Happy Obamaween!!!!

The Wife caved us a Barack-o-Lantern this year! Enjoy!

Chill

I posted the link to this in a comment, but I feel it is necessary to put it on the front page.

Voting Against Economic Self-Interest

There was an excellent article in the Washington Post yesterday about small-town voters fearing they'd be forgotten about if Obama wins. Yet, as you read the stories of the people in the article, and the hard times they've been facing, you see that they fail to realize that, in a way, they've already been forgotten about.

The article starts about the billboard (pictured above) with Obama in a turban (Note: Why do they put Hussein in quotes? Do they think that's his nickname and not his actual middle name? Fascinating!).

Midway through the article, we get a great snapshot of a person uniwttingly voting against his economic self-interest. Or at least of a person who seems to have no idea that his supposed opinion is completey cock-eyed. The guy has a sad, hard-luck story that is all-too-typical in America today: no health insurance, job could be outsourced to Mexico, plus some tragedies thrown in of a a child dying and becoming addicted to meth. It seems that all he wants is to go back to the way things used to be. A time before unemployment, back when there was economic security, or at least a way to make ends meet. Yet, he views a message of "change" to be anethema to him (it seems there might be some race issues coming into this):

"There was a time not long ago where somebody like Obama would have tried to become president, and they would have run him out on a rail," Collins said. "That's back when this country had backbone. Now, we say, 'Okay. He might be different than what we're used to, but maybe we can use a change.' But wait a minute now. What was wrong with the way things were?"

So, essentially he's against Obama because he's afraid that "change" will affect the past, which he wants to go back to, as opposed to the present, which he views as a failure. I can understand that you might disagree with the partiular type of change that someone offers, but being against change in general, when the present is crushing you, is a little sad to see.

A Few Words About Anonymous $50 Contributions

This "anonymous donations" dust-up is an unnecessarily big to-do that's missing the big picture. Why should we be concerned about small anonymous or "untraceable" donations? The reason we require some degree of openness in donor lists is so that we can be sure that politicians or the parties cannot be beholden to special interests. We want to prevent corruption. We want to know if a politician is receiving tens of thousands of dollars from an industry that her committee affects. We want to know if a political party is getting millions from certain corporations or labor unions. We want to know if foreign governments are trying to buy favorable policy. We want to have an open door on the potential influence-peddling that privately-financed elections can foment. But a donation of $50 is not going to buy influence anywhere. And even more obviously, an ANONYMOUS donation of $50 is not going to buy any influence. What corruption comes from allowing $25 donations from unknown sources in a billion-dollar election? None.

So what is the real concern? That people are putting up repetitive small-dollar donations under fake names to get around certain restrictions, doing so to a large-enough degree that it would buy influence, and then telling the Obama campaign that the 75 people known as "DFDSSD" are really them? I assume that is not seriously being alleged. Or is it that foreigners are donating to a campaign? Well, American citizens living abroad ARE allowed to donate to a campaign. Also, there's no way of verifying whether someone is a citizen or not -- even of the person had a passport, the State Department (rightfully) doesn't share this information. And why should they? We want to prevent the influence of foreign money. (Like the Clinton-Gore China and Buddhist monk fundraising issues). If the campaign is not soliciting the contribution and has no idea that foreign money is being received, what are we worried about?

Why are we concerned that a $25 gift-card donation is "untraceable"? You know what else is untraceable? Cash. And you can make $50 cash donations anonymously, or $100 cash donations non-anonymously (but, again, without any way to verify an address). Why do we allow cash donations in small amounts? Because, again, it is so incredibly unlikley that someone would make enough $50 donations anonymously (but tell the campaign that it was him) to be able to buy access. So gift card away.

The spirit of the rules is that we don't want people secretly influencing policy. These anonymous small donations don't violate the spirit of the rule. And since address verification is not required, it doesn't violate the letter of the rules either. So what's really the concern? "Karl Marx" donated $10? Who cares?

Mind you, it raises an eyebrow that (supposedly) the Obama campaign would accept a higher percentage taken out of each donation by the credit-card processor in exchange for no address verification. But the law allows this, and if the economics are right for the campaign (they can raise more money by having less donations excluded), as long as there's no chance of undue influence, the problem seems inconsequential.

I think what we have here is exactly what the campaign-finance reformers wanted (at least those that still wanted a privately-financed election). Millions of people are giving hundreds of millions of dollars. The donations are so diffuse that it's impossible for any person or group to unduly influence the candidate. If anything, we've finally got a candidate that is "beholden" to the public in general, not any particular people, companies, or industries. And if we wanted campaigns to vet every single donation, even those less than $1, it would tremendously raise the costs of campaigning, requiring even more fundraising and just compound the problem.

Disabling the address verification clearly brings Obama more money. But what is the concern? What effect will it have on Obama? Without some reasonable allegations about that, this is just a lot of noise.

Finally, a note on privacy of donors. People should be allowed to financially support a candidate to some extent without having their name (let alone their address and employer) posted on the Web for everyone to snoop around. Personally, I think the threshold level should be much higher than it is -- maybe $10,000 or so for Presidential general elections post-convention(whether it's an individual or a bundler). With the vast sums at issue, I just don't see much influence coming from amounts less than that (yes, I realize that people are limited to a quarter of this, but I think that's too low, too). Right now, the law allows you to remain private at under $200. People are entitled to this privacy if they donate less than this. And maybe some people circumvent the rules to donate more but to retain their privacy (as opposed to more sinister reasons), both from the campaigns and the public in general. The McCain campaign publicly discloses the names of all donors, regardless of size. If I was a small donor to the McCain campaign, I'd be pretty pissed off if my name was made public without my knoweldge.

Screen Cap from FiveThirtyEight.Com

WTF?!?

Oh wait, I know Rashid Khalidi too!

As we all know by now, the McCain camp has repeatedly pressed for media outlets to write about the connection between Obama and Khalidi, an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights. The National Review wants more focus on the association, since the LA Times has reported that Khalidi threw Obama a farewell party in Chicago- guess who else was there- Bill Ayers!

Funny thing about the whole guilt-by-association game: during the 1990s, while John McCain served as chairman of the International Republican Institute, McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars- $448,873 to be exact, according to a 1998 tax filing.

It must be sweet to be so old you forget shit that you did.

"Talk me down"

I believe that one of the hardest things to do in this era of bitter partisanship is to separate message from messenger, and evaluate arguments on their merits. There is a natural defensiveness on both sides, and an unwillingness to even discuss certain issues -- which, as a Barack supporter, I think is anathema to what he preaches.

So one of my roles here will probably be as a Resident Devil's Advocate of sorts. The guy who spots right-wing lines of argument in their infancy, and brings them up for discussion.

The job of my fellow contributors -- and any readers we may have -- will be to talk me down, and show me that these are silly or without merit. Or, if it's the case, admit that they have some merit, but argue why we still shouldn't care.

Case in point: this issue of Obama's untraceable contributions. That link is to the WaPo article, and it seems to be an issue worth discussing. Over at the extremely douchey right-wing blog PowerLine, they raise some interesting questions.

Read it when you have a minute, and share your thoughts.

And I promise not to have you read the vast majority of PL's cheerleading partisan posts, which are utterly insufferable and make me want to hunt the three of them down and bitch-slap them.

Let's Start Polling, too!

We're going to have a contest here at White Nerdy Wonks a little later this weekend to see who comes closest on a few up-in-the-air questions for the election. But to get you in the mood, we'll start off with a good ol' blog poll to really put your prognostication skills to work.

Can you predict the state that will provide the needed electoral votes on Election Night for the networks to call a winner? You've got to use your thinking caps, because you've got to chronologically figure how your candidate will get to 270+. Let's take Obama: assume that VA, NC, FL, PA, OH, and IN will all be to close to call when the polls close. But how long until they get called? An hour? Maybe if the current polling sticks in PA or VA. But it'll probably be a while until at least FL gets called. And by that point, the Central states will have probably closed, if not the Pacific states. So any state could really be the one that puts Obama over the edge. CA, OR, WA, and NV could all get called before FL/OH/MO. Or maybe they won't matter.

I can't figure out how to put on a drop-down menu of all the states. So for now, vote for what time zone the state will be in. Consider OR to be Pacific; AZ and ID to be Mountain; KS, NE, ND, SD, TX, TN and IN (why not) to be Central; FL, MI, and KY in Eastern. We'll use NBC/MSNBC as the official caller.

"Buyer's remorse"

While the poll numbers look good for our side, one thing keeps needling me squarely in the brain: 2000.

While the late October polls in 2004 proved quite accurate, that was not the case in 2000. And you can argue that 2000 was a more similar election to this one. There was no sitting President, and it was a choice between a newbie "outsider" (albeit the son of an insider) and a more established entity.

Recall what went down between the final week of 2000 polling and The Big Day (emphasis mine):

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup tracking poll conducted October 29 through October 31 showed Bush, then the Texas governor, leading Democratic Sen. Al Gore, 48 percent to 43 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

A subsequent poll conducted November 2 through November 4, released two days before the voters cast their ballots, showed the same results.

Gore, however, ended up winning the popular vote by about 540,000 votes. When broken down by percentage, both candidates had about 48 percent of the popular vote. Bush won the Electoral College, and thereby the presidency, by 5 electoral votes.

I know that Big Papa Nate touts the structural advantages in the electoral college, and other mathy things. But still, given the reliance on previously unreliable voters and other unique "issues" in this campaign, I am still a bit worried about the Buyer's Remorse -- the last minute "Do we really want this guy?" Which wouldn't be helped one bit by Osama bin Laden poking his nasty little head into our affairs, as he did around this date four years ago.

Paging Mr. Godwin

The Pennsylvania GOP is in hot water after an e-mail likening Barack Obama's rise to power to that of Hitler was sent to 75,000 Jewish voters.

Among the co-signers was a former justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court -- Sandra Schultz Newman -- who is either crazy, or (just as likely) didn't read the thing before it went out.

Though I did not receive the e-mail myself, I think I can safely speak for most of the recipients when I say to those involved: "Kindly shove an unlubricated dreidel up your ass."

But just to show there's no hard feelings, Sandy, you're personally invited to my place to watch the election results come in. I'll make the latkes.

Hey, Thanks Navy! James Harrison, You Are Excused.

Two items from the weekend's foot-ball games.

1) Jesus Christ, Navy. I take my four-year old son to his first football game with my father-in-law in tow, sit through ridiculous amounts of driving rain, and you don't have the decency to make one fucking pass attempt the entire game? I am oh-so-glad I got to witness the first time that this happened in college football in 10 years. Navy ran on 3rd-and-11 (twice), 3rd-and-10, and 3rd-and-9. I don't care if you were down to your third-string QB. If James Harrison can attempt to long-snap the ball, your 3rd string QB could pretend to attempt a forward lateral. What, was Dr. Z coaching this thing? He's probably ordered the audio so he can listen on a constant loop as he types out his columns on an antique Remington. Negative bonus points go to SMU, who gave up a long run after biting on a pump-fake. Yeah, they haven't thrown all game -- better make sure you've got double-coverage down the field. There's a reason you've won only one game all year, SMU.

2) Much ado is being made about the Steelers' James Harrison's valiant-yet-awfully-errant long snap over injured-to-begin-with punter Mitch Berger's head for a safety. Obviously, the Pro Bowler linebacker contributes much more to the team than one errant snap could ever take away. But, I have seen little over what was my favorite play of the game, Harrison's pass interference penalty in the 4th quarter. Manning was being pressured to his left by Woodley, and he put up an opposite-handed, lobby lame duck to Brandon Jacobs that was barely going to make it to the line of scrimmage if it was to be caught at all. As Jacobs was half-jogging for the pass that he didn't really want to catch, Harrison ran up behind him and shoved him down. A more obvious pass-interference penalty there could not be. I assume Harrison thought the ball had been tipped. Reminded me of the first round playoff game the Giants had against the 49ers a few years ago, when the errant long snap (!) on the game-ending FG was botched, but then scooped up by the holder for a desperation pass, but the receiver was blatantly shoved before he could catch it.

Side Note: for the errant long snap play, the entry in the box score reads "M. Berger Aborted."

Montana

While we're talking about states, I wanted to mention Montana. It's just about my favorite place in the world. In 2006, we took a vacation to Northwest Montana and Glacier Park. We were expecting to find scores of right-wing nutjobs, and what we found were organic dry-cleaners, fair-trade coffee shops, and organic steaks that we bought in the supermarket and grilled ourselves that are the best thing I've ever cooked in my life. The place was conservative in the libertarian sense, but people also realized that they live in the most beautiful place on Earth and actually give a damn about keeping it that way. Anyway, since we were there, I've always followed Montana politics a little more closely than any other state I haven't lived in.

Point being, I'm rooting hard for Montana to go blue this year. it's just outside Obama's column right now, but one recent poll actually showed Obama ahead and most of the recent ones have shown it close. They've got two Democratic Senators and a Democratic Governor, and they've been at the forefront of the Democratic resurgence in the Mountain West.

An Obama victory on November 4th would be sweet no matter how it looks, but for this Northeastern elitist, it would be that much sweeter if it includes Montana.

Minnesooooota

Jason and I were just talking on the phone, and he reminded me that Norm Coleman -- prior to winning his Minnesota Senate seat -- lost to Jesse Ventura in the 1998 governor's race.

And at present, he's threatening to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against Al Franken.

So, if that actually goes down, the story would read: One term in the Senate, sandwiched between losses to a mildly insane wrestler and a kind of annoying comedian. And to get to the Senate, he narrowly eeked out a win over Ronald Reagan's bitch, who was, at the time, 116 years old and had entered the race about an hour before the election.

I believe that is what political consultants call a "Shitty Resume."

(An additional factoid from Wikipedia: If Franken wins, he'd be the fourth consecutive Jew to hold that Senate seat).

8 Years Later

My buddy over at NBC was given the DVD of this to try and air Friday, but NBC said no it's too much like a commercial and MSNBC didn't even look at it. Keith, your producer had this Friday afternoon!!!

The Black Guy

Good evening, I thought I'd say hello, I'm the black guy. Now why would a group with a bunch of white guys want a black guy? Answer: We have style and we'll do just about anything to belong, just ask Colin Powell, or Alan Keyes or Edward M Daniels, or Bill Clinton. In all seriousness, I grew up with these fine wonky white boys and watched them become fine wonky white men. How do I fit in with the wonky white blog you may ask?: I graduated from Virginia and Carnegie Mellon and live in Elitist Non-America, New York City...I've also spent the last 5 months registering dead pets to vote for Obama. I think I'll fit in fine.

Worth 2,000 words

[cross-posted at DanNation]

These two pictures are on Drudge's front page at the moment, pointing to two separate stories about the McCain and Obama campaigns, respectively.

Pretty much says it all about the state of the race, no?

Obama Will Destroy the American Restaurant Industry?

Hank Williams, Jr. is not only ready for some football, he's ready for Election Day! He's been stumping with Palin and doesn't believe any polls, even Fox News'. It's worth watching this whole 4-minute clip from Fox News, but the best part is at the end, when Hank makes the rather novel attack that an Obama victory will destroy the American restaurant industry as we know it. Neil Cavuto's response is priceless. And why did Hank choose to wear a Steelers' Joey Porter jersey? That is, in fact, the absolute last jersey that I would imagine he'd wear. Well, except for maybe #22.

And for those that have not seen it, here's part of Hank's stump performance. It's just kinda surreal.



And what's with the choice in jerseys again? Who wears #96 for the Redskins? Was this left over from a stump speech for Bob Dole? Couldn't they at least get the man a jersey that says 08? Or whatever number Riggins wore?

At least it wasn't a truckful, a la Bam Morris

We'll occasionally be veering away from political topics, to touch on equally important matters like the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In that vein, there's confirmation that wide receiver Santonio Holmes will be benched this week after his citation for having a couple of Mary-Ja-Wanna cigars in his ride yesterday.

Granted, so far in 2008 Nate Washington is the new Santonio. He's been the deep threat, and Mr. Holmes hasn't gotten things rolling.

But facing the Giants, I'd clearly prefer to have all the weapons in the arsenal at our disposal.

The Girl In Pittsburgh Who Got Carved

Bob Mayo is WTAE-TV Channel 4's most erstwhile reporter. He is also, on the side, an avid blogger, and he is really good at it.

Although he keeps threatening to blog more often about cats and puzzles, he usually uses his blog to go deeper in to background on news stories he is already reporting. Check out his work on the carvee (carver?) at The Busman's Holiday.

Midnight Train On My Mind????

OK. I'm obsessed with polls. I can't go 15 minutes without checking 538, TPM or Pollster to see if there's anything new. I have a feeling that 95% of my posts prior to election day will be of the "Holy shit, did you see that?" variety.

Anyway, Insider Advantage has Obama up a point in frickin' Georgia!!! Georgia, people!!! And with a key Senate race there (at least if we want to get to 60), it wouldn't surprise me to see Obama hit the ATL sometime next week.

FYI, according to Nate, IA is precisely average among pollsters.

Is Making a Deal Out of $150,000 in Clothes Sexist?

I feel fairly uncomfortable with the stories on Palin's clothes. Societal norms require her to look flawless and to wear something new each day. The campaign has to make an investment in that to present her in a certain way. It wasn't like they bought Harry Winston jewels. It was lots and lots and lots of high-end clothes. Nothing wrong with that. And this was the stupidest thing I saw on all this -- a quote from the head of the Michigan Republican party: "I don't even know how you would spend $150,000 on clothes. You can get a pretty darn good men's suit for $300 to $500." Well, I doubt that either Obama or McCain is getting their suits for $500 or less. And they certainly don't need a new one for each day (or probably more than one each day). It's a completely oblivious comment that reflects an overt sexism that seems to blame Palin for being clothes-hungry, when the public and press essentially demand that she look impeccable. The wow factor about the price of the clothes should be that that's what it costs these days to outfit a candidate for two months, not that she went overboard. It was an investment in presentation and marketing, not a girl-gone-wild shopping spree.

Relatedly, I find this current commercial for the Chevy Traverse to also be sexist:

It basically says that women are so in love with shoes that they run out of their cars like crazy banshees, and would just scoop a whole bunch into their trunk, without regard to getting a matching pair or looking for the right size. I mean, really, what good will 117 shoes of different colors and sizes do? Oh, but you just KNOW it would be a dream come true for the ladies. And then there's that douche eating a hot dog who just shakes his head in humorous disbelief: "Oh, those ladies just LOVE their shoes -- they'll stop in the middle of the road without even putting on their hazard lights." There's no tongue-in-cheek reveal at the end to present this as joke-sexism. It's just out-and-out sexism.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Like Damn and Whoa

Jesus, 538 has Obama over 96% tonight. The main graph of the possible EV totals on the right is looking lonelier ever day.

Of course, the better things start to look, the greater my sense of impending doom.

Good Advice: Dodge the Draft and Do Drugs?

Very nice intro, Archi. Your invocation of Admiral Stockdale got me to thinking -- Viet Nam vets have not done so well in the Presidential elections. Assuming McCain can't pull this one out, you've got him, Gore, and Kerry losing. And then you've got the two draft dodgers winning four elections between them (and Cheney, if you want to count him). And you've got Clinton, Bush, and Obama admitting to drug use (or alcohol abuse) as well. So, is the advice to all the young kids out there aspiring to be President that they should avoid military service at all costs and feel free to dabble in drugs any time up to your 40th birthday?

I'm reminded of the Andrew Sullivan article that Gobo notifed me about about Obama finally representing an end to the kulturkampf of hippies vs. hawks that's been waged in every election since the 60s. But what does it really say if the country has flat-out rejected Viet Nam vets and four times elected men who chose not to serve in that war? Sullivan takes a much more nuanced approach to it all and looks at each election individually. But maybe it's just more general. Like, perhaps military service, including McCain's, counts for nothing among the electorate these days. And that veterans groups are an impotent (or conflicted) special-interest group. But maybe the conflict is not a culture war, but a generational war (Sullivan hints at this too), where the younger generation finally voted in someone of their generation in 1992 and 1996 against two men who served in WWII, and they're not going back.

"Who are we? Why are we here?"

This here is an experimental group blog featuring several White Nerdy Wonks. Political wonks, specifically.

We come to you today as the liberal answer to The Corner. We are all progressive and proud. But you'll surely notice plenty of differences in our worldviews. We may be white nerdy wonks, but we can pitch a huge tent. And also make erection jokes.

So get to know us! Pick your favorite. Collect us all. Then give us money.

At some point we'll improve the template, create profiles, yadda yadda. But for now, we'll just bring the news and views to you with humor, incisive wit, and probably poor taste.

I'm Archi, and I approve this message.