3 October 04
The Beast Is Wounded
It was a disappointing weekend baseball-wise, the last games of the season. The Giants played well for 26 out of the 27 innings in their final set with the Dodgers; alas their spectacular collapse in the bottom of the 9th in yesterday’s game would mean they aren’t going to the playoffs. And the A’s played as if their heart wasn’t in it in their final decisive set with the Angels.
But I’m optimistic about the election, and that more than makes up for baseball disappointment. I didn’t watch or listen to the Thursday’s debate—studying for that evening’s Spanish exam took precedence—but I’ve read through the transcript and have been following the aftermath. It’s clear that the dynamic of the race has changed, and Bush is beatable on his greatest perceived strength, foreign policy. On Daily Kos, kid oakland has a couple of diary entries arguing that George W. Bush is toast. Not that we can afford to be complacent now: far from it. Rather, Bush is in a Catch-22. Bush is losing voters, and needs to run a positive campaign to keep them. But the only card he can play is to make strong negative attacks on Kerry. Bush’s credibility gap is catching up with him, and Kerry is calling him on it.
What most heartens me is the work on the ground, especially in the swing states. We’re mobilized. I think we’re going to see the Democrats pull the biggest get-out-the-vote campaign in history. Completely bottom-up, of course: there are an awful lot of desperate progressives in this country anxious to make a difference. My officemate for one: without even trying very hard, he raised over $3000 to send to Democratic campaigners in three different swing states. Or as kid oakland puts it in his diary, we are the October surprise.
From Kos I gleaned another idea for helping out the campaigners. What these folks need is nutritious food. The volunteers who are spending long hours going door-to-door or working the phone banks would love to see hot, delicious stew or chili come their way: much better than take-out pizza!
A couple of bumper stickers to close with. Somebody spotted a Republicans for Voldemort sticker, and immediately ordered some. Scarily, he
discovered that the sticker appeals to actual Republicans as much as it does to Democrats! As for the second sticker, this one will warm the heart of any editor.
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Most of those polls utilized a base of people who owned a household phone, or had such an account as their primary listed telephone number.
The polls did not take into account folks who rely primarily on cell phones—and in my town, that’s youth and lower income.
Yes, cell phone may come across as a rich person’s toy—but a lot of my acquaintances with fluctuating incomes (student, on-call, seasonal or part time workers) use cell phones and purchased minutes.
And those are the people are not on the pollster’s list.
And I think the Voldemort sticker is such a hoot! We’ve actually been enjoying some of the Kerry/Edwards stickers seen here in the east, though my memory wont be able to reguritate even one to you at the moment.