Obama Autotune Feat. T-Pain

A little something to lighten the mood:

Red Dawn

If you're a Republican and you volunteered or even worked for the party this year, you deserve congratulations. Campaigns are long, stressful, exhausting and brutal affairs, and I'm sure plenty of folks spent plenty of hours making phone calls and pounding the pavement for your candidates. You deserve props, even though I think you backed the wrong people.

But if you're a Democrat, last night sucked. Not only did we lose all three top-ticket races, we even lost good down-ticket candidates; I'm more disappointed about losing Shannon Valentine in Lynchburg than any other race in the state (or the country for that matter). We lost a lot of ground last night. Sure the economy played a big role, as did Virginia's tendency to vote against the current White House (though I don't think last night was a referendum on President Obama--he's still fairly popular in Virginia and most voters in VA and NJ said he had no bearing on their vote). There's an excellent analysis at Blue Virginia and Ben Tribbett is spot-on in his piece at FireDogLake. There's no need to completely re-write the post-mortems, but I thought I'd offer a few observations of my own:

More than anything else, I think this year the GOP just wanted it more. They got out their base, first to volunteer and then to vote. In contrast, the term "circular firing squad" comes to mind when I think about the aftermath of the primary. There's a good argument that Wagner and Deeds ran up sizeable margins in their nomination, and so party disunity should not be seen as a major factor. But the problem with that argument is that even though the opposition vote was split, over half of primary voters supported someone other than Creigh Deeds, and did so passionately. I have to believe there were hard feelings left over from June; I've heard too many horror stories from field organizers to believe otherwise. Whether the primary itself demoralized the grassroots or merely created faults that ruptured when Deeds failed to reunite the party and became Republican-Lite, something kept Democrats at home. It's easy to blame Deeds for that, but frankly I would have liked to see more support from his former opponents. While Creigh could have done more to unify the party, at some point the Democratic base becomes culpable. Whatever our qualms about him or any of the candidates, we're still Democrats and we should have worked harder.

We also got lulled into a fantasy world last year and prematurely declared ourselves a blue state. Like it or not, Virginia is still a place where Democrats have to fight like hell for every single vote, and it will be for some time. Let's not forget that next year.

The easiest target and probably the biggest factor is that Creigh Deeds ran an abysmal campaign. I hate to say that about a guy I respect so much, but there's no denying it. The fact is, we had to pick from three less-than-good choices in the spring and I still maintain that as a candidate (not as a campaigner), Deeds was the most electable of the three. He did seem to have the broadest appeal and with a better campaign, he would have been much more competitive.

I also agree with those who say we need to nominate strong progressives in order to keep the base energized and draw strong contrasts with the right, but we have to be careful not to overdo it (i.e. not nominate the lefty equivalent of Cuccinelli--the GOP got lucky this year). Had Moran been our nominee, his leftward movement during the primary would have caught up with him; McAuliffe's ties to the Clintons and highly partisan background would have destroyed him in the rural areas, where any statewide candidate still needs to at least compete. Not to mention his dealings with Global Crossing; whether he did anything wrong or not, the appearance was there and it was bad.

I will never understand why Creigh's campaign did (or didn't do) a lot of things--skipping the Shad Plank, being MIA for at least a month after the primary, and the thoroughly baffling decision to bring abortion into the race back in August are a few things that come to mind. I also don't understand the lack of visibility. Here in Southside, I started seeing McDonnell-Bolling-Cuccinelli 4x8's popping up everywhere back in June--and they were completely unopposed. I didn't see Deeds 4x8's until late August, and to this day, I have yet to see any for Wagner or Shannon. We had coordinated yard signs, but that just isn't gonna cut it for name recognition.

We are now 364 days away from the polls closing on the 2010 midterms. This one's over and it's time to move on. Let's push our candidates and officeholders to their best, and then let's stand behind them. We need to be ready for a fight, particularly in the Fifth. The big guns are out and the Republicans smell blood. Let's be ready.

Election Night 2009: Official Theme

E-Day

Alright, readers, this is it. We've all heard the old cliche that "the only poll that counts is on Election Day." As cheesy as it sounds, it's true. So get out and vote if you haven't already. Go vote!

Just got back from voting here in Henry County at the Mountain View VFW. Voter #197 at 10:30. I didn't see poll workers for either party, but there was a goodly number of yard signs, about evenly matched by party--multiple coordinated Dem signs as well as a smattering of Wagner signs. I saw none for Shannon, but I guess the coordinated signs count. Also saw some McDonnell/Bolling/Cuccinelli signs, plus some for Del. Merricks, who is unopposed.

Side note: plenty of elderly white folks getting out to vote. Not exactly Creigh's demographic, but to a larger point, VFW is not the safest place for older folks to be voting. The parking lot is one giant hill and I've seen plenty of people nearly fall getting out of their cars there before.

The Final Push: A Word to Democratic Readers

This is it. We're coming up on Zero Hour, and it's time to get involved if you haven't already. I have to confess that I haven't been as involved as I should've been with this campaign. I could give a number of reasonable excuses relating to time or whatever else, but my lack of involvement is a symptom of a larger problem. Today I plan to spend most of my time making phone calls and volunteering in various ways for the Deeds campaign. I will keep working as much as I can until Tuesday.

There's plenty to criticize about the Democrats' efforts in this election, and there will be plenty of time to analyze the results after Tuesday, whatever the outcome. But if we let the media narrative keep us at home this weekend and we end up with a GOP sweep, we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.

And for those of you who are deterred from volunteering or even offering genuine support because you don't think our ticket is progressive enough, quit fooling yourself. Bob McDonnell will opt-out of health care reform, decimate education and let our roads turn to rubble; Bill Bolling will spend the next four years running for governor and skipping meetings; and Ken Cuccinelli will impose his fundamentalist, far-right brand of conservatism on the Attorney General's office at the expense of anyone he deems "immoral."

You may not agree with everything our candidates stand for, but who do you honestly believe is more likely to stand up for the progressive values in which you believe? Who will side with the middle class, fight for education and come up with a realistic transportation plan? Who will continue the legacy of Mark Warner, Jim Webb, Tim Kaine and Tom Perriello? I think you know the answer.

So go knock doors. Make phone calls, talk to your friends and neighbors, or write a last minute lettor to the editor. If you just can't bear to do any of those things, at least go out and vote and drag your like-minded friends with you to the polls. We may very well lose anyway, but if you and I sit around and do nothing, it becomes a sure bet.

New Jody Wagner Ad

This was posted at Blue Virginia and I thought it was pretty funny.

Va-05: Rees to Run as Third-Party Candidate

On his blog last night, Bradley Rees announced his intention to withdraw from the race for the Republican nomination to run against Congressman Perriello in 2010. He will instead run as a member of the Conservative Party, citing disillusionment with the GOP establishment. You may remember Rees being the first candidate to announce his candidacy against Tom. Money quote:

As such, it is my duty to announce that, as of today, I am withdrawing from consideration for the Republican nomination, so that I can devote my time, via my blog and my upcoming radio show, to exposing some of the charlatans and even outright liars who have corrupted the party I would have been proud to represent.

Starting in January, I intend to begin laying the groundwork and getting my support structure in place to run on the Virginia Conservative Party platform. It may amount to only drawing enough votes from the Republican candidate to ensure Tom Perriello a second term. If so, so be it. Maybe then, the party will understand that we are trying to save the GOP from its worst enemy: not the Democrats, but themselves.

Strong words from Mr. Rees. In light of recent events in NY-23, is this the new dynamic of the conservative movement? Are we seeing the birth of a new party? Should be an interesting one to watch. And no, I don't think Rees is to be taken lightly; from what I've seen, he's been a pretty serious campaigner. He also seems to have some support in the TEA Party movement, and they certainly have a strong presence here in the 5th.

NASA Launches Ares 1-X

This is pretty cool:

I really believe the space program will be America's lasting historical legacy. I think if we could look into the future, say five hundred years from now, historians would most remember our contributions to space exploration. From landing on the Moon to sending robotic probes to the inner planets and the outer solar system, 20th and 21st century America opened a new frontier. The knowledge we have gained and will gain from continuing to push our technology to its limits is what will become legendary. As important as things like the health care debate seem today, future generations won't care about triggers and opt-outs. They'll want to know what we did to advance the human species.

I actually think the Bush Administration was on the right track with this. Back in 2005, Dubya announced the Vision for Space Exploration, laying out a plan for NASA to retire the shuttle, finish the International Space Station and get back to the Moon while planning for a manned trip to Mars. Now, the VSE is still inadequate in my view--it cut funding for unmanned scientific experiments, for one thing. It also plays into deep flaws within NASA that will unnecessarily raise costs, such as over-reliance on semi-private aerospace firms like Lockheed and Boeing, who make their living off of gaming government contracts. Plus, there's always a danger that the whole thing could devolve into "flags and footprints" instead of doing serious exploration. But overall, I'm encouraged by yesterday's successful launch and I hope this is the start of a renaissance for NASA's manned spaceflight operations--America should have the best space program in the world, and I think the previous administration was trying to accomplish that. There, I said something nice about G-Dub. :)

If you've never taken the time to watch JFK's "We choose to go to the Moon" speech, here it is. If you don't get chills from this, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Ken "Crazy Eyes" Cuccinelli

While recently watching one of his campaign ads, it occurred to me that our friend Mr. Cuccinelli exhibits a physical feature that could be referred to as "the crazy eyes." See photo at left, or for that matter any ad wherein he looks directly at the camera.

Now, normally I wouldn't make fun of a candidate's physical features. Unless of course we're talking about Joe "Judas" Lieberman and his striking resemblance to Droopy of Looney Tunes fame. What would prompt me to such a hurtful course of action, you ask?

Why, none other than Mr. Cuccinelli's remarks to the editorial board of the Virginian-Pilot, as quoted in their endorsement of Steve Shannon for Attorney General. Now, somehow I missed this when the endorsement came through on Monday, but better late than never. Kenny, let's get this crazy train a-rollin! Excerpt:

He declined to commit to a nondiscrimination policy against gays and lesbians observed by former Attorney General Bob McDonnell: “ My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. ... They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents (to put it politely; I need my thesaurus to be polite) behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.”

Wow. So he's basically okay with using sexual orientation as a criterion for employment in the state's law firm? And this guy actually has people convinced that he's a moderate, to the point where he has a substantial lead in the polls? Oh, another little gem from the article:

He sponsored a bill to waive unemployment compensation costs for companies that fire workers for not speaking English on the job. The measure would have affected only legal workers because illegal immigrants don’t qualify for unemployment benefits.

Wonderful. The editorial concludes by saying Cuccinelli would be an embarrassment to the state of Virginia. Usually I think it's a bit of a stretch to call someone an embarrassment; even if I disagree passionately with a candidate or an officeholder, "embarrassment" just seems a bit excessive. For example, I don't necessarily think McDonnell would be an embarrassment...just a bad governor. But when a man who thinks the state should hire based on sexual orientation is on the verge of getting elected, that's pretty damn embarrassing.

Game 1

Well, I guess I'm a Phillies fan this week. I can handle that, even though I'm a Braves fan. I've never been able to truly despise the Phillies, despite their annoying habit of owning the NL East for the last two years. I grew up watching the rookie league Martinsville Phillies at English Field (old logo seen at left), back when our city had an Appy League team.

Fun fact: English Field now carries the unfortunate moniker Hooker Field, named for the neighboring Hooker Furniture offices and factory. True story.

So with that I extend an olive branch to the Phillies. After all, the most important thing to remember is that Yankee Stadium is the epicenter of evil in the modern world and Alex Rodriguez is the father of all lies.

However, I will grant a special exemption to Derek Jeter. He's a cool guy and he plays the game the right way. Also, he did well for us in the World Baseball Classic. Would that he were a Brave.

As of this writing, it's the top of the 8th and the Phillies have a 2-0 lead following two Chase Utley home runs. Sweet.

UPDATE: Hah! Base hit, 4-0 Phils. Top 8th.

UPDATE: Sit down A-Rod! 6-1 Phils win it.