Romney-Obama: Handicapping the Race

[Inky Noodles]

Since The Fiscal Cliff is all over the news ALL THE TIME, I guess I should ask if it will affect me and my family. Since I don't really have a complete grasp over the economy and the Federal Government yet, I have come to ask you guys. I know the Bush Tax cuts are expiring, and a number of other things that I can't name off the top of my head right now are expiring. All of this, on the same day. No matter who wins the election, how will the Fiscal Cliff affect my life? (I am 14, am in the GT program... and obviously, not for math) I know this isn't Wikianswers, but you all seem to be older, and perhaps wiser than me... I come to you.

[Farnhamia]

Since The Fiscal Cliff is all over the news ALL THE TIME, I guess I should ask if it will affect me and my family. Since I don't really have a complete grasp over the economy and the Federal Government yet, I have come to ask you guys. I know the Bush Tax cuts are expiring, and a number of other things that I can't name off the top of my head right now are expiring. All of this, on the same day. No matter who wins the election, how will the Fiscal Cliff affect my life? (I am 14, am in the GT program... and obviously, not for math) I know this isn't Wikianswers, but you all seem to be older, and perhaps wiser than me... I come to you.

Not really the place for this question. One of the other election threads, perhaps, or start a new one. This one's about the strategy and tactics of the race.

[Inky Noodles]

Since The Fiscal Cliff is all over the news ALL THE TIME, I guess I should ask if it will affect me and my family. Since I don't really have a complete grasp over the economy and the Federal Government yet, I have come to ask you guys. I know the Bush Tax cuts are expiring, and a number of other things that I can't name off the top of my head right now are expiring. All of this, on the same day. No matter who wins the election, how will the Fiscal Cliff affect my life? (I am 14, am in the GT program... and obviously, not for math) I know this isn't Wikianswers, but you all seem to be older, and perhaps wiser than me... I come to you.

Not really the place for this question. One of the other election threads, perhaps, or start a new one. This one's about the strategy and tactics of the race.

I thought it might not have been worth a new thread, but now that I think about it... it might be.

[New England and The Maritimes]

The balance of minor parties seems to be stacked against republicans, but then the Green Party is historically the strongest by far in this party system and has a nasty tendency to draw votes from democrats by a hugely disproportionate amount. How well they impact this election really? Will minor parties getting the "last word" with Larry King be something to watch for?

[Alien Space Bats]

Electoral-vote.com Map (as of October 17th, 2012)



Obama 277, Romney 239 (22 Undecided)

---

PLEASE NOTE: SOME NEW POLLS DO NOT YET REFLECT REACTION TO THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE; NONE REFLECT REACTION TO THE SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE.

---

I'm a day late in posting; six new polls are out yesterday. Interestingly enough, none were in this election's "battleground" States:

• In Pennsylvania (20 EV's), a new poll by Quinnipiac University dated October 14th shows Obama up by 4%; averaging this poll with four others taken within a one-week look-back window (by Global Strategy, Pulse Opinion Research, PPP, and Muhlenberg College) gives the President a net lead of 5%. The Keystone State remains "Likely Democratic".
  
  
• In New Jersey (14 EV's), a new poll by Quinnipiac University dated October 14th shows Obama up by 8%; averaging this poll with Global Strategy's poll from October 8th gives President Obama a net lead of 9%. The Garden State shifts from "Strongly Democratic" to "Likely Democratic".
  
  
• In Minnesota (10 EV's), a new poll by SurveyUSA dated October 13th shows Obama leading by 10%; comparing this poll with PPP's poll from October 8th confirms this 10% lead for the President. The North Star State remains "Strongly Democratic".
  
  
• In Indiana (11 EV's), a new poll by Rasmussen dated October 11th shows Romney up by 13%; the Hoosier State remains "Strongly Republican".
  
  
• In Washington (12 EV's), a new poll by SurveyUSA dated October 14th shows Obama leading by 14%; the Evergreen State remains "Strongly Democratic".
  
  
• In Massachusetts (11 EV's), a new poll by Rasmussen dated October 10th shows Obama up by 15%; averaging this poll with four others taken within a one-week look-back window (by PPP, MassINC, and the University of Massachusetts) gives the President a net lead of 17%. The Bay State remains "Strongly Democratic".

All in all, no real change from what we saw on the eve of the second Presidential Debate. As for the effects of the debate itself on the race, we shoul start seeing that by the weekend.

---

These last 24-36 hours have proven beyond any shadow of a doubt the wisdom of MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell when it comes to Presidential debates: Never call a winner or loser until at least a day has passed, because you really have no way of knowing before that time.

In my previous update, I offered my take on what President Obama needed to do in Tuesday night's debate, and before the night was over, it was clear that he had done it - or at least enough of it to meet his baseline objectives. Yet I did not come away from that debate believing that the President had "trounced" or "whipped" his rival - merely that he had turned in a strong performance, sufficient to merit an honorable draw or even a slight win. I felt that Governor Romney's performance was not quite as good as it had been eight days earlier, but that he had still fought well enough to avoid any damage to his campaign. Such an outcome would be a plus for the President and a minus for the former Massachusetts Governor, in so far as it would shift the focus to the last debate, where Obama should have the advantage; for Romney, it would also represent a missed opportunity to "break through" and take charge of the race - yet it would not be altogether fatal to his campaign if that opportunity were missed.

Yet just as Barack Obama's "off night" on October 3rd swelled into a complete and total rout by the following Monday, Mitt Romney's narrow defeat on points Tuesday night is mushrooming into an absolute disaster for his campaign. This is the post-debate spin machine at work, and it is never predictable in its final outcome. So let's talk about how the spin has magnified Obama's narrow but noteworthy win into a major victory.

First, demeanor: Romney was clearly too physically aggressive in his bearing. I don't have a handy recording to fast forward through, but I think the key moment came about 30 minutes in, when he failed to take his seat after having given his answer to a question.

Now, in pointing this out, I need to give some background: It was Bill Clinton who wrote the book on "town hall style" debates; he was the one who demonstrated the proper way to answer a question: Get up out of your chair, walk up to the questioner, and address them face to face in a way that exemplifies intimacy and concern. At the start of this debate, you saw both men doing this: Rising, walking across the debate stage to the questioner, talking to them, and then walking back to their chair. At times, during the free exchange/rebuttal segments that followed each answer, both men might be on the stage, but unspoken etiquette calls for each to return to his chair when done speaking.

If you watch the debate again, you'll see a point at which Romney stops doing this. The next question is supposed to go to Barack Obama, but having just gotten the last word in on the previous question, Romney moves to the center of the stage and remains standing. That move conveys ownership, possession, dominance: This is my stage, this is my debate, I'm the boss here, I'm the one in charge.

Essentially, Mitt Romney attempted to non-verbally usurp the Office of the Presidency. Advisers tell candidates to act Presidential on the stage; but to the best of my knowledge, no Presidential candidate has ever tried to strip the current occupant of his office by fiat, right there on National TV. It was an act of supreme arrogance, like none we've ever seen before in our history.

I saw it when he did it and pointed it out to the other people with whom I was watching the debate: It was a moment of obvious overreach that ignored a couple fundamental truths: This was not Mitt Romney's debate, this was not Mitt Romney's stage, and Mitt Romney - however entitled he may feel himself to be - is not yet President of the United States.

Mitt Romney used these same tactics against Governor Rick Perry in the primaries, and many of us wondered if he would try to repeat them; it's too bad for him that his staff didn't realize they didn't work as well against Governor Perry as the folks in Boston seemed to think they did. It was worse for them, though, that they didn't appreciate the fact that two Governors can use tactics like that against each other in a debate, and merely come off looking like arrogant jerks.

But when a Governor uses that tactic against a sitting President, it's an altogether different matter.

To be honest, I think this was a mistake Romney and his team committed in part because they have allowed themselves to become immersed in the right-wing infosphere: Since Barack Obama is an "illegitimate President" who was never "properly vetted" (and maybe isn't even Constitutionally entitled to hold the office [in their eyes]), usurpation of the respect his office commands is, in the eyes of the right, acceptable. In this worldview, Romney doesn't need to win the election to claim the Presidency; he merely has to sieze it, if only symbolically. For the rest of us, however, it was an act of supreme chutzpah, and it backfired horribly on him.

I was wrong on Tuesday night when I said that Candy Crowley's correction of Romney wouldn't have legs; it has. I should note, of course, that one of the reasons it has had legs is because the right-wing media went into apoplexy over it. But I think there's a bigger reason, one rooted in the non-verbal and low-level communications I've been focussing on in all of these debates.

Before I explain more fully, I should point out that I am actually quite shocked to realize that Romney and his team are as fully immersed in the right-wing infosphere as they are. In that right wing infosphere, it supposedly matters in a way the rest of us cannot even begin to understand that nobody in Washington was entirely sure what happened in Benghazi on September 11th, 2012, and it matters even more that - supposedly - the Administration allegedly labelled it a demonstration gone bad and not a pre-planned terror attack for a full two weeks after it occured. I don't live in right-wing infospace, so frankly I can't even begin to understand what in the fuck they're talking about, or why this is supposed to be such a horrible scandal. From my perspective, this is all very familiar: In 1984 (we keep coming back to that year, don't we?), former Vice President Walter Mondale tried to make a huge issue out of the Administration's failure to prepare for (or, after the fact, respond to) the horrible suicide attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut (which killed a whopping 241 American servicemen, along with 58 of our French allies (yes, righties, suck it up: France was - and is still - our ally, and a damned fucking valuable one at that) and 6 Lebanese civilians (a janitor at the barracks along with his entire family, who lived onsite). Yet for all the woofing, the issue went nowhere, and if the GOP weren't living in an echo chamber, they'd realize it isn't going anywhere this time, either. Nobody took the Marine barracks bombing as a sign of weakness on Ronald Reagan's part, and only right-wingers are seeing Benghazi as symbolic of some kind of grand "unwinding of the Obama foreign policy" (in Paul Ryan's ridiculous words). That dog not only doesn't hunt, it won't even wake up and leave the porch.

Yet Romney saw this as his great moment, and he pressed the President. I urge you to watch those crucial two minutes very closely: First, Obama "mans up" to responsibility when offered the chance to throw Secretary Clinton under the bus: He essentially says that even though Hillary Clinton had taken responsibility for any security lapse at the Benghazi Consulate, he - as President - must also bear responsibility because "Secretary Clinton works for me". That Trumanesque moment will certainly have legs (and as much for Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama) - yet for some reason, I don't think "Team Romney" expected it. He then made clear that he had labelled the attack an "act of terror" in a statement he (and Secretary Clinton) issued from the Rose Garden on the following day (for now, Obama has apparently chosen to leave unspoken any criticism of Mitt Romney's loathsome role in the whole affair - yet surely it has not been forgotten).

Mitt Romney jumps on that statement. He clearly thinks he's caught the President in an open lie; he challenges him to confirm what he's just said. But as the scene unfolds, watch how he does it: He raises his brows in a way that is extremely distasteful, expressing both open shock at what he clearly thinks as a lie, and acting for all the world like a business manager who's caught one of his employees' hands in the till. He's swooping in for the kill: This is clearly Mitt Romney, CEO, in full firing mode.

The Barack Obama responds beautifully; if he'd been coached by Eric Berne (the father of transactional analysis), he couldn't have done better. Instead of taking his assigned role as guilty employee caught in a lie and waiting to get the axe, he goes full Presidential on Mitt's ass: "Please proceed, Governor," he says - exactly as if he were presiding over a Cabinet meeting. The context shift whipsaws Romney, the spasm of words he blurts out as he attempts to regain his flow is exactly what happens when a conversation undergoes a sudden reversal in roles and the person who thought he was in a position of presumed dominance three seconds earlier now finds himself shoved off into a secondary role. Then comes the coup de grâce: "Check the transcript." Not even a please, not even a polite acknowledgement of position - just a simple, final order, delivered with Presidential authority and the faintest hint of a "got yo' ass" smile.

Two days later, all conservatives are left with is idiocy: To deny that the President's references to "acts of terror" were somehow references to other acts of terror and that this enumeration does not include the outrage that happened on September 11th, 2012 in Benghazi requires pretzel logic at its most ludicrous. Of course, in right-wing spin-space, where reality is warped by the close proximity of the Wingnut Singularity, such arguments somehow still make sense - but outside right-wing infospace, beyond the event horzion, no one is buying them, because they're not even remotely sensible. The entire point of "Benghzaigate" has imploded, and its effect on the election has expired. It never made sense to start with, it makes no sense now, and the longer Republicans pretend it does, the wierder they're going to look.

Worse, though, are the visuals: CEO Mitt Romney gets taken to task by President Barack Obama. Who's the Big Dog now, Mitt?

Second, Obama won the battle of the bites. Romney got some good licks in, but none of them were the sort of thing that has reverberated into the media narrative. His best shot was a pathetic one, and one that has that same kind of cringeworthy feel as his $10,000 challenge to Governor Perry (i.e., the demand that Obama look at his own pension; it has a nasty, spiteful feel that makes Mitt look mean, something he can't afford). His point on oil leases got shot to pieces by the President's response, and his talking point about production on government land being lower has since been fact-checked to death (it's the decline in just the last year, not the change in production across the last four). Indeed, Obama's citation of demand as a factor in oil prices (and Romney's refusal to address it) leaves him open to the deadly charge of being a businessman who doesn't understand the law of supply and demand (not that most Americans do, but not even acknowledging that demand plays a role makes him look like and economic illiterate, something the former Massachusetts Governor cannot afford).

Mitt's remarks on contraception also left him exposed: The only way he can avoid accusations of a flip-flop is to admit what he has, to date, tried hard to obscure: That a Romney Administration would seek laws and regulations making all women pay out of pocket for all contraception, and pay full price. That's a deadly economic issue, especially for women who are covered under employer plans today.

The "Binders full of women" meme will no doubt die, but Mitt Romney's failure to address equal pay for equal work was both deadly and inexcusable. He could have - and should have - simply said "Of course I support equal pay for equal work" and said nothing more; if challenged, he should have simply insisted that he believes employers should embrace pay equity, but isn't comfortable with having government interfere in the hiring and promotion process to make them do so. Instead, he went off on a pointless riff in which he tried to claim that he believes in hiring women. Not the answer, Mitt - and most women saw it as the evasion that it was.

Aside from "check the transcript" on Benghazi, Obama also dinged Romney on China ("Governor, you're the last person who's gonna get tough on China") and on Romney actually being more radical than George W. Bush ("There are differences between Governor Romney and George W. Bush, but they're not on economic policy; it some ways, he's gone to a more extreme place when it comes to social policy"). Mistakes and memorable phrases have the capacity to persist far longer than more involved arguments, because they stick in the brain - and for Barack Obama, what was left in the brain sits better than what Mitt Romney left behind.

---

Of course, the big question is this: Just how much of Mitt Romney's recent gains will he end up giving back in the next week? If he gives back only a little, then he will still be in good position going into the final turn. If, however, he gives back too much, then he could find himself in as bad a position as he was when the month began.

[New England and The Maritimes]

It's true that Romney did well for most of the debate, but I think the important point is that the President owned the last 40 minutes or so. Romney chanting into the microphone at the end just seemed weird to me. He came off like a cultist, not someone in disagreement.

[The Emerald Dawn]

It's true that Romney did well for most of the debate, but I think the important point is that the President owned the last 40 minutes or so. Romney chanting into the microphone at the end just seemed weird to me. He came off like a cultist, not someone in disagreement.

He's a Mormon, that's not an impression he wants to give.

[Alien Space Bats]

since the reforms of 1972

What were those?

Serrland is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to Party politics, so he sometimes forgets that most people don't know about the Fraser-McGovern Commission. Fraser-McGovern was a Democratic initiative aimed at reforming the way the Democratic Party selected its nominees; it was designed to eliminate the old system of "smoke-filled rooms" and "favorite sons" in favor of a more democratic process. One of its direct effects was a proliferation of primaries, and in this respect its work spilled over and infected the Republican Party as well.

The ironic thing - and I've spoken of this repeatedly - is that the immediate effect of Fraser-McGovern was that Senator George S. McGovern himself took advantage of the new rules to win his Party's nomination; when he got creamed, the Democratic Party leadership realized that things had gone too far and ended us scaling matters back a bit. This led to the Hunt Commission, which invented "superdelegates" as a means of counterbalancing the impact of Fraser-McGovern (i.e., what Serrland calls "the reforms of 1972").

If you're wondering what there is about this situation that's ironic, it's this: The Hunt Commission reforms (and others) were widely accepted by Democrats, with results I have spoken of repeatedly: The Democratic Party leadership succeeded in undoing much of the "democratic" spirit of Fraser-McGovern and reasserting their control over the National Party. The Republicans, OTOH, infected by Fraser-McGovern against their will due to the proliferation of primaries, never went in big for "superdelegates" - with the result that it ended up being the GOP that came to operate in the way the reformers of 1972 envisioned. Thus the GOP is very much a Party controlled by its grass roots - with the result that popular passions have now come to dominate the Republican Party in a way that has since become impossible among Democrats.

IOW, you can think of the Tea Party Revolution and today's rabid insanity within the GOP as George McGovern's greatest legacy to the political world.

---

EDIT: Since I've mentioned him quite a few times recently, I should add this footnote: George McGovern's family announced last week that - at age 90 - he is now in hospice care and has ceased responding to outside stimuli, meaning that he is nearing the end of his life. I'd expect he won't make it to the end of the year.

I'm hoping that today's conservative chicken-hawks have the decency to show some respect to a man who flew 35 B-24 missions over Nazi-occupied Europe in World War II. He may have been a peacenik, but he had more courage in his little finger than a hundred Dick Cheneys, Karl Roves, or Newt Gingrichs combined.

[Alien Space Bats]

I thought it might not have been worth a new thread, but now that I think about it... it might be.

I thought it might not have been worth a new thread, but now that I think about it... it might be.

I think it's definitely worth a new thread of its own.

[The Emerald Dawn]

I'm hoping that today's conservative chicken-hawks have the decency to show some respect to a man who flew 35 B-24 missions over Nazi-occupied Europe in World War II. He may have been a peacenik, but he had more courage in his little finger than a hundred Dick Cheneys, Karl Roves, or Newt Gingrichs combined.

No one possesses a greater desire for peace than a man who has seen the true face of war.

[Zaras]

What were those?

Serrland is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to Party politics, so he sometimes forgets that most people don't know about the Fraser-McGovern Commission. Fraser-McGovern was a Democratic initiative aimed at reforming the way the Democratic Party selected its nominees; it was designed to eliminate the old system of "smoke-filled rooms" and "favorite sons" in favor of a more democratic process. One of its direct effects was a proliferation of primaries, and in this respect its work spilled over and infected the Republican Party as well.

The ironic thing - and I've spoken of this repeatedly - is that the immediate effect of Fraser-McGovern was that Senator George S. McGovern himself took advantage of the new rules to win his Party's nomination; when he got creamed, the Democratic Party leadership realized that things had gone too far and ended us scaling matters back a bit. This led to the Hunt Commission, which invented "superdelegates" as a means of counterbalancing the impact of Fraser-McGovern (i.e., what Serrland calls "the reforms of 1972").

If you're wondering what there is about this situation that's ironic, it's this: The Hunt Commission reforms (and others) were widely accepted by Democrats, with results I have spoken of repeatedly: The Democratic Party leadership succeeded in undoing much of the "democratic" spirit of Fraser-McGovern and reasserting their control over the National Party. The Republicans, OTOH, infected by Fraser-McGovern against their will due to the proliferation of primaries, never went in big for "superdelegates" - with the result that it ended up being the GOP that came to operate in the way the reformers of 1972 envisioned. Thus the GOP is very much a Party controlled by its grass roots - with the result that popular passions have now come to dominate the Republican Party in a way that has since become impossible among Democrats.

IOW, you can think of the Tea Party Revolution and today's rabid insanity within the GOP as George McGovern's greatest legacy to the political world.

---

EDIT: Since I've mentioned him quite a few times recently, I should add this footnote: George McGovern's family announced last week that - at age 90 - he is now in hospice care and has ceased responding to outside stimuli, meaning that he is nearing the end of his life. I'd expect he won't make it to the end of the year.

I'm hoping that today's conservative chicken-hawks have the decency to show some respect to a man who flew 35 B-24 missions over Nazi-occupied Europe in World War II. He may have been a peacenik, but he had more courage in his little finger than a hundred Dick Cheneys, Karl Roves, or Newt Gingrichs combined.

Thanks, ASB. I thought Serrland meant something specific to West Virginia, not the Fraser-McGovern commission.

[Greed and Death]

snip.

The battle will be Ohio and Virgina, Both Republican Governors so close calls will go to Romney.

[Salandriagado]

First, demeanor: Romney was clearly too physically aggressive in his bearing. I don't have a handy recording to fast forward through, but I think the key moment came about 30 minutes in, when he failed to take his seat after having given his answer to a question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QEpCrcMF5Ps#t=1794s

29:54.

(yes, righties, suck it up: France was - and is still - our ally, and a damned fucking valuable one at that)

And if memory serves, has been since the wars of independence.

[Greed and Death]

First, demeanor: Romney was clearly too physically aggressive in his bearing. I don't have a handy recording to fast forward through, but I think the key moment came about 30 minutes in, when he failed to take his seat after having given his answer to a question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QEpCrcMF5Ps#t=1794s

29:54.

(yes, righties, suck it up: France was - and is still - our ally, and a damned fucking valuable one at that)

And if memory serves, has been since the wars of independence.

Ahem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi_war

[Salandriagado]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QEpCrcMF5Ps#t=1794s

29:54.



And if memory serves, has been since the wars of independence.

Ahem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi_war

Well it was only a LITTLE war. Compared to the UK's past relations with most of its allies, that's positively friendly.

[New Chalcedon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QEpCrcMF5Ps#t=1794s

29:54.



And if memory serves, has been since the wars of independence.

Ahem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi_war

Hey - Britain burned down the Capitol, and is today "America's closest ally". If history's at issue, France has a far greater claim to that title than the UK.

[Greed and Death]

Ahem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi_war

Well it was only a LITTLE war. Compared to the UK's past relations with most of its allies, that's positively friendly.

A little war, sort of like a little murder and a little rape.

Also you leave out that the French used its puppet state imperial Mexico to support the confederacy.

[Greed and Death]

Ahem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi_war

Hey - Britain burned down the Capitol, and is today "America's closest ally". If history's at issue, France has a far greater claim to that title than the UK.

I am not claiming that the UK was always our ally.

[Serrland]

edit: nevermind, too far off topic.

[Neo Art]

Fivethirtyeight.com has a fascinating headline read that's the current story on the site right now, explaining how to read Romney's current 7 point lead amongst likely voters, on the Gallup poll, when virtually every other poll shows a dead heat, with leads in swing states giving the lead to Obama.

The article basically boils down to "Gallup is very accurate, when it's in consensus with the rest of the polls, but Gallup has a history of being a weird outlier, and when it is an outlier, it's almost always wrong, so when Gallup is giving you data that's very different than the rest of the story, it's far more likely to be wrong than right"

[Franklin Delano Bluth]

Two days later, all conservatives are left with is idiocy: To deny that the President's references to "acts of terror" were somehow references to other acts of terror and that this enumeration does not include the outrage that happened on September 11th, 2012 in Benghazi requires pretzel logic at its most ludicrous.

Don't you ever dis my third-favorite Steely Dan album like that again.

[Alien Space Bats]

snip.

The battle will be Ohio and Virgina, Both Republican Governors so close calls will go to Romney.

I'll have to disagree on Ohio. I think early voting is going to carry the State for Obama.

Now, Florida will be interesting. In '08, Charlie Crist kept the polling places open until everyone standing in line had voted, and was roundly condemned by Republicans for it; they still believe his refusal to chase voters away from their polling places cost McCain the State. This year, Dick Rick Scott will almost certainly move to close them even if people are outside waiting in line, so that gives the Republicans a clear advantage there.

[Franklin Delano Bluth]

The battle will be Ohio and Virgina, Both Republican Governors so close calls will go to Romney.

I'll have to disagree on Ohio. I think early voting is going to carry the State for Obama.

Now, Florida will be interesting. In '08, Charlie Crist kept the polling places open until everyone standing in line had voted, and was roundly condemned by Republicans for it; they still believe his refusal to chase voters away from their polling places cost McCain the State. This year, Dick Rick Scott will almost certainly move to close them even if people are outside waiting in line, so that gives the Republicans a clear advantage there.

Holy shit, this is actually up to the governor's discretion?

Voter suppression is becoming popular in Indiana too, but at least here keeping the polls open for everyone who's in line at the 6 PM deadline is required by statute.

[The Emerald Dawn]

I'll have to disagree on Ohio. I think early voting is going to carry the State for Obama.

Now, Florida will be interesting. In '08, Charlie Crist kept the polling places open until everyone standing in line had voted, and was roundly condemned by Republicans for it; they still believe his refusal to chase voters away from their polling places cost McCain the State. This year, Dick Rick Scott will almost certainly move to close them even if people are outside waiting in line, so that gives the Republicans a clear advantage there.

Holy shit, this is actually up to the governor's discretion?

Voter suppression is becoming popular in Indiana too, but at least here keeping the polls open for everyone who's in line at the 6 PM deadline is required by statute.

Mail. In. Voting. Seriously, Oregon uses it and it works fantastically. No polls. No lines. No waiting. Get your ballot weeks in advance, deposit at any of a gajillion places. ???? Profit.

[AiliailiA]

Holy shit, this is actually up to the governor's discretion?

Voter suppression is becoming popular in Indiana too, but at least here keeping the polls open for everyone who's in line at the 6 PM deadline is required by statute.

Mail. In. Voting. Seriously, Oregon uses it and it works fantastically. No polls. No lines. No waiting. Get your ballot weeks in advance, deposit at any of a gajillion places. ???? Profit.

Wow, it's the only method of voting? I'm not sure I like that.

EDIT: Wikipedia sez: "2000 Oregon becomes the first state in the nation to conduct a presidential election entirely by mail. About 80% of registered voters participated." That's the highest in the country (other than Wyoming but that's because they allow election-day registration). OK, I'm persuaded.