Live Blogging the Anti-Climax

Giants by 4.

Obama by 12 million.

And hope for a green background for McCain's speech.

I'm going with the Obama/Billo matchup with the Good Guy taking that one. 

McCain will be uncomfortable to watch with, as someone posted somewhere, "he makes those bracing smiles like he's trying to not rupture something."

Still wondering, with McCain's meltdown over Obama's popularity very obvious, how he will take to being totally overshadowed on his own ticket. Because you know when he talks to the press, its going to be all Palin, all the time. Stories will abound about how she is drawing bigger crowds then he is.

Emphasis on the old (all 72 years of it).

The Palin viewership numbers are a little worrying, but I think it shows that we still have a lot of work to do if we want to defeat the millions of fundamentalists who control our politics, our discourse, and our government. I'm in Michigan right now, but back home in South Dakota my mother said the ELCA Lutheran's weren't impressed with the catty, sarcastic and (I hate the word but it applies here) shrill tone of Palin's speech. Of course, Lutherans are among the most moderate Christians and a big reason why Obama will easily win Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and even possibly my neighbor North Dakota.

Hopefully, voters are smart enough to see through Palin, but she seems eerily similar to Ronald Reagan in the fact that her corruption and attacks against the media seem to be helping her among certain subsets of the population. It all comes down to Independents, so I hope that they were largely turned off. Otherwise, we're going to have to double our efforts to beat the GOP base of 2004.

I have a question for either Al or some Field Hands here, though: I currently reside in Michigan, but I have SD registration. I'm hesitant to change it just because of this election, because my vote counts more in a small state, Tim Johnson needs my support for Senate, and I cling to the miniscule hope that Obama can pull it out in SD in the event of a landslide. And I don't think Michigan is quite as much of a swing state as people are claiming. But if you feel it is wiser to re-register here in MI, then tell me - I'm a bit torn.

Phew! Thanks for reading, Field Hands, keep it up Al, and let's all watch some Giants-Redskins tonight.

Oh dear lord, I don't know whether to roll my eyes or laugh at the whole 'town hall' thing. I guess we can say it isn't a surprise in that everyone knows what a bad orator he is and he'd only come off looking pretty weak next to both Palin and Obama, but I do hope people watching are smart enough to realise the whole thing is more staged managed than an RSC performance

 Catherine Cain on this one. Obama beats Billo!

+ I hope the NFL runs overtime.

via the Utah for Obama campaign to do GOTV in CO.
they say that transportation and housing will be hard to get, so if there is any field hand in Utah interested, we could organize to do this

Fired up...and ready to go!

My 2 cents (btw, did the cents sign get taken off the new keyboards? I guess so...) 

 Unless Tim Johnson REALLY needs your vote more than Obama needs yours, I would recommend switching to Michigan for these reasons:  1) I signed up to volunteer on weekend roadtrips from Illinois and I got sent to Michigan on the reply email today so that means they need people there and 2) your statement of "...in the event of a landslide...."   Well, then your South Dakota vote won't be as critical from a total EV count anyway!

If you decide to register in Michigan, what about making sure you get at least 10 new registrations in South Dakota to cover your non-vote there?

The higher the better.  It has most certainly led to increased volunteerism and donations from Democrats who watched, and chances are it sent Independents (like me here in swing state Virginia) to completely close the door on the McCain option. 

Indepedents mostly favor candidates who are reasonable and less concerned with partisanship, not necessarily candidates who are the most moderate on policy positions.  That's a large reason why Warner, Kaine, and Webb have won here.  I think it's also why Obama won so big here against Clinton.

But last night was a total display of unreasonable, immature, and bizarre behavior that will surely turn off a greater number of Independents. 

Hopefully a few million of us were witness.

South Dakota is in play--some polls put O-man ahead.  One vote is a much bigger deal in SD than in MI.  I say stay put.

Just MHO from AK, another red state we're trying to turn blue...

But from my anecdotal evidence I think that far more people that watched Obama were supporters (or undecideds), whereas I think the "unknown celebrity" factor pushed Palin's numbers full of lovers, haters, gawkers and whatnot.  Since no one has seen Palin speak before (an AMAZING reality) I think there was a lot of interest, whereas Obama is pretty familiar at this point.  I know on many right-wing sites I saw the "I didn't watch Obama's speech but here's what I think..." but pretty much everybody following this election watched Palin.

As James Haygood mentioned, I think that the high viewership of Palin's speech was probably result of curiousity across the country.  Jury is still out as to whether her speech impacted anyone's vote -- positively or negatively.

I will share, however, that my 70 year old mom called me today to let me know that a fairly outspoken Republican classmate of hers from the 50's, who lives in AZ, told her that he may actually pull the lever for a Democratic Presidential candidate for the first time in his life thanks to McCain's choice of Palin.  Knowing this person and his politics for a long time, I was stunned!  Hope it happens and that it's not an isolated incident.

Just saw my first one driving home, and it HAD to be a do it yourself job, because I can't believe the McCain campaign would put out something like I just saw. The format was like this.

                                  McCain

                            PALIN  

I cannot not do justice to how tiny the McCain name was and how BIG the Palin name was.

It should be noted that a good chunk of Palin's huge ratings were brought about simply out of curiosity. No one knows anything about her! She's a phantom being treated like a long-established politician.

And I still think it's creepy that the Republican party has connected with this candidate in six days. Am I alone there? I think the Republicans broke the Pam Anderson/Tommy Lee courtship record.

The large viewer audience for Palin is probably another disaster. Rather than inspire, she incited. Fence sitters with a reasonable fondness for fairness and curiosity about what exactly McCain /Palin will do about the pressing messes in the economy and elsewhere aren't likely to get much inspiration from a catty snide fest notable for its utter lack of anything useful. It was loaded with noise and signal was non existent.

Looking at the Markets, 1 more day like today will break all the support levels that have held. Dow will fall below 11,000 and the S&P will fall below 1200.

Then from Robert Shiller of the Case/Shiller Home price index we have these points:

• Home price declines are already approaching those in the Great Depression, when they plunged 30% during the 1930s. With prices already down almost 20%, it's not a stretch to think we might exceed that drop this time around.
• There are about 10 million homeowners whose debt is higher than their home value, which has broad implications for how Americans feel about their wealth and spending habits (read: more pressure on consumer spending).

This underscores the GOP tone deafness to (or desperate attempt to sandbag) just how damaged the economy really is.

These market slides vaporize wealth and how has your 401k been performing lately.

There is so much fraud and rot still buried in the financial sector that a

Isn't it obvious that these ratings don't include the millions of young people who watched the DNC and Obama's speech live on the internet?

...1000 point drop in the dow between now and 11/4 is not unlikely.

(sorry to dangle, I got distracted)

SO that is everyday reality for increasing numbers of citizens. The house you bought for 300k is now worth 250k and your exploding Adjustable Rate Mortgage is about to skyrocket. Your credit cards are all maxxed. The return of a strong dollar has at least eased the galloping inflation of late spring/early summer but the fundamentals suck and will only get worse.

just in case there are any chicken little's concerned about that new cbs poll being touted at TPM by that Eric K. Here is the skinny on that, from a commenter at 538----

"Here are the numbers from the last CBS poll - the one that showed Obama +8 from August 29 - 31.

UNWEIGHTED WEIGHTED
Total Republicans 247 229
Total Democrats 310 308
Total Independents 318 337
Total Registered Voters 781 743

My point is, they went from a match-up of 30.8% (R) to 41.4% (D) to a match-up of 31.1% (R) to 34.9% (D). And then they wrote that this showed that Obama's 8-point lead evaporated from last weekend! Now, are you going to tell me that's not comparing apples and horse apples?"

If I hear one more person say or write about what a great speech we heard last night, I'll send them a copy of "The Emperor Wears No Clothes." A series of one-liners does not constitute a speech. Twenty minutes of back to back soundbites is no substitute for narrative, structure, respect for one's audience not to mention policy or issues or anything of substance, including anything that might tell us something about the speaker we hadn't already heard in her just-commenced 15 minutes of fame. Was there a theme? A beginning, a middle, an end? I heard sameness throughout as if I could have exited or entered the speech at any point or even run the sentences in reverse order and it wouldn't have mattered. What an insult to an audience's intelligence. 

A weaving together of history or context or some glimpse of a future we could all share? I think not only of Senator Obama's delivery but the content and structure, momentum and flow of his speeches and wonder how anyone could rave about what we heard last night. Forget the nasty tone or the ear-grating pitch. Who would prefer to hear that for the next 8 years rather than the warm voice of Joe Biden, speaking to us with respect and good humor? Who would prefer endless repetitions of "my friends, my friends" rather than Barack Obama's heartening baritone reminding us where we've been, where we might go, and where we are? 

James Haygood,

re: "...even run the sentences in reverse order and it wouldn't have mattered. What an insult to an audience's intelligence. "

Haha, the Palindrone!

The Obama campaign reported today that since Palin's speech last night, they've raised 8 million dollars from 160,000 donors.  In the same time, the RNC has raised 1 million dollars.  See what all of that grassroots, community organizing gets you, Sarah?

BTW, the fundraising numbers were reported by The Atlantic.

And on a side note, did anyone hear the Republican Congressman that called Barack and Michelle uppity?  When a reporter gave him a chance to back off the statement by asking, "Uppity?" he replied, "Yeah, uppity."  It's nice to see that the Repubs are doing away with all the euphemisms and just being blatantly racist.  Interestingly, Obama's campaign responded without even mentioning race.  They simply said, "The Republicans are throwing stones from one of their candidate's eight glass houses."  I love how the Obama campaign refuses to take the bait.

Cindy McCain's outfit Tuesday cost more than $300,000

Her earrings alone cost more than most people's houses:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/09/cindy-mccains-300000-o...

KD

@ Blue SD:

Well, I admit I don't know as much about South Dakota for 2008, but Michigan needs EVERY VOTE!

There are a lot of Republicans here, and an anti-gay proposal passed a couple of years ago because of them. (Yeech!!!)  an anti-affirmative action proposal passed, too...(Yeech again!!)

Obama has made great strides in Michigan, even the western part, but Michigan is much more, dare I say, racist than people want to admit.

Do what you think is best...maybe Al can help out here, but Michigan is more Republican party than Democratic party outside of Detroit.

Of course, my beloved "Jenny from the block", Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm did herself proud in her hearings to oust the now-former Mayor of Detroit.  Even Senator Obama said that the Mayor had to resign--especially because it was not good for Obama here in Michigan--and it finally happened today without the Governor having to complete her hearings.

But it will still be a fight...

waterprise2 AKA Pam

Liberal with a Capital L!

Some great lines in here.

and all over a lot of blogs today:

"Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a governor."

waterprise2 AKA Pam

Liberal with a Capital L!

Re: Speech Nielson numbers above, I think there are a lot of eyes on Palin now that will drop off soon.  She's new, people want to check her out.  Obama's numbers are solid.  My impression.

The Palin bio video that got bumped because Guiliani went long here.

Opneing line: "Mother.  Moosehunter.  Maverick."

I shit you not.

Is John Madden more powerful than John McCain?

By Chris Chase

Tonight might prove whether the NFL really is the most important institution in America. The Redskins/Giants kick-off the NFL season this evening at 7:00 p.m. ET, with John McCain scheduled to give his nominating speech at the Republican National Convention at 10:00 p.m. ET. The three-hour gap isn't a coincidence as months ago the NFL moved up the start of the season opener in order to accommodate McCain's address. But NFL games routinely last longer than three hours. What happens if the NFC East battle is still raging when McCain is preparing to take the stage? Which of our country's sacred institutions will prove more important: The NFL or our electoral process?

Both NBC and McCain's camp are keeping mum on the subject (doubtlessly hoping that ignoring the potential conflict will make it go away), but chances are that if the game goes long, the Republican nominee will delay the speech and wait for the game to end. Since NBC is legally required to show the entirety of the NFL game, they can't cut over to McCain even if they wanted to.

And as McCain needs NBC to show his talk (6.1 million watched Barack Obama give his acceptance speech on the network last week) and also would like at least some of the 20+ million who watched the game to catch a little bit too, it's a no-brainer. Delaying the speech if the game goes long makes sense -- even if it is weird that the most important speech of a presidential nominee's lifetime could be delayed by Eli Manning and Kid Bro Sweets. But what are the odds that a speech delay even happens?

With kickoff scheduled for 7:07 p.m. tomorrow night, the 'Skins and Giants will have a little less than three hours to finish before McCain's speech. That's possible, of course, but by no means a sure thing. Last year the same two teams played at Giants Stadium in an NBC primetime telecast and the game took 3:14. And that was just an ordinary game. If tonight's contest sees multiple challenges, injuries and/or overtime, it could feasibly run until 10:30. McCain might be able to wait until 10:15, but if it gets much later than that, he'll probably have to deliver his speech with NBC or not. If McCain loses the crucial Manning family demographic this November, we'll know why.

Thanks: I missed that. Palindrone. Yes.

James, that is beautiful. I wish they aired it.

Can't wait for Tina Fey this Saturday night, hosting SNL.

Gee, I wonder why she is hosting....hmmmm.....

Let's hope the losing Redskins fans (Virginia!) project all their anger and dissapointment onto McCain's lovely visage.

(PS read this diary over on Kos of a personal story of one Virginia repubs conversion to vote for Obama after last nights speech.  My gut tells me there are a lot of this category of repubs in VA - especially the military vote)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/4/14305/31500/400/557927

KD

Please liveblog it.  I can't, but I wanna know how it goes.

http://www.socialworkblog.org/pressroom/index.php/2008/09/04/social-work...

One question/comment (actually inspired by your previous post on Palin's speech):

Many pundits have pointed out that exciting a diminished base is not going to win the election for the Republicans, but I haven't heard much on the obvious follow-up: so what are they up to really?

Trying not to underestimate the opposition, I have to assume that they see little chance of winning this election, and so I wonder if they are simply looking forward four years, doing what they can to shore up the base for a future campaign. Are Schmidt et al essentially trying to inoculate supporters from a newly emboldened press, a progressive government, possible prosecutions and revelations of more Bush administration malfeasance, and a resurgence of science and reason in our schools and our public discourse?

I'm not discounting some kind of crazy Hail Mary effort to win, but the rhetoric from the convention makes more sense to me as an exhortation to "keep the faith while we retreat, regroup and ready a counterattack, and don't believe anything you see or hear in the meantime".

Actually, it just occurs to me that they are also laying the groundwork for four years of "resistance" and harassment.

Thanks for all you're doing.

robert e

I guess they got the memo about the ugly green background of days past.

They have chosen a hideous yellow background. lmao....

Robert E - I understand the logic, but the prize - the White House and all the concentrated executive power therein - is too big for any side to write off the election quite yet.

60 days is a long time in politics. Things can happen. Scandals can break. Wars can be started. I think McCain is playing for keeps, and just figured that he had to do something drastic to shake up what had been a lethargic campaign. So he went with the "three point shot" that some of us had hoped Obama would do with the VP pick.

Remember: McCain was considered down and out in July 2007, with zero chance to win the nomination. He's somebody that is comfortable playing from behind. And he clearly wants it.

We are all going to have to hold tight to deal with Chicken Littles.  Nominees nearly always get a bounce, so is is extremely likely that McCain will get one. And then the anxiety level will go way up among some.

Personally, I'm just back from phonebanking. One person, a senior, told me that she switched from Republican to Democrat because the Republicans messed up so bad. "Maybe it doesn't make sense to switch at my age," she said. "But I just had to do it."

Where you register to vote is not a matter of discretion. To my knowledge, although the specific statutes vary, state law requires that you register where you reside (for some value of "reside"), and you can't reside in two places at once. And yes, in the real world snowbirds from New York do have dual registrations in south Florida so they can vote wherever they are at the time, and students stay registered at home in order to keep cheap car insurance rates even though they are living in a dorm in another state, and all kinds of other reasons why people don't follow the law deliberately as opposed to inadvertently. But it says here, just don't go there. Register where you reside.

"Falsely attesting or being attested for is registration fraud and is a class "D" felony, punishable by a fine of up to $7500 and up to 5 years in prison. Registration fraud also includes falsely registering to vote, attempting to falsely register to vote, and registering to vote in more than one precinct." http://www.sos.state.ia.us/Elections/VoterInformation/VoterRegistration....

Al,

Gov. Palin seems less like a 3 point shot and more like a full court desperation heave.  Clearly, McCain wants to win, but his gang that can't shoot straight won't even stick with a cohesive strategy.  Rove was so effective because he would pick a smear and then just drive it home over and over and over again.  McCain, on the other hand, seems to change his line of attack every other day.

I really think what this boils down to is that the McCain campaign knows they can't win on the issues, so they're trying to turn the campaign into one long distraction.  Obama, to his credit, is not taking the bait.  He continues to talk about issues and substance.  Some of his supporters keep screaming that he needs to take the gloves off, but that's exactly what they want.  McCain can't make himself the "change" candidate, so he's trying to make Obama another "more of the same" candidate.  I guess the thinking is that if both Obama and McCain are seen as more of the same, maybe McCain will eke out a win because he seems like less of a risk.

are currently disappointing me.

And Al, Redskins Nation stretches from Southern Maryland through DC and VA and all the way down to North Carolina. Of course, we have to also deal with those lost Cowboy fans that we find around here, too.

Has the Obama interview happened yet? Not sure if I can take watching O'Reilly.

I am glad you posted the link to the Social Workers outrage regarding community organizing.  I had a conversation with a co-worker today who was a social worker that specialized in community organization.  She spent some time in Africa.  I love her.  She is a great woman and a great attorney.  She was also a Hillary supporter.  She is horrified at the Republicans sneering at community organization.

I think that the RNC did all of us a favor with their cheap shots at community organizing.  They reinvigorated us to do what we know we must do.  Oh, and Al has to.  Oh, and Obama.  Oh, and all of those activists that came before them.  Shout out to Markos too.

Anyway, it has made our mission even more important.  We have to stay focused on the ground and keep our eye on the ball.

BTW, I lived in "Chicago" (Gary, Indiana) in the 60's.  I was in grade school but I remember the turmoil.  My mom was an activist and got arrested in 1968.  So, in honor of her, teach your children.  Thanks mom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbWofsY_rFE&feature=related

 Barack is doing great! Billo just said he'd go with him?

Btw, I can not believe I am actually watching Faux News. :O

Ok, what a bunch of crap! The interview will be stretched out over several days.

Read this post, and I'm just trying to tell folks - keep the eyes open

Ready for extra-innings in November?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/4/18742/15752/919/586909

Is there a feed on the web anywhere that anyone knows? I can't find it.

You are a brave soul.  I can't watch it so instead I have the Colbert Report on.  I would watch the football game and had it on earlier but I am more of a College football fan.  Go Sooners.  :-)

Please post more as to what is going on.  Thanks!!!

make it closer

sorry Al, we need the rating for McSame to be down, so the media narrative about who is boss on that cursed ticket will start :)

"By very measure, my speaking cadence is painfully slow!"

"This week, Anbar province was turned over to the Iraqis"

and it was a change in tactics, using community organizing in Iraq, that made it possible. But we hate community organizers.

I have decided that pigs can fly.

 How To Keep People From Voting: Make The System As Complicated As Possible  Please read this!

I really believe that voter suppression will take place this year and do hope we fieldhands stay on top of these stories.