Georgia . . . a Toss Up ???

Things are getting interesting down in Georgia. I know things have been mostly about the election in my blog as of late but come on . . . we've only got 5 more days to go.

OK, so RCP just moved Georgia from "leaning McCain" to "toss-up." RCP's spread in Georgia shows McCain with an average 4.1% lead but in an InAdv/PollPosition poll taken on Monday, McCain only had Obama in Georgia by a 1 point lead which is in the statistical margin of error.

CNN showed folks in Altanta early voting this week and dealing with lines that were 4-8 hours long. The early voting in Georgia has favored Democrats by wide margins.

And don't forget about Georgia Senate race. Democrat Jim Martin is only behind incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss. Republican Chambilss has been quoted as saying, "The other folks are voting" according to Politico. And I think by other folks he is probably not referring to white voters??? This will be an interesting race to watch on election night and might end up too close to call. 538 did a quick story on what's going on with that race.

Obama Infomercial

I watched Obama's Informercial tonight. You can watch it here:

Dean Scream to 50-State Dream

Check out the following article from DailyKos:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/28/11502/081/1009/643763

From scream to 50-state dream

by kos

Tue Oct 28, 2008 at 08:50:03 AM PDT

He who laughs last...

Dean stopped by a Democratic field office in Henderson last week, and to prep myself for the visit, I watched what’s known in political circles as

“The Scream.” It’s still funny.

But here’s the thing: Dean was right.

His hypothesis was simple: To be a national political party, you have to compete everywhere. It was called the “50 state strategy,” and it was unveiled in 2005.

Remember 2005?

That’s when Karl Rove was building a permanent Republican majority, and when President George W. Bush was going to save Social Security by privatizing it.

In 2005, Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, campaigned among grass-roots activists to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Campaigned to be head of the DNC? That’s an establishment job, hand-picked.

Howard Dean? What a loser.

But politics is all about a little prescience and a little luck. Dean had both. He had the wisdom to know Democrats could win in a lot of places if they bothered to show up and make an argument. The lucky part: The public has turned on the Republican Party.

I keep saying it since I doubt people believe me -- when we were agitating for the 50-state strategy in 2003, 2004, and 2005, it was hugely controversial. Crashing the Gate may seem like a fairly conventional book today, but when Jerome and I wrote it in 2006, it was mocked as crazy talk. Funny how two years and a little success completely changed everything.

And here's one lagging piece of CW that still gets it wrong:

[Dean is] usually associated with the loony wing of the party, the MoveOn crowd and the liberal bloggers. But in reality, he had a vision for Democrats capturing the center, and it’s coming to pass.

Ah yes, us loony bloggers, fighting for universal health care, to protect social security, to keep our government from unconstitutionally spying on us, and to promote a sane foreign policy that doesn't unnecessarily cost us blood and treasure. You know, loony things supported by a majority of the (apparently also loony) American people.

Here's what too many people still don't understand -- there's nothing loony about the netroots. This isn't fertile territory for the McKinneys and Kuciniches of our party. This is fertile territory for the Howard Deans of our party -- sensible, pragmatic progressives who aren't afraid to be Democrats. Why? Because we're the nation. We're not clustered in DC and NYC, we're spread out over all 50 states, and we know better than anyone what it takes to win in our own backyards.

We didn't rally around Webb, Tester, Schweitzer, Trauner, Brown, Massa, Burner and so many other moderate Democrats because they were little Kucinich clones, but because they were perfectly suited for the states and districts they seek to represent. It's that simple. Howard Dean wasn't an anomaly. He was our ideal.

We are not the elites, we are America, and we're situated squarely in its ideological center. We proved it in 2006, and we'll prove it again next week.

SNL: Bush Endorses McCain

Another Joe . . .

File this in the oddly enough / not quite worthy of news / but in the news anyway category:

So we've heard about Joe Six-Pack, Joe the Plumber and now . . . Joe McCain. I did not realize it but John McCain has a younger brother named Joe. Joe made headlines on Tuesday because of a 911 call he made in Alexandria, Virginia to complain about traffic. I thought it was a hoax so I put the great fact checkers at lawtongrinter.com to work and they verified this story both with the Associated Press and with Elizabeth Snead.

I don't really know what to say about this? I think I won't say anything. Watch the clip below if you are interested in hearing what transpired.

Ayers . . . Really ???

McCain is still trying to make a connection between Senator Obama and William Ayers. Is this really what McCain is staking his entire presidential bid on? Really?? I'm honestly kind of shocked. So Ayers & Joe the Plumber is the best that they have. Hmmm. I think this all begs the question, "Who is John McCain?" I thought I knew who he was back in 2000 when he ran against W in the primary. The John McCain now that is talking about Ayers & Joe the Plumber is not the same guy. What happened to John McCain? Do we really know who John McCain is? Did we ever??

I Voted

So I voted today. Done Deal.

And we are still 2 weeks out from Election Day.

Colorado has 2 early voting options: 1) Mail-In Ballots and 2) Early voting poll places. Since Colorado's ballot this year is the longest one in Colorado I chose to get the mail-in ballot and sit with it in front of my computer in order to figure out what was what on the 18 Amendments, presidential, congressional, state, local, judicial and bond stuff. The ballot was 4 pages long on 8.5 * 14 inch paper! It took me a couple of hours over the course of 4 nights to get all the way thru it. There's no way I'd want to be at a poll going thru all of that.

I was a bit concerned about the slight chance that the Postal Service could loose my ballot in the mail. So in order to be positive that my vote gets counted, we hand delivered a bunch to the polling location today and dropped them in the box ourselves. No need to get the postal service involved. Done deal.

Dubya

If you are looking for an uplifting & inspiring film for the whole family DO NOT go see W.

Good grief.

Weekend News

I came across a lot of interesting political news this weekend without even really looking for it.

I had heard a bit about Matt Taibbi's article on McCain & Palin in the Oct. 2nd issue of Rolling Stone but had not read it until last night. The article is entitled "Mad Dog Palin." You can probably guess that it is not a Pro-McCain article. It is however an interesting article in its absolute bluntness. No holds barred. Read the article here.

I've also watched the electoral map shift again. North Dakota of all places has gone from Strong McCain to Leaning McCain to Toss Up in the last 4 days. CNN is now showing that Montana is in play for Obama and Georgia remains in play. RCP is showing Obama with an 8 point lead in Virginia!!! Unbelievable. I was working on the Kerry campaign in Virginia 4 years ago and remember the day the Kerry folks pulled staff out of Virginia because it just was not winnable and here we are 4 years later with Democrat that has an 8 point lead.

Yesterday Obama spoke to a crowd of 100,000 people at the arch in St. Louis and then later that night to a crowd of 75,000 people in Kansas City. St. Louis was his biggest crowd to date at a rally in the US. Keep in mind that before St. Louis the crowd at the Democratic Convention in Denver (84,000) was his largest.

Obama just released his September numbers . . . he received $150 Million in donations and had over 632,000 new donors to his campaign. Since his campaign started he has had 3.1 million people donate money for an average of $86 per donor. Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe spoke about those numbers here.

And last but not least, centrist Republican and former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Obama this morning on Meet the Press. Powell makes the case for Obama better than anyone I have ever heard to date. Watch the endorsement here:

Switching Gears

Yesterday I put down my paint brush at 4:30 PM and headed out of work just like I do every weekday at that time. Only this time it was different. I start a new job here in Crested Butte on Monday which I am very excited about. I have not been excited about any job for some time now so this feeling is unfamiliar at best. I am getting back into Natural Resources and Conservation work but in a capacity that is different than anything I have done to date. It will be nice to work on behalf of Conservation instead of playing defense behind enemy lines. Wish me luck.

El Poco Loco

Felicia and I finally went to our friends Doug & Phoebe's new bar . . . the Dogwood Cocktail Cabin in dowtown Crested Butte. It is the coolest bar in Crested Butte hands down. Phoebe is a master mixologist which I knew from my days working with her at the Timberline. We were there of "Cabin Fever" which is their Happy Hour . . . 1/2-priced drinks. I had the Poco Loco which was fantastic. It's vodka+habanero+pineapple. Sounds a little crazy but it was so good and had bite! We'll be going back sooner than later.

Palin as President

My good friend Bill (a.k.a. Art Vandelay) sent me an interesting link today: Palin as President. Move your cursor around the photo and click on different things . . . the windows, the portraits, doors, etc. Also . . . check out this National Review article from Kathleen Parker on Palin. Pretty interesting viewpoint from a conservative columnist.

We had our final debate party tonight. John McCain really missed out on his last major opportunity to shake the campaign up. I was waiting for him to pull some big wildcard out of his pocket and it never happened. Obama on the other hand had his best debate yet.

20 days to go . . .

Apple Event Today

Apple had a Special Event today and released it's 1st sub-$1000 laptop. Rumor had been that it would be sub-$900 but not so. They upgraded their entire MacBook line and introduced a new 24 inch LED cinema display. Watch Steve Jobs at the event or check out Ken Ray's overview of the event tomorrow on Mac OS Ken . . . the best Apple podcast out there.

In other Apple news, their stock has fallen today back down to near the $100 range . . . 1/2 of their 52-week high but $19 better then their 52-week low.

I've been considering pulling the trigger on a 16 Gb iPod Nano and was waiting until today to see if for some strange reason Apple would drop the $199 price tag at their October event but no such luck. Time to pull the trigger.

Quit Facebook

I was in a bookstore in Grand Junction this past weekend thumbing thru the latest issue of Adbusters magazine when I came across this article. I am not a member of Facebook but could relate to the article on a number of levels anyway . . . having quit myspace earlier this year for similar reasons.

And then it got me thinking about this little blog of mine. Hmmm???

Things Are Getting Ugly

Things are getting ugly at McCain/Palin rallies as of late. McCain was recently booed by his own supporters at a rally in Minnesota. Reuters ran a piece on the same issue. It seems like things are getting a bit desperate on the red side of the fence with the countdown to the election only 24 short days away.

RealClearPolictics.com took the average of the last 9 National Polls over the past week . . . the average has Obama with a +7.4% lead. Things have shifted a bit on their electoral map in the pas few days also:

- Virginia just went from "toss up" to "leaning Obama"
- Minnesota just went from "solid Obama" to "leaning Obama"
- West Virginia went from "leaning McCain" to "toss up"
- New Jersey and New Hampshire went from "leaning Obama" to "solid Obama"
- and the one that I'm watching closely . . . Georgia with from "solid McCain" to leaning McCain

FiveThirtyEight.com just put out an interesting story on defectors in the McCain camp.

Most shocking of the day was an AP story out of Davenport, Iowa from a McCain rally today. Here's a direct quote from the story:



"Unhelpful for establishing the tone McCain sought in Davenport was the Rev. Arnold Conrad, past pastor of the Grace Evangelical Free Church. His prayer before McCain arrived at the convention center blocks from the Mississippi River appeared to dismiss faiths other than Christianity and cast the election as a referendum on God himself.

"I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons," Conrad said.

"And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and Election Day," he said.

A McCain spokeswoman distanced the campaign from the remarks."

Only 25 more days to go . . .

Friday Hike

2 of my good friends from Richmond were in town and we went on a hike. Here's the pics:

FiveThrityEight.com

Steven Colbert had Nate Silver on his show last night. Nate is a baseball statistician and has thrown his hand in using statistics to predict the election outcome on his website fivethirtyeight.com. Check out his electoral map and predicitons. Pretty interesting stuff. And by the way . . . 538 is the number of electors in the electoral college.

The Mountain Gazette

The Mountain Gazette is the amazing free magazine available for all those living in the Rocky Mountain states to gaze on those days that we are trying to figure out the meaning of life. That's crap but it sounded good. Anyway in the last 2 issues they've done a 2-part series on "Six Towns Where You Can Still Get Your Ass Kicked, And Why You Should Want To Check Them Out, and Why You Never Will." They featured the town of Saguache, Colorado and I was stoked to finally track down the article online to answer an urban legend of mythical proportions about the town: Is "The Shy Clown" Nite Club located in Saguache and what will they say about it. So here's the deal . . . Saguache is in the San Luis Valley and I've driven thru there a handful of times on my way to and from other places. There is a bar out there called The Shy Clown. It's a strange strange place . . . at least from the outside. It is appears to be a cement block building with no windows. It is painted white. Over the front door is a drawing of a clown. That's it. Can you say creepy? The only reference that I have been able to find about it is this one. So The Shy Clown is in Monte Vista, not Saguache. I was wrong. And I still don't know anyone who has ventured in there. We tried to pay a friend $20 to poke his head in the door and he would not do it. The mystery continues.

Who Killed The Electric Car ???

Lately I've been following advances in alternatively-fueled vehicles and have been pretty excited about the 2nd generation of hybrids due out in 2-3 years - Plug-In Hybrids (PHEV). PHEV's are basically vehicles that have both a standard internal combustion engine and electric motor. A resident in our town recently converted her Ford Escape Hybrid to a PHEV and now gets over 100-MPG. She converted her house to solar energy so when she plugs in to recharge her Escape she's plugging into the sun. Pretty sweet.

There's other options to that we've all heard about: biofuel, hydrogen, and ethanol to name a few. Here's some more info on that.

Guess what. GM had a zero emissions vehicle in the mid-90's called the EV1. Ever heard of it? I hadn't. EV stands for Electric Vehicle in case you were wondering. They were only available for lease between 1996 and 1999. GM killed the EV1 for good in 2003. There's a documentary about the whole debacle called "Who Killed the Electric Car?" I was able to get in thru Netflix and the one question I keep coming back to is . . . . Why is GM trying to create such a buzz around the upcoming release of their Chevy Volt when they've had this technology for 12 years now? I'm not really buying what they are saying either.

Fall in Colorado

The Aspens are going full tilt at the moment and I thought I'd share some pictures I took around town:

Congrats to Cliff Claven

A big congrats goes out today to fellow PCT hiker and Oakland Coffee Master Cliff Claven on finishing up his 2008 PCT thru-hike at Cascade Locks today! You are the man Cliff and you can brew one amazing cup of Joe.

We Deserve Better

I watched tonight's Vice Presidential debate with about 12 other folks here at my house. After the debate was over I was left with 2 thoughts: 1) If Barack Obama is elected president and something happened to him Joe Biden could step in within 5 minutes and competently take control of the presidency with no problem. 2) I would not trust the Governor of Alaska to be the mayor of my town of 1,500 people here in Colorado.

I could care less if the Governor of Alaska was a woman, man, minority, whatever . . . but when you have a person who cannot put together a complete sentence that is grammatically correct and that person if elected would be a heartbeat away from the presidency . . . well let's just say that we should all be scared.

Here is a response she gave to a question tonight verbatim:

“I want to talk about again my record on energy versus your ticket’s energy ticket also,” she said. “I think that this is important to come back to with that energy policy plan again that was voted in ’05. When we talk about energy, we have to consider the need to do all that we can to allow this nation to become energy independent.”

The bar was set so low for Governor Palin tonight. The pundits offered up their congratulations to the Governor after the debate because she "did not make any gaffes." Is that what it has come to folks? Have we really lowered our expectations to the point that if the person that would be 2nd in line to the presidency "does not make any gaffes" that they have done a tremendous job and are worthy of our accolades?

Our country is better than that. It really is. And we all deserve better than that. And so do our families, children, friends and even our enemies for crying out loud.

Joe Biden did a superb job tonight. I did not know a whole lot about him to be honest but I can tell you without reservation that I think Obama made a sound choice in picking him as his running mate from his performance tonight.

There are 2 more presidential debates left in the campaign season:

October 7th: Town Hall Format - Nashville, TN (9PM Eas)

October 15th: Domestic Policy - Hempstead, NY (9PM Eas)

I'm Back

It's October folks and Bloggin' for the People is back online. After 5.5 months on hiatus the wait is over! I've got a lot of ideas and a lot in store for the coming months. Fall is in full tilt here in Crested Butte and I will get some pics of the aspens up tomorrow. Campaign season is also in full tilt and I've come across some interesting news of late that I'll get links to in the coming days and weeks.

I had an amazing summer with my better half. We spent 133 days walking from Mexico to Canada via the Pacific Crest Trail. Spent a week in a houseboat in Seattle. Came back to Colorado and hiked 50+ miles of the Colorado Trail from Spring Creek Pass to Molas Pass. Pics to follow in some format or another. I'm considering going the online photo album route with Picasa. Mainly I just need time to upload photos. And time seems to be in short supply these days.

It's good to be back.

Yours, Lawton