Obama

In spite of his rhetoric, in spite of who he chooses as his advisors, in spite of taking over at a really lousy time, he's currently the best hope we have. And "hope" is all it is, cause logic says otherwise.

War Crimes Trials

Let's hope he starts with justice by prosecuting the Bush league - at the very least for murder :

http://www.prosecutionofbush.com/

Molly

If I believed in heaven then I'd believe that the late Molly Ivins was looking down on us with a great big smile. She the current state of affairs four years ago, the day after Bush won his second term.

"Well, look at it this way: You cannot keep a dog that kills chickens, no matter how fine a dog it is otherwise.

My friend John Henry Faulk always said the way to break a dog of that habit is to take one of the chickens the dog has killed and wire the thing around the dog's neck, good and strong. And leave it there until that dead chicken stinks so bad the dog won't be able to stand himself. You leave it on there until the last little bit of flesh rots and falls off, and that dog won't kill chickens again.

The Bush Administration is going to be wired around the neck of the American people for four more years, long enough for the stench to sicken everybody. It should cure the country of electing Republicans."

I had trouble believing it at the time, but she was right.

Frank: Who did better? Them or us?

Frank
In spite of his rhetoric, in spite of who he chooses as his advisors, in spite of taking over at a really lousy time, he's currently the best hope we have. And "hope" is all it is, cause logic says otherwise.

This sounds like the viewpoint of the hardened democratic socialist of the Svend Robinson school, the type who loudly excoriates MPs like Bill Blaikie and Nelson Riis for being part of the "mushy middle". It doesn't sound like the social democratic viewpoint of Mike Harcourt or Glen Clark or Gary Doer, nor the labour viewpoint of Ken Georgetti.

It does, of course, sound very much like the labour viewpoint of Buzz White and Bob Hargrove, except for the missing "Vote Liberal" incantation following the denunciation of the NDP for betraying its socialist principles. Whatever those are.

Frank, if you take a serious, adult look at the Oct 14th results in Canada, and then take a look at Tuesday's probable outcome in the US, which of these two countries do you think took the bigger step forward? Really? No kidding, eh?

Does the NDP have anything to learn from Obama? Or is it fated to squander its members time and money forever on all-Murray-Dobbin-all-the-time, while Brad Zubyk, in between stints at the BC NDP office, makes himself a living wage effortlessly shooting federal NDP candidates to ribbons?

Lots to learn

There's no doubt that Obama and his team have re-written the political playbook - at least some chapters of it.

But it's important to note that Obama also went back on his commitment to campaign finance reform. The level of expectation for 'real' change is going to be enormous - and enormously deflated if he can't get the sclerotic 'system' in the US, a system far more constrained by special interests and military spending than Canada's is, to actually make some changes once he’s in the White House.

Simply because of the health care imperative that he has created for himself (and the 45 million Americans without any insurance) he may find it very hard to deliver on any of his other promises.

Will health care be enough for the first half-term? That’s really all the time he has, given that there are midterm elections in 2010. His freedom of movement may well be curtailed seriously by then. The first 12 months will tell the tale.

I do think the NDP can learn from Obama's positive campaign though.

Will they agree to do the learning?

G West
I do think the NDP can learn from Obama's positive campaign though.

Will the NDP apparatus agree to do any of the learning that's involved?

All very nice speculation,

All very nice speculation, but can Obama beat the voting machines that gave Bush 2 victories ?

Where's Mr. Diebold on this? I wonder when Harper will start pushing for them ?

Ed Deak.

Ed: So what!

Ed, if you're trying to tell me that electoral fraud is impossible in Canada because we don't use voting machines, fine.

In BC we do use voting machines in municipal and school board elections in many areas and have done so for at least fifteen years. Are these local elections now open to fraud, but the provincial elections closed to it because they use paper ballots?

As for the Diebold rubbish, please.

Dunno Budd and I sure hope you're right

But this, (and Palast is reputable as far as I know - though a little far out at times) sure seems like it may be a bit of a problem...
http://www.truthout.org/110308A

I'll say one thing, if Obama doesn't win with a sizeable margin there will be a lot of disgruntled people.

He's going to have to employ every bit of that fables coolness to keep the lid on things if Palast's premise turns out to give the election to McCain.

Personally I can see NO reason whatever for using voting machines in the Presidential contest - can't Americans count anymore?

For the same reason we do - too many offices to fill on one day

G West
Personally I can see NO reason whatever for using voting machines in the Presidential contest - can't Americans count anymore

The Americans use voting machines for the same reason most BC municipalities do, there are too many offices to be filled on the same day, and manual counting would be a physical impossibility, unless one is prepared to pay huge sums to recruit additional election workers or else wait days and days for most results, and accept large numbers of errors.

The Obama campaign has carried out a major voter registration drive and is at least as well aware as the author of this piece of any arbitrary purges. He mentions something like 85000 in Florida. In that state alone the Obama campaign was planning to spend $30 million and to register hundreds of thousands of additional voters.

Katherine Harris is long gone, Jeb Bush is no longer the Governor, and Scalia isn't going to be asked his opinion on a damn thing.

Here's a question for you. Why don't we have exit polls in Canada that tell us about the real demographics of our elections? When was the last time you saw a TV or newspaper report to the effect that rural Protestants went Conservative, urban Catholics Liberal, and atheists NDP? The answer is simple. Never.

And as long as we call outfits like Jeff Simpson's {i]Globe and Mail[/i] and Peter Mansbridge's CBC "news media" you never will. The repulsive gutlessness and secretiveness of Canadian election coverage is nothing short of astonishing, and stands in marked contrast to any other Western democracy.

Perhaps its a hangover from the wartime conscription referendums. No doubt it's closely related to the ban on broadcasting returns in time zones where polls are still open, and the jiggered closing hours that were meant to assuage silly-bugger complaints from BC yahoo voters who listen to too many open mouth shows, but did so by forcing them to scramble to the polls by 7pm while Ontario voters have till 9pm!

Budd - different strokes!

I don't disagree that voting machines make sense for the other offices: Which was why I worded my comment the way I did.

Still, there is no reason that the presidential ballots couldn't be tallied manually.

And, voting machines with a paper backup are available - there are valid questions about the reliability of some of the machines with no backup - I agree that since Americans vote for everything from judges to dogcatchers in some jurisdictions that tallying would be a problem without some help.

Personally, I've never understood the need for exit polls - maybe you can convince me.

I'm a supporter of holding all elections on a Sunday, like they do in Europe, and - as for the voting times thing - that's easy. Open the polls a little later in the East a bit earlier in the West and close them all at the same time.

That way the whole country gets the count at the same time. Doesn't seem like big deal to me. Toronto has to stay up late to watch the Leafs play in Vancouver once every year or two - they seem to be able to live with that.

I'm not a big fan of polling - the system is manipulative enough as it is - I'd like people to start thinking for themselves.

In any case, I hope you're right about the States because if Obama doesn't win tomorrow there is going to be hell to pay.

Voting machines

As far as I know, the voting machines used in BC just scan paper ballots. Unlike the touch-screen machines used in some US states, we still have a paper trail that can if necessary be counted by hand.

I'm glad this campaign is over

I'm kind of sick of hearing about it - especially here in Canada where we should be working on solving our own problems and finding our own hope....

This, on the other hand, is kind of neat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

But if McCain / Palin should win....

What then?

My own prediction is a Democratic landslide...

For the Demographics!

G West
Personally, I've never understood the need for exit polls - maybe you can convince me.

For the demographics I mentioned. In Canada, academic pollsters will delve into genuine cultural factors, but the networks and newspapers eschew this. It's a phoney Canadian "politeness" that really means keeping the public ignorant. I cannot believe its unintentional.

But to what end Budd?

Just so we can get into each other's faces more directly.

I am fairly convinced that the rural population of Saskatchewan has a media age that's older than the rural population and that, on balance, they vote Conservative and tend to be prejudiced against Indians...how would having a few of them tell the cameras that they've voted for Stephen Harper 'help' the situation.

It sure wouldn't be polite, but I've never seen sticking that kind of thing in people's faces was a productive activity.

Maybe you're thinking of some other 'benefit' that's likely to come from exit polls - I just see it as polarizing and divisive...

In short, I'm not convinced it does much that's positive in the American realm either - but maybe I'm not grasping your point or understanding your meaning clearly.

Polls Push Demographic Wedgies

Perhaps it's in the marginals :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/nov/18/uk.australia

As for Canadian phony politeness ... the alternative being sincere rudeness ??

"Nowadays manners are easy, and life is hard"
Benjamin Disraeli

The truth is always beneficial

G West
It sure wouldn't be polite, but I've never seen sticking that kind of thing in people's faces was a productive activity.

Maybe you're thinking of some other 'benefit' that's likely to come from exit polls - I just see it as polarizing and divisive...

In short, I'm not convinced it does much that's positive in the American realm either - but maybe I'm not grasping your point or understanding your meaning clearly.

I believe that the truth, and full information, is always beneficial. While it may cause friction in the short term, it's always beneficial in the end. As educators like to say, "if you think education is expensive, try ignorance".

I believe that the truth is always beneficial

I wholeheartedly agree with that observation Budd.

I just don't have any confidence that the 'slices of reality' we see from exit polls are particularly revealing or insightful: Any more than I have much confidence in polls or pollsters as reflective of the nuanced reality of political opinion. Furthermore, the use of polls and polling by media organizations as another way of selling soap seems to have supplanted actual education in their approach to most TV viewers – or at least I think so.

And exit polls, I'd suggest, indicated both Al Gore and John Kerry were going to beat George Bush in 2000 and 2004...if memory serves.

In the case of Gore, you'd probably reply, he did.

In the end, I'm less concerned with what a 'sample' of public opinion says about us than with actually reaching people whose minds haven't been made up or whose spirits are at least susceptible to persuasion.

I think we have an enormous democratic 'deficit' in this country and I'm not at all certain that ubiquitous polling hasn't had a lot to do with creating that situation.