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“Write-in” laws per state

We don’t want to tell anyone how to vote.  But if you still want to vote for Hillary for president, you can do it in some states.  The site mfoster.com, has a list of write in rules per state.  Check it carefully to make sure your state qualifies.  There are three rules that may present an obstacle:

Rule 1 – Write-in votes will not be counted if the candidate does not file as a write-in candidate.

Rule 2 – Write-in candidates are not allowed in presidential elections.

Rule 3 – A candidate losing the primary cannot file as a write-in candidate in the general election.

My state, New Jersey, does not follow any of these rules, so I will be able to write in Hillary’s name this fall.  Just to make absolutely sure, I will follow up with my local board of elections.  Clip and save.

Matt has another edition of his radio show on tonight at 11:00PM EST.  Tune into blogtalkradio for My Two Cents. Preview: Tonight’s show will respond to the DEATH of Democracy! Reactions: To President Clinton’s speech, and Barack Obama’s speech. Also, a discussion on the un-democratic “roll-call vote”!!!

Special Guests: The Honorable David James Manning, and Denver Group founders Heidi Li Feldman and Marc Rubin!!! Whoa!  Way to go Matt.  Those are good “gets”.

And now for something beautiful.  We’ve all been a little shell shocked in the past couple of days and sometimes we forget that there truly are moments of transcendence.  Here is a lovely example.  Enjoy!

This is an open thread.

Conflucians Say on NOW!

Obama Post-Transcendent Speech MadLib

As we all know, Obama has delivered the most transcendent speech of his short political career coming up this evening. Oh, I know he hasn’t given it yet, but why wait to heap praise on him? Surely, it ranks right up there in the pantheon of speeches for the ages: “I have a dream”, “St. Crispin’s Day”, “A Day that will *LIVE* in infamy”. But how will the media cover this speech of speeches, all nice and crisply displayed by teleprompter, delivered in front of Greek columns as Obama emerges from a nonsequitor section of an old Air Force One? How orgasmic can it get for Tweety and KO? Here’s an old madlib, dusted off an updated for the occasion.

Post Speech Script

_______! Was that ________ or what? Obama just _________ the _________. He was _____ and fresh. That set framed Barack _______ and the Greek columns appear to be ________ his _______. I just felt a ______________ in my __________. What a historic _________. His speech on this anniversary of MLKs speech on _______ was __________, ________, and _________. Hillary could never ________. What an amazingly perceptive grasp he has on __________. Do the voters of _____ see what they have in this guy? His supporters are all so ________ and _________. I think he’s finally put their fears of _____ to rest once and for all. Andrea, you’ve been at local Clinton headquarters. Have her _____ and _______ supporters come to accept that he’s ________? Do you think that her ______ has ruined his ________?

Have at it, Conflucians!

The Trolls Coordinated Attack- In their own words

Here’s what was in the moderation queue. Normally, I wouldn’t post this stuff but it’s pretty clear that the 45 comments that appeared in the moderation queue were part of a coordinated attack. And the IP domain name 67.159.XX.XXX looks like the tag team (yes, there are at least two of them. Wave to JZ!) are using a large common server. I’m doing a domain search right now to figure out if they are using proxy servers or if they can be traced back to, oh, I don’t know, a university department. That seems to be where a lot of Obama trolls originate. But take a look at what they’re up to in their own words. Classy.:

BleeJanus@rr.net | 67.159.45.195 JZ. lets bounce from this channel. Switch more often. every other post From Obama’s “Greek temple” Built by Britney Spears’ Set Designer, 2008/08/28 at 4:31 PM

The Dirt on the Delegate Count

I just got off the phone with Michele Thomas of 300 Delegates and she and John West have some hair raising details about what went on with the roll call vote.  The connection wasn’t great so the details are sketchy but here’s the gist of it:

• The Obama camp went after the swing states.  Guess what?  New Jersey is now considered a swing state.  I’ve been saying this would happen for months.  John McCain could snag this state.  We have a history of electing moderate Republican governors.  Plus we have tax issues and McCain could tie right into that.  If he selects a female VP, it’s all over but the crying.  When you think about it, NJ is a bellwhether state.  It would be the height of irresponsibility for the Democrats to run a candidate who is in danger of losing New Jersey.  He’s got his work cut out for him.  The suburbs and asian community went for Clinton and my asian colleagues are not happy about having to vote for Obama.  I dread the months ahead when he might start making appearances here after the DNC has ignored us for 8 years.  And since Linda Stender is a likely congressional pick up in central NJ, we can expect to see our unoptimized roads clogged more frequently with his entourage.
• Delegates report that they were harrassed by Obama whips shouting at them in the hallways to get in line or their political careers would be over.
• This one is interesting: The Edwards delegates voted in the morning for Edwards to keep faith with their voters but were told that they could change their vote in the afternoon if it was in by 4:30pm.  Some of them were planning to switch to Hillary.  But when they went to change their vote as they were told they could do, they were told that they wouldn’t be able to do it.  The roll call was moved up.  It seems like there was a concerted effort by Pelosi et al to wrap it up as quickly as possible to prevent further defections.

And it all transpired on national TV where the whole world was watching.  I’ve set up a segment of Conflucians Say scheduled for tonight at 8PM EST, 6PM MDT.  We’re going to see if Michele and John can join us.  And you too can call in and tell us if you are onboard Obama’s Love Train.

Obama’s “Greek temple” Built by Britney Spears’ Set Designer

Yes, Conflucians, it’s true.

The same set team that designed Britney Spears’ last tour has constructed the enormous, Greek-columned stage where Barack Obama will officially accept the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday, The New York Post reports.

The set, which was reportedly designed to resemble the White House and Lincoln Memorial, was built inside the 75,000-seat stadium — Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver — under the direction of Bobby Allen, Spears’ former staging manager.

The Republicans are going to have a field day with this one. No wonder some Democratic officials are nervous about Obama’s acceptance speech tonight. They fear their candidate will come across as someone who is more interested in looking like a rock star than a politician who can reach out to the middle- and working-class Democratic voters.

DENVER – Senior Democratic officials are expressing serious concerns about the political risks posed by Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium Thursday evening.

From the elaborate stagecraft to the teeming crowd of 80,000 cheering partisans, the vagaries of the weather to the unpredictable audience reaction, the optics surrounding the stadium event have heightened worries that the Obama campaign is engaging in a high-risk endeavor in an uncontrollable environment.

A common concern: that the stadium appearance plays against Obama’s convention goal of lowering his star wattage and connecting with average Americans and that it gives Republicans a chance to drive home their message that the Democratic nominee is a narcissistic celebrity candidate.

Gee, no kidding. Lots of us ordinary folks have already figured out that Obama is a malignant narcissist who couldn’t care less about average Americans. It’s a little late for “senior Democrats” to be figuring that out; but better late than never, I guess.

The Obama campaign is aware of these concerns.

“It’s likely that the campaign would do it differently if it had to do it again because the decision was made before the European trip,” said a senior Democratic elected officeholder who has worked closely with the Obama campaign. The GOP narrative of Obama as celebrity took root during that trip, where the Illinois senator played to large crowds of adoring Europeans.

Obama campaign officials acknowledged the apprehension Wednesday.

Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. But Obama had better deliver a real humdinger of a speech tonight. After all, since he is so lacking in experience, words are pretty much all he has to offer.

This is an open thread. Pictures provided by our inimitable SM.

Thursday: Democrats in Denver Elect President McCain!

In a show of shmoonity, Democratic delegates from across the country abandoned their voters and threw their support behind Barack Obama.  Arkansas, which Hillary Clinton won by some 70%, turned simple math on its head while New Jersey showed why it is called the densest state in the union when its Governor, who doesn’t know how to use a seat belt, handed over all of its delegates to Barack Obama.  Tony Soprano was not required to break any knees.  There was no overt coercion.  The state that Hillary Clinton won by 10 points over Barack Obama merely handed the delegates over to him with no complaint.  Happily!  “Here you go, Barack, we’re sorry we didn’t have more to give you.  And here’s our lunch money too.  No, no, we are glad to help.  It’s our pleasure.”

Meanwhile, back in the states, the voters were left bewildered.  They frantically searched their memory banks for the outcome of the primary in their state.  They thought for SURE they had voted for Hillary Clinton, sometimes in overwhelming numbers.  Puzzled, they watched their delegates, the ones they had entrusted with their votes and their tax dollars for the primaries that sent them there, boogie down to Love Train.

yay

Well, I guess that’s that then.  We are officially unified!  Everyone is going to form a conga line down to the precinct in November and festively push the button for the one Democratic nominee who has no chance of winning.  And why is that, you ask?  Simple, if the candidate and the party didn’t listen to the voters during the primaries and didn’t listen during the convention, they have no other choice but to listen to them in November.  Otherwise, the voters just sink into learned helplessness and might as well wear gray soviet era clothing and give themselves over to elections as mere formalities.

No, we’re so not into emotional blackmail.  But we *are* into making sure that the people who are partying now have one hell of a hangover in November.

Oh, did I mention we broke a site record today?  Yep, doubled our traffic.  PUMA Power, the post I wrote on June 2, 2008 after the RBC hearing has been viewed more than 40,000 times.  Savvy old ladies are probably emailing it to their friends.  Damn, we should have never encouraged them to surf!  The DNC has made a lot of new PUMAs this week.  And we are just getting started.  Darragh Murphy has plans.  We’re not going away.  We’re just getting started.  Bwahhahahahahahhhh!  Barack Obama is going to have to actually start earning his office.

As for Hillary Clinton, I’ve heard that the party is going to ask her to help them even more because although she was not good enough to be the nominee and although she wasn’t likeable enough to be the VP, her presence on the campaign trail is absolutely vital for Obama’s success.  Remember, it takes a village to elect Obama.

Not sure the voters are going to buy it though.  After all, the world is a big, scary place, Joe Biden thought that Alberto Gonzales was “the real deal” {{snort}}, and we could probably survive John McCain for four years as long as we had majorities in the House and Senate.  That is, if the voters decide to show up.  And after what happened this week in Denver?  Why bother?  If this is a private party, why ask the voters to pony up for the bar tab?

The Love Train is headed into a tunnel where the light coming from the opposite end is another train with a big, bad GOP painted on the side.  I can hardly bear to look.

Owning up to it

Democrats today not only nominated Barack Obama but, they took a certain amount of glee about it. At least publicly. A few television personalities are worried about the “relationship” issues. But, that’s not going to be a problem (Howard Dean assured us.) THIS will be an issues campaign. And Barack Obama is flawless on the issues.

Or it’s resting on the back of the vanquished loser.

My sense is that this election isn’t resting on the “issues.” It’s resting on the Clintons. Apparently, they’ve got more to do if they’re going to successfully carry Barack Obama across the finish line. Speeches? The BEST speeches of the convention — that’s not good enough. We’ve seen their body language and they FAILED. They must do more.

Seriously.

Well, I don’t think they owe Barack Obama another God damn thing.

Did you notice the song they played as President Clinton finished his speech and left the stage? It was mentioned several times in the comments this evening but, myiq2xu said it best:

Playing “Addicted to Love” as the Big Dawg left the stage was the cheapest musical shot I’ve seen since they played “Glory Days” (they pass you by) during a Giants game at Candlestick as they were replacing Greg Minton as the pitcher.

That’s the kind of low blow you expect from the other side.

No respect.

[UPDATE] No UP all Night thread tonight so this is an Open Thread