BOK Event - Outside the BOK Center downtown at 6PM
Pick up voter registration forms at the Tulsa Democratic Headquarters on 31st between Harvard and Yale (or print them out yourself from here) and head to the events.
Applications can be mailed in, but must be postmarked no later than tomorrow to make the deadline. If you'd prefer to hand-carry it to your county election office you can. I understand that the Tulsa County election board will stay open until midnight tomorrow to accommodate last minute filers. If democratic HQ is more convenient for you, drop them by there during office hours today or tomorrow.
We had perhaps a smaller crowd at the Circle last night than for the previous two debates, but it still overflowed the Quad. I forgot to ask Mike, but I'm guessing it was somewhere in the vicinity of 70 people.
McCain looked much better this time around. He was smother, and clearly more comfortable. You can tell this is his format. Obama of course was just as smooth as ever, but the difference wasn't there like in the previous debate. I actually left a bit disappointed, afraid that this would be chalked up as a McCain "win". McCain made his points well, and did it repeatedly.
The thing is, I'm not an independent or a republican, so I don't know what's in their heads. I can guess what republicans are going to say, just by taking a look at what's in their best interest to say (always be thankful for the gift of a predictable opponent). But for independents, I have to read their reactions to have any clue.
Upon getting home and reading the reactions, things are actually looking good for Obama. Very good. The insta-polls show most folks calling it an Obama win. The numbers calling it a McCain win were in the neighborhood of %26. That's almost exactly the same as the percentage of people who self identify as republican these days. What all this seems to mean is that, although McCain may be making his points just fine, nobody but the party faithful is buying it anymore.
Oh, and the last debate is next Wednesday (also shown at the Circle), and it is in the format that favors Obama, and is going to be entirely on the economy. Sorry to see you drowning there John. Here, have an anchor.
Electoral Map I know it's only been a couple of days since I last went over the electoral maps, but they have all been updated since, and the change is quite dramatic. CNN just made a minor tweak, and has Obama up to 264 and McCain down to 174. Remember that to win the presidency, 270 is the magic number. McCain would essentially have to run the board of the tossups to take it. That's not gonna happen.
However, that turns out to be the conservative map. Pollster (long my personal favorite) now has the map at Obama 320, McCain 163! That isn't just an Obama win, but a win with 50EV's to spare. Of their 55 tossup EV's, a quick mouse-over shows Obama with slight leads for 18 of them, and a dead tie for North Carolina's 15.
Can McCain catch up? His allies don't seem to think so. But I don't want anyone reading this to become complacent. A simple win is not enough. What happens in this election is going to be the punctuation mark on our last eight years of disdain for our constitution, our principles, and even common decency. The rest of the world, and history itself will view this election as a referendum on our recent behavior. This needs to be a landslide. The bigger, the better, and any effort that moves so much as one vote is a blow for morality.
Don't feel sorry for the Republicans. Take your inspiration from Conan here.
Registration ...which leads me back to this topic. Voters have only until this Friday to register. I'm told that the county board of elections plans to stay open until midnight on Friday to take applications. Registering voters is the best thing you can be doing right now for your hometown, your state, and your country.
The second presidential debate is tonight, and the Circle Cinema is again hosting a watch party. Before the presidential debate will be the one and only debate between Andrew Rice and Jim "Who's Afraid of a Little Mercury?" Inhofe for senate. That debate starts at 5:15, so try to get there as early as you can.
The Presidential debate starts at 8, although you'll want to shoot for 7 if you can to ensure good seats. The last two debates were a full house.
This debate is "Town Hall" format, where individuals from the audience get to ask the candidates their own questions. This is McCain's favorite format. That makes this his best chance to look Presidential and put the lie to the Obama campaign's characterization of him as "erratic".
Working against him is probably going to be the news. I'm guessing most questions (excepting those from Republican plants) will be on the economy. Because of the news two weeks ago, that debate ended up being mostly economy too. The topic of the last debate will officially be the economy. Of course that was McCain's weak point even before the "crisis" happened. It's almost enough to make a person feel sorry for him.
Almost. Just think about the 160,000 people who lost their jobs last month, or the 3/4 of a million who lost their jobs this year. Think about all the people who were trying to save to put kids in college, or retire, or are retired, and saw %30 of their savings go up in smoke this year. Then, to paraphrase James Carvile, see if you can find an anchor to throw to the son of a bitch.
Three Days Left to Register
Make sure every possible Democratic voter you know has gotten registered to vote. Forms must be postmarked by this Friday!
We are getting down to the wire on voter registrations. If you look over to the right, you will see a big number 4 there today. You will also see a new link, labeled Verify Your Registration. That's an Oklahoma state website that will return you the state's voting registration records for you. I want everyone reading this blog to click on that and enter the required info to make sure the state has your information correct. I just did it for mine. If you have been purged or have the wrong polling place, you only have 4 days now to get it fixed, so you need to check now. Send this link to all your friends in this state too, so they can check as well.
I've also replaced the calendar at the bottom of the page with a nifty app from Google that will give you localized polling information.
Campaign Obama's polling lead from last week has been holding steady. Pollster's electoral map has him at 260 EV's now (to 163 for McCain), which is just 10 shy of a win without even factoring in the tossup states. CNN's has it at 250 to 189, and Rasmussen has it at 217 to 174.
As mentioned last week, there are now not enough undecided voters left to swing this McCain's way. To win, he needs to get some "decided" voters to change their minds, which historically they do not do this close to an election. So what does a Republican running against a black man do to change voter's minds at the 11th hour? If you guessed, go negative, you win the Kewpie doll!
Their first gambit is to send Palin around talking about Obama and Terrorists. This is referring to Bill Ayers, who was a radical 40 years ago, but is now working for education reform in Chicago, and has thus bumped into Barack on several occasions. I guess by this logic, McCain is a Democrat too, as he's been in the senate talking to Democrats for the last two decades.
The sad part about this attack is that Palin herself has stronger affiliations with domestic terrorism, in the form of her family's association with the Alaska Independence Party (AIP). Let's see what their founder Joe Vogler had to say about America:
The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government...and I won't be buried under their damn flag... I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions.
Sarah's husband Todd was a member of this party until 2002, and only quit when she started running for governor as a Republican. Later, as governor, Sarah addressed their convention and told them (multiple times) to "keep up the good work".
Of course logic isn't the point here. They are just hoping to throw enough mud that something will stick. When this particular lie loses its flavor, they'll just open up their big juicy-fruit pack of lies and pop in a new one. A politician meets so many people that there is really no end to what they can dredge up along these lines.
We had a great time registering and talking to voters yesterday at Osage Hills. The amount of Obama signage there was truly inspiring, as was the amount of people who had already registered on their own, and the general enthusiasm for the election. I talked to one veteran who served three tours in Iraq, and told me he wants to make sure nobody else gets sent back there. Funny, he didn't once say "let us win", like McCain claims they all say.
I seriously doubt that very many of the folks we talked to out there show up on anybody's "likely voter" list. If all of Tulsa is like this, I think some people are going to be quite surprised come election day.
Today This afternoon we will be at the OCCJ March toward CommUNITY (details here). Anyone can participate in the march of course, but if you'd like to do so with us, contact Mary Jo at 269-4400.
This Week Any new voter registrations need to be postmarked by this Friday (the 10th) in order to be elegible for the general election. So even if you can only find a few hours during the week to help, please do so. Just stop by HQ at 3930 East 31 Street (between Yale and Harvard). There we can give you some quick training and a stack of voter registration forms.
If you can't find time during office hours, then I'll give you quick instruction here. You can download and print out the forms directly from the Oklahoma State Election Board's website. The most important things to remember are:
Do not wear any Obama (or Democratic party) gear.
Try to fill out the forms for the person, to ensure things are filled out properly and legibly.
Convicted Felons can vote if they are no longer on parole.
Try to also get email and phone numbers too, for our own lists.
Bring a clipboard and multiple pens.
Please turn all forms back in at Democratic Headquarters, so we can keep track of them.
If for some reason they are busy (or someone wants one for someone else) they can of course fill the form out themselves and mail it in. It must be postmarked by this Friday!
Mention that they can vote early to avoid the lines on election day. Early voting is November 1, 2, and 3 (the election is Nov 4).
People you can contact: Mary Jo for the Tulsa area in general. Alicia Cater in Wagoner. Delorus Crawford in the area around Admiral and Harvard. Blanca Thames for the Tulsa area Hispanic community.
If you can't even leave your computer, there's still something you can do to help. Send this blog to 5 friends. Send this video (embedded below) to five friends. The video is promoting this great voter registration website that Google worked up. Send that to five friends.
I believe this is our last weekend to register voters. At 11:30 today we will meet HQ (3930 East 31 Street). After a brief orientation, we will be caravaning to the Osage Hills housing project. We hope to find a very large amount of interested but unregistered voters there. Bring a couple of clipboards and pens, and don't wear any politically-identifying items.
Letter from an Independent Greg got this letter after the debate, and suggested I share it. Since I'm doing it only on his permission, the author is not being attributed. A small amount of spelling correction has also been done.
Additionally, below is my observation of last night's VP debate. It is not my only observation but it is one that illustrates the ability of the Republicans to "mainline" into the American psyche, something that continues to elude the Democrats. This failure perplexes me. I am a registered Independent as is my husband. We are the people from whom your party seeks votes.
Observation: Please tell the honorable Senator Biden that he needs a 2nd change of his "intellectual" precepts. He stated in the debate that his "1st change" was his perception that ideology of judicial nominees for the Supreme Court does matter which I support this stance. The 2nd change Biden better recognize he needs to make now IS TO BE SUSPICIOUS OF SOMEONE'S MOTIVES as demonstrated by the "first name" request from Palin. There has been innumerable Media mentions of how friendly Sarah Palin was when the 2 of them first walked onto the debate stage. She asked Senator Biden if she could call him by his first name Joe. On camera. Loudly. And she said it very quickly in a tone uncharacteristic of the Palin pitch and immediately disengaged herself from him, never even acknowledging the Moderator, turned toward her podium & left him out there. Palin was now on target by obtaining his permission to call him by his first name. Watch the encounter again.
She baited him as her handlers instructed her to in order to accomplish her first goal. Biden thought nothing of this request? And then he said yes!?! Biden could have just gracefully ignored her request by saying "It's so finally nice to meet you, Governor Palin and I am looking forward to this debate" all the while flashing his smile, turning and walking to his podium. She would have been thrown off her rehearsed strategy. However, she obtained ownership of his name. It's Negotiation Rule #1: Never give your adversary ownership of your name. First name basis? Never. Never. Never. Never. And with Biden's permission, she would later in the debate employ the quip of "Say it ain't so, Joe" and get away with it. What a primal zinger she has achieved for the Republicans with that one sound bite, that one liner. That was her motive.
Furthermore, who did mike them? And on their person? How did live mikes happen before they reached their podiums? Doesn't someone set rules by which the candidates are to refer to each other before hand? How did this exchange happen ON STAGE & ON MIKE?
Obama wasn't successful with this "first name" tactic as Obama inadvertently associated success or deference to McCain by saying "John, you are correct" or "John, I agree with you" and you know the rest of that story. Now, the Republicans have doubled back with this tactic and used it to diminish the stature of Senator Biden under the Palin guise of "friendly". The Republicans were able to double back on the gender angle, too, with this "first name" ploy, using it to their advantage. Think on that for awhile.
Tell the Obama team to wake up to these primal nuances or they will lose the election and tell Senator Biden to be suspect of motives, all motives, especially your opponent's.
I apologize for the length of this email. Thank you for your forbearance in reading it. XXX XXXX
BTW: For what it's worth, David Letterman just agreed with me on her motive.
There are some good points in there. However, this is just the VP's we are talking about here.
A good time was had by all at the debate party at the Circle Cinema last night. The crowd this time was a bit less than one hundred. That's less than last time, but not by a huge amount. Fairly impressive.
Ms. Palin didn't exactly sound like leader of the Free World material, but she didn't run crying from the auditorium either. That's probably enough to call it a moral victory for her. Plus everybody's attention was taken away from the lousy economy. That's a big win for McCain.
As far as the actual debate, all the instapolling last night seems to indicate that Biden stomped her. Highlights were him going after Cheney, and a moment late in the debate where he talked about the adversity he's seen in his life, and choked up a bit when he got to the part about his son almost dying.
This isn't even the half of it either. His wife and baby daughter died in the same accident. I've often wondered why he didn't bring it up more often, but it's pretty clear from watching this that he just can't do it without getting emotional and loosing his train of thought. I guess the rest of us will have to bring it up for him.
Again, I don't think in the long run VP debates matter much. For a debate that will matter, meet us back at the Circle on Tuesday for the second presidential debate. This will be in McCain's favorite format, Town Hall, so its his best (perhaps only) remaining chance to turn the election around. However, Obama's not exactly a noob at talking to people one on one and in small groups either. That's pretty much what a community organizer does.
Workin' for the Weekend We are down to the final week for voter registrations, and need to go out big. Tomorrow we will be doing a big voter registration push at Osage Hills. We suspect there are a very large amount of interested but unregistered voters there. This one drive has the potential to turn the whole election in Tulsa County. So please call Mary Jo at 269-4400 or email Greg and prepare to show up at the headquarters tomorrow morning at 11:30 with a clipboard and a smile.
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