Wassup Now

Ever wonder what happened to those dudes from the old Budwiser "wassup" commercial?

Well, me neither. But I'm going to show you anyway. It turns out that the Bush years were not kind to them.

Fox Admits Defeat

Well, of course they didn't do it directly. Being up front and honest about these things just isn't in their nature.

I won't go into the details of the B hoax here, as I get so upset about it I'd have trouble coming back. If you want to read the story, click the link.

However when the McCain campaign, and then Fox and Drudge gleefully starting spreading this evil racial lie around, the chairman of Fox wrote the following:

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.

...and of course it turned out to be a hoax.

So there you have it. Even Fox has now admitted that McCain's campaign has been "race-baiting", and that their campaign is over.

Some folks may look at this latest action of the McCain campaign as pathetic, which it is. However, I put it to you that we here in Tulsa don't have the luxury of laughing it off. False accusations of black men assaulting white women is nothing new in this country, and sadly not in this city. When the campaign embarked on this road, they may have thought that it headed in a useful direction. But we here in Tulsa know what the view down at the end of this road looks like:




We all know what the McCain race-baiting tactics are. They are not "just politics". They are not even "dirty tricks". They are evil. As we love our children, our City, our Country, and our God, we are called on to fight it.


Talk to your friends and relatives about this. Also, request your absentee ballot today. Remember that every absentee vote is potentially 2 votes for Obama.

Sitcoms for Obama

Calvin Rees at Demokie found several great Obama related videos. I'm probably going to feel compelled to show 3 of them here at some point, but here's the first.

If you are under 40, I'm not sure how much this is going to mean to you...

My 13yo at least recognized the Fonz; I think from the Family Guy references.

Vote Absentee

Just a reminder that everyone reading this need to submit your request for an absentee ballot Today! It needs to be in the hands of the County Election Board by Wednesday. Also get everyone you know to do the same. Remember that every vote cast for Obama by mail this year is potentially two votes for him; the one you send in and the one someone else will get a chance to cast on Tuesday because you shortened the line by one more person.

My instructions for the process are here. Please email the link to everyone you know.

Electoral College Update

I know I just did this back on Monday, but we are getting down to the wire here, and things actually are changing.

There has been a lot of the talk in the media about "tightening", and it is showing up in most of the electoral college counting polls. However, everyone still has Obama past the number of votes needed to win. To give you a sense of the direction and speed of things, I'll use the common shorthand of putting Monday's numbers in parentheses. Remember that a presidential win requires 270 electoral votes.

Pollster shows some tighening with Obama at 306(315) electoral vote to 157(157) for McCain. Rasmussen also shows it slightly tightened to 286(305) to 174(174). CNN is unchanged (perhaps unupdated) at 277(277) to 174(174). The statistical site FiveThirtyEight on the other hand has Obama's lead growing to 354.4(343.9) to 183.6(194.1). Note that these electoral counts tend to follow behind poll trends by several days. FiveThirtyEight mostly doesn't have that problem, as he reanalyzes polling numbers every day as they come in. That's probably the reason his is going a different direction, although it could also be due to the fact that he doesn't leave any state out as a "tossup".

Absentee

Yesterday the Tulsa County election board sent out a plea for absentee voters. They are expecting turnout so heavy this year that voting may actually be a serious hardship for many people. Given that, I'd like to request that everyone reading this blog register and vote absentee this year.

Just yesterday I requested an absentee ballot myself. Here's what you do:

Get an absentee ballot request form.

The easiest way is to download it from the state's website, but forms are also available at your county election board (555 N Denver for Tulsa County). Our headquarters at 3930 East 31 Street should also have the forms.

For most people, the form you need is this one. Click the link and print it out now.

If you are "physically incapacitated", or are the caregiver for someone who is, they request you use this form instead.

Get Your Registration Info

To help in this process, I suggest you go to the state's polling place locator website to find your registration information. Fill out the blanks, hit the "Search" button, and you should be presented with your registered name and your voter ID.

If the search does not turn up your registration information, move on to the next step without it and try to do the rest as best you can. However, after you have sent in your request, I highly suggest you call your local election board and verify your registration.

Fill Out the Form

You will need to fill in the following information:

• Your Name as it appears on your registration


• Your Address as it appears on your registration


• The name of the School District or Board of Education district in which you live. Sadly, this information is probably not on your registration record, so you just have to know this. For the Tulsa area it's probably something like "Tulsa", or "Jenks", or "Union", etc.


• The town or "Ward" you live in.


• Mark a box and fill in a date for which election(s) you want ballots for.

  To make things simple, I just marked the last box next to "all elections for which I am eligible during calendar year", and filled in the blank to read "2008". This will probably be the only remaining election this year. If you'd like to do this again for future elections, I'd suggest submitting another form to do so later.
  

• Fill in the address you would like your ballot mailed to. This can be different than your registered address.


• Sign it

That's it!

Send it In

Once it is all filled out properly, you need to send the application to your county's board of election office. For Tulsa County that would be by mail (or walk-in) to 55 N Denver, Tulsa 74103-1014. You can also fax the completed for in to their fax number, which for Tulsa County is 596-4536. That is the way I did it yesterday.

Deadline

You must have all of this done and the request must be in their hands at the county office no later than next Wednesday, the 29th.

I cannot stress enough how important doing this is. Just you alone doing this will not only will it make it easier for you to vote (+1 vote for Obama there), but it will also possibly allow one more person who walks in on election day to vote, rather than having to leave in frustration. The people who are going to have the toughest time with the lines are going to be the working poor, the infirm, and those with small children and no secondary caregivers. All of those groups are largely democratic. So every person who votes absentee is potentially 2 votes for Obama that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Plea from the Election Board

I was just forwarded this from Greg:

Employees at the election board implored me to get the word out to as many as possible that everyone should try to vote absentee. Even in early voting they are expecting very long lines and wait times. They noted that the elderly and disabled will not be able to stand in line for an hour or more.