2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

FUCKING GOOD FOR THEM! That's awesome.

found it!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5554045.html

Feb. 19, 2008, 6:58PM
1,000 Prairie View students march to courthouse for right to vote

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas — About 1,000 students from Prairie View A&M University marched seven miles from campus to the county courthouse on the first day of early voting Tuesday to bring attention to voting problems in Waller County.

Students, joined by civil rights attorneys and local leaders, carried "Register to Vote" signs and wore shirts that said "It is 2008 and we will vote." The total crowd was estimated at about 2,000 people, police said.

Prairie View Mayor Frank Johnson praised the student protesters as "wonderful kids."

"Until they spoke up, there was only one early voting place in the entire county," Johnson said in a story for the online edition of the Houston Chronicle. "They spoke up but everyone is benefiting from what they are doing."

In January, county officials decided to eliminate all but one early voting site in the county. Last week, under pressure from federal officials, the county decided to open three early voting sites.

The county has a history of voting problems. After the 2006 elections, the state attorney general's office seized county election records after complaints that black voters' rights were violated. About 300 students at Prairie View, a historically black school, said they had to wait three to four hours to vote and ended up casting provisional ballots because their names were missing from election rosters.

vid of the KHOU story

God, this election might be so fucking awesome.

Hawaii

Updated 42 minutes ago
County Results		

Obama		2,258	77%	0	8% reporting

Clinton		666	23%	0

Uncommitted	4	0%	0

lol satan

GRADY LARGE IN HAWAII

cnn is running slow.

http://www.hawaiidemocrats.org/ has these:

**Preliminary partial results of the Hawai'i Presidential Preference Poll :

With about 40% of Congressional District One reporting, ballots cast in the district are reported as follows:

Barack Obama 4,302
Hillary Clinton 1,542
Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards received votes falling far short of the 15% required to be allocated a delegate.

With about 20% of Congressional district Two reporting, ballots cast in the district are reported as follows:

Barack Obama 1,134
Hillary Clinton 333
Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards received votes falling far short of the 15% required to be allocated a delegate.

Notice: The next preliminary partial result will be posted shortly after the live announcement at 11:00 p.m. HST**

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080219/BREAKING01/80219081/1001/BREAKING01

chaos reigns again. Word has it that they were preparing for 2x-4x the usual turnout.

Of course, they got _5X-10X_ what they were expecting, so there you go.

Meanwhile, in vermont:

Ben & Jerry's Founders Endorse Obama

By LISA RATHKE

Associated Press Writer

The founders of Ben & Jerry's endorsed Barack Obama on Monday, and lent his Vermont campaign two "ObamaMobiles" that will tour the state and give away scoops of "Cherries for Change" ice cream.

"If there was ever a need for real change, and if there ever was a candidate to inspire us and make that happen, it's now," said Ben Cohen.

Added Jerry Greenfield: "Barack is showing that when you lead with your values and follow what you have inside that good things will happen..."

aaaaaand CNN.com just called it

one more for the night:

http://www.burntorangereport.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5040

http://media.myfoxhouston.com/news/2008-02-19/pvamuvote/march8.jpg

beautiful

great!

damn finally caught up w/ thread.

go texas students! can that please be all over sitiuation room/ hardball tomorrow?

also the clinton moving up her speech/ not mentioning the WI loss thing/ obama taking the stage before she's done thing is pretty rad

OBAMAPWN

Has she cried on stage today yet? Lucky tears, you never know

:)

68% reporting

Obama 20,974 76%

Clinton 6,529 24%

i know it's just early voting, but still, that march one of the pinnacles of possibly the most massive election ever (cue swelling orchestra).

local news carried some stories of fist fights breaking out at some caucus sites lol

i was so glad i got in line early, the place was a madhouse. they ran out of ballots within like two minutes of handing them out, and people had to write thier candidate's name on a piece of scrap paper. which is ridiculous because the ballots were just 3"x4" pieces of xeroxed paper.

after dropping my ballot in the envelope a few minutes past 7:00 PM (when we were allowed to begin) i left along with most others and there was still a line down the block.

the school cafeteria we were in got so crowded that two out of the six precincts had to move outside to vote. "precinct one go to the basketball courts, precinct two go under the big tree" lol hawaii.

that michelle obama comment is gonna be coming back around again and again dudes, i can see the avalanche of right wing strips now ... its another way to get at race w/out talking about race

yeah, some people feel like the line of attack on obama will be that he's an alien, strange somehow, not one of us -- i.e. he will be "dukakised".

i.e. WHY DOES THIS MAN HAVE A PROBLEM RECITING THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE??

i am being uncharacteristically optimistic, but i just don't see these fake scandals getting much traction. not in the primaries, but maybe not even in the general. we'll see how long it lasts, but so far the mood is different this year, from the media on down. i hear people (especially on the left) go on about mccain's strengths, but man... if this is the year we elect a 72-year-old war supporter, it sure doesn't feel like it so far.

Baby steps for me. I'm feeling really optimistic about Obama over Hillary right now, and if that all works out, then I'll deal with McCain.

yeah and i understand caution about mccain and the gop attack machine in general. still i wish i knew more liberals who seemed as confident as this year seems to warrant. overconfidence is bad, but confidence is good. whether the democrats go in with hillary or obama, they have by far the stronger candidate, in a year when even a mediocre democrat ought to be able to win. (if that all sounds painfully naive by the 2nd week in november, there'll be plenty of time to groan about what went wrong.)

I heard most of Senator Bickle's speech last night, and I can see that shit working in an awful lot of states.

haha, i didn't know anything about cindy mccain until five minutes ago when I went looking...she should not throw stones at anyone

She's like some sort of Stepford cylon.

Clinton's stepping to March 4 with some heavy 527 backing:

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/02/proclinton_527_prepares_for_oh.php

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/12237/thumbs/r-HILLARYCLINTONFADE-huge.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/20/us/20obama-337.jpghttp://ap.google.com/media/ALeqM5gJcoXPQrqhSI-oMEEtJqLbMCwy4A?size=m

lol

mccain painfully whipping out his fake smile last night was pretty lol - you could actually see him thinking it through willing it into existence

this m. obama usa pride miniflap is getting me psyched for when mccain questions obamas patriotism - that one should be right in his wheelhouse.

i'm looking forward to see the steam shoot of of mccain's ears during a live debate

http://www.collegecandy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/barack__obama.jpg
senator mccain who has been an american hero for over 100 years would like to turn this into a who loves america best pissing contest when all of us love america so very much - the real question is how to move america past exactly these sort of retarded substanceles partisan politics and into a new era. vote change! i am so sexy! thank you and goodnight bitches!

http://punchup.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/john_mccain.jpg
AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGG!!!!!!

An interesting article analyzing the demographic breakdown of Obama's win over Clinton in Wisconsin:

How Obama Won Wisconsin

It shows that Obama has made up a lot of ground among the <$50,000 income demographic, union households, and white Catholics - though Clinton still narrowly beat him in that last category.

Okay, I'm sorry I have to post some selections from my myspace exchange (this is a dude I was in a band with my first year in high school, and I'm not exactly surprised, but I am disappointed):

I am not racist, I don't associate myself with racists. In fact their are some African American's, who if they ran I would be more than happy to vote for. Victor David Hanson, Thomas Sowell, and even Condi Rice and shes a woman to boot! In hindsight, I can see your point on the racist thing, their is that little part about his church which preaches black advancement... blah blah blah, their is some truth to that part, but that wasn't what I was trying to shed light on.

the main points I was trying to point out are his refusal to say the pledge of elegance. I, not being a religious person can understand not wanting to say the "one nation under god" part, how ever I understand what that actually means: "we are one unified nation under a banner of common beliefs and principals". In my opinion if the president of the united states is not willing to "pledge" his "allegiance" to all of our common principals and beliefs, then he has absolutely no right to lead us.

...

Now his wife come out and says that for the first time she is proud of her country. For the first time?? She wasn't proud of the work and sacrifice that civil rights leaders (Martin Luther King, to name one) did to grant minorities the rights they have today? Yes, I agree that their still are problems regarding civil right in the various ethic groups in this country. However, I do not believe that is is me the white man who is oppressing, and keeping them down. If that were the case, their would be no Oprah Winfrey, Obama wouldn't even be a contender in the election. Ethnicity has 0% effect on how successful you can become in this country. Maybe instead of pushing the blame around, pull you pants up to your waste, learn to talk like a civilized human being, respect what an education can actually give you in this country. If we are still in this grossly racist country how can a man who represents a group that only equals 13% of the over population be leading in the primary elections?

I don't know what he's talking about, Barack is an elegant man.

Here's another commentator, writing in the FT, who sees hope for the Republicans in his analysis of presidential election trends since 1968:

History’s hurdle for the Democrats

Like Ruy Teixeira, he identifies the key to the GOP's winning streak in the white, working-class voters who defected to the GOP starting around 1968, in the wake of the civil rights reforms.

His conclusion:

The Reagan coalition of libertarians, hawks and the religious right is indeed cracking up – but it is not clear that Republican ideological wars will help the Democrats. As long as the Republicans appeal more than Democrats to the white working-class populists whom George Wallace led out of the Democratic Party in 1968, then even in disarray they may be able to shut Democrats out of the White House for the eighth time out of 11 elections

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080219/capt.f1163b25546d42dfabf7efa2d596f3e9.clinton_2008_ohck103.jpg

In fact their are some African American's, who if they ran I would be more than happy to vote for. Victor David Hanson

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/november28/gifs/ppl_hanson.jpg

Hmm.

Barack's op-ed on what kind of agreement on spending limits he would seek with McCain

Jordan, reading that excerpt was really sad. Presumably people presented w/yr pal's education and opportunities should maybe LEARN HOW TO FUCKIN' SPELL. Anyway, I'm sure he didn't grow up in a 1BR apartment jammed with a family of (ISTR) five like Michelle Obama did.

Pledge of allegiance history: it was 'One Nation, indivisible' before the McCarthy squad added the God bit to distinguish from Godless Commies. John McWayne should be old enough to remember the change, and if he cannot, check for dementia...

William Rees-Mogg said that Obamarama is going all the way to the White House on R4 this morning, and he's a very, very old fart here.

isn't a prediction from Mystic Mogg the kiss of death, though?

i agree at how sad that correspondence is

my obj to the Pledge was always the "justice for all" bullshit

more info. on the pro-clinton 527:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0208/American_Leadership_Project.html

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/hillary_supporters_create_new.php

Opposing view: Both sides must agree

I am fine with "justice for all" as long as it is secondary to "justice for me, Dan Perry".

http://www.patrickruffini.com/2008/02/13/the-marketing-of-the-president-2008/

"Watching Obamamania unfold over the last few days, I have gradually come to the realization that we are living through the first Presidential campaign that is being marketed like a high-end consumer brand."

If that were the case, their would be no Oprah Winfrey

I am fine with "justice for all" as long as it is secondary to "justice for me, Dan Perry"

Not too late to run on that very platform.