blogger Jazz Shaw put it, that is more tragedy than we have room for. Luckily, Obama was able to see her before she went, even if it meant suspending his campaign less than a week before the election.
She was his last living parental figure, which would make it sad in any case. But I can't deny that race had a lot to do with why I had hoped she would live to see her grandson win the election. To explain, I defer to Ta-Nehisi Coates:
I was looking at this picture of Obama's grandparents and thinking how much he looks like his grandfather. And suddenly, for whatever reason, I was struck by the fact that they had made the decision to love their daughter, no matter what, and love their grandson, no matter what. I'd bet money that they never even thought of themselves as courageous, that they didn't give much thought to the broader struggles in the the world at the time. They were just doing what right, honorable people do. But the fact is that, in the 60s, you could be disowned for falling in love with a black woman or black man.
Here's what Obama said about her during his DNC acceptance speech: "She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well."
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Election Night Hour-by-Hour
With Obama having an incredibly strong polling day and FiveThirtyEight now projecting his win percentage at 98.1% today, perhaps we shouldn't be asking if Obama will win tomorrow, but when. Nate Silver, Doug Mataconis at Donklephant, and the Swing State Project have all provided useful guides for hour-by-hour poll closings.
Here's what you should watch for (all times Eastern, and although there are some very interesting Senate races, I only focused on the McCain-Obama match up):
6:00 PM: Kentucky and Indiana close. The former is obviously going to McCain. But Indiana could be an early bellwether for the night. If McCain wins easily, it may be a very close race, but if Indiana is somehow projected for Obama early on, it's tough to envision a McCain victory scenario, and we may end up seeing an Obama landslide.
7:00 PM: Polls close in Virginia and Georgia, as well as most of Florida and most of New Hampshire. The Indiana results probably won't be reported until after 7, at which time results from other key swing states will be coming in. Virginia may be the most important of the night, as Nate Silver explains: "If John McCain loses it, his path to victory is exceptionally narrow--he would need to pull out an upset in Pennsylvania, while holding on to Florida and Ohio, and avoiding a sweep out West. Barack Obama has considerably more ways to win without Virginia, but a failure to close out the state would suggest at best a more circuitous route to victory."
Florida and Georgia will probably be too close to call until later in the night, however.
7:30 PM: Polls close in Ohio, West Virginia, and North Carolina. McCain will probably hold onto West Virginia, but the other two have been very close and will depend a lot on GOTV efforts.
8:00 PM: A big portion of the Central time zone ends voting around this time, as well as Pennsylvania, which is the state McCain has staked his entire campaign on. If Obama holds onto Pennsylvania, virtually any red state will give him the win. Although he won't officially cross the 270 mark at that point, we'll have an idea of when he will.
9:00 PM: The Mountain time zone finishes voting, including Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. If McCain has had a nearly perfect night up to this point (i.e., holding onto Bush states and winning Pennsylvania), Obama will likely need Colorado to win. The Arizona results will also be interesting because of Obama's recent attempt to make a play for McCain's home state.
10:00 PM: Polls close in Nevada, Iowa, Montana and New York. This is probably the earliest point at which the race may be officially called for Obama, because he will need the 31 EVs from New York to pass the 270 threshold, Silver says. If it's still neck-and-neck at this point, Nevada will be the state to watch.
11:00 PM: Polls close on the west coast, which solidly supports Obama. By now we will probably have a president-elect, and I can start thinking about how I'll spend my time when I no longer have political polls to obsess over.
Posted by Elyas Bakhtiari at 5:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
How I spend my days
- Fivethirtyeight.com - Check the polls
- Pollster.com - Check the polls
- Real Clear Politics - Check the polls
- Fivethiryeight.com - Check for updates, read some of the comments
- 270towin.com - Play with the electoral map
- Pollster.com/blogs - Check for polling updates, read some of the comments
Yep, I'd say that sounds like a typical hour in the last few weeks/months. Repeat that cycle several times and throw in dozens of non-polling political blogs, and that's my day. I have become a poll junkie. It isn't just the numbers; I read about methodology and samples sizes and historical context.
Whatever the result, I'm going to be so much more productive (I hope) after the election.
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