With some pundits and analysts predicting a large win by U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, at least one network -- CBS -- and one Web site -- Slate -- are considering calling the election as early as 8 p.m. Eastern Time, long before the last polls close in Gov. Sarah Palin's home state of Alaska at 1 a.m. Eastern Time.
And it's not just the networks, as indicated above. It's the Internet, Web sites, alternative media, blogs.
According to a report in the New York Times, CBS might call it as early as 8 p.m. Eastern Time if certain states line a clear path to one candidate's electoral victory.
A senior vice president of CBS News, Paul Friedman, said the prospects for Barack Obama or John McCain meeting the minimum threshold of electoral votes could be clear as soon as 8 p.m. — before polls in even New York and Rhode Island close, let alone those in Texas and California. At such a moment, determined from a combination of polling data and samples of actual votes, the network could share its preliminary projection with viewers, Mr. Friedman said.
“We could know Virginia at 7,” he said. “We could know Indiana before 8. We could know Florida at 8. We could know Pennsylvania at 8. We could know the whole story of the election with those results. We can’t be in this position of hiding our heads in the sand when the story is obvious.”
Is this the right thing to do? U.S. Rep. John Dingell, Democrat of Michigan doesn't think so.
As the New York Times reports:
With some national polls suggesting that Mr. Obama was heading for a potential electoral landslide, news organizations were preparing for a race that could be far less close than those in 2004 or 2000. The nearest precedent could be 1980, when the networks projected Ronald Reagan to have defeated Jimmy Carter shortly after the polls closed in the East. Later, the secretaries of state from Washington, Oregon and other Western states argued that, as a result of the networks’ early call that year, voter turnout in California dropped by about 2 percent.
Other experts, though, have argued that any impact by the networks on turnout was far outweighed by Mr. Carter’s having made a concession speech shortly after the networks broadcast their results.
It does seem most networks are going to avoid projecting a winner based on exit polls, a practice that burned a few of them in 2004, said the New York Times:
In 2004, early exit poll data suggested that Mr. Kerry was ahead began circulating within newsrooms — and leaking out on Web sites, including Slate’s — early in the afternoon on Election Day. This year, the consortium of six news organizations gathering the exit poll data — NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN and The Associated Press — have agreed to keep the information under quarantine until 5 p.m.
Representatives of those news organizations will begin analyzing that information at a secret location beginning in late morning, but will have to surrender all electronic devices at the door; even restroom visits will be supervised. There were already signs on Monday that the additional security was paying off.
Voting this morning was unlike any other voting experience I've ever had. I've never waited. I've never seen lines of people snake down Massachusetts Avenue. I've never felt such an air of excitement. I've never seen so many people bring their kids to a polling place.
My favorite part of voting this morning: a toddler kept asking her mother "Where is he? Where is he?" I soon discerned that the "he" in question was U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. The mother explained to the toddler that "he" wasn't actually at the polling place. The toddler burst into tears, setting off a chain reaction around the church of other babies and toddlers. Sippee cups and Cheerios did nothing to stop the din.
A group of foreign observers got off a bus and were escorted in to look at us. Their pamphlets read: "Official Poll Watching Tour." They just stared at us like we were exotic animals in a zoo. I felt somewhat offended until I realized many of them did not have this right in their own country. The man behind me said he had lived many years overseas and had seen peoples thumbs cut off so those thumb prints could be used to vote with. Apparently, foreign observers are a big thing this year.
One of my favorite stories from this cycle: A 109-year-old Texas, woman, the black daughter of a man born into slavery, voted early for Barack Obama, the nation's first African-American presidential nominee.
And this: Obama's grandmother, who helped raise him, died yesterday and won't see whether her grandson becomes the 44th President of the United States. But she voted absentee on October 27. And according to Hawaii election officials, her vote will count.
Some pretty high profile GOPers have endorsed U.S. Barack Obama as of late -- Colin Powell, former Reagan Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein.
Late last week, U.S. John McCain reeled in the sitting Vice President, Dick Cheney. Question is, did he want to throw him back under the political-catch-and-release program? The Obama campaign is betting "yes." In its latest ad, the Obama team uses Cheney's endorsement (he says he's "delighted" to endorse McCain-Palin) as what its sees as evidence that McCain will give the nation four more years of Bush-Cheney. Given that McCain has been running away from Bush as fast as he can, my guess is that he wishes Cheney had just shut it. It's a pretty brutal ad with lighthearted music to take the edge off.
Obama's new ad will start airing nationally tomorrow. Watch it here:
The campaign of U.S. Sen. John McCain has a new Web video ad up designed for one purpose only -- to convince potential voters that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama really is a Muslim, which incidentally, he is not, and if he were, who cares?
As Sam Stein reports in the Huffington Post, the new McCain ad superimposes an image of Obama over a map of Iran. The ad "lists" some of Obama's foreign policy statement as music most closely associated with the Muslim prayer call plays in the background.
The Obama-superimposed-on-a-Middle-East-map strategy seems to have picked up some steam. Writes Stein:
Indeed, the Republican ticket has been subtly pushing this line for days now. As the Huffington Post reported on Tuesday, the Republican Party of Florida is sending out a new mailer that places the Illinois Democrat's face right over a map of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. It accuses him of being "dangerously unprepared" and "no friend of Israel."
This is McCain's second attempt in the last few days to play the Middle East card. Earlier this week, his campaign re-released an old campaign ad that accused Obama of not being wary enough of Iran.
McCain's Web video, as controversial as it is, is up for some stiff competition tonight as Obama takes his case to voters on several networks in 30-minutes blocks. But there's no doubt McCain's latest commercial will get free media, which is good when you have no money left.
Most of this new ad from the McCain camp feeds viewers the usual tropes: Obama's just a celebrity, he's inexperienced, he's not ready to lead. The really curious thing about the ad comes at the very end. Take a look, then let's talk about it:
You notice what I notice? Just at the very end: "Barack Obama's not ready... yet." Isn't that weird? The implication that comes with the "... yet," is that he will be ready, which seems like a strange qualifier to grant your opponent-- especially when your central argument against him is that he's not ready. Even if the line had just been "not ready yet," the impact would have been less, but that ellipsis really drives it home.
What do you think? Maverick tactic or nothing notable? Share your thoughts in a comment below...
In a new ad, John McCain invites you to do a little forced word association. The weakness of this spot, much like some of his others, is that it's just colossally vague, at a time when Americans want more than random words and phrases thrown at them.
Perhaps as a warm-up to his 30-minute network buys coming this Wednesday night, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has released two new campaign ads this weekend as the presidential campaign enters the final stretch.
The first ad, released yesterday in key battleground states, hearkens back to Obama's very effective ads at the onset of the financial crisis. It's a two minute-ad -- very long by television standards -- and according to a press release, asks:
“are you better off than you were four years ago?” We know the answer to that. The real question is will our country be better off four years from now? The ad includes Senator Obama telling America how we will lift our economy and restore America’s place in the world.
Watch "Defining Moment" here:
The second ad, released today, is less about a positive Obama agenda and more negative about U.S. Sen. John McCain. Says the Obama campaign in a statement: America needs a president that will change the economy, not the subject. You can see "New Subject" here:
Joe "The Vice Presidential Candidate" Biden is known for his big mouth, and when Barack Obama chose him as his running mate, the campaign was surely including in their calculations the good odds that Biden would say something silly before election day. He did, and, all things considered, I don't think it was that bad.
Still, the McCain campaign pounced on it, and cooked up this ad, which manages to make the prospect of an "international crisis" sound pretty scary. This, I would say, is a quintessential example of the use of fear as a political weapon. A voter who's scared into voting for you is just the same as a voter who picks you for other reasons.
Remember Gov. Sarah Palin's funny, feisty joke at the GOP convention where she introduced herself to the nation? She asked the audience what the difference was between a hockey Mom and a pit bull. The answer: lipstick.
Apparently, she wears a lot of it.
According to a report from Associcated Press' Jim Kuhnhenn:
Palin stylist draws higher pay than policy adviser
By JIM KUHNHENN – 46 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — An acclaimed celebrity makeup artist for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin collected more money from John McCain's campaign than his foreign policy adviser.
Amy Strozzi, who works on the reality show "So You Think You Can Dance" and has been Palin's traveling stylist, was paid $22,800, according to campaign finance reports for the first two weeks in October. In contrast, McCain's foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was paid $12,500, the report showed.
In recent days, McCain and his running mate have tried to douse a furor over how their side spent their money. The Republican National Committee came under scrutiny after the party committee reported earlier this week that it had spent about $150,000 in September on wardrobe and cosmetics after Palin joined the GOP ticket.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune and Fox News on Thursday, Palin said the clothes bought for the Republican National Convention were not worth $150,000 and said most have not left her campaign plane. She also said the family shops frugally.
"Those clothes are not my property. We had three days of using clothes that the RNC purchased," Palin told Fox News in an interview that aired Thursday night.
So first we have Neimans-Gate. Now we find out that Palin has been making up as she goes along. Palin says she's being held to an unfair standard because she's a woman. But so am I, and I've never spent $22,800 on makeup in two weeks. You could buy a car for much less than that. The latest news about Palin's appetite for being pampered is going to put another dent in her self-styled populist (albeit designer) armor.
Barack Obama invites you to try out his tax calculator and see how much you'll save under his plan. I recommend it highly, especially if you make less than $250,000 a year.
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