Begich Pulls Ahead

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

No, the election isn't over.  There's still afight for the Senate, with Dems trying to get as close to a filibuster-proof majority of 60 as possible. For some inexplicable reason, Ted Stevens (R-Convicted Felon-AK) trounced his Democratic challenger in Alaska, but that was before they counted absentee and early ballots. And Begich has pulled ahead.

Alaska Senate Race: It Ain’t Over, Folks

Ken AshfordCongress, Election 2008Leave a Comment

Maybe the convicted felon didn't win after all. Right now, Stevens is up 106,351 votes to Begich's 102,998.  That's a gap of only 3,353 votes. However, according to the Alaska Division of Elections, there are over 81,000 absentee, early vote, and questionable ballots to be counted.  (63,000 votes if you ignore all the questionable ballots). Nate Silver chunked the data … Read More

Memes That Doesn’t Hold Water

Ken AshfordElection 20081 Comment

John King, Laura Ingraham, Charles Krauthammer, Tom Brokaw, Karl Rove, Ruth Marcus  . . . they're all saying that America is still a "center-right" country. Here's the thing: if that's true, then why didn't America elect the center-right candidate, which describes McCain to a tee??? We get an answer from a chorus of pundits who say, "Well, McCain wasn't conservative enough."  So he was — … Read More

Just A Touch More Blue

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

Omaha, Nebraska (where I was born) was finally called for Obama, giving him one more EV.  It's also a flip from red to blue for that district.  The rest of Nebraska's electoral votes stayed red, which is what they have always been since 1964. It looks like Missouri is going to go McCain when all is said and done, making … Read More

Response To “From 52 To 48”

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

Background here.  It's about the website expressing this sentiment in submitted pictures: The response from the 48?  Well, there's some positive, but sadly, I'm seeing a lot of this: Dear 52, Kiss my fat, white ass. Farepoorly, 48 and this: "I'm more inclined to dress my wounds, restring my bow, and plan my counterattack than I am to hold hands … Read More

Change We Can Believe In

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

A photo montage of something that happened at Grant Park on the night of Obama's victory speech. The photos were taken by a 17 year old who just happened to be there at the right time: And there was this kid at the rally, I think he was about six years old. He was black, and sitting up on his dad’s … Read More

Behind-The-Scenes Election Night Photos

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

If you're not yet sick of Election 2008 stuff yet (I kind of am), you might like these candid behind-the-scenes photos of Obama and family watching the returns on election night in the hotel room.  82 photos in the Flickr set. Here's Obama giving the terrorist fist-bump salutation to his daughter after his victory is announced.

Something Rotten In The State Of Alaska

Ken AshfordElection 20081 Comment

And it ain't fish. Consider that this was the most polarizing election in modern American history. Consider that most states saw incredibly — sometimes record — high voter turnout. Consider that Alaska, for the first time in its history, had one of its own on the presidential ballot. Consider that Alaska saw a 12.8% hike in the turnout for the … Read More

The Bullet We Dodged: Palin Thinks Africa Is A Country, Can’t Name All the Countries In North America

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

I was scared about Sarah Palin's lack of knowledge about, well, civics.  Many were. But now we are slowly learning that the McCain people were totally freaked by her breathtaking ignorance.  McCain staffers had told certain Palin stories to Fox News reporter Carl Cameron, but it was "off the record". Now that the election is over, we learn more about Palin: … Read More

Look To The Left

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

MSNBC noted today, "[i]t's hard not to look at the map … and not view the GOP as a regional party right now." That remains to be seen, I suppose, but if you look different maps — the ones below — you'll see that the movement to the left is very pronounced. Except for a small band within the southern states … Read More

The West Wing Season 7 Presidency

Ken AshfordElection 2008, Popular CultureLeave a Comment

West Wing fans know that, at the show's inception, the character of Josh Lyman was modeled after Rahm Emanuel. In Season 6, the new character Matt Santos (the Democratic presidential candidate, played by Jimmy Smits) was modeled after Barack Obama.   In Season 7, Santos ran against an aging moderate Republican from a western state named Arnold Vinick (played by … Read More

The Stock Market And The Obama Win

Ken AshfordElection 20081 Comment

It means nothing that the Dow dropped 300 points today.  If one is going to make the argument that it has something to do with the Obama win, then one needs to consider that the Dow went up 300 yesterday, a day when it was clear to everyone that no last minute "surprises" would thwart an Obama win. The truth is that that … Read More

What Is Obama Today?

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

He's been a socialist, a Marxist, a terrorist-loving radical liberal with the most liberal agenda that's so radically liberal that everyone can plainly see how really really radically liberal he is… Of course, all that was before yesterday. Today, we learn that the Obama won because he's center-right, and ran a center-right campaign. Whatever. Then again, that might be true if … Read More