The Inauguration Day How We Got Here Random Flickr-Blogging Retrospective Extravaganza

The long election cycle that brought us to this historic day was observed here -- in true IIRTZ fashion -- with irreverent and sometimes tasteless derision. While one is tempted to entertain lofty and nostalgic daydreams and memories today, resist and indulge yourself in a retrospective of the political year just past, as seen through the slightly-distorted lens of Random Flickr-Blogging.

Originally uploaded by fabcom.
Random Flickr-blogging explained

We're winning in Iraq. The economy is fine. Voluntary restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions will solve the global climate change problem. John McCain is an independent, straight-shooting campaign-finance reformer. You can have the bridge pictured here for your very own for $29.95, but only if you call in the next ten minutes...
See more...

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Originally uploaded by Robotkid.

The Green Party, having chosen its presidential candidate, examines its prospects for November success.

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Originally uploaded by faustastic.

Based on recent trends within the party, the site committee for the 2012 Republican National Convention decided to consider all options.

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Originally uploaded by rst90274.

Meanwhile, the Ron Paul Revolution rolls on...

Originally uploaded by chrisabad.

"This thing seems to be working -- all of Ron Paul's policy positions are starting to make sense to me."

Originally uploaded by bnidjer.

After visiting If I Ran The Zoo, a Democratic Ron Paul volunteer attempts suicide with a box of Krispy Kremes.

Originally uploaded by androoouk.

"Parachute? What parachute? We're Libertarians -- just relax and enjoy your freedom!"

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The Endless Primary Season

Originally uploaded by Curious_Cynic.

Texas has scrapped its primary election in favor of its own version of the Iowa Caucuses.

Originally uploaded by mkeblx.

The Clinton campaign was accused of employing an aggressive and unorthodox get-out-the-vote methodology last week in South Carolina.

Originally uploaded by urwis.

Bill O'Reilly's vehicle, after he got lost and ran off the road trying to crash another NH primary event.

Originally uploaded by ScottHernandez.

John McCain, the NSA, the TSA, and the Division of Homeland Security have all teamed up to bring the "Living In Fear For The Next Hundred Years" roadshow to your town between now and the November election.

Originally uploaded by Clément Guillaume.

Members of the press as they are marched at gunpoint to yet another Hillary Clinton rally.

Originally uploaded by linktoyou.

Meanwhile, right now, somewhere in this great land of ours, a Barack Obama rally is starting...

Originally uploaded by Mr. T.14.H.

All that was left for Giuliani's staff to do was to clear out the campaign offices.

Originally uploaded by rockfshr.

Poor Chet. One minute, he's having a civil conversation with his wife about Bosnia, Hillary, and "factcheck.org". Next thing he knows, he's camping in the back yard.

Originally uploaded by narrativeMAN.

John McCain released the results of his medical exams in order to defuse any criticisms based on his age, but it backfired when this close-up of his left earlobe and the carbon-dating results were leaked to the press.

Originally uploaded by hbp_pix.
Random Flickr-blogging explained.

These Democrats just found out how long it will be before the Pennsylvania primary.

Originally uploaded by photosbyscott.

Weeks after calling on supporters of both Democratic candidates to put aside their differences, Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean appealed to the last holdouts.

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A decision, then on to the general...

Originally uploaded by David Boyle in DC.

"Yeah, dude, check it out -- there's a great antiques and collectibles yard sale going on down the block."

Originally uploaded by DjTweed.

"See, Cindy, now that we've sold off all those other houses, there's no reason anymore for Joe Six-Pack not to vote for me."

Originally uploaded by bigChill.
Random Flickr-blogging explained.

Another former Republican hears about McCain's beer veto.

Originally uploaded by Leo Cloma.

John McCain came under increasing pressure to disassociate himself with a radical religious leader who had been responsible for such inflammatory and anti-American statements as "Love your enemy", "The last shall be first, and the first last", "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", and "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Originally uploaded by resistealeau.

The McCain campaign played second banana to the Obama campaign all last week. While Obama spoke to 200,000 enthralled spectators in Berlin, McCain visited a German restaurant in Ohio. While Obama and General Petraeus toured Iraq by helicopter...

Originally uploaded by btornado.

The vice presidential candidate of the future will not need a $150,000 wardrobe.

Originally uploaded by swetieduck.

Weeks too late, they finally found McCain's campaign strategy under a back seat in the Straight Talk Express.

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Finally...victory! From Grant Park, election night:

Originally uploaded by graemetallan.

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible..."

Originally uploaded by orangeambrosia.

"...who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time..."

Originally uploaded by SnowInSummer.

"...who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."

Originally uploaded by Kealor.

"This is your victory. And I know you didn't do this just to win an election. And I know you didn't do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead."

Originally uploaded by Pugnation.

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there."

Originally uploaded by ChevyGuy454.

"And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too."

Originally uploaded by jo3c00l.

"And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand."

Originally uploaded by { вянoOoм ~.

"America, we have come so far. We have seen so much..."

Originally uploaded by arnoldzafra.

"...But there is so much more to do...This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace..."

Originally uploaded by Ice Cream Bears.

"...to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one..."

Originally uploaded by Dustin Hall.

"...that while we breathe, we hope..."

Originally uploaded by SamoDiva Stefana.

"...And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't..."

Originally uploaded by ufdance.

"...we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes..."

Originally uploaded by thoa_hnmtc.

"...we..."

Originally uploaded by Martin & Julia.

"...can."

Numbers Are Fun Until Someone Loses an Eye

How many times now have I told Special Ed: "For the love of god, man, stay away from numbers! Numbers are not a toy for kids; they're for grown-ups who know how to use them. If you keep playing around with them you're just going to hurt yourself." And does he listen?

Nope:

In 2004, Bush beat John Kerry by winning 62.04 million votes. In 2008, Obama won 62.443 million, a gain of only 400,000. In 2004, Kerry garnered 59.028 million votes; John McCain only got 55.386 million. That means this election saw 3.24 million fewer votes than four years ago. Far from being more energized, the nation appeared to be more apathetic.

That was yesterday. The count as of 5:00 pm today: Obama 64,629,649; McCain 56,887,996. And (still) counting. So, Obama getting only 400,000 more votes from Bush? Not so much. Fewer voters than 2004? Not so much.

Comparing final totals from a previous election with still-being-counted numbers from the current one? Not smart. It can tempt you to draw all sorts of idiotic conclusions...like this one: More...

How do we know that it’s a base turnout rather than a tsunami of opinion to Democrats? For one thing, Dems didn’t pick up a boatload of new seats in the House, and they may underperform expectations yet in the Senate. They did gain some strength with independents, but only gaining between 11-20 seats in the House tells us that they found votes in districts they already control, more than finding converts....

It does reflect a certain brittleness about Obama’s support that may not be evident in the flush of his Electoral College victory. That doesn’t mean he can’t broaden his appeal after winning office, but it does mean that he primarily won among friendlies and not through appeals to bipartisanship.

Or, you know, maybe not:

The Democrats appear to have built a majority across a wide, and expanding, share of the electorate -- young voters, Hispanics and other ethnic minorities, and highly educated whites in growing metropolitan areas. The Republicans appear at the moment to be marginalized, hanging on to a coalition that may shrink with time -- older, working-class and rural white voters, increasingly concentrated in the Deep South, the Great Plains and Appalachia.

To see this illustrated graphically, check out this map--especially slide 3, comparing counties where Democrats increased their totals over 2004 with those where Republicans increased their vote totals. Bottom line: tomorrow's GOP is the party of Appazarkia.

Bonus math factoid: electoral votes Obama won by more than 5%? 278.
That's broad-based expansion of the party we can believe in...even if Special Ed can't.

Email from Abroad

We've stayed in touch with a couple of German friends we made on a 1996 trip to the amazing medieval town of Cesky Krumlov, in the Czech Republic's Bohemian countryside. A table shared, a few pilsners traded, a drinking contest pursued the next evening over medieval-style dinner in an unspoiled castle (actually not too cheesy), and we became lifelong friends, emailing one another to keep up with big personal or international news.

Their English is limited, our German extremely weak, so we have to get by on emotional broad strokes. Anyway, I hadn't heard from them in a long while, but I got this yesterday and thought I'd share it:

Dear [ahab] and Mary,

my congratulations to your new president. I'm very happy. And I think you are too.


Best wishes for you and your country

Martina

Her husband, Hans, kicked my ass in the drinking contest. Then helped Mary carry/drag it back to my hotel. That's a drinking buddy I can believe in.

I Can't Get No Satisfaction

I woke up the morning of the first Wednesday in November, 1960, to find my parents had slept on the hide-a-bed in the living room, in front of our only TV. They were awake before me, still waiting for the results of the JFK-Nixon presidential election. That taught me early -- I was five -- that these things matter.

Since then I've learned that it's not just what happens, but how it happens. This morning, we wake up with not just the taste of victory in our mouths, but the taste of hard-earned victory. Tears of joy are mixed with tears of exhaustion. After years of hoping justice would fall into our laps, this country got up off its collective ass and went after it.

Read more...

Like Tom, I wish my parents had lived to see this day, not only to see a black president elected, but to see Americans rise up and answer the call to service like they and many others did after that famous march in Selma, Alabama.

I spent the last few days organizing the election-day sign-holders at our three town polling places for all the (Democratic) campaigns. It wasn't the most important thing that got done, but it freed up other folks working on the local and national campaigns to concentrate on the nuts-and-bolts work of organizing the GOTV phone calls, poll watchers, etc. On Sunday, I was in Loudon, New Hampshire (New England's version of NASCAR country), going door-to-door for the Democratic ticket. Yet my effort was nothing compared to the work some of you and the people around us have put into this day.

People not only from Massachusetts, but from California, Chicago, and every corner of the country came to New Hampshire -- the state where John McCain revived his primary campaign, if you'll remember -- to relentlessly knock on doors and make phone calls, and they've been doing this for the last few months. New Hampshire went for Obama by a ten-point margin, and Democrat Janine Shaheen took the Senate seat by almost 8 percentage points.

I'm disappointed about Prop. 8, which we'd been tracking here as well. But considering for a moment those things I could directly influence, and on a strictly personal level, this election provided a watershed moment in the story that began that Wednesday morning in 1960:

For the first time in my life, every mark I made on the ballot came up a winner.

This includes all the candidates for office from president to state senator (full disclosure: My congressman and state rep ran unopposed) and all three state ballot initiatives; all went the way I voted. There was even a candidate I helped that I couldn't vote for -- a Democratic state rep candidate whose district includes part of my town, but not the part I live in -- whose victory I could savor with the others.

It doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, on a day when the entire country has experienced an historic moment and has great, new possibilities before it.

But for me as a voter, it's been a long time coming, and damn, it feels good.

Bittersweet

America is a better country than it was yesterday; California is a worse state.

I wish our folks had lived to see Obama win. Last night MSNBC had John Lewis on, and he talked about the hundreds of thousands of civil rights workers in the '60s who had helped to make this election possible. Mom and Dad were among those hundreds of thousands, and they would have been thrilled beyond measure to see this victory. Not the final victory, not the promised land, but an enormous step in that direction.

And Proposition 8 was a step backwards. Our folks spent 25 years fighting for equality; they would have been so disheartened to see the voters of California reject it. Today, hundreds of thousands of Californians who for a little while had equal rights are again second-class citizens.

What Ebert said

Roger Ebert, on Obama's victory:

Our long national nightmare is ending. America will not soon again start a war based on lies and propaganda. We will not torture. We will restore the rights of freedom of speech, freedom of privacy, and habeas corpus. We will enter at last in the struggle against environmental disaster. Our ideas will once again be more powerful than our weapons. During the last eight years, the beacon on the hill flickered out. Now the torch will shine again.

That was some lottery ticket

Yes we can.

I cried like a baby during Obama's acceptance speech. Sobbed.

I cried because there is hope, because we can save this country, because things might get a whole lot better.

I cried because that man, and that family, in the White House, just being there, it's going to change things. Because I'm not old enough to remember Camelot, but this must be something like it. That his very presence shifts things. And I'm here for it.

Yes we can. More...

I feel all the things he was speaking about last night. That I can absolutely go back to being angry at a too-centrist Democratic president, as I was for eight years under Clinton, and how glorious those years seem now, and how willing I am for that, to fight for better, for more progressive, in a context where change is possible, where my voice can be heard. And truly, I will write letters and make phone calls and maybe do more, and instead of feeling 'all those bastards are the same,' I feel that my more-progressive-than-Obama voice can be heard, and is in play. (I mean for one thing, holy shit, Prop 8 passed? We have a long way to go.)

Yes we can.

Let's be clear. Obama was not originally my candidate. I have had misgivings about him. But he ran a brilliant race which certainly speaks to his managerial skills, and an inclusive race. And in his speech, as he gave it back to us, as he said it's our victory, well, I believed him.

Yes. We. Can.

(Yes we can cross-post.)

2008 Voters Guide: Get the Chicken!

This has probably been done to death on the blogs, but for our record here's David Sedaris writing in The New Yorker:

...I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?"

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

A Message from David Byrne

In my e-mail today:

Pardon the bulk mailing. I Can't Vote. I am an immigrant with a Green Card and, therefore, I am not eligible to vote in a federal election. FYI - I can get drafted (luckily, Daniel Berrigan burned my draft board's records) and I pay taxes, yet I cannot vote for President. On Election Day, I see my neighbors heading to the nearby elementary school to cast their ballots. The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood - rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky - they all turn out in one day.

But most of you can vote. What can I say? The Republicans have made us less safe than before 9/11, bankrupted this economy, started an illegal war they can't - and don't intend to - finish, removed what sympathy (after 9/11) and respect the world had for the US, and have robbed US citizens of many of their basic rights. Global warming? What's that? Science and education? Investment in our future? No, thanks - we'll stick with a good 'ole hockey mom. Ignorant, and fucking proud of it, as is always the case.

Although it looks like a shoo-in, it ain't over 'til Florida. And there are plenty of racists in this country who will vote against their own best interests. So please, get to your local elementary school, post office, town hall, or whatever, and cast your vote and make this a country we can all be proud of. We can get out of this mess, and life can be better than it is.

Damn, I love that guy. And incidentally, he and Brian Eno have a new album.

Making calls that make a difference

I volunteered with MoveOn.org to make phone calls, and I've ended up calling from home to recruit volunteers. Basically calling other MoveOn members in swing states (I'm in New York, a "not swing" state) and asking them to come into their local offices and give time up to and including Tuesday.

Here's the thing: Everyone's saying yes.

You make phone calls, maybe you reach half or fewer of the people you call. Answering machines, like that. But of the people I've spoken to? About half have signed up. Half! Have you ever done any calling, for anything? Half is crazy. Half is someone reaching over to you and stuffing money in your pockets just for shits and giggles. You can't believe how good it feels.

Everyone's excited. And there's a counter at the top of the screen, showing how many calls have been made. It moves blindingly fast. I started mid-week at 800,000 at the top of my screen, and now it's over 2 million. And everyone is saying yes I frickin can.

Yes. I can.

If you live in a swing state, volunteer. If you don't, call voters in swing states. Here's something from the script I've been reading to people: "No matter what the polls say, we need all hands on deck."

(And no, I haven't seen a movie all week.)

(Cross-posting that makes a difference)

Endorsement Scoreboard

Obama: Colin Powell, every living Democrat and some moderate Republicans, Christopher Buckley, too many others to list here.

McCain: Al-Quaeda.

Who Is The Real Joe McCain?

[News item: John McCain's brother Joe, stuck in traffic, calls 911]

911 Dispatcher: 911. State your emergency.

Caller: The wheels are coming off the [expletive] bus!

911 Dispatcher: Has there been an accident?

Caller: No, it's no accident; Mom always liked him best...

911 Dispatcher: Sir, please state the nature of your emergency.

Caller: I'm stuck in traffic! You'd think after buying $150,000 worth of clothes for that trailer-park trollop and arranging for Cindy to get her own cell tower, he could at least helicopter me out of here!

911 Dispatcher: Sir, 911 is for emergencies only.

Caller: It is an emergency! Don't you know what's going to happen to my taxes if That One gets into office?

911 Dispatcher: Sir, as one of the 95%, I hardly think--

Caller: Don't you know who I am? I'm Joe The Plumb--, I mean Joe McCain! Damn!

911 Dispatcher: Sir, are you the Joe McCain who works at Kelly's Roast Beef on Revere Beach and keeps calling 911 about the sea monsters?

Caller: [expletive] you! (hangs up)

911 Dispatcher: 911. State your emergency.

Caller: Hello, I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC, because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the US Capitol, the Pentagon...

[cross-posted at Blue Mass Group]

Where's Dr. Frist When They Need Him?

Headline at 538: Today's Polls, 10/23: McCain on Life Support.

And yet, if you watch the video, the campaign's eyes seem to be tracking a balloon...

Update: more campaign pr0n here. "[Republicans] are, in other words, acting the way Democrats used to act." Ouch!

It Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Guy

A focus group run by Stan Greenberg, reported by Amy Sullivan:

In politics it is generally not considered a good sign when voters are laughing at you, not with you. And by the end of the third and last presidential debate, the undecided voters who had gathered in Denver for Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg's focus group were "audibly snickering" at John McCain's grimaces, eye-bulging, and repeated references to "Joe the Plumber."

The group of 50 uncommitted voters should have at least been receptive to McCain -- Republicans and Independents outnumbered Democrats in the group by almost 4 to 1, and they started the evening with much warmer responses to McCain than to his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama. But by the time it was all over, so few of them had declared their support for McCain that there weren't enough for Greenberg to separate them into a post-debate focus group. Meanwhile, the Obama supporters had to assemble in two different rooms to keep their discussion groups manageable.

I love the smell of Schadenfreude in the morning. It smells like...well, you know.

(Hat tip: Steve Benen.)

Ok, Now I'm Panicking

Josh Marshall says that 600,000 new registrations in Ohio are under threat of a purge.

More...

I'll Take "That One", Please

Frankly, it doesn't matter what I think about the debate last night -- my mind's been made up for a long time. But it does matter what uncommitted voters thought about it, of course.

Highlights from the CBS poll of uncommitted voters (numbers before and after the debate):

• Obama went from 54% to 68% on "has a handle on the economy",
• from 59% to 80% on "understands voters' needs and problems",
• and from 42% to 58% on "is prepared to be president".

According to kos, "This is what 'victory' looks like."

And if there's any justice, this will be McCain's "Macaca Moment".

Just ANSWER THE GODDAMN QUESTION ALREADY!!

So I'm at my son's soccer game, and I turn to one of the other parents and say, "How do you feel about the economy?" And she says, "I don't really want to answer that question, but I do want to point out that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig."

Later, I'm at the gas station, and my buddy [Generic Working-Class Hero's Name Here] is fillin' up his tank, fer gosh sakes, and I ask him, "How much does it cost to fill up your tank?"; and he says to me, he says, "Well, I'm not going to answer that, but by the way, it's 'nuke-LEE-ur', not 'nuke-YOU-lur', you moron. You can pronounce Ahmadinejad, but not nuclear?"

Back when Track was takin' the SAT's, see, he gets to the question where it says, "Diagram the following sentence attributed to the governor of Alaska...", and he takes out his number-two pencil and writes between the little circles, "That's an interesting question, but did you know that evolution is just a theory?"

Gwen Ifill: "Governor Palin, do you have any respect at all for this forum, its rules, the American people who want to know what your views and capabilities are, or the serious, important process you are engaged in? And exactly how far up your ass is your head, anyway? You have two minutes to respond."

Joe Biden, interrupting: "...and can you still see Russia from up there?"

Sarah Palin: "Well, you know, Gwen, I'd really rather correct the record on this taxes thing..."

Common-Sense Capitalism, Not Emergency Socialism

While we're on the subject of collections of syllables that will get someone elected president...

Jacob Weisburg complained in Slate (and Newsweek) a week or so ago about the lack of a catchy slogan from the Obama campaign, and although I don't think it's a deal-killer at this point, I don't disagree that it would help. In this citizen's opinion, recent events have handed him a winner.

READ MORE...

The ability to organize economic issues around a simple, lucid theme was a talent of our two most successful recent presidents. Ronald Reagan offered an overarching narrative about how government had come to play too large a role in the economy. His most famous slogans -— "Get the government off our backs," "Morning again in America," "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" -— all got at his notion of unshackling enterprise from its bureaucratic fetters to restore growth.

[Aside: Yes, it got him elected, but how's that working out for ya the last couple of weeks? Are you better off than you were four weeks ago, Grover Norquist? Can we wait to see how these bailouts play out before we carve Ronnie's visage on Mount Rushmore?]

Bill Clinton had a different tale about how ordinary Americans -— people who work hard and play by the rules -— were falling behind. His catchphrases -— "Putting people first," "It's the economy, stupid," "Building a bridge to the 21st century" -— similarly supported the policy changes he thought would help the struggling middle class.

There's a brief window of opportunity here to point out that if government is always and inevitably going be the rescue squad for capitalism, then it owes it to all of us to regulate markets in the name of fairness and stability before the fact. How about this:

"All the American people wanted was common-sense capitalism, and what we got was emergency socialism."

The shorter, rolls-off-your-tongue version is the title of this post. It turns the old Cold War, Us vs. The Commie Pinko Bogeyman sloganeering on its ear, and for once, and while it's still fresh in everyone's mind, suggests we were right all along about drowning babies in bathtubs.

Other suggestions?

A Bridge Too Far Towards Nowhere

(CNN) -- Former Bush adviser Karl Rove said Sunday that Sen. John McCain had gone "one step too far" in some of his recent ads attacking Sen. Barack Obama.

"In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove -- the man who held the previous record -- said McCain's ads have gone too far," said campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor, in a statement sent to reporters minutes after Rove's on-air comments.

If there's anything we've learned about conservatives, their eventual downfall is that they never know -- before the fact -- when to draw the line; whether it's if the country has gone far enough to the right, how much less regulation of financial institutions is too little, how many lies to tell about a political opponent, or how unqualified for office a running mate can be, there's not the perspective to know when they are about to overreach, so the good news is that, inevitably, they do.

It's just that waiting for the inevitable can be excruciatingly painful.

Palin Speech

I couldn't stomach the whole thing, but what I watched: amateur hour. Incoherent text, stilted delivery. My evil twin (who, some say, is actually me, a rumor I deny vehemently) couldn't help imagining how the Bushes (Sr.) would feel about having to invite the Palins to a barbecue in Kennebunkport. Yeah, that would go well.

If McCain loses, they should use this speech for a one-shot revival of MST3K. If McCain wins, they should show this class in future history classes as the moment when we finally and irrevocably embraced idiocracy. Either way, it should be used in dictionaries to illustrate the phrases 'fatuous platitudes' and 'the evil of banality'.