CHECK IT

I agree with Sullivan, this is the best campaign video since will.i.am's "Yes We Can."

DRUDGE IS TOAST

Matt Drudge, internet-gossip hag, will be the smelly, natural by-product of the beaten McCain volunteer story. Because yet another attempt to push the campaign narrative in McCain's direction has blown up in his face.

As we all know by now, the story of the McCain volunteer who claimed a BIG SCARY BLACK MAN carved a backwards "B" into her cheek was made up. And yesterday, Matt Drudge had a 14-inch hard-on for the story, complete with his little red siren -- so it must have been true.

Just the other day, Eric Boehlert wrote of how Drudge's influence this campaign season seems to have diminished. I happen to agree with him. It seems every story he has tried to push on the public has pretty much become a dud -- from his hyperventilating over the "lipstick on a pig" to his constant pushing of the ACORN story.

I quit reading Drudge everyday about a month ago (I've been on his site about 3 times since). My life is so much better because of it. I can't tell you how many times I was in a good mood, only to go to his site and have my day ruined by some blaring headline that later turned out to be a total non-story. Finally, I realized that I don't need him. There are plenty of places on the web to go for news. Real news. Even if it is a partisan website, a la Huffington Post or Real Clear Politics.

People are going to start abandoning Drudge on a massive scale. Especially since he will not apologize for his pushing this fake story about the McCain volunteer. The country is moving center-left and, as McCain's camp will tell you, we're all getting sick of the petty negativity pushed by the GOP for the last 30 years. Drudge, being their favorite avenue to push their slime tactics, will be going down with them.

IF OBAMA SAID THIS....

Reported on Ben Smith's blog today:

In tonight's NBC News interview with Brian Williams, McCain explains that the "elites" are located in D.C. and New York City:

WILLIAMS: Who is a member of the elite?

PALIN: Oh, I guess just people who think that they're better than anyone else. And-- John McCain and I are so committed to serving every American. Hard-working, middle-class Americans who are so desiring of this economy getting put back on the right track. And winning these wars. And America's starting to reach her potential. And that is opportunity and hope provided everyone equally. So anyone who thinks that they are-- I guess-- better than anyone else, that's-- that's my definition of elitism.

WILLIAMS: So it's not education? It's not income-based? It's--

PALIN: Anyone who thinks that they're better than someone else.

WILLIAMS: --a state of mind? It's not geography?

PALIN: 'Course not.

WILLIAMS: Senator?

MCCAIN: I-- I know where a lot of 'em live. (LAUGH)

WILLIAMS: Where's that?

MCCAIN: Well, in our nation's capital and New York City. I've seen it. I've lived there. I know the town. I know-- I know what a lot of these elitists are. The ones that she never went to a cocktail party with in Georgetown. I'll be very frank with you. Who think that they can dictate what they believe to America rather than let Americans decide for themselves.

If Barack Obama had called New York City the elite, a city where everyone thinks they are "better than anyone else", we'd be hearing nothing but "9-11, 9-11, 9-11, 9-11, 9-11" until the end of the election. Rudy himself would don a dress and shout it from the top of the Chrysler building. And they'd amp up their Obama-as-terrorist-sympathizer meme and fall just short of blaming him for the destruction of the World Trade Center.

How do these anti-American Republicans get away with this? They are a bunch of cowards.

I'd like to point out that I live in Chicago, the 3rd biggest city in America. Therefore, in Palin's pea brain, I am an elitist.

Yet, I spent the majority of my childhood in a small town, and I can honestly say I met more snobby people who thought they were better than me in that small-town than I've met in 12 years living in Chicago -- in the nicest areas, I might add. (My sister works in NYC and feels the same way.)

So...

Fuck you, John McCain!

THIS CAN'T BE GOOD

McCain is pulling money out of Kerry states and spending it all in Bush states. They're playing nothing but defense.

McCain has dramatically slashed his ad spending in Wisconsin and New Hampshire and reduced it in Pennsylvania, suggesting that he's either losing hope or giving up hope in winning in three states that went for John Kerry in 2004, or that he doesn't have ample enough resources for them.

He's also reduced his spending in Colorado, which went for Bush but is showing a lead for Obama, suggesting he may be losing hope there, too.

If McCain is losing hope in Colorado and Pennsylvania and not trying to capture any of the states Kerry won, then his campaign has conceded the race. On top of that, he's being a dick to all the down-ticket Republicans.

The fact is, when you’re the party standard-bearer, you have an obligation to fight to the finish. I think they can still win. But if they don’t think that, they need to look at how Bob Dole finished out his campaign in 1996 and not try to take down as many Republicans with them as they can. Instead of campaigning in Electoral College states, Dole was campaigning in places he knew he didn’t have a chance to beat Clinton, but where he could energize key House and Senate races. I think you’ll find these sentiments shared by MANY of my fellow Republican strategists.”

BOO!

Halloween at our house.

THIS MADE MY EYES WELL UP

I know that on Election Day and after, we're going to hear a lot of stories like this. And they're all gonna make me weep like a baby.

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.

If you're like me, you're taking the day after the election off of work, because, either way, I'm going to be too hung over to function on November 5th.

RELAX

The Associated Press poll that the Douchebag Drudge is reportedly pimping on his website today (I don't read him anymore, and my life is so much better for it), is a piece of garbage. It claims the race is tied.

Yeah. Right.

Don't take it from me. Take it from Nate.

The first cluster coincides with Gallup's so-called "traditional" likely voter model, which considers both a voter's stated intention and his past voting behavior. The second cluster coincides with their "expanded" likely voter model, which considers solely the voter's stated intentions. ... The pollster, in other words, is making a determination as to how the voter will behave. In the "expanded" model, the pollster lets the voter speak for himself.

Frankly, I find polls showing a 4-6 point gap between likely and registered voters to be utterly ridiculous.

WHERE THE RACE STANDS TODAY

Right about here.

IOWA? SERIOUSLY?

McCain is going to be giving an interview to Meet The Press this Saturday.

From Waterloo, Iowa.

Survey USA has Obama up 13 in Iowa. What the hell is McCain doing wasting time in Iowa? He was there last week, too. Proof again that this campaign is poorly managed with no strategy. If I were McCain, I'd set up residence in Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania and hope you hold on to all the Bush states. Going to Iowa is dumb. Dumb.

Dumb.

UPDATE: Publius points out how thoroughly screwed McCain is -- and that hoping to win PA is a bad strategy. What do I know?

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NOMINATE HER IN '12!

Per Marc Ambinder

The question is whether her political recalibration will be enough by 2012 to sustain a political majority outside the Republican Party. Mike Huckabee doesn't need to rethink himself all that much -- a few positions here, a few positions there, some emphasis in different corners -- and he might well present himself as the most electable conservative candidate.

again, i come down on the side of palin here. i'm guessing that the GOP primary is going to be all about telling the base that it's not their fault, and palin is going to be second to none on that score.

I disagree. Palin's national political career is over after Nov. 4th. She's a huge liability on McCain, and it will resonate within the party in the aftermath of this election.

Re-inventing herself won't work -- we all know what we need to know now. She is intellectually void, to the right of 75% of the country, and a habitual liar. The GOP is not going to risk it with her again. Besides: Obama would trounce her, unless he turns out to be worse than Georg.... Sorry, I can't even say that with a straight face.

My guess is they're going to try and find their version of Barack Obama for 2012. Partly because of his race, but mostly because he is young, attractive, articulate and, supposedly well-liked in his state, I will tell you right now, Bobby Jindal is going to be on the GOP ticket in 2012. Palin will not.

THE BOY IN THE BACKGROUND

Is that little John McCain ready to hit the Obamas with a stick?

STATES McCAIN/PALIN HAVE "GIVEN UP" ON

Michigan was first. Today, 3 to 4 more states are being thrown around. They don't know what to do. An Iowa GOP Spokesman thinks the state should still be in play, but they're getting their teeth kicked in in Iowa (it's because of the proximity to Illinois -- duh!). My guess is McCain will be living in PA, OH, IN and NC for the next two weeks.

Michigan
New Hampshire
Colorado
Iowa
New Mexico
Wisconsin

Up Next?
Pennsylvania?
Virginia?
Minnesota?

UPDATE: By the way, anyone wanna bet Obama wins Indiana? Big?

UPDATE II: "McCain Curtails Ads in NH and WI"

I'M BACK! I'M BACK!

So, 6 years ago, I had the idea to start my own blog, but I gave it up after I realized how hard it is to post 20-30 interesting quips a day. I quickly abandoned the idea -- and never bothered to delete the blog I had created.

On a whim the other day, I typed in my old blog's address and -- wham! --it was still there -- my old posts, everything. I couldn't believe it. It was like walking into a house that you used to live in and finding one of your old baseball cards or seeing your name still sits in the cement on the sidewalk in front.

Reading the posts below, it strikes me that 2002 really was a terrible year to be a progressive/Democrat. And my tirades against people who were STILL blaming the 2000 election on Nader just shows how fractured our side was nearly 2 years after the stunning, demoralizing outcome of 2000.

The last post I did in 2002 was about Mediawhoresonline.com (below). That site was really the beginning of the netroots, no? Correct me if I'm wrong, but several of our more favorite bloggers, like Eschaton, got started there. I miss that site. (Did they ever determine exactly who was behind it?)

Anyway, I think I'm gonna give this thing another try. Only, this time, I'm not going to pressure myself to post 50 times a day, a la Sullivan. I think it'll be more like John Cole at Balloon Juice, who posts when he has the time and usually gets 4-5 good ones a day.

Starting this late in the election season makes me feel like a September call-up in the big leagues. I hope, like some of those call-ups, that I can have a small impact on the team and help us bring home the prize on Nov. 4th.