Posts published in “Day: November 4, 2008”

Barack Obama

The networks aren't quit ready to do it yet, and maybe they shouldn't. But we're not mass media, so why not: Democrat Barack Obama will be the next president. The numbers tonight show he will win the race.

As this is written - 6:58p Pacific - CNN gives Obama 199 electoral votes, from such states as Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan and - from the west - New Mexico. He is sure to get the Pacific coastal votes from California (55), Oregon (7), Washington (11) and Hawaii (4), which total 73. Obama appears to be ahead in Florida and other states, but if he won no more than the CNNs and the Pacifics, he has crossed the 270 threshold.

Game over.

In another couple of hours, on to the Northwest races . . .

Heavy blogging here today and deep into the night - big surprise there, huh? - and we'll start with a quick look at the overview from the early time zones, with some thoughts on what that might mean out here.

We'll be doing a little TV expounding this evening, but other than that it'll mostly be absorbing numbers and blogging about them.

Nationally, our first and only choice for television will be C-SPAN, by far the best national political resource on the tube; none of the rest will be bothered with. Online, there are a batch of great resources, including some innovative stuff at CNN and TalkingPointsMemo. We'll likely do some skipping around to check out other options too.

For the Northwest, here's where our eyeballs will be mostly glued.

WASHINGTON

Secretary of State. The SecState in Washington usually has some of the fastest-reporting (and best-designed) reports in the state.

King County. They say they will have the first round of results posted by 8:15, the next round at 10:30 and thereafter a batch per hour. We'll see: This office hasn't always been, shall we say, Sir Speedy on this stuff in the past.

King County, of course, is politically lopsided, so trends may be more readily discerned through the Snohomish County elections office. The Spokane County elections results and in Clark County may be useful too.

Uncertain what reporting the two state parties may have on their web sites, but we'll be checking the Washington Democrats and the Washington Republicans to see what's there.

The Seattle Times looks to have a nicely comprehensive site ready to roll.

The Spokane Spokesman-Review looks as if it will be fairly comprehensive as well, and take note of the radio show (an hour program starts at 8 p.m.) accessible through its main page.

And, some broadcasters are doing live streaming of results. KIRO-TV in Seattle, for example, plans to crank up around 8 p.m.

OREGON

The Secretary of State's web site doesn't usually provide same-night results. But we'll stop by to see what does come up.

For drilling down, check out the Multnomah County and Washington County election sites.

Best comprehensive spot for Oregon results is likely to be the Oregonian, which has several pages devoted to updated results. They've been generally complete and prompt in recent elections. We'll keep watch too on the Salem Statesman-Journal's page.

Among the TV results pages, we've had the best luck with the KGW-TV (8) pages, which often has been both complete and fast. So we'll probably be back there regularly.

We'll pay some attention to Oregon Public Broadcasting too, the amount depending on what their reports look like.

IDAHO

The Idaho Secretary of State's office has gotten right on top of election night results in recent years, and it should be just about the single best spot for Idaho returns this evening.

The Ada County election results (or here) are traditionally sluggish, but the office was pushing this year for early voting, so that may speed up some of the early returns. Canyon County officials, however, were warning that meaningful results there might not be forthcoming until sometime Wednesday morning (although the current results page does seem to promise results starting at 9:30 p.m. today).

The Boise Idaho Statesman site should be the top news media spot for results. But KTVB-TV (7) often gives it a solid run and sometimes their results are the fastest in the state - they're promising results every two minutes, a high bar if they can do it - so we'll be checking there routinely too.

There remains some view that Republicans may do well in today's election - Coyote at NW Republican picks Republican John McCain over Democrat Barack Obama 294-244. But call that a distinctly minority view - brilliant prognosticating if it turns out to be anywhere near correct.

But the prevailing view is that Obama will win, and substantially. Our take, expressed in a couple of online raffles, is that he takes somewhere in excess of 320 electoral votes. (The final Karl Rove map estimates 338 ev.) That estimate comes in great part from the endless and massive polling (not one full major poll has given McCain a lead for more than a month) but also from an enormity of other material, up to and including the first election results reported in the nation, last night: Obama wins at the two early-voting and reporting precincts in New Hampshire, becoming the first Democrat to win in them in 40 years.

In that environment, there's been an undertone to Republican campaigns for major office in the last week or two: Don't give one party too-full control, with the implicit understanding, suggested by congressional candidates at least, that Obama will win and Democrats in control in the Congress need a brake. That's been a central implicit argument for Oregon Republican Senator Gordon Smith, and seems to be hovering in the background for the other major competitive Republican in the region, Washington gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi.

The split-control argument often has had some appeal in Oregon and Washington, and at this site (public records checkers will find this household registered as non-affiliated). But this year may be different.

Checks and balances are often a useful way to govern, but they do not send clear messages from voters to their elective servants. Decisive results can do that, and that is what landslides are about - not just a vote on the presidential level, but down below as well, because not only presidents but also lots of other people are involved in governing this country.

In 2008, we are at the tail end of an administration with a clear, distinct character, one that took the nation in a specific direction, and it behooves voters to express how they want to deal in the future with its key characteristics. Such as, not limited to . . . Torture. Extraordinary rendition. Unitary executive (code language for dictatorship). Abrogation of constitutional rights on presidential whim. Rejection of duly-passed laws instead of their "faithful execution." Launch of a war that need not have been fought, and not only wholesale deception of the nation in its launch, but - larger - an active preference for war, for war without end, without an articulable objective; atop that, malfeasance in its conduct, and failure to provide proper service to those who fought in it. (What exactly is "victory" in Iraq supposed to constitute anyway?) Hostility to and from most of the rest of the world. Abuse of the nation's judicial system for political benefit. Kleptocracy. Waste and unaccountability on almost unimaginable scale. Deception and outright lying on a stunning unprecedented scale - in active preference to honesty, not merely on occasion but as normal operating procedure. Budgetary mismanagement; public debt beyond compare. Tolerance of overwhelming finance and economic mismanagement. Secrecy - "undisclosed locations." Deceptive and secretive regulation. Crony capitalism. Crony governance. Pay to play. Suppression of science and research. Suppression of voting. Encouragement of ideological and other extremism. Active transfer of increasing amounts of wealth into ever-fewer hands. Dog-whistle encouragement of racist and other forms of hatred among and between Americans. And a lot else, but in all not merely the worst presidency in our nation's history - not even James Buchanan's comes close - but the most appalling, sickening, immoral, dank eight-year back alley of our nation's history.

If the nation's voters, and the Northwest's, do vote in such a way today as to decisively and overwhelmingly repudiate all this, and chart a different course, that shouldn't be too hard to understand.