Author Archives: cassandra_m

About cassandra_m

"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm

Tuesday Open Thread [11.13.2012]

It is now one week since Election Day and there are still races out there that have not been called. Check these out and tell us what you think.

In Arizona, the Senate race between Richard Carmona (D) and Jeff Flake (R) seems to still be within the realm of a win for Carmona. Arizona (to its eternal shame) still has a lot of votes to count — more than 486,000 as of Saturday. As of yesterday, Carmona trailed Flake by 78,000 votes. It is amazing that they could have so many votes uncounted and this looks like the result of having more early voting ballots and more provisional ballots than ever. Plenty of groups are watching this counting, especially since AZ made a full scale press to get more Hispanic voters registered and to the polls. I haven’t read any projections of what votes are in those ballots, but do you think there is any chance Carmona could pull it off? So far, the Rs in the AZ legislature have lost their supermajority due to more Ds winning locally.

Arizona has been under fire since last week, when a number of votes went uncounted due to issues at the polls. Voters reported showing up only to be told they were not registered or they had been issued absentee ballots, and were instead given provisional ballots that are now being counted by the state. (The Arizona Republic lays out the possible reasons for votes to go uncounted here.)

As of last Thursday, more than 600,000 ballots had yet to be counted — out of 3.1 million registered voters — more than any other recent presidential election, The New York Times reported.

TPM reports on seven outstanding House Races:

Rep. Ron Barber (D-AZ) has retaken the lead by a mere 330 votes in this seesawing contest to serve a full term in the Tucson-based seat formerly held by Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Barber held the lead through most of election night, only to see it flip for a time to Republican challenger Martha McSally, a retired US Air Force colonel, as more and more voters were counted.

The Associated Press called a victory on Monday afternoon for Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema, who had a lead of about 5,800 votes over Republican Vernon Parker for this Phoenix-based district. At issue was that Maricopa County, which contains Phoenix and some outlying suburbs, still had 120,000 ballots to left count […]

It’s a similar story in the two outstanding California seats. Incumbent Republican Brian Bilbray was down 1,334 votes to Democratic challenger Scott Peters for San Diego-based 52nd Congressional District.

Republican Rep. Dan Lungren is down 1,779 votes to Democratic challenger Dr. Ami Bera. [California 7th]

Counting is over in South Florida. President Obama won the state and Rep. Allen West (R-FL) lost his bid for re-election to Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy. Except that West hasn’t conceded the (particularly nasty) contest, and is seeking a recount based on “disturbing irregularities” with the vote. The final margin, 6-tenths of a percent, was not small enough to trigger an automatic recount.

Eight-term Congressman Mike McIntyre (D-NC) has a tiny 420-vote unofficial lead in his contest against state Sen. David Rouzer, down from the 507-vote lead McIntyre held after the dust settled on Election Day.

The 3rd Congressional District in Louisiana isn’t headed for a recount, it’s headed for a run-off. Fellow Congressmen Charles Boustany and Jeff Landry, both Republicans, were forced to run against each other by redistricting.

The whacko Allen West is just a sore loser. He should just retreat to whatever contract Roger Ailes will offer him and stop embarassing his (old) constituents.

What interests you today?

John Scalzi Has A Few Words for the White Folk Freaking Out Over 4 More Years

What I really wish I could do is to ignore Fair Use and just repost the entire damn thing here. But to refresh, John Scalzi is the author of my Favorite Political Blog Post of All Time, and runs the blog Whatever, where he hold forth taunting the untauntable. Scalzi has provided some thoughts on the election, specifically directed to the white people in End Stage Freakout over the President’s win. Go over right now and read his entire post — Some Quick and Final Post-Election Notes to Some But Not All White Men.

He provides seven observations meant to remind conservatives that what they are feeling is being hit with Reality:

2. Second, stop believing that the problem was that Romney didn’t sell the message. He sold it just fine. So did Paul Ryan. So did the GOP candidates you favor. So did hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ads funded by SuperPACs. The problem isn’t the selling of the message. The problem is the message. Everyone else got the message. They just said “thanks, no,” to it. Stop being the guy who thinks the message will work by restating it again in a slightly different, often louder, way. That says “You’re stupid enough not to notice I’m selling the same message.” This is not a good way to convince people.

AMEN.

Got any other reassuring observations for these people? Put them in the comments.

Apparently This is How Low the Bar Is Set for Republicans

The 31 Worst People On the Planet Just go over there and see what passes for acceptable commentary by these folks on Twitter in response to the President’s win on Tuesday. Just click on the link — I won’t replicate any of that here.

The only good news is that Buzzfeed has preserved these (and the user names) forever.

And how about this one? She doesn’t think that what she did was wrong. Got her fired from the local Cold Stone, though. And a visit from the local Secret Service.

As an aside, Mitt Romney is losing Facebook friends at a rate of 847 per hour. Perhaps Eric Dondero started a worthy trend.

The Economy Speech — President Obama Speaks Live at 1:05 Today

President Obama is speaking today at 1:05 about the economy and (presumably) about the so-called “fiscal cliff” that will roll back the Bush tax cuts and implement serious cuts to several government agencies (including the DOD). Remember throughout all of this — the GOP and their Democratic deficit hawks have been publicly hand wringing about too much spending and too big deficits. Just letting these two things happen put a substantial dent into both. That’s just basic math. There’s not many hints as to where President Obama will take this conversation, but there are some hints.

  1. Let the tax cuts expire for everyone except for the people with incomes less than $250,000. He’s been consistent about this goal since 2008. I would vote for letting all of them expire, but if he talks about this exception, no one should be surprised.
  2. Senator Chuck Schumer has been out front and vocal on the tax cuts issue for a couple of months:

“A 1986-style approach that promises upfront rate cuts to the wealthy is almost guaranteed to give middle-income earners the short end of the stick,” Schumer will say. “The reason is, in order to raise enough money to both reduce tax rates and cut the deficit, you would need to slash deductions and credits on a far greater scale than we ever did in 1986. Middle-income earners would not be spared.”

Senior Democrats are now openly acknowledging their plan to hold the economy hostage to massive, job-killing tax hikes, and espousing the fiscally irresponsible view that says the country should be driven off the fiscal cliff rather than Congress working toward bipartisan solutions to reform and strengthen entitlements without killing jobs. And he admits that Democrats don’t intend to reform entitlements or our tax code as a means to restore fiscal sanity, create jobs, or protect our seniors, but rather to use the effort as a lure to entice support for even more job-killing tax hikes. The Speaker and I have called for extending all the income tax rates for a year, ensuring that no one sees an income tax hike in January and preventing the economic harm and massive job loss that will come if Sen. Schumer and Washington Democrats follow through on their threats to drive us off the fiscal cliff. This uncertainty needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. We need to find a way to deal with the sequester not by cutting a penny less, but by intelligently making the decisions that are necessary to keep our promise to reduce the debt by $2.1 trillion and to get our economy back on track.

“Senator Schumer is making is a very important point — that the wealthiest must pay their fair share in any balanced approach to reducing our deficit in a way that protects the middle class, seniors, and our ability to invest in education and innovation,” Carney said. “He’s making the very clear point that the President has made and others have made, that it is fanciful thinking to imagine that you can give more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires and that the pixie dust of trickle-down economics will somehow erase any damage to the deficit or hold harmless the middle class.”

On the sequester, President Obama said in a debate, that “the sequester won’t happen“, and Republicans treated that statement as a gaffe, rather than a reminder of a bargaining chip.

So what will happen? What I want definitely *won’t* happen. But if Chuck Schumer has been the leading edge of the negotiating position, I’d be satisfied with that — who wants the Cat Food Commission anyway? — with the President holding the automatic sequester as the hostage. The wild card here is Democratic support — it is difficult to underestimate how badly Ds and Rs want to avoid DOD cuts that might eliminate jobs and programs and campaign funds from their districts.

You can watch the speech over at CSPAN. Also, WHYY will broadcast the speech live on the radio.

Feel free to use the comments here to live blog what you hear.

Late Night Video — Rachel Maddow Delivers the Beat Down on the Tea Party

Most of you have probably seen this, but Rachel Maddow provides a tour de force of a summing up of the entire Tea Party dogma that was smacked back on Tuesday.  This is about 16 minutes long.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Am I wrong in thinking that Rachel might be great at Democratic messaging over the next couple of years?

PRESIDENT OBAMA REELECTED. 4 More Years!!!!

Waiting with DD, LG, xstryker for Rmoney’s concession speech at the Queen. Seriously this is a sweet win.  Can’t wait for President Obama to speak and for these CNN people to shut up.

Tell us of your first sighting of the “we need to be more conservative” excuse.

Forward!

Morning Election Day Open Thread [11.6.12]

The day is finally here.  You are probably still hearing from campaigns and some of you are still working for a few.  Use this thread to post your observations of what is happening at your polling place, what you hear happening in Delaware or anywhere in the country.

At this very late hour, are you still unsure about where your Polling place is?  Then click over to the Where’s Your Fucking Polling Place, type in your address and get to it.  (NO guarantees of accuracy on this thing, but it is funny.)

An interesting Election Day effort is being mounted by the Video the Vote crew, who are asking people to use their phones to video dodgy stuff going on at polling places.   Check this out and signup if you want to help document anything strange.

Here are some phone numbers:

  • Election Protection Hotline:  302.322.1140
  • Rides to Polls: 302.328-9036

What was it like at your polling place this today?

Saturday Open Thread [11.3/12]

Last weekend before the election! Lots of folks I know are out on the final canvas — off to PA to knock on doors for Obama or here walking for local candidates. What are you doing this weekend to get your favorite candidates elected?

Are you looking for a way to help GOTV this weekend? Here are some options:

  • DelDem HQ can use all of the volunteers they can get to help call Democrats to make sure they know where their polling place is located for Tuesday. You can go over the HQ at 19 E. Commons Blvd in New Castle or call (302) 328-9036 to sign-up for a shift.
  • Become a Moveon.org Vote Buddy, to help get your friends in your social networks to the polls.
  • Phone bank from your house for President Obama.
  • Contact your local favorite candidate and volunteer to take on a task between now and Election Day. Every campaign needs all the hands they can get right now. If you don’t know how to contact a campaign, leave a note in the comments and we’ll try to track down a contact for you.
  • Are you a candidate?  The post up your request for volunteers in the comments.

Courtesy of Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian — 500 ways to say “I’m Voting for the White One”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY0M7IdNl7U[/youtube]

What interests you this weekend?