Here’s why Obama is about a 3-1 favorite to win the election November 6; playing with this interactive map, I’ve created just one example of how the president could still be re-elected even if things go horribly wrong for him in a whole bunch of close states. More bad news for Willard: 1) Using this map as a starting point, if Obama’s leads hold in Ohio and Nevada (he has essentially never trailed in either state), he can lose Virginia AND New Hampshire, and still have a winning total. 2) Early voters are going for Obama 2-1 in the key battleground states of Ohio and Iowa, and even in North Carolina they are going for the president by 15 points.
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“I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”—Ignorant baboon and Indiana’s Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate Dick Mourdock. Despite the horse-race-driven news media having jumped all over a small bump for Romney after the first debate, I think that as Halloween approaches, there is a real witches brew cooking Willard M. Romney’s chances of becoming our 45th president. First, he put on a loser’s debate performance so implausible in relation to what he’s been saying for six years as a candidate that only the most gullible among us buy the idea that he now agrees with Obama on foreign policy after all. Also, General Colin Powell’s ringing endorsement of Mr. Obama came in on the heels of several pieces of good news about the economy. Add to that the Mittster’s refusal to pull either his support or his TV ads from Mourdock, and I hereby predict a Romney tailspin that by Halloween will make it real obvious that he doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of beating Obama. I’ll be very surprised if the president’s winning electoral total is less than 300.
George McGovern, WWII hero as a B-24 pilot, former South Dakota Senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, died this morning at a Sioux Falls, SD hospice care center at the age of 90. Senator McGovern began speaking out against the Vietnam War from the floor of the Senate in 1963, well before it became a major national issue. Here is a quote from one of his later Senate speeches: “Every Senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood. Every Senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land—young men without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces or hopes. There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to them about bugging out, or national honor or courage. It does not take any courage at all for a congressman, or a senator, or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed. But we are responsible for those young men and their lives and their hopes. And if we do not end this damnable war those young men will some day curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the Executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on us.”
I Just Love Being A Traveling Man (Unfinished—lyrics and music by steve norquist)
Well it’s Tuesday night in Davenport
And I’m feeling mighty fine
I’m gonna keep on traveling
If it costs me my last dime
I feel so good I just can’t sleep
So I sit here in the night
And light another smoke and take another toke
And love how everything’s all right
I just love being a traveling man
I’ve got my freedom and a girl
Can’t name a single thing to complain about
In the whole goddamned wide world
In the Vermont woods all weekend
We chose to stay an extra night
Pushing on to Atlantic City’s boardwalk
On Monday didn’t feel quite right