myopiclunacy.com

Awesome. Check out the attempts to raionalize Obama’s victory.

RedState: Obama’s 2008 Victory in Perspective

It’s going to happen, and we all know it: after two close elections, some Democrats are going to claim that Obama’s margin of victory over John McCain was a large, overwhelming repudiation of the Republican party, and that it was possibly even a historical turning point of partisan political realignment.

There’s just one problem with that theory: It’s not true.

See the image to the right (and click for the full version): It’s a complicated chart, but it has a lot to say. On it are illustrated the popular vote and electoral vote victory margins of every Presidential election 1900-2008, assuming Obama gets North Carolina and McCain gets Missouri. This also only counts Republicans and Democrats, and third parties are ignored.

Also on the chart are the mean Popular Vote and Electoral Vote margins since World War II, that is, counting the 1948-2008 elections. From that we can see one fact right away: Obama’s victory is below average. We can also look at the tiny bars representing the 2000 and 2004 elections to see that comparing with those races is simply not any kind of standard to use when judging an election.

Eisenhower 1952 and 1956. Johnson 1964. Nixon 1972. Reagan 1980 and 1984. Those elections set the standard for a blowout. Obama? His win doesn’t look like those other Presidents I just listed. He’s just slightly below average, sorry.

So rest at ease, Republicans. Even if this win isn’t a fluke, it’s not a permanent game changer.

Right. And surely the closeness of the past 5 elections don’t show any kind of demographic or other change in America, or any movement in values. Or any refinement in campaigning techniques. Lets dismiss all of that and start comparing to Eisenhower because all things are equal in 2008 America and 1952 America (as Obama has just shown).

Popularity: 8% [?]

What a great article - found on Eddie’s page. There are lots of other interesting tidbits but the highlight is here:

Highlights: Newsweek’s Special Election Project | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com

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.

you have to take it with a grain of salt, surely, but it’s still fun. I love that some of the clothes were “lost” - yeah - cuz I’ve used that excuse too! hahah. Also fun is this FOX NEWS report about Palin not knowing that Africa was a continent. Are you kidding me? Sure explains the Couric interview … and how Alaskans re-elected Ted Stevens.

Other highlights: McCain aides wanted to tell McCain that it was over before the last debate. Pain ran with the Ayers attack before the campaign approved it. McCain’s campaign was planning but scrapped a soft-on-crime Willie Horton ad as well as a “dancing with a lesbo” ad with footage from Ellen. Obama had to be convinced not to consider Hillary for VP. Hillary was on better terms with McCain than with Obama. And my favorite:

At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys’ club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. “I’ll be just a minute,” she said.

Oh yeah, daddy! That’s what I call a serious debriefing.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Florida. Ohio. Pennsylvania. And possibly Indiana and North Carolina. Amazing.

Popularity: 7% [?]

saw this on eddie’s page. rachel talked about it last night too

Popularity: 7% [?]

i guess this is your October surprise

Popularity: 7% [?]

Stolen from Sheldon. It’s EXCELLENT.

I especially liked the part about evolution, the trinity/muslim connection, and “speak delusions to power”

Popularity: 6% [?]

According to RCP Obama needs 32 electoral votes from the battleground states and McCain needs 143. Given the margin of errors in statistical samples, a lead of less than 5 is considered to be a toss up, and in reality, should probably be given to McCain. There’s also the Bradley effect and the young-voter-apathy effect.

Makes me think that Obama’s shot will be from winning some combination of Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Mexico, and Colorado for him to reach the 270. I don’t include Nevada because from what I’ve been hearing about polling there, it’s typically more favorable to Democrats than in reality. McCain needs almost all of the battleground states but if he takes all the toss ups and West Virginia, all he needs is Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada, or Ohio, Colorado and Virginia. Not impossible by any means.

So here are some interesting clips from articles I’ve been reading.

On Spreading the wealth: That Wealth Spreader - TIME

We may disagree on how much to spread around and how to go about it. We all tend to think that it’s someone else’s wealth that needs to be spread around and that it ought to be spread in our direction. But the principle that the unequal distribution of wealth is a legitimate concern and government policies should mitigate it has been part of American democracy since at least the New Deal. In fact, it is a commonplace that the moderate wealth-spreading of the New Deal saved American democracy. Today collecting checks from people and issuing checks to other people–or the same people–is the government’s main domestic activity.

Although it was an off-the-cuff remark and one that Obama probably regrets, he actually put it well, avoiding the suggestion of envy or class war, which are the usual accusations about such talk. Spreading it around is “good for everybody,” he says. And who disagrees? Or would you like to live behind locked gates and hire guards to protect your family from kidnapping, as in places where they spread it around even less than here?

On the challenges for the next president: How They Would Lead — Printout — TIME

A sad fact of contemporary politics is that we’ve lost the ability to get through a campaign without transforming honorable alternatives into cartoons of good and evil. Disagreement is out; denunciation is in. The distinctive tune of our day is hysteria with a drumbeat of hyperbole, all set in the key of bad faith.

Underneath, however, Americans still long for the mystic chords of memory strummed by the better angels of our nature — a patriotic harmony that we like to think is the song of our nation at its best. This is why the two candidates who fared best in this election were the ones who spoke most convincingly about bringing us together. When the two are finally narrowed to one, his mandate will be change, his timetable short and his environment stormy with division. At a historic moment desperate for a successful President, everything will hinge on one man’s ability to navigate by the clouded star of common purpose.

On branding Rashid Khalidi a terrorist: The Anti-Semantic Joe Klein - Jeffrey Goldberg

he’s a fierce partisan of the Palestinian cause, of course, and in my conversations with him, and in his writing, I see that his sympathies frequently cause him to distort Middle East history. But an anti-Semite? I don’t think so. In fact, Rashid Khalidi is one of the rare Palestinian advocates who argues, as he has with me, that Arabs must study Jewish history, including and especially the history of Jew-hatred, in order to better understand Israel, and to reach a compromise with it.

On the trickle-down folly: RealClearPolitics - Articles - Referendum on Trickle-Down

McCain regularly charges that Obama wants to be the “redistributor in chief.” Speaking at the rally here at Shippensburg University, Palin was forced to say this about Obama’s support for a variety of tax credits aimed at helping the poor and middle class: “He says that he is for a tax credit, which is when government takes your money