The Grand Election Thread

[Eddie Teach]

Best election ad of all time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRgCOXaiDjQ

This one still has it beat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iQ7ZDUutU4

I've seen vlogs with better production values than that coroner ad.

[jimmy olsen]

Holy Shit! If this is true Obama's gonna get his clock cleaned!   

Cincinnati.com put up early voter numbers on their site showing

Obama: 605,546 v. Romney: 697,143 before taking it down.

Scroll down without Xingout the ad and you can read it.
http://news.cincinnati.com/proart/20121106/news010601/311060015/ohio-presidential-vote-by-counties?odyssey=nav|head&pagerestricted=1

[Ed Anger]

Timmay taint on Obama. Sorry seedy.

[Eddie Teach]

They're showing Romney ahead in Cuyahoga county, which gave Obama 70% last time. 

[Ed Anger]

They're showing Romney ahead in Cuyahoga county, which gave Obama 70% last time. 

Now that would be a shocker. 4 in the butt style.

[jimmy olsen]

False alarm

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20121106/CINCI/121106009/Early-votes-not-yet-counted-Ohio?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|&gcheck=1&nclick_check=1

A Cincinnati.com front-page link to a chart with dummy data, created as a design template for election results, was inadvertently posted early Tuesday morning.

It purported to show early voting totals in Ohio counties. However, no votes have been counted yet – by law counting doesn't start until the polls close.

Cincinnati.com regrets the error.

[The Minsky Moment]

That was harder than I thought.
An Obama victory is probably going to cost me a few thou next year.  But hey you get what you pay for. Like Johnny Mac said "country first"

[Syt]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/election-day-perspective-6-things-to-keep-in-mind/264590/

1) If one candidate wins the electoral vote but loses the popular vote, that doesn't tell us how the election would've turned out under a popular-vote system. Under a different set of rules, both campaigns would have made different decisions about rhetoric, what issues to focus on, where to spend time campaigning, where to buy ads, where to invest resources in ground organization, etc. Should we change to a popular-vote system? Maybe. It's legitimate to argue as much -- but saying after the fact that the popular vote confers legitimacy this year makes no sense.

2) News organizations that "call" a state minutes before competitors haven't achieved a scoop worth touting. As Jay Rosen puts it, "The extreme opposite of an enterprise scoop is the ego scoop. This is where the news would have come out anyway -- typically because it was announced or would have been announced--but some reporter managed to get ahead of the field and break it before anyone else. From the user's point of view, there is zero significance to who got it first. This kind of scoop is essentially meaningless, but try telling that to the reporter who feels he or she has one .... Journalists who are defending an ego scoop are engaged in an intramural competition that has nothing to do with public service, and everything to do with bragging rights."

3) Many of the most dire predictions about what a Romney or Obama victory will mean are hyperbole. America will muddle through, same as always, and the new president can be significantly constrained in two years time if the people decide it is wise to hobble him, even in the realm of foreign policy (if the people elect a more activist version of Congress). Unfortunately, many of the most problematic policies in America will continue regardless of today's victor.

4) Change can and should be effected in many ways besides electoral politics. If people put as much energy into charity, volunteerism, mentoring, entrepreneurship, and creating non-governmental solutions as they do into politics, our elections would matter a whole lot less.   

5) Within politics, a letter-writing campaign targeting your congressional representative and senator would mean far more than your vote did. Participating in your local Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, or Green Party organization would give you still more influence over American politics.

6) Says Alan Jacobs, "As the election has drawn nearer, I have seen (we all have seen) more and more articles, blog posts, and comments premised on the assumption that the writer's political enemies really are enemies -- wicked people bent on the destruction of all that is good and right in the world. As for me, I don't think people who disagree with me -- about abortion, politics, religion, literature, whatever -- are, on balance, any more wicked than I am. I just think that on the points where we disagree they happen to be wrong. That shouldn't be such a difficult distinction to keep in mind."

[CountDeMoney]

That was harder than I thought.
An Obama victory is probably going to cost me a few thou next year.  But hey you get what you pay for. Like Johnny Mac said "country first"

Watching Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich this AM, telling us that the President's and FEMA's response to Sandy has been a complete and total failure, worse than Katrina because Sandy was "smaller".

So kiss those dollars goodbye as a total waste.

[DGuller]

I voted on my way to work this morning.  No one in line at all when I arrived, though a couple of minutes later there were 4-5 people.  Having a polling place in the lobby of your own building is pretty convenient.

[The Minsky Moment]

Devolving FEMA to the states is the single worst policy proposal this entire election season that did not involve Michelle Bachmann.

[Eddie Teach]

Devolving FEMA to the states is the single worst policy proposal this entire election season that did not involve Michelle Bachmann.

Does Romney support that? Don't see how he'd still be ahead in Florida. 

[DGuller]

Devolving FEMA to the states is the single worst policy proposal this entire election season that did not involve Michelle Bachmann.

I wonder if Republicans played too much of the original Deus Ex. 

[Caliga]

I'm sure Romney is a big fan.

[CountDeMoney]

Devolving FEMA to the states is the single worst policy proposal this entire election season that did not involve Michelle Bachmann.

Not only to the states to fend for themselves, but with the additional bonus of privatization.  I am curious, however, how a for-profit private sector company would see a payoff in disaster recovery.  Recoup from insurers?  Bill the disaster-stricken?  Would the states get a bill from Haliburton or KBR? Or is it all going to be "faith-based"?

What I don't get is how, considering the nature of emergency management since 9/11, the idea of delegating it to the states--especially after Katrina--would even be considered.  It's one thing to respond to a localized, specific incident such as 9/11, Oklahoma City or the WTC in '92, but Katrina (and soon to be Sandy) is now the new model:  what happens when an incident is of such a magnitude that local government is, in effect, rendered incapacitated (New Orleans), and the state in question is broke/incompetent/ineffectual (Louisiana)?  Florida may be able to handle a hurricane better on its own than, say, Louisiana or Mississippi, because it's far wealthier, but we don't pick where hurricanes land;  Mother Nature does.  And we're just talking natural disasters, people forget the post-9/11 concerns regarding chemical or radiological terror-related events.

There's only so much resiliency that can be built into municipal and state models.