“Bellwether”

Missouri: The only state that hasn’t yet turned in its electoral homework. Some bellwether.

We yield the floor to Josh Marshall:

Is Missouri just going to keep its electoral votes?

Ha ha. My state is the lamest in the union…except (this week) for California, where voters have decided to take advice on marriage from the Mormons.

“Change.gov”

“Change.gov”: The website of the office of the President-Elect, complete with job application form. Hop to it!

Black enough for you, apparently

Remember when questioning Obama’s racial authenticity was all the rage?

Perhaps the most absurd question Obama has been asked so far has had more to do with identity politics than presidential politics: Senator Obama, when did you decide you were black?

That was the question 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft posed to Obama in an interview that aired on Sunday. Kroft asked the biracial senator why he considered himself black even though he was raised in a white household. Obama responded by telling Kroft that he never decided to be black: “I think if you look African-American in this society, you’re treated as an African-American.”

Kroft isn’t the first journalist to ask, implicitly or not, whether Obama is black enough. A Los Angeles Times editorial on Tuesday asked “is Obama really black?”, while New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch asserted in November that “other than color, Obama did not — does not — share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves … So when black Americans refer to Obama as ‘one of us,’ I do not know what they are talking about.”

Asked and answered:

President-Elect Obama attracted 43 per cent of the white vote, with 55 per cent backing John McCain.

But because white voters make up an ever-decreasing percentage of the total, Mr Obama still achieved an overwhelming victory because he attracted 95 per cent of the black vote and two thirds of Hispanic and Asian voters.

Black and ethnic minority voters accounted for 26 per cent of all votes cast in the election. As recently as 2000, they made up just 19 per cent of voters.

The (black) people have spoken.

Smarter media, please.

Add: The best response, however - and the proper emphasis - comes from Earl Dunovant at P6:

Obama has challenged me to rethink what is possible in this country. That is, what is possible for an african american individual to achieve in a country full of bigots.

This man and his staff ran an inclusive, high road campaign, in an extremely hostile, bigoted, and partisan environment. He achieved this with self-discipline, hard work, and a strategic vision.

A black man with the name “Hussein” made it to the top. Suddenly, those boulders I see in my way don’t seem so unclimbable.

He is both an inspiration and an admonishment to rise.

This by keto, in response to a question submariner asked in the comments.

I wish I could magically summon tourists to read this. It’s visceral proof that, though the Black communities turned with almost a single mind to vote for Obama, the idea that we voted for him because he is Black is simply wrong.

We voted for him because WE are Black.

Cracked bellwether

STLtoday: Last night put to rest that self-aggrandizing “Missouri as political bellwether” meme. More like a trailing indicator, eh?

“Toasted whole grain democracy”

Political Poster: New breakfast cereal for the right-wing. Eat it and like it.

Well, it’s kinda true

The Onion: “Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress.”

Childhood’s end

Some notes from an election daze:

M and I did the usual commute to work this morning, heading east on Manchester toward midtown St. Louis to avoid the increasingly disassembled Highway 40 (I-64 to you). A beautiful November morning, and the news of the radio, seemingly the only news in the world, was Election Day. We passed a convoy of police motorcycles and cars, all with headlamps on, all heading west - mourners en route to the funeral service of University City Sgt. Michael King who was senselessly gunned down last Friday. We continued east along Manchester through Forest Park Southeast, a mingling of beautiful solid homes and vacant storefronts, a neighborhood struggling for development and solidification. Business redevelopment is much evident, and yet patchwork in nature - a building here, a restaurant there, surrounded by shuttered structures. The soft morning light illuminated everything, and we drove on.

The world is what we see in periphery, what we distantly hear, what we all move through as we run our commutes and errands. We’re adults; we have obligations, responsibilities, lives to live. The world keeps turning, even on Election Day. But I thought this morning about another day and another commute years ago, another drive to work and the terrible news over the radio of an airplane crash in New York City. Some plane had flown into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. M and I were surprised and vaguely saddened. She dropped me off at work; I brewed some coffee, sat at my desk, turned on the computer, and sat stunned over the following hours as the world changed. But that morning had been beautiful up to that point, and as ordinary as you could wish.

That’s how it always starts, yes? Even with periods of great change, whether for good or ill: with an ordinary day.

…

A couple of weeks ago found me grumbling to myself over the various hoops through which Missouri citizens must leap in order to vote absentee. Today, that annoyance is all but forgotten, replaced by sublime satisfaction over having registered my electoral choices ahead of schedule.

I spoke with my brother Greg a couple of days ago. Regular readers will remember that Greg is a Type 2 diabetic who lost his vision, his kidney function, and his lower right leg to the disease. He voted a few days ago, and described the experience as odd (understandably so, given the circumstances) yet fulfilling. His arrival at Registration and Elections sent staffers into a bit of a tizzy, but when he suggested that rather than inconvenience them (and himself), he could just have our mother assist him, the staff became suddenly calm and centered. Call it professional pride, maybe; they rose to the occasion.

Apparently, blind voters in South Carolina get to wear headphones for audio assistance. When the voice on the recording intoned “Barack Obama and Joseph Biden,” Greg felt a rush of civicness. He says he got to push the same buttons that sighted people use - nothing oversized - which amused him greatly.

Also amusing to him was what he described as the emotion that seems to come over onlookers “when us blind and crippled folks vote.” Inspiring, he said with a laugh.

…

There is a strange perceptive effect involved in political campaigns, more obvious in presidential politics but not limited to that sphere. During the primaries, you choose among alternatives who are all generally grouped along one end of an ideological spectrum. While your choices are naturally informed by the difference between the candidates, you may feel more free to critique even the candidate you prefer. You may be more cognizant of their shortcomings, more willing to express doubt.

This is not true of everyone, of course - some people drink deeply of the Kool-Aid than others. Still…

Later, as the process moves into the general campaign, the gulf between the nominees of the contesting parties is naturally much greater than between candidates in a given party. As a result, you are inclined - forced by circumstance, really - to more fully buy into “your” candidate and to overlook or forgive shortcomings that seemed much more glaring, much more important, earlier on.

I haven’t forgotten my reasons for having doubted a successful transition from Barack Obama the brand to Barack Obama the executive. I haven’t forgotten the feeling I had that “change,” in an Obama context, seemed to boil down to “vote for Obama” more than anything else. I haven’t forgotten the irritation I have felt with what seemed an overabundance of centrism in Obama as a senator, and an overabundance of caution as a candidate keeping Muslims, gays, and lesbians at arm’s length. That’s a lot to not forget.

It’s equally true, however, that the Democratic candidate has given me much to remember over the course of the campaign. The sense of maturation in Barack Obama is palpable; he seems to have grown into the role he has made for himself, even as his opponent, John McCain, has shrunk. There has been much said about temperament in the late days of the campaign, and I don’t think its importance can be overstated. That Obama has emerged as, politically speaking, an adult is really the one thing we know for certain about him, and in these troubled times it seems that an adult is exactly what we need.

…

Tomorrow may be the beginning of something new in our national life, but it will also be just another day. The hopefulness and optimism of many voters today will have to give rise to something else, something more substantial and decidedly unglamorous - ordinary work - even as Barack Obama, should he triumph tonight, will have to find a way to translate hope into policy.

For all of us, childhood has reached its end.

“Why Barack Obama is Winning”

Time: Joe Klein on why Obama is winning: It’s the maturity, stupid.

AP scrambles to find a poll that likes McCain

AP: The Associated Press digs up a rare poll that calls the presidential race “all even.” Also swallowed whole by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

A ballot in the head

Earlier this month, I exhorted the legion of Waveflux readers to vote early because it would piss off antidemocratic patrician George Will. That’s far from the sole reason or even the best reason to get your vote in ahead of Election Day - you’re stuffed to the gills with “information” about your candidates by now and are perfectly capable of making reasoned decisions, despite the bleatings of pundits; the “front-loading” of political arguments, supposedly forced by early voting, is arguably a public good; the ability to vote on your own schedule rather than being limited to a prescribed 1/365th of the calendar is an affirmation of your own power as a voter, and is convenient besides - but given Will’s arrogant stance on the matter, the satisfaction of giving him a civic-minded middle finger is reason enough.

So today, I suited action to the word. I finally got around to requesting absentee ballots for my household - seeing as we will likely be much, much, much too busy and quite possibly far, far, far too distant from the polls on the big day in November. Following the instructions provided by Go Vote Absentee, I downloaded the forms for registered voters in the city of St. Louis. M and I each filled out our requests, and I faxed them last Wednesday to the office of the St. Louis City Clerk.

The envelopes containing the ballots arrived yesterday.

Below, your basic civic-duty action kit: one absentee ballot, one set of not-entirely-opaque instructions, one postage-paid return envelope which also served as an affidavit. The only inconvenience was that the envelope/affidavit had to be signed in the presence of a notary public and signed and stamped by that official.

I was instructed to make my selections by darkening the ovals (completely!) next to my choices with a number 2 pencil or a black or blue (not red!) pen. As absentee voters may have trouble getting a replacement ballot in case of incorrect marking or the like, it’s necessary to be rather careful in filling out the form. Being a bit of a worry wort about such things, I made a practice copy of the ballot and filled that out first. When I was certain of my mad ballot-marking skills, I filled out the actual form.

I am a believer in the secret ballot, thanks. Still, I’ll mention here that I was pleased to vote once more for my hard-working state rep, Rachel Storch (whom I actually met once; I should tell that story some time). I was equally pleased to vote against the little-remarked, thinly-veiled, anti-immigrant, bring-out-the-bigot state constitutional amendment to make English “the language of all governmental meetings at which any public business is discussed, decided, or public policy is formulated.” That’s including “conference calls, video conferences, Internet chat, or message board,” by the way.

This piece of xenophobic pandering was brought to you by state Rep. Brian Nieves of Washington. A Republican, shockingly enough. Whoever runs against Nieves in his next contest gets some money from me. In the meantime, my no vote on his amendment will have to suffice.

Oh, yeah: There was some politician from Chicago somewhere on the ballot, too. I may talk about him later.

Once the ballot was completed, all that remained was to cool my heels for a few minutes in lobby before getting my ballot duly stamped by a calmly professional and rather attractive notary. Then off to the ballot box - in this case, the nearest mailbox. As I deposited the envelope, I could hear the patriotic swells of “Stars and Strips Forever.” But maybe that was just my imagination. At any rate, the tune accompanied me all the way back to the office.

And that’s that. I didn’t get a “I Voted” sticker, but I can live with that, I think. Hope you can live with it too, George.

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