Oct 16 - The National and The Breeders play an Obama rally on Fountain Square

The National invite you to "Vote Early, Rock Late".

You are invited to join The National and their fellow Ohioans The Breeders at a rally in support of Barack Obama and Joe Biden to be held on October 16th at Fountain Square in Cincinnati, Ohio (Located at the corner of Fifth & Vine Streets, downtown). The rally will be held from 5-8 pm and will feature performances by The National & The Breeders and speeches to inspire Hope and incite Change. The show will be free to all. Ohio residents can vote early beginning on September 30th, so we've lined up charter buses to take registered Hamilton County voters to the polls on the night of the event.

For more information visit www.vote-ohio.net

The National are incredibly excited and honored to have the opportunity to support Barack Obama's inspiring candidacy for President. Bush and his cronies have wrecked this country at home and abroad. With an economy in freefall and a public education system that is collapsing, we are pouring billions of dollars every month into Iraq to fight an unwinnable war based on false pretenses. Millions of American citizens can't afford health insurance and unemployment is soaring across the country, yet the Republican Party continues to preserve unfair tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and promote a byzantine social agenda to kowtow to an out-of-touch right-wing voter base. John McCain and Sarah Palin promise to carry the torch for Bush and push America ever further into the Dark Ages. We desperately need change and more intelligent, pro-social leadership in this country and Barack Obama is absolutely the right man for the job. We sincerely hope Ohioans of all stripes will join us to help make a difference.

Feeling better

I've been studying for the GMAT for the past three weeks but am taking it tomorrow and will be on top of this blog at least until the election, hopefully longer.

Glad to see that the Jesus Mommy bounce has passed and that Barack is creeping back over the top. I follow Electoral Vote religiously, and with the 30 new presidential polls out today, we can clearly see the bounce and the Jesus Mommy honeymoon is over. Toss PA into the Obama column (PA went for Kerry, Gore, and Clinton in the last four elections with no significant demographic changes) and Obama has the 270 necessary to win this election if everything stands as it is today. Which of course is an assumption, a big one, but it's a good sign. The whole election pretty much comes down to Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico, according to the site, and Obama only needs to win one of those (or both of CO and NM). Colorado and New Mexico leaning towards Obama right now, so...

Ronald Brownstein of the National Journal wrote a piece on the state of five key swing states that Bush won in 2004 based a new polling data (given below). The states are Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, and Virginia. In his view, Obama must win at least one or two of these to have any chance of winning. Currently he has a lead of 7 points in New Mexico while Colorado, Florida, and Ohio are essentially tied, and McCain leads by 7 points in Virginia.

It's amazing to me how little Americans understand about American politics. Rightwingers were pointing to bounce polls and patting themselves on the back for winning the election. Meanwhile, Obama hardly had a bounce because of the Palin announcement the next day.

A lot of time until the election. Today's polls were taken pre-Meryll Lynch, Washington Mutual. Morgan Stanley is set to buyout Wachovia. If Americans think for a second that the lack of regulation that caused this country's financial crisis is going to change under John McCain, well, there's just no hope for this country.

Faux News would be proud

I'm reading Lenin's Tomb right now and this passage from Dmitri Volkogonov (who wrote the first negative biography in the Soviet Union published in 1988) struck a chord. He spoke during a Ministry of Defense (minidef) session and was denounced by Communist hardliners, so he said:

"I am no less a patriot than [General Valentin} Falin and love the Motherland no less than he...but you cannot change the consequences of history. I agree with those who say there are many faults in this volume...but let's discuss and debate them. We'll give our points of view. But, no, comrade Falin and some others do not engage in scholarly debate, but rather make accusations about a lack of patriotism."

We hear these same accusations by the rightwing in United States politics against liberals.