The Republic of T.

It’s been a long, long time coming
But I know, a change is gonna come.
Oh, yes it will.

Sam Cooke, “A Change is Gonna Come”

At 11:01 p.m. last night, after the polls closed in California, I just had to call someone. I’d spent the night at the National Public Radio headquarters with a bunch of other bloggers, live-blogging the election results. I called home and spoke briefly to my husband, then found myself walking aimlessly down a hallway. I stopped in a reception area, looked at the night sky from the second story window, and though how strange it was that the world — my world had changed so dramatically — yet the sky looked just the same.

And I thought about the people who didn’t live to see what happened that night, and the people who never thought they would — but did.

(more…)

And so the night begins. I’m off to NPR, where I’ll be joining a bunch of other political bloggers to cover the election results into the night.

With any luck it won’t be a long night. The popular vote graphic on their site is encouraging.

I’ll put it this way. If Virgina, Florida and Pennsylvania report for Obama before the Metro stops running, I’m going home. Same if Ohio, Florida, and Virginia report for Obama; or if Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida report for Obama; or some combination of the three.

In the meantime, we wait. I and write two different posts for tomorrow, and wait to see which one I publish.

OK. Not that we didn’t already know this, but they have none.

Leaving no potential avenue of attack unexplored, the Republican National Committee has decided to bash Barack Obama over his October visit to see his ailing grandmother in Hawaii.

Of course the visit itself is not being criticized, but rather the way the campaign paid for the nominee’s unscheduled detour. On Monday afternoon, the RNC blasted out a complaint from the California Republican Party charging that “Obama for America violated federal law by converting its campaign funds to Senator Obama’s personal use” for the trip. That proposed issue for the FEC to investigate is one of five violations alleged by California Republicans in their complaint (which you can read in its entirety here).

“Senator Obama recently traveled to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother. This was the right thing for any grandson to do — at his own expense — but it was not travel that his campaign may fund,” said California Republican Chairman Ron Nehring in a statement Monday.

And then there’s the question of class…

(more…)

I just dare you to watch this and not feel something.

He didn’t say it in so many words, but I’m willing to bet that Charles Alexander has thought to himself at some point, “I never thought I’d live to see the day…”

To understand the reason for his emotions about this election, you have to understand the context.

(more…)

Remember: Yes. We. Can.

OK. I’ll just go ahead and admit it. My nerves are shot. In fact, they’ve been too shot to blog much at all today. I don’t know whether to be excited, nervous or what. All I know is that, after being in D.C. for 2000 and 2004, I’m not given to unrestrained optimism. I look at the poll numbers, I look at the electoral maps, and I see the picture they paint, But it’s going to be somewhere between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. before I feel comfortable enough to exhale tomorrow night.

I just don’t think I can call it, yet. But the electoral maps are encouraging. There are three I’ve been obsessing over.

(more…)

A funny thing happened on the way to the bailout. A number of the members of the bucket brigade — that’s us, taxpayers — realized that for all the billions of dollars worth of bailing we’re doing, we still appear to be sinking. Our task seems to be keeping things afloat long enough for first class passengers to fill the lifeboats. And as the water rises, more of us are less content with apparent the “brokers and bankers first” rule.

And let there be no doubt, as the U.S. economy looks like it’s going down for the first time, “brokers and bankers first” is the rule.

In the waning days of, well, everything from the George W. Bush era, to the Reagan era and 30 years of conservative rule — as is often the case in a disaster — men’s true characters reveal themselves, and they reveal their intentions when they have little left to lose.

(more…)

You gotta be kidding me. This guy, first of all, should have zero credibility left. But after he’s expose as a fraud, he’s talking about running for Congress. That’s bad enough, but we already have a number of politicians who also know-nothing poseurs. But a record deal?

Move over, Sanjaya, and tell William Hung the news: Joe the Plumber is being pursued for a major record deal and could come out with a country album as early as Inauguration Day.

“Joe” — aka Samuel Wurzelbacher, a Holland, Ohio, pipe-and-toilet man — just signed with a Nashville public relations and management firm to handle interview requests and media appearances, as well as create new career opportunities, including a shift out of the plumbing trade into stage and studio performances.

On Tuesday, Wurzelbacher joined country music artist and producer Aaron Tippin to form a new partnership that includes booking-management firm Bobby Roberts and publicity-management concern The Press Office to field the multiple media offers he’s received over the past few weeks.

Among the requests: a possible record deal with a major label, personal appearances and corporate sponsorships. A longtime country music fan, Wurzelbacher can sing and “knocks around on guitar” but is not an accomplished musician or songwriter, according to The Press Office’s Jim Della Croce.

By inauguration day? I don’t know if he can sing or not, but anything turned out that fast is probably going to sound like a guy singing along with a mediocre karaoke track.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m voting for Barack Obama, but as a human being I can’t see someone in danger and not warn them. And, I’m not talking about Obama, even though everyone has probably at some point wondered and worried about “what if.” (And the first and second foils assasination attempts don’t help calm anyone’s nerves.

I’m talking about John McCain. And I feel the need to warn him, because I can’t see someone in danger and not warn them. And I think John McCain is in danger based on the latest quotes from Sarah Palin about 2012.

(more…)

Last week I ventured into the "spreading the wealth" discussion with a post attempting to unpack one aspect of why even some people who might be helped by the kind of economic policies Obama is proposing are against them anyway. It was a rather long post, so I wrapped it up without getting into another aspect of the debate that I alluded to briefly and hoped to get back to in another post.

Never mind that it takes an utter lack of an “irony gene” to speak of “steal-from-the-rich,” when only after the taxpayer-funded $1 trillion bailout of the financial sector that got us into the current economic mess — welfare for the wealthy, essentially — was passed has Washington started talking about a stimulus package for the rest of us. It takes Joe himself to bring it on home.

While the McCain/Palin campaign attempts to whip people into a lather with a liberal use of the "socialism" label, invoking fears of a wealth transfer, it’s easy to forget that a huge wealth transfer has been underway for a while and is going on even now. We call it "the bailout."

(more…)

That’s the only word I can think of to describe this.

Seriously?
(more…)

It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for John McCain. He’s got a bit of an identity crisis.

(more…)

I’m with Liza. I’m totally going to see this.

OK. It’s not the cast I would have chosen. Who cares? This looks totally worth getting a babysitter for.

And now, just for fun….

(more…)

Damn. It’s 9:21 p.m. on a Friday night. Nobody’s reading blogs right now, but I gotta run with this.

Not just abuse of power, but unlawful abuse of power. Well, what can I say?

(more…)

You’ve probably already seen this, but it’s something as many people as possible should see. So, I’m doing what I can.

I’ll just add one thing. These are the people who have kept George W. Bush’s approval rating in the double digits, if only just barely, for the last few years. These are the people the McCain-Palin ticket is going out of their way not just to court, but to rouse them in a way they have not been roused before.

What will happen if they win? What will happen if they lose? Which is worse?

At least he didn’t say “That boy,” but he was just one word off. I heard it, and I saw it. I saw it first, actually, during the first debate when McCain refused to look Obama in the eye.

(more…)

The vice presidential debate is over and much ink has been spilled and bandwith burned discussing how it all went.

The bar was set so low that if she managed to walk out there on two legs, breath air, and speak in complete sentences then she met expectations.

She met the expectations set for her in this debate. But that’s all.

Did she meet the expectations of someone who’s experienced and “ready on day one” to serve in our highest office?

(more…)

If I could figure out how to loop this, I would.

In lieu of that, here’s my best copying and pasting for today, because my automated digest posting isn’t working at the moment.

(more…)

After reading some of the comments at this Politico article, saying that Republicans are getting increasingly nervous about Palin after her media performances, there something that needs pointing out. The questions she was asked, and failed utterly to answer, are not “gotcha” questions. They are questions that any serious candidate should be able to answer coherently and without hesitation, or sense that they are leading questions and avoid answering them. It follows that the level of intelligence expected of any serious candidate would enable her or him to know a leading question when they hear one.

Problem is, your candidate ain’t got it, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious no matter how much you and your party want to pretend otherwise.

Thus, the more people hear from Palin, the more they look at her like this.

Why? Let’s review.’

(more…)