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PoliGAF Interim Thread of 2008 Early Voting (THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: T MINUS 2 DAYS)

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besada said:
Appropos of the change that eight years brings, and the things that stay the same, here's a little 21 minute documentary about the 2000 Republican primary that includes some details on the robocalls that drove McCain insane.

Joust watch McCain, and compare him with the thing you see jerking and twitching around on the screen these days, always seemingly gnashing his teeth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFPddnQOhME

I ran across this via an article on HuffPo.
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Gotta love those sub-$1.50 gasoline prices at around 2:13 in the video.
 
Zefah said:
Gotta love those sub-$1.50 gasoline prices at around 2:13 in the video.
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Yeah, that hurt. I look back at 2000 as a glorious and golden time. It amazes me how shitty the world has turned in eight short years.
 
Zefah said:
The exaggerations in Idiocracy really weren't that far-fetched in regards to a large portion of the population. Luckily there are a lot of smart people in the United States, too. I just wish more resources would be put into education and into erradicating the culture of anti-intellectualism.
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Seriously. A lot of that movie was obviously exaggerated for comic effect but stuff like them thinking anyone well-spoken was 'faggy', commercial-packed TV about someone getting kicked in the balls, the buying into marketing slogans ("...but it's got electrolytes..."), and stuff like that really wasn't that far from reality. Anti-intellectualism might keep people in power and make it easy to rally people but it's going to bite the country eventually.

Anyway, based on the last few years, does anyone know what sort of time the election result is called with reasonable certainty on election night? I'm just going to be on GMT so I'm wondering if it's worth staying up and watching or if I should just go to bed and check it in the morning. Either way I'll be straight on here congratulating you guys or laughing as America takes another step back. Hopefully the former...
 
Mar_ said:
I don't understand American politics. McCain and his people are doing the most vile, segregating, obvious bullshit lying tactics and the public and media aren't batting an eyelid. You all know what's going on, know it's wrong, yet act as though it's no big deal. I can't help but think in any other democratic society McCain would have been laughed out of government. But not only is he able to maintain face amongst interviewing journalists, swatting away the questions one by one and smiling with the questioner then going on to the next. But he's also running for the president of the united states.

I hope for the sake of your country that the clown duo of McCain and Palin, with their message of hate and fear mongering, get their asses handed to them on closing day and somehow the rest of the world can move on and pretend we never seen this grotesque display.
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As somebody else said, stupidity. The right is appealing to their core (bigots and evangelicals).

But the MAIN reason the media is such a farce stems from two things IMO: 1.) They've been beaten down by accusations of "Liberal media bias." So they've abandoned their watchdog status because you've gotta be "fair" to both sides or you're biased. They've been so beaten down they'd give equal standing to Mother Teresa and Hitler if they were both on today. 2.) Don't underestimate the power of MSM being owned by large corporations. Those right-wing boycotts that use to happen in the past may have been laughed at by most people, but they did their jobs. The corporations don't wanna do anything to alienate 40 percent of the population. Quarterly profits > everything. It's pretty depressing that "Network"'s warnings seem tame compared to what actually exists today.
 
NekoFever said:
Anyway, based on the last few years, does anyone know what sort of time the election result is called with reasonable certainty on election night? I'm just going to be on GMT so I'm wondering if it's worth staying up and watching or if I should just go to bed and check it in the morning. Either way I'll be straight on here congratulating you guys or laughing as America takes another step back. Hopefully the former...
Click to expand...

There are a bunch of swing states that have their polls close between 7 - 8 PM EST. Assuming they're big enough victories for Obama, maybe by 8 - 9 PM EST it'll be obvious he's going to win.

If it's close, you're probably talking at least past midnight before things crystallize. So depending on what time you usually go to bed, an early night-early rise might be best.
 
besada said:
Appropos of the change that eight years brings, and the things that stay the same, here's a little 21 minute documentary about the 2000 Republican primary that includes some details on the robocalls that drove McCain insane.

Joust watch McCain, and compare him with the thing you see jerking and twitching around on the screen these days, always seemingly gnashing his teeth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFPddnQOhME

I ran across this via an article on HuffPo.
Click to expand...

Funny how times change. I had heard about and read about the smear campaign done against Mccain, yet it's funny how history is repeating itself, down to the political climate and feeling of change and reform. It's like groundhogs day...
 
Nabs said:
Someone took Colin Powell's MTP interview and spliced it with photos, music and some video. Really well done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=243gXtXtEwc
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Amazing... perfectly crafted.

The music is from V for Vendetta too - nice touch. Things move so quickly and people forget, but at the time that movie released this country was a much darker place. There wasn't much hope on the horizon.

Love the movie or hate it - it had a way of tapping into my subconscious when I saw it in a very profound way. So I'm looking forward to this particular 5th of November.

VendettaDominoes.jpg
 
Dr_Cogent said:
WHAT THE FUCK
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Yeah, fuck that noise. People are stupid and sheep like. But Blacks vote democrat. They don't vote 'black'. You just have to look as early back as 2007 to see that, when they were supporting Hilary Clinton over Barack Obama.

This shit is why I don't have confidence in a democracy. Even though Obama is leading, and pretty significantly in EVs, the fact there's still so many people siding with McCain, despite the expansive gulf of difference between the two candidates in merit terms, forces you to question, really what the fuck are so many americans thinking?
 
Sanjay said:
When I heard this, my eyes, tears flowed.
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Yeah I got choked up too... you could really heard the emotion in his voice as he told the story... and this was before I saw the picture... :(
 
ZeroTolerance said:
So they go to one of the black-est cities in NY and they really expect people to know why they support Obama ? .....this is like going to the deep south and doing this the opposite way with McCain supporters.
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Funny thing is, I had the same idea (no way to execute).

Still, you'd get a decent laugh out of telling the southies all these great socialist ideas, and then revealing to them that they've actually just agreed to Obama's platform.

Better yet, tell them about all his achievements, havard law review president, ivy league scholarship, community worker, professor of consitutional law, he wants to keep jobs in america, he wants to give middle income earners a tax break, at the expense of the rich, he's selected as his running mate, one of the most experienced and resepcted senators around, so that he could get him to bounce ideas of him and give him perspective.

And then contrast it with McCain's positions, while calling it Obama's (and all the bullshit that McCain's campaign has pulled and resorted to)... and then do a bait and switch, revealing to them in detail (with detailed backup newsarticles etc) how they've actually agreed to Obama on all policy positions, and disagreed with McCain on just about everything.
 
besada said:
The American idea of balanced news, by definition, has been weighted so that both view points are completely equal, regardless of their actual merits. It's a cancer in American media fueled by a need to secure viewers, make advertisers happy, and reduce complaints of bias -- which never works anyway.

You don't have to dig far to figure out why American media is so fucked up. It's profit driven, which means it likes narrative, it likes simple stories, and if a pretty little white girl gets kidnapped or a political campaign gets juicy enough, it's like instant sweeps week.
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Absolutely. The easiest and most lighthearted example of this can be found in some special report discussions on channels like Discovery or National Geographic where they ask questions like: "Do UFOs exist?" or "Is the abominable snowman real?" In such shows, you have two sides:

1) Two or three guys who swear they saw them
2) A legion of professional scientists and researchers who explain why they're wrong

However, those two or three guys are given as much -- if not more -- air time as the actual scientists. The channels create reenactments, and take the time to let each person explain in detail precisely what they (believe they) saw.

And then at the end, they have the scientists on for about 5 minutes to explain just why none of this makes sense, and then ask, "So, what do you believe?" As if there are two equal sides to this debate and anyone can think what they want.

Of course, in this instance, it clearly benefits the channels in question to draw it out as much as possible, and suspend belief until the very end. If they just had reasonable people on right at the beginning who said, "Of course there is no abominable snowman, and here is the empirical evidence I have to show why that's so unlikely," nobody would watch.

But the principle is the same: a couple of crazy people against a legion of reasonable ones with empirical data to support their position. When the channel in question gives both equal airtime and treats them equally, it gives the impression of balanced coverage, when of course what would be really balanced is to just have a 30 second show where scientists come on and say, "The abominable snowman isn't real, idiots," and then 59.5 minutes of dead air time.
 
as of 10/20/08

Number of ballots cast: 691,507

Number of ballots voted in person: 594,890
Number of mail-in ballots returned: 96,617

Turn out Demographics:

Code: 
Black Female	153,708
Black Male	 92,405
White Female	230,734
White Male	189,313
Asia-PI Female	1,502
Asia-PI Male	1,125
Hisp-Lt Female	1,975
Hisp-Lt Male	1,542
Native AM Female	42
Native AM Male	52
Other	19,109
Total	691,507

Whites make up 60.7% of the vote.
Blacks make up 35.6% of the vote.


Nate from 538.com stated that Obama needs the black vote to stay above 30% to win Georgia.

http://sos.georgia.gov/elections/earlyvotingstats08.htm
 
StoOgE said:
And Joe S. is a jackass.. "We'll see if Harold Ford is still the Tennessee talking point"

Ford is clearly a Dem, but I think most of us would agree that he is hardly nothing but a talking point regurgitater. He has pissed me off pushing his DLC bullshit.
Click to expand...

Harold Ford is a joke. He tries to cuddle both side and Joe Scarbs mocks him every time he's on. Harold, grow a spine.
 
1-D_FTW said:
There are a bunch of swing states that have their polls close between 7 - 8 PM EST. Assuming they're big enough victories for Obama, maybe by 8 - 9 PM EST it'll be obvious he's going to win.

If it's close, you're probably talking at least past midnight before things crystallize. So depending on what time you usually go to bed, an early night-early rise might be best.
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Midnight EST is 5am GMT if the site I checked is accurate, so I won't be up that late. I'm usually up until about 2am (9pm EST) so I should be able to get a good idea of how things are going then. I'll set my alarm to let me have a look at the results and then go back to bed, probably.

I only just noticed that by the time the result is declared it'll be 5 November here, so either way we'll have fireworks :lol
 
mckmas8808 said:
as of 10/20/08

Number of ballots cast: 691,507

Number of ballots voted in person: 594,890
Number of mail-in ballots returned: 96,617

Turn out Demographics:

Whites make up 60.7% of the vote.
Blacks make up 35.6% of the vote.


Nate from 538.com stated that Obama needs the black vote to stay above 30% to win Georgia.

http://sos.georgia.gov/elections/earlyvotingstats08.htm
Click to expand...
Completely insane that we're talking about Georgia as a potential Obama state.

GEORGIA
 
RubxQub said:
Completely insane that we're talking about Georgia as a potential Obama state.

GEORGIA
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My sister lives in Atlanta and she's not sure she believes the polls... she always says she and her fiance are the loneliest Democrats in Georgia.

I don't know what to believe either... but can I say that the flatlining and SLIGHT downward trend on Obama at 538 has me a touch nervous.
 
El_TigroX said:
.. but can I say that the flatlining and SLIGHT downward trend on Obama at 538 has me a touch nervous.
Click to expand...

I am not too worried, because I don't see how McCain can stem the tide between now and the election. Powell's endorsement yesterday carries the momentum for a few days, and Obama's friggin infomercial in a week will also be huge. If anything, a legitimately close race will keep Obama's supporters on their toes, and will prevent depressed turnout from people who think he is going to win regardless.
 
Dammit, I wanted to vote right at 8:00 this morning, but my car battery is dead so I couldn't make any stops on the way to work ;_;

I'll have to try and make it before they close tonight.
 
lawblob said:
I am not too worried, because I don't see how McCain can stem the tide between now and the election. Powell's endorsement yesterday carries the momentum for a few days, and Obama's friggin infomercial in a week will also be huge. If anything, a legitimately close race will keep Obama's supporters on their toes, and will prevent depressed turnout from people who think he is going to win regardless.
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If I lived in New York, I'd still want to vote. Voting for Obama is a historic event. I think a lot of people feel similarly.
 
NekoFever said:
Seriously. A lot of that movie was obviously exaggerated for comic effect but stuff like them thinking anyone well-spoken was 'faggy', commercial-packed TV about someone getting kicked in the balls, the buying into marketing slogans ("...but it's got electrolytes..."), and stuff like that really wasn't that far from reality. Anti-intellectualism might keep people in power and make it easy to rally people but it's going to bite the country eventually.

Anyway, based on the last few years, does anyone know what sort of time the election result is called with reasonable certainty on election night? I'm just going to be on GMT so I'm wondering if it's worth staying up and watching or if I should just go to bed and check it in the morning. Either way I'll be straight on here congratulating you guys or laughing as America takes another step back. Hopefully the former...
Click to expand...

You'd be best off going to bed early and waking up at like 4 or 5 AM GMT... that's when states will start getting called.
 
BTW, has anyone else made the realisation that Obama has been a far cooler candidate and will be in all probability a much better president than a lot of fictional black presidents?

David Palmer who? Dude from Fifth Element who?

Obama is like the Tiger Woods of presidential candidates. Awesome. (and a half mix!)
 
DarienA said:
This..is... AWESOME.. :)
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Really? 'AWESOME' is the last word I'd use to describe it. 'Utterly fucked up beyond all belief that this should even be thought of as a possibility, let alone a necessity' works better for me.
 
Crayon Shinchan said:
If I lived in New York, I'd still want to vote. Voting for Obama is a historic event. I think a lot of people feel similarly.
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I can't wait for election day. I felt somewhat emotional voting in 2004 and I didn't really care about Kerry. Voting in this year's election and watching the results that evening will be something I don't think I will ever forget.
 
syllogism said:
Gallup will probably move a bit toward Mccain as well. +10 seems a bit generous since the polls have slightly tightened recently.
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Remember, the SNL with Palin (and even though GAF doesn't like to think it, Palin seemed very likeable on it) got a massive 17 million viewers, more than the show has gotten in over 14 years. That is almost as much as some nights of the convention gets. That likely could have had an effect.
 
There's an editorial in my local newspaper (Times of Trenton) by Krugman titled "Time for U.S. to spend"

Either it's not indexed yet or my google-fu fails me. It's a good read if you can find it.
 
CharlieDigital said:
There's an editorial in my local newspaper (Times of Trenton) by Krugman titled "Time for U.S. to spend"

Either it's not indexed yet or my google-fu fails me. It's a good read if you can find it.
Click to expand...

John Keynes: "You rang?"
 
El_TigroX said:
My sister lives in Atlanta and she's not sure she believes the polls... she always says she and her fiance are the loneliest Democrats in Georgia.

I don't know what to believe either... but can I say that the flatlining and SLIGHT downward trend on Obama at 538 has me a touch nervous.
Click to expand...


The numbers I sited were actual votes in Georgia.
 
Also, an editorial by Friedman had this great line:

UBS bank's motto is: "You and us." But the world we created was actually "You and nobody" -- nobody was really connected in value terms," said Seidman. "Parts of Wall Street got disconnected from investing in human endeavor -- helping business to scale and take up new ideas." Instead, they started to just engineer money from money. "So some of the stmartest CEOs did not know what some of their smartest people were doing."​
 
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