About ten days ago, I saw Tim Robbins on Real Time with Bill Maher. Robbins started off his appearance by talking about voter suppression and how you would need to fight it if you showed up to vote and weren’t on the list.

Tim Robbins was not on the list at his polling place this morning. This is the same polling place where Robbins voted in the primaries. It is, he claims, the same polling place where he has voted for years and years. Robbins was forced to go to the main board of elections office to have his registration verified and then was able to vote.

Irony or retribution?

If you are going to vote in person at a polling place tomorrow, make damn sure your vote counts. A few weeks ago I said that if we had a free, fair election without a staged terrorist attack, coup, or other extreme circumstance that Obama would win this thing. I believe it.

Don’t for a second think that Republican operatives aren’t trying their damnedest right now to steal this election. We know that tens if not hundreds of thousands of voters have been purged from the rolls this year by Republican secretaries of state or equivalent Republican elections officials all across this country. We know that they have done this in spite of laws that forbid them from doing it. They don’t care about the law. The “this time only” decision in Bush v. Gore shows that even at the highest levles, they only care about power. They don’t care about democracy. They don’t care about seeing that votes are counted and the will of the people is respected.

If anyone tries to give you a provisional ballot, fight that like hell. Most of them are never counted in the total. If anyone tries to stop you from fighting, fight that like hell. If you think the touch screen voting machine that you find yourself using is playing loose with your vote, you raise a stink.

If all the votes are counted tomorrow, Barack Obama will win this thing. Let’s hope the margin is so large that they can’t steal it.

I recieved a request to chime in on the other ballot props. So, here we go.

Bond Measure Proposition 1A– Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act.
Weak No.I was convinced by a friend who knows more about these things than I that this ballot measure would do little more than subsidize business travel for a largely white, affluent class. It would serve my interests nicely. However, the structural issues in our statewide public transit systems mean that the people who really need good public transit wouldn’t benefit from this. I voted no, but came close to voting the other way.

Initiative Statute Proposition 2– Standards for Confining Farm Animals. Initiative Statute.

Yes. Factory farm conditions are deplorable. This statute would introduce a bare minimum standard for how the animals we consume would live their lives. The people opposing this are large, factory farms.

Initiative Statute Proposition 3–Children’s Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program. Initiative Statute.
I don’t have a strong opinion on this one, but voted yes based on the research that I did. There are some problems with the proposition, though. The most worrisome is that there appears to be a bit of a grey area as to what constitutes a “children’s hospital”. This could potentially be a giant bit of corporate welfare for a few heath care companies. Still, my first instinct is to want to see public money going for health care, especially children’s health care.

Initiative Constitutional Amendment Proposition 4–Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.
Strong No. This is a favorite tactic of the anti-choice bible thumpers. Parents like to think that they should be involved in these decisions. They don’t think about the cases where a teenager may be the victim of rape, incest or both. They don’t think about the abusive homes where revealing a pregnancy may get you a beating. They don’t respect the idea of “my body, my choice”.

Initiative Statute Proposition 5–Nonviolent Drug Offenses. Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation. Initiative Statute.
As I wrote two posts back, this one’s a definite yes.

Initiative Statute Proposition 6–Police and Law Enforcement Funding. Criminal Penalties and Laws. Initiative Statute.
Strong No. This is an awful, awful bill. It pushes us further toward being a police state in all sorts of ways. It builds the harassment of poor people that this and other states already do into the law. It diverts funding from schools and health care into building prisons. It’s just awful.

Initiative Statute Proposition 7–Renewable Energy Generation. Initiative Statute.
Weak No. This was another hard one for me. I like the goals of the bill, but the implementation was wrong. It mandates some things that help large scale generators of “green” power at the expense of small scale producers. It puts some seriously difficult requirements on municipal power plants.

Initiative Constitutional Amendment Proposition 8–Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.
Strongest possible No. I think most folks know this one by now, especially if you’ve been reading my blog. This writes anti-gay discrimination into the California constitution.

Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute Proposition 9–Criminal Justice System. Victims’ Rights. Parole. .
No. More police state stuff, more attacking the poor.

Initiative Statute Proposition 10 Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy. Bonds. Initiative Statute.
Weak No. Again, I like the goals, but not this implementation. I think the government has a strong role to play in incentivizing the move away from traditional oil/gas fueled vehicles, etc. I don’t think that role has to include giant giveaways to the people funding the intitiative. In this case, that would be T. Boone Pickens and other corporate supporters of “The Pickens Plan”.

Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute Proposition 11–Redistricting. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute.
Strong Yes. This would take re-districting out of the hands of the legislature and put it into the hands of a citizen’s board. That board would consist of Democrats, Republicans, and independents. One of the worst things in our political system is the process whereby legislators draw their own districts.

Bond Measure Proposition 12–Veterans’ Bond Act of 2008.
Strong Yes. This would provide a fund from which veterans can borrow money to purchase farms, homes, or mobile homes. California has done this exact same thing more than 25 times over the last 85 or so years. The fund is generated by selling bonds. The repayment of the loans pays for the bonds.

Like many of you, I’m thinking a lot about the election and plotting various potential maps. I won’t make a final prediction until tomorrow night, but I’ll give you two scenarios right now. The first is a rough estimate of what I think will happen. The second is my hope of what will happen and is still within the realm of possibilities.

I have nothing particularly original to say about the fact that Ted Stevens was found guilty on all seven counts. I am enjoying the chance to gloat. One would hope this means he won’t win re-election, but in a state where the populace is capable of giving Sarah Palin an 80% approval rating, I would imagine that anything is possible. I’m damn glad to see that vile, nasty old fucker not just convicted, but convicted on each and every count. How does it feel to be a felon, Ted?

I was reading a Reuters article today* that asks the question what’s next for conservatives if McCain loses. The nice thing about the article is that you get a slight sense that the conservative activists have already written 2008 off. They’re actively talking amongst themselves about 2010 and 2012. I was heartened to read two things in the article that make me very happy if the conservatives really go down this road. One is that they’re talking about Sarah Palin as the conservative standard bearer for 2012. Given some of the things that have been coming out in the last week about tensions between the McCain and Palin camps, this isn’t a real surprise. But the other is that they’re talking about the culture wars as a path back to victory. Racist, fascist asshole William Donohue who is head of the Catholic League has this to say: “I’ve been on the phone the last couple of days with some of my friends … and we’re getting ready for the biggest culture war battles ever,” Donohue said.

If they think that’s their path to beating Obama in 2012, they’re dead wrong. It’s not the way back to majorities in the house or senate either. I agree with the log cabin Republican guy in the article who says in the long run that’s the path to to being a party that holds onto 160 or so house seats in the south and midwest.

*I lost the original link when my first attempt to post this blew up. I’ve found the same article at the Canada post site.

I’ve seen a couple of different people asking recently where they should donate money as we head toward the election. Does Obama still need money after raising a couple hundred million over the last two months? What about other causes and candidates?

Here are my recommendations:

Whether you live in California or not, you can help us defeat Proposition 8. It will revoke the right to marry for gays and lesbians in the state, enshrining bigotry into our state constitution. Donate Here.

The Democrats will get their senate majority to at least 56 seats this fall. They have an outside chance of making it all the way to 60. The best thing you can do for a potential President Obama is give him a filibuster proof majority in the US Senate. Some of the seats where your donation could have an impact are:

Jim Martin for Senate from Georgia. There’s a contribution link on his home page. This is one of the places where I think your money can do the most good.

The Democrats have a good shot at picking up the following seats, but the candidates could certainly use your money:
Kay Hagen, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Begich, and Udall Dynasty heirs Mark in Colorado and Tom in New Mexico.

Less likely, but necessary to get to that 60 seat majority are Rick Noriega in Texas, Ronnie Musgrove in Mississippi, and the one that really has my heart: Bruce Lunsford in Kentucky. It’s not so much that I’m in love with Lunsford as it is I just really despise that bug-eyed, lying, bigoted sack of shit that he’s up against in Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Spend wisely!

One development that has been interesting to note in this election vs. 2004 is just how much better organized the online presences of the various interest groups are. I have received voter guides from a bunch of the various groups that have my email address. Some provide both candidate and ballot prop recommendations, others just do the ballot props. Most of them do unsurprisingly similar recommendations for or against various measures. It’s interesting to see where they’re different or where the various groups may choose not to make a recommendation at all.

I think this is the kind of thing my poli sci student self of 15 years ago would have been ecstatic over.

In a couple of different discussion threads in the last couple of months, I have argued that Obama’s got a decent chance of winning Georgia. I’ve looked at Clinton’s win in 1992 and how strong the African American vote is in the state for trends that would back that up. TPM has an article making the same points, but they’ve crunched the numbers–including some demographic numbers that the state government has made available on the early vote so far. It’s a good read.

I decided to see how many times I had to run the simulation at www.270towin.com before McCain came out the winner. I gave up after my twenty fifth attempt. It took eleven attempts before Obama came in at less than three hundred electoral votes. He came in above three hundred and forty more often than he came in under three hundred.