Who Needs Paris When You Have Palin

Over the past week, since Barack Obama won the election, I have been pouring over Newsweek's Special Election Project. If you're not familiar with the project (and I wasn't until last week), it operates like this: Newsweek sends a few reporters on the campaign trail with the candidates and gets lots of insider access by promising not to disclose or publish any of the information they receive or events they witness until after the election. So these reporters basically get to hang out and see the most intimate parts of these major political campaigns for weeks. They have aides coming and venting to them about what pissed them off or what crazy thing just happened. They sing karaoke with chief strategists. They see the candidates at their best and their worst. It's a really interesting depiction of the massive efforts that are going on behind the candidate, who is the only person that most of America gets to see. It's like a soap opera. Here is the entire report (it's long and will probably take you a few sittings, but is totally worth it).

The Line at My Arlington Precinct at 7:30 am

The line went about 50 yards up the sidewalk, into the building, and snaking around inside. I estimate there were about 250 people in front of me. The polls in VA opened at 6am. I was hearing from people in line that the line was worse at 6am on the dot. I waited in line for an hour and 15 minutes and when I walked out, the line was significantly shorter. Everyone was in good spirits and I heard some voting rights representatives from the ACLU and the DNC say that they were having a quiet and uneventful morning so far.

Maureen Dowd Not My Least Favorite Columnist

If you need to make yourself puke at any point today, please read Bill Kristol in the NYT.

Update on Bgate

Breaking from KDKA in Pittsburgh: "A Pittsburgh police commander says a volunteer for the McCain campaign who reported being robbed and attacked near a bank ATM in Bloomfield has confessed to making up the story. Police say charges will be filed. More details to follow."

The Story:

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter "B" in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

Authorities, however, declined to release the results of that test.

Investigators did say that they received photos from the ATM machine and "the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction."

This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

The commander added that Todd will face charges; but police have not commented on what those charges will be.

According to police, investigators working on the interview process detected several inconsistencies in Todd's story that differed from statements made in the original police report.

Pittsburgh Police Public Information Officer Diane Richard released a statement earlier today, saying: "Because of the inconsistencies in her statements, Ms. Todd was asked to submit to a polygraph examination which she agreed to do."

No photos of Todd are being released by Pittsburgh Police at this time.

The investigation is continuing as officials determine what charges will be filed.

The Girl Who Cried "B"

Okay so there is this story that I followed all night last night (after the Phillies) that is simply and utterly ridiculous. So this girl in Pittsburgh, Ashley Todd, is a 20-year-old McCain volunteer from Texas. She went to the police on Wednesday to report what she thinks is a politically motivated attack. Here is her story: according to her Twitter account, she was "stubbornly" driving around Pittsburgh looking for a Bank of America ATM where she could withdraw money and not be charged a fee. She twitters a little while later that she thinks she is on "the wrong side" of the city. She then claims that about 9pm, after withdrawing $60 from an ATM, a black man held her at knifepoint and took her $60. He then became enraged after seeing the McCain/Palin sticker on her car and proceeded to punch and kick her and carve a "B" into her cheek with his knife, supposedly for Barack Obama.

Wow. These are some hefty accusations. Let's take a look at the photo she took of herself after the incident and then use our CSI skills (I've been watching for several years now, that gives me at least a sophomore level of knowledge here, right?) and compile some questions we have about this story.

1. Okay, so my burning question here is this: Why would the B be carved backwards? It's almost as if someone carved it while looking in a mirror...
2. That black eye looks pretty dark, but it seems to be healing miraculously fast. No swelling? We can still see her orbital. And no broken blood vessels? I guess the real question should be, which brand eyeshadow did she use? I've been trying to create a smokey eye for special occasions for some time now, I can never find a dark enough shade.
3. This guy must have really been trained in etching. That B is like, perfectly cut out. And again, perfectly healed. No skin was broken? And he didn't even get any scratches on the rest of your face, even as you struggled.
4. So you are adept enough at using your phone to Twitter while driving, but you can't use that phone to say, call a Bank of America and locate an ATM in area with which you are familiar?
5. 9pm in the Bloomfield neighborhood. I'm pretty sure this Italian section of the city is full of restaurants and shops by this ATM. And no one saw this incident occur? And none of the bank branch cameras caught it either? Or the street corner cameras?
6. Walk me through the sticker thing again, too. So he mugged you, and then somehow knew which car was yours, saw the McCain sticker, didn't ask you about it, just got so angry in a few second flat that he hit you? How did you know it was the sticker that did it?

Okay, so apparently, I'm not the only one who has some questions about the incident. The Pittsburgh police, after receiving seemingly conflicting information from Ms. Todd, have decided to give her a polygraph test.

And look, I'm not one to make fun of someone who was attacked on the street and seriously hurt. But I am convinced that this girl is lying (and, actually, so is Michelle Malkin). And this would be a stupid hoax if it weren't such a blatant "race-baiting stunt" (Fox News's words, not even mine) in an already volatile political environment. McCain campaign workers could now be concerned that they are specifically being targeted. They may even act out in what they consider self-defense to threats that aren't really there. Or some other crazy may act out in retaliation on an Obama worker. These are dangerous consequences I doubt Ms. Todd thought about before she decided to make herself an October surprise and a Republican hero.

I should probably also stress that I do not think the McCain campaign had anything to do with it. Both campaigns have responded responsibly to the story. I think this girl just acted on her own.

Ashley, your constitutional debating skills may have gotten you out of a traffic ticket. Let's see you use them in your upcoming obstruction of justice case.

I'm Getting Weepy Over Election Stories Already

You have to read this from Ben Smith on Politico:

Early voting in Evansville

Here's an early voting story from a medical student in Evansville, Ind.:

I squeaked in just before the 7pm deadline to find two very frustrated poll workers and a line of a couple dozen people, due to problems with the computerized voting system not accepting people's driver's licenses. It was taking about 7-10 minutes per person just to get the computer to accept them as valid and to print out their ballot, causing very long delays.

For me the most moving moment came when the family in front of me, comprising probably 4 generations of voters (including an 18 year old girl voting for her first time and a 90-something hunched-over grandmother), got their turn to vote. When the old woman left the voting booth she made it about halfway to the door before collapsing in a nearby chair, where she began weeping uncontrollably. When we rushed over to help we realized that she wasn't in trouble at all but she had not truly believed, until she left the booth, that she would ever live long enough to cast a vote for an African-American for president. Anyone who doesn't think that African-American turnout will absolutely SHATTER every existing record is in for a very rude surprise.

There were about 20 people in front of me but remarkably not a single person left the room without voting over the 2 hours it took to get through the line.

If Michelle Bachmann Loses I Will Laugh So Hard

Okay so if you're ever watching any of the 24-hour news networks and there is a brunette conservative commentator who you can't decide if she's really attractive or if she's really insane, you're probably watching Michelle Bachmann. Bachmann is the conservative Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota that makes Sarah Palin look like Bambi. Well, last week she was on Chris Matthews and said some ridiculous things. Here's the video:



Okay, so my problem is not her argument that Barack Obama has connections with shady characters. I certainly don't agree with that argument because I think it's dubious at best, but I can understand conservatives making that argument. My big problem is the idea that "leftist" and "liberal" makes one "anti-American." The fundamentalist, neoconservative movement of the last decade has defined what it means to be "American" in such narrow terms, that "liberal" has become a curseword and anyone leaning left of center is considered unpatriotic. I'm not sure what America she grew up in (although, I must admit I live in "fake Virginia," so what do I know), but I learned in Social Studies that our democracy was founded on the principles of free speech and a healthy dose of dissention. Because someone has political beliefs based on a different set of ideologies does not make them evil, it makes them different. And Bachmann may not have noticed, but our elections have been very very close in the last few cycles; a little less than half the country agrees at least in part with "leftists." Does this mean we half of Americans are all anti-American?

Look, just as liberals have a right to say what they please, so do conservatives like Bachmann. But Bachmann's assertion that we need to root out all of these "leftist anti-Americans" is something right out of an Arthur Miller play. It's a ridiculous notion. But luckily, this country isn't buying this anymore. In the days following Bachmann's tirade on Chris Matthews, the opponent for her congressional seat raised more than $1.3 million, doubling his funds. The NRCC even pulled its television advertisements in support of Bachmann in the district. Her seat that just a week ago was seen as very safe is now seriously in jeopardy.

Additionally, I hate how when some political commentator gets asked to clarify their obviously ridiculous and illogical statements, the interviewer is somehow "cornering" them, like Bachman says Matthews did to her. What? I can't just spew nonsensical, hysterical bullshit and people won't just love me for it? She's the new Ann Coulter--she just wants to say shocking shit and get on tv. But unlike Coulter, whose job it is to just be loud and dumb, Bachman has something to lose. And lose it she apparently might.

McCain's Debate with Women's Issues

I was listening to the Diane Rehm Show on NPR this morning, on which they were discussing the debate last night. A listener, a 60-year-old man (I don't remember from where he was writing) wrote in an email about three things that John McCain said last night that really stuck out to him. I wish I could get my hands on the transcript because his email was concisely written, but this is basically what he said:

Three things McCain said last night struck him:

1) McCain championed Sarah Palin as a "role model to women and to other--to reformers all over America," even as she has been found to have grossly violated Alaskan state ethics laws;
2) McCain more or less dismissed consideration of a woman's health in the abortion exchange, calling an exemption for abortions when the health of the mother is at risk as "extreme";
3) McCain seemingly does not know the difference between Down syndrome and autism, repeatedly referring to Sarah Palin and her knowledge of autism, when her son does not have autism, but rather Down syndrome. Any parent who has a child with either of these disorders knows the difference, including Sarah Palin.

The listener then goes on to argue that John McCain has very little grasp of women's issues in this election; his views are outdated and come from a time where old, white men decided the lives of women in this country. I didn't watch the debate last night, so I can't say I also noticed these things (although the blogs I read certainly picked up on 2 and 3), but I can definitely say that I'm not surprised. McCain's attitude towards women--even in his own family--has been less than respectful. I'm curious what Palin and Puma feminists think about this.

Update: After a little bit more research, I found out that #3 may not be entirely true. What appeared to be a McCain gaffe about autism vs Down syndrome may in fact be a reference to Sarah Palin's nephew, who does have autism. I'm still waiting to see her record on actually championing the causes of autism and Down syndrome (which may actually exist, I just haven't heard about it yet). One may understand the difficulties of having a special needs child from experience, but understanding alone does not help a cause.

We're All Drinking the Kool-Aid

Okay so other things were going on last night that didn't involve the Phillies. You may know that there was a presidential debate! I almost feel like after three dozen of these things, that everything that could be said has already been said. But oh no, there was more. You can probably guess that I did not, in fact, watch the debate because the Phillies winning the pennant trumps all other television. And really, why should I? I know who I am voting for, I'm confident in that decision, and nothing either candidate said in this painfully calculated exchange is going to change my mind. I think most people have decided the same. As Gail Collins points out today in her NYT column:

"...None of their effort during the debate was for those of us who have been with them since the beginning. At this point, they only care about the small chunk of undecided voters in swing states. That means a handful of people in Ohio who have managed to avoid noticing that Obama and McCain disagree on virtually every important issue facing the nation and continue to insist that they are torn between them.

Plus, of course, a couple of folks who got picked for a long-running television panel of undecided voters and don’t want to admit they’ve made up their minds because they’ll get thrown out.

This is one of the reasons why the last few weeks of a presidential campaign tend to be so awful. The candidates are gearing their remarks to people who have managed to completely ignore nearly two years of news about the 2008 elections. In the end, it’s always all about the ones who play hard to get. "

While occasionally flipping to the debate while watching the game last night and undoubtedly while reading and watching coverage of the debate today, the general consensus was that it was the "Joe the Plumber" debate. First of all, guys named Joe are really getting a lot of publicity this election. First we had Joe Sixpack, now Joe the Plumber, next we'll have Joe the Voter Who Stood in Line for Six Hours Only to Have His Vote Thrown Out in Colorado. Honestly though, I was kind of surprised that this Joe the Plumber guy got so much play, and especially that this play was seen as an advantage to McCain. Because before the debate last night, I actually watched Obama's conversation with Joe in his neighborhood in Ohio and I thought that he gave a really great response to Joe's concerns. Here's the video:

When I watched the video, I thought Obama's answer was honest and nuanced. He told Joe the facts of his plan, admitting that Joe's small business will be taxed higher, but explaining the necessity for taxes. The amount of time Obama spent really explaining his thought process and his plan say a lot about who he is; Obama doesn't just memorize the facts for a multiple choice test, he knows the ins and outs and analysis and reasons for his policies as if he is ready to take that long essay exam.

I don't think Joe bought Obama's response. In fact, he had an entirely different interpretation than I had watching it. He told Katie Couric last night that he thought Obama gave him a tap dance. I disagree. But I also do not believe in trickle-down economics, which Joe seems to subscribe to. It all basically comes down to people reaffirming what they already believe. We like the taste of our own Kool-Aid.

Getting My Priorities Straight

If you can't see it, David on TPM jokingly lists the finale of Project Runway tonight as something of import in relation to the debate. But I laughed because in all seriousness, this is a big tv night for me and I definitely need to prioritize. The Phillies I will watch first (first pitch is at 8:22pm EST). If for some reason I can't bear to watch anymore, I will turn on the debate. If that is boring and/or infuriating, I will go to Project Runway. The Phils are obviously most important because they could clinch tonight (fingers crossed). Then I suppose the debate because, even though it will be on tv and all the blogs ad nauseum for the next few days, I kind of want keep my first impressions intact without talking heads. And I can always watch PR at 11 and on the internet the next day.

The Arena Weighs In

I've posted about Politico's new feature, The Arena, briefly before. I've kind of forgotten about it until now, when I went over to see what they had to say. The question today, I think, is kind of ridiculous: Is Obama headed for a blowout victory? As many of the contributors to the Arena begin their responses, I think it's naive and dubious to predict a win for Obama in this crazy election cycle, much less a blowout. And I am naturally suspicious of anything that I consider a jinx (I like to knock on wood). But it is really interesting to hear what different people have to say about the election and how each person's niche factors into their answers. I get so caught up in my own reasons for voting for one candidate or another that I forget that every other person out there has their unique perspective on the issues based on their interests and experiences. Someone who works for an economic think tank focuses on Obama's tax plan; a Democratic strategist asserts Obama's dominance in the polls; professors take a very contempletive and analytical approach to the question; politicians avoid a straight answer all together.