US Features
Long lines in Florida as early voting surges nationwide
By Pat Reber Oct 29, 2008, 22:48 GMT
Washington - Florida voters have jumped on the growing 'vote early' trend across the United States, queuing for hours and prompting the governor to extend opening times for polling stations.
In scenes reminiscent of South Africa in 1994 and other newly democratic countries, thousands of Floridians have been waiting up to five hours on some days to cast ballots ahead of November 4 election day, The Miami Herald reported online.
The increased trend to early voting is nationwide, from Nevada to Texas to Tennessee. Election officials are bracing for record turnout including many first-time voters in the closely fought race between Democrat Barack Obama, 47, bidding to become the first African- American president, and Republican John McCain, 72.
The race is especially close in Florida, which had the final say in the disputed 2000 vote that put Republican George W Bush into the White House.
Anticipating a record turnout on the official voting day, Florida opened 267 voting stations last week to accommodate the expected crush - a pattern being followed round the country.
But the response has been so overwhelming that the eight-hour periods of opening were not enough. So on Tuesday, Florida Governor Charlie Crist ordered the early voting stations to expand to 12 hours.
'Early voting turnout has already reached record levels and is forecast to continue with record turnout,' Crist said in the executive order. 'Long lines have formed at many of the early voting sites.'
Crist said that in addition, there is new voting equipment in 15 Florida counties, creating a 'unique combination of circumstances' that could handicap election officials from conducting 'an orderly election.'
'Thus residents in our state could be deprived of a meaningful opportunity to vote,' he said.
On Wednesday morning, Florida early voting stations opened at 7 a.m. instead of 10 a.m., and the lines have 'shrunk considerably,' the Herald reported.
Obama's campaign has registered hundreds of thousands of new voters this year around the country and is intent on making sure they get out to vote. The campaign is deploying nearly 1 million volunteers in the last days of the election to help people get to the polls.
In Virginia, a longstanding Republican stronghold now threatening to swing toward Obama, a civil rights organization has filed suit against the state for not allocating enough voting machines, poll workers and polling stations.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which filed the suit, noted that polling stations in areas with high minority populations showed particular shortcomings.
Issues of voting procedures and identification are sensitive in Florida, where bitterness lingers over the outcome of the 2000 election.
In that race, US President George W Bush won by fewer than 600 votes over Democrat Al Gore in the initial state count, and the US Supreme Court stepped in weeks later to halt a disputed partial recount, causing Florida's decisive 27 electoral votes to go to the Republican.
Bush's brother, Jeb Bush, was governor at the time, which raised charges of bias by Democrats against state officials who oversaw the aborted recount, while the Florida Supreme Court, which had allowed a Gore-backed recount only in Democratic-leaning counties, was packed with Democrat appointees, to the consternation of Republicans.
Crist noted Tuesday that this year, 'Florida has seen historic numbers of Floridians registering to vote for the first time. In addition, record numbers of voters have chosen to cast a ballot during early voting.'
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Older Talkback
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah9W24oMIRc
Not a very good idea to plaster a complete article from the hand of Michel Barone as a post above.Who is Michael Barone,see wikipedia:
one is also a regular commentator on U.S. elections and political trends for the Fox News Channel.
Fox new channel....yeah right....
What's the matter with the people of the GOP,are they hoping people take FOX serious?
'Who is Michael Barone,see wikipedia:
one is also a regular commentator on U.S. elections and political trends for the Fox News Channel.'
So what in what he wrote do you have a problem with? (Not that it matters, you can't vote here and you just want Obama because he will make the USA weaker and kinder to your precious Islamist terrorists.)
and Jesus could become an atheist, too.
to :you just want Obama because he will make the USA weaker and kinder to your precious Islamist terrorists
Please ,make an effort to accept reality.Do you really think the outside world only wants to harm your country ?Perhaps now is the time to look into your paranoia and heal yourself.
These kind of claims are just plain silly and I find it difficult anybody migt believe that.
So Long, Democrats by Wendy Button
Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete and since I’m a woman writing in the election of 2008, “very emotional.”
[…] it was a privilege to help Michelle Obama with a stump speech, be considered as a speechwriter for the V.P. nominee again, and send friends in Chicago ideas until the financial crisis hit. This is what the Democratic Party has been for me; it’s family. Now, it doesn’t even feel like a distant cousin…
The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”
Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.
As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”
The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.
Our economy is in the tank for many complicated reasons, especially because people don’t have enough money. So let them keep it. Let businesses keep it so they can create jobs and stay here and weather this storm. And yet, the Democratic ideology remains the same. Our approach to problems—big government solutions paid for by taxing the rich and big and smaller companies—is just as tired and out of date as trickle down economics. How about a novel approach that simply finds a sane way to stop the bleeding?
That’s not exactly the philosophy of a Democrat. Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign from Joe the Plumber to the bitter comments, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates. At first, certain Democrats and the press called Senator Clinton “dishonest.” They went after her cleavage. They said her experience as First Lady consisted of having tea parties. There was no outrage over “Bros before Hoes” or “Iron My Shirt.” Did Senator Clinton make mistakes? Of course. She’s human.
But here we are about a week out and it’s déjà vu all over again. Really, front-page news is how the Republican National Committee paid for Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe? Where’s the op-ed about how Obama tucks in his shirt when he plays basketball or how Senator Biden buttons the top button on his golf shirt? Oh right, this story goes to the sincerity of her Hockey Mom persona. What planet am I living on? Everyone knows that when it comes to appearance, there’s a double standard for women politicians. Remember the speech Speaker Pelosi gave on the floor the day of the bailout vote? Check out how many stories commented on her hair that day and how many mentioned Congressman Barney Frank’s.
Here we are discussing Governor Palin’s clothes—oh wait, now we’re on to the make-up—not what either man is going to do to save our economy. This isn’t an accident. It is part of a manufactured narrative that she is stupid.
Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper. When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.
Has she made mistakes? Of course, she’s human too. But the attention paid to her mistakes has been unprecedented compared to Senator Obama’s “57 states” remarks or Senator Biden using a version of the Samuel Johnson quote, “There’s nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus a man’s thoughts.”
But thank God for election 2008. We can talk about the wardrobe and make-up even though most people don’t understand the details about Senator Obama’s plan with Iraq. When he says, “all combat troops,” he’s not talking about all troops—it leaves a residual force of as large as 55,000 indefinitely. That’s not ending the war; that’s half a war.
I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.
I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, he is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.
Returns are showing something different then the polls:
A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg survey gave McCain a 49-45 lead over Democrat Barack Obama among Floridians who have already voted. And Republicans continued to show a traditional strength, leading 50 percent to the Democrats' 30 percent in the 1.2 million absentee ballots already returned.
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There has been an explosion of polls this presidential election. Through yesterday, there have been 728 national polls with head-to-head matchups of the candidates, 215 in October alone. In 2004, there were just 239 matchup polls, with 67 of those in October. At this rate, there may be almost as many national polls in October of 2008 as there were during the entire year in 2004.
Some polls are sponsored by reputable news organizations, others by publicity-eager universities or polling firms on the make. None have the scientific precision we imagine.
For example, academics gathered by the American Political Science Association at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington on Aug. 31, 2000, to make forecasts declared that Al Gore would be the winner. Their models told them so. Mr. Gore would receive between 53% and 60% of the two-party vote; Gov. George W. Bush would get between just 40% and 47%. Impersonal demographic and economic forces had settled the contest, they said. They were wrong.
Right now, all the polls show Barack Obama ahead of John McCain, but the margins vary widely (in part because some polls use an 'expanded' definition of a likely voter, while others use a 'traditional' polling model, which assumes turnout will mirror historical trends but with a higher turnout among African-Americans and young voters).
On Monday, there were seven nationwide polls, with the candidates as close as three points in the Investors Business Daily/TIPP poll and as far apart as 10 points in Gallup's 'expanded' model. On Tuesday, the Gallup 'traditional' model poll had the candidates separated by two points and the Pew poll had them separated by 15. On Wednesday, Battleground, Rasmussen and Gallup 'traditional' model polls had the candidates separated by three points while Diageo/Hotline and Gallup 'expanded' model polls had the spread at seven points.
Polls can reveal underlying or emerging trends and help campaigns decide where to focus. The danger is that commentators use them to declare a race over before the votes are in. This can demoralize the underdog's supporters, depressing turnout. I know that from experience.
'Please ,make an effort to accept reality.Do you really think the outside world only wants to harm your country ?'
No. I do not. I did however watch 2 aircraft full of human beings being deliberately flown in to buildings full of human beings, murdering thousands of Americans BECAUSE they were Americans..
So Please, make an effort to accept reality.
Even if you vote for Obama, you’re still probably a racist, according to Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, in his remarks at a recent panel discussion at my alma mater. Ogletree, Obama’s top advisor on race issues, explains that since Obama is “biracial,” his election won’t prove that racism has receded. White America won’t vote for blacks, Ogletree argues, and Obama’s election is possible only because he’s partly white. The ABA Journal predicts that Ogletree, who has long advocated race-based reparations, will be the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division during the Obama administration.
Wonderful. I wonder who will be the the Commissar of Mind Control?
Yeah, let's just analyze every person's reason for voting like they did. But I guess that gives the psychos something to do.
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Obama will prolong the recession he helped create.Oct 29th, 2008 - 22:59:40
Michael Barone has written a little primer on what an Obama Administration might do when it initiates a new 'New Deal' that will spread the wealth around.
Barone points out correctly that the original New Deal spawned under FDR was not meant to grow the economy out of the depression but rather simply freeze the economy in place to keep it from getting any worse. The result was that even thought most of the rest of the developed world was coming out of the depression by 1936, US industrial production didn't even reach levels achieved in the 1920's until the late 30's.
Even then, we had double digit unemployment almost to the start of our involvement in World War II in December of 1941. It took the war and the massive increase in spending to actually bring us out of of the economic doldrums.
So what does Obama have in store for us?
Obama seems determined to follow policies better suited to freezing the economy in place than to promoting economic growth. Higher taxes on high earners, for one. He told Charlie Gibson he would raise capital gains taxes even if that reduced revenue: less wealth to spread around, but at least the rich wouldn't have it -- reminiscent of the Puritan sumptuary laws that prohibited the wearing of silk. Moves toward protectionism like Hoover's (Roosevelt had the good sense to promote free trade). National health insurance that threatens to lead to rationing and to stifle innovation. Promoting unionization by abolishing secret ballot union elections.
The impulse to social engineering is unmistakable. Government officials will allocate resources, redistribute income, and ration good and services. Use government stakes in banks, insurance companies and Detroit auto manufacturers to maintain the position of those already in place, at the cost of preventing the emergence of new enterprises that might have been spawned by the capital being allocated.
Social engineering of course is far easier when you are dealing with an economy that is frozen in place. It's harder when you have to deal with the creative destruction, the emergence of new firms and businesses, and the decline of old ones, which as Joseph Schumpeter taught is the inevitable consequence of economic growth.
Roosevelt in the 1930s had some extremely competent social engineers, like Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes and Fiorello LaGuardia, who could enroll 750,000 people on welfare in three weeks and build an airport in less than a year. But even they could not spur the economic growth produced by utterly unknown and unconnected people, as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates were in 1970.
Remaking the US into a poorer, less competitive version of France is not my idea of 'change we can believe in.'
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