Thoughts on Election Day
I just voted.
My polling place was not too crowded. I couldn’t tell a thing from the crowd; their faces were pleasant and inscrutable. Mostly women at this time of day, many with little children.
I find Election Day to be very solemn. Standing in that booth feels portentous, although this time my one little vote seemed so tiny. I waited in the booth—for what, I don’t really know—for quite a few moments before I could tear myself away. Maybe because leaving the polling place means being one step closer to the moment of truth tonight, the time when we’ll know if America has become something quite different (and more leftist, and more the pawns of an MSM that has abdicated its profoundly important duty) than what it used to be.
I’ve described this as a watershed election, and I mean it. The choice is stark and clear, or at least it should be. But since the the polls are so close, my stomach is in an uproar, and I think that feeling will increase come this evening. If I get good news, it will subside. If I don’t…
When I was younger, I cared about the results of presidential elections, but not too deeply. I wanted my guy to win, but if the opponent was the victor instead I thought it would still be okay. The country might go in the wrong direction for a while, but things could easily be righted next time. I was sad when my candidate lost, but the feeling was something akin to when the Red Sox lost the World Series—depressing for a day or two, but then its importance began to fade.
I was a Democrat back then, of course. I never demonized Republicans, though; I knew that Republicans would keep us safe to the best of their ability. Each party had about an equal propensity to make war, and each one was anti-Soviet. The main difference between the parties seemed to involve how much to expand the welfare state, and in those days that prospect didn’t appear to jeopardize our entire economy (maybe that was a misperception, but that’s the way it seemed).
And then came my political change—which also involved paying a lot more attention to politics, and a concomitant deeper emotional investment in them. During the election of 2004, I got really, really nervous. although I ended up relieved when that election ended up going my way by what seemed like a hair.
The same anxiety beset me for a while in 2008. But after the debates that year, I pretty much knew that Obama was almost certain to win. So by the time Election Day 2008 rolled around at least I wasn’t stretched on the rack of hope vs. despair, as I had been in 2004. I had already “accepted” the outcome, although I was very down about it.
But ever since the first debate of 2012, that hope/despair torque has been sharper for me than it was in 2004. Back then my worry was mostly about Iraq and the War on Terror; I didn’t want it to all have been for naught (a secondary concern was to avoid having to watch John Kerry’s insufferable pompousness for four years). Those things seemed bad enough, but the prospect we face in this election is worse, much worse. It’s about our economic recovery and our economic future. It’s about our national and international security. It’s about a Chavez-like threat to the long-held traditions of our republic, the last best hope of mankind.
I’m not making either any sanguine or any morose predictions for tonight’s election results. I simply haven’t a clue what will happen. I don’t even have a hunch. I change my opinion from minute to minute.
In this I think I’m being more honest than most pundits, who also haven’t a clue but whose livelihood depends on pretending they do. Some of them will be proven to have been correct and some wrong. That’s usually the case when there’s a large number of disparate predictions. But which prognostications will turn out to have been right and which in error is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.
Neo, my wife and I feel the same way you feel. A few days ago, you posted that you are slowly grinding your teeth down. Well, we gummed our Frosted Mini Wheats this morning. Our teeth have been ground down to the roots. My gut, besides being a wreck, is expecting either a narrow Obama win or a Romney blowout. We’ll know prety early which it will be.
“I’m not making either any sanguine or any morose predictions for tonight’s election results. I simply haven’t a clue what will happen. I don’t even have a hunch. I change my opinion from minute to minute.”
The MSM has you right where they want you–confused and uncertain. If you want to feel better just ignore the selective reporting and misleading polls. Know that the electorate is just as fired up as they were in 2010.
It’s just after 1:00 pm as I write this after listening to strikingly different predictions from pundits on the right and the left. My personal tea leaves are telling me nothing. My gut says it’s going for Obama, because it’s not beyond him and his ilk to go for whatever dirty tricks they can get away with. My brain says that the “Mitt-mentum” of the past month will push Romney across the finish line with a comfortable lead. So, instead of sitting in front of the TV all day, I am heading out to run errands, work in the yard, take my pup for a walk, stop by the liquor store for some strengthening medicine, and hope for the change Romney and Ryan will bring.
I’ve been very tense and nervous since the weekend. I was heavily invested in the results of the election in 2008, but it seemed a given that McCain was not going to do well, so there was no reason to be nervous about it.
As I’ve mentioned before in comments, I’m not a total changer, just a partial one. I started out rather conservative in my early teen years at the time of the election in 1980. I moved further left during my teen years and twenties, and looked for a reason to stay there, but began to move back towards the more conservative side of the spectrum when Clinton was the Democrats’ nominee.
Anyway, I mention that just to say that the last election day when I can recall feeling any sort of similar anxiety was in 1980 (even though I couldn’t vote), when Reagan ran against Carter. I’m hoping that this one turns out as well as that one did.
The polls are about as reliable as the press. It’s not worth letting them dominate your thinking.
Republican registration forms have been shredded:
The Community Voters Project is a “non-partisan” lefty organization whose mission is to register people to vote, with a particular emphasis on minorities. In the 2008 election, they had offices in 10 states and registered around 300,000 minority voters. So far, so good. This year, however, it seems they aren’t registering everyone who wants to vote. Outside a CVP office in Philadelphia, for example, they shredded and threw away numerous registration forms. A number of these were for people trying to register as a Republican.
I will have a bottle of adult beverages handy. And several cigars. And a bottle of antacids. And then I will sit back and watch the show, serenely convinced that I am as prepared as possible. I already checked – there’s nothing in the prayer book for political victory. Drat.
now navy seals are getting into the act going to confront the black panthers..
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/11/06/Navy-Seals-To-Confront-Black-Panthers
[left calling it a rumor.. ]
Kos
Wingnuts preparing for loss by setting hair on fire
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/06/1156822/-Wingnuts-preparing-for-loss-by-setting-hair-on-fire
Relax.
Just relax.
This one has been in the bag for two years.
Everything you’ve heard from the media is wrong. OR an outright, bold-faced, lie.
Look around you. Nothing has changed since 2010. Well, maybe it’s got a bit worse (if you’re a pessimist: a lot worse).
More – nay, most – Americans know this. Acknowledge this …oh, maybe not publicly …but they feel it in their bones.
Trust your gut, your mind, your eyes …anything but the media. They’re the ones who are deluding themselves (and they’re all so, just, obviously nervous today).
It will be just fine. Even in the early tallies.
Americans aren’t blind …aren’t fooled …and aren’t happy. They see what’s been wrought by this incompetent, foolish ideologue. They were lied to, and they know they were lied to.
They weren’t fooled last election. And even less likely to be fooled this one.
Journalism went off the cliff in such an obvious way this past cycle, that the blinders have been removed (for awhile).
You’re all such truthful, rational people, that you can’t imagine that level of dishonesty could even be in someone who should be representative of the informed, and the objective.
Even when you see it, and have seen it.
You simply don’t want to believe it can be.
It shouldn’t be! But. It is.
Quit with even the half-trust already.
Relax.
We’ve already won.
We’re all Tea Party-ers now
I voted this morning around 10:00 am – No line (there never is during the day as most of my neighbors are immigrants, not citizens); But on my way back home I heard on the radio the news that some folks here in NJ are having a hard time voting.
Gov. Christie issued an order to allow displaced NJ residents to vote by email or fax. A lot of folks are complaining that their email votes are bouncing back with the message “mailbox is full.” I’m not sure how that is going to play out in the courts, if it even gets that far.
On another note, Neo, I do remember when Walter Mondale lost and as he was giving his concession speech, when he mention Reagan’s name a lot of his supporters loudly booed. Mondale chastised them saying that we don’t do that, he (meaning Reagan) is now our president and we want to wish him well because it is for the good of our country that the winner does well.
Sigh, maybe my glasses need to be repaired; but, I don’t see such grace on both sides today (the one side, yes, the other side, no). I’d love to blame Obama, but I think it started before him. If Romney does lose I expect to see the same grace that Mondale showed. If Obama loses, I won’t hold me breathe for such grace. Or maybe, I’m just turning into an ol’ ill-tempered, cantankerous, curmudgeon who expects too much from others?
Neo, voting can be a very satisfying experienc. We moved from Virginia to California in the Spring. Today I reflected on election day in our semi-rural Virginia precinct. Voting was easy, as there was never a long wait, and the early November weather is usually very nice. The electorate were a pleasant bunch (we were heavily Conservative.) Most people were upbeat, and seemed to relish the act of voting. For the last several years, I passed out GOP sample ballots out front. There was no rancor, and occasional good natured interaction between the opposing volunteers. Wonder if it will be the same this year in a closely contested race with so much divisiveness?
In California we voted by mail this fall. Not the same experience at all. I registered when I obtained my Ca driver’s license. My wife refuses to take the test, so she registered–without showing any ID–at a kiosk outside the local Walmart. Isn’t that a wonderful testament on where we are as a democracy?
Just voted. My polling place in the Philly ring suburbs: busier than I’ve ever seen it, no long lines but cars in and out; one very morose old gentleman handing out Dem ballots; Romney signs but no Romney poll watchers (shame on me); more African-Americans than I’ve ever seen voting here; more older white women than I’ve ever seen voting; younger white guys with kids in tow (unemployed?); two earnest young things complaining about the ID law, not knowing that the law being followed has been in place for years. Not much to go on, Neo. But try not to worry.
“The stretch of North and South arous’d–sea-board
and inland–Texas to Maine–the Prairie States–
Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West–the
paradox and conflict… –Walt Whitman, Election Day
From my vantage point as an Israeli Jewish right-winger, this election is about whether the date of the End of Days is to be left in an uncertainty range that could span more than 200 years from now, or whether it is to become sharply definite and crystal clear as “Sometime In The Next Four Years.”
I’m very nervous as well, particularly because my lefty former (retired) partner has been sending me taunts via email and tel calls for the past two weeks and generally showing a lot of preemptive triumphalism. Not to mention that he got me to bet with him on the outcome. The last email from him — yesterday — was to remind me that we are to meet for lunch on Wed. at the “usual place” (a Tex-Mex) in order to settle up.
He’s been been calling me today to further goad, gloat, strut, preen and taunt me (he knows how much this election means to me), but I haven’t been taking his calls and will not even consider listening to his vm messages.
Neo writes:
“It’s about a Chavez-like threat to the long-held traditions of our republic, the last best hope of mankind.”
What does your family, and what do your old friends think of language like that?
Do they reject it as overdrawn despite the constitutionally significant changes we have seen begin to unfold?
Or do they simply shrug and say in effect, “Yeah, maybe, but I like it like that”
DNW: they ordinarily don’t read my blog. Not interested.
Neo you need to move to Texas. There’s not much doubt in my precinct who’s voting for who. In the primaries, the lines were out the building and down the street. Occasionally, the democrat judge would come out and yell “democrats? any democrats? you don’t have to stand in line”
Puzzled looks were exchanged all around, with nobody making a break for the door to escape the sun and 105 heat; this would be followed shortly afterward by hundreds of people erupting into laughter. I guess that qualifies as voter intimidation? I voted early last Tuesday, and I’ve never seen turnout like this in 20 years. 2008, there was no enthusiasm for McCain, and the turnout was light.
I agree this one is a turning point. Certainly the biggest in my lifetime; my first presidential election was 1976. I remember having no clue what who was the better candidate, and voted for Ford because my mother told me Carter was a genius. I didn’t believe he was, but I had no clue to be honest.
So we’ve done our part, now pray the people of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, et. al understand what’s at stake.
I was the 92nd voter at my tiny town’s polling place around 9 this morning. I don’t know how that compares to normal turnout in a Presidential election year, but as we only have about 700 registered voters, I’m guessing it’s pretty high. I have no idea what that might mean. This was historically a Republican town, but that’s been changing lately; we have plenty of Dems in local government, and though Republican national candidates still usually carry the town, they’ve been doing so lately by ever-shrinking margins. So, I don’t know what high turnout might signify, nor do I know how to interpret the cheerful faces and happy demeanor of everybody in the polling place.
It was a nostalgic voting experience. We’ve been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century and have optical scanning now instead of the lovely antique machines we used to have that went KA-CHUNK in such a satisfying way as all the levers you pulled fell home when you opened the curtain, leaving no doubt that you had VOTED. Today, I had to rely on the poll worker who checked something on the machine after I scanned my ballot and told me, “Yup, it took.” But it’s not just that I miss the old machines — this was my last trip to this polling place after more than 20 years of voting here. Though moving here from far away marked me forever as an Outsider, I was nonetheless welcomed today with cries of surprise and pleasure; everybody had seen, or heard about, the moving van parked outside my house last week. (We did move, but not in time for the pre-election deadline for changing my voting address, so I drove a few miles back to my old town to cast my vote.) It was sad to vote for the last time in a place where, as the song goes, “everybody knows your name/ and they’re always glad you came” — no matter which side they might guess that you’re voting for.
Voted this morning early. Two and a half hours in line, mixed crowd here in Charleston, SC, suburban area. I think it’s worth noting that turnout this election measured by the time I spent in line is much lower than the last–four hours plus in 2008. Take it for what it’s worth, but I saw many fewer true believers today.
Well, there was one, but my vote canceled his out.
An admission that polls are fixed:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/11/06/its-now-public-editors-rejigger-polls/
If it is close, it will likely be due to the huge amount of ground work both sides have completed. The fact is that no one cannot feel at least some of the urgency and hype that has been engendered.
Most disconcerting is the possibility of fraud deciding the election, which, of course, a close election provides.
The election could drag on, like Sandy, to an overwhelming ugly end.
I’m going with the rosier prospect. This time, not because I want to-that is always there, but because I do believe the Democrat’s drive to create their own reality (via the polls) has truly convinced a lot of people that the race is closer than it is. Ohio, Colorado, Iowa and one or two of Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire or Pennsylvania go to Romney. Of course, Florida and Virginia go to Romney.
Just voted.
My little town in SoCal is overwhelmingly Democrat and Latino. Almost nobody votes.
Today the polling station was jam-packed–with mostly elderly white people and Asians. There were multiple people in wheelchairs and on walkers. Actual, honest-to-goodness broken-glass voters.
And everybody was HAPPY. The mood was palpably upbeat. Everyone was greeting each other. Culturally, most Chinese immigrants are taciturn when it comes to strangers, but today they were smiling and saying hello.
GOP turnout is heavy. No question. I’m sure we’ll win, but if we don’t we’ll survive. America is bigger than one miserable pissant of a president.
All will be well. You’ll see.
What settles my nerves is the knowledge that the Republicans will take the House and will have veto power in the Senate. If Obama over does it on executive orders , the Republicans can work to win the Senate in two years. The knowledge that the idiots that put Obama in the first time (blacks and young people) have suffered dearly and will suffer some more gives me some comfort. As John Wayne said, “Life is tough, and it’s tougher if you are stupid.”
Colorado has released the early voting numbers and the difference between 2012 and 2008 predicts a great result for Romney. In 2008 it was a D’s up by 1.8%. For 2012, it is R’s up by 3%. That good result does not even take into account the difference in how Independents will vote, which difference is now in Romney’s favor.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/06/Romney-wins-early-voting-Colorado
Neo says,
“It’s about a Chavez-like threat to the long-held traditions of our republic, the last best hope of mankind. ”
DNW asks,
“What does your family, and what do your old friends think of language like that?
Do they reject it as overdrawn despite the constitutionally significant changes we have seen begin to unfold?”
neo-neocon Says:
November 6th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
DNW: they ordinarily don’t read my blog. Not interested.”
No … ok … I didn’t mean that particular blog language. What I was trying to get at is : what’s their take on the general proposition you mooted?
Surely they are aware that there have been under Obama serious and fundamental changes in the citizen’s relationship to the state, and must have some opinion on it.
It seems one would either know or not know. And that in their case they would know. And if they knew, as everyone intelligent by now must, they would have some opinion on, if not the advisibility of making these changes, then the real life significance of making them … which in part amounts to the same thing.
The reason I ask then, is because I assume that that particular group is probably well educated, historically knowledgeable, and probably opinionated.
What I am hoping for (assuming they are Obama supporters) is a look at their rationale; the structure of their logic , and a glimpse into the calculus they employ in weighting “care” versus liberty in constructing a vision of a worthy and worthwhile life and the role and powers of govwernment.
I could of course ask UAW members instead, and have done so in the past. Even walking into crowds of protesters to hear what they had to say. But as you might expect, there was no light to be had there … just announcements revealing asumptions of place and entitlement, of a kind which seemed to have trouble recognizing other people as separate persons, entitled to their own lives.
I would guess that your old friends would be able to offer more sophisticated reasoning as to why they would be willing to trade traditional structures of liberty for whatever it is they think that they are gaining.
What’s important to them, and why isn’t the changing legal predicate?
DNW: I can’t speak for all of them, because we tend not to talk about politics. But my impression from the people I have talked to is that they do not pay attention to the details of what’s happening, unless it’s on NPR on some other very liberal source. Their focus is very much like the people Thomas Sowell describes in the Vision of the Anointed—that Republicans are selfish old bastards, Democrats nice generous people who mean well, and Obama is a wonderful guy and we need to just be patient with him.
Most are quite unfamiliar with the constitutional issues. I don’t know whether they took Government in school and just forgot (and yes, for the most part these are fairly highly educated people), but it just isn’t a tremendous interest of theirs.
Nor was it mine for a long time, although I did go to law school and that forced me to be a lot more attentive.
To give you a glimpse into what I’m talking about, the other day I was having a small political discussion with a few friends. I was trying to summarize Romney’s positions on certain issues (they were repeating Democratic talking points, and I was trying to give out the other point of view) and I mentioned that he’s basically a federalist in a lot of ways. I got blank stares; “What’s a federalist?” And so I explained. A couple of them thoughtfully said, “Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.”
I say this not to put them down. Believe me, I probably didn’t remember the meaning of the word “federalist” either, until I became a blog aficionado and then a blogger, a few years after 9/11. Most people are just busy living their lives, and don’t realize what the threats are. If they did realize, I’m not sure what they’d say. But the few times I’ve tried to explain what Obama has done (and I’ve only tried that with a few close friends), they don’t seem to care, or perhaps they don’t believe me, and they don’t want to read links about it either.
I found the last sentence in this excerpt from Peggy Noonan’s column in yesterday’s WSJ astonishing:
“There is no denying the Republicans have the passion now, the enthusiasm. The Democrats do not. Independents are breaking for Romney. And there’s the thing about the yard signs. In Florida a few weeks ago I saw Romney signs, not Obama ones. From Ohio I hear the same. From tony Northwest Washington, D.C., I hear the same.”
More Romney than Obama yard signs in NW-DC, a.k.a. Democrat-Liberal central? Wow!!! Who would have thunk it?
http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2012/11/05/monday-morning/
I’m with Mr. Frank! At least if Ocrap is re-elected the GOP should control both houses. I am praying and praying and praying that my feeling that Romney will win will be a reality. If not, I may need to run a lot more miles to drain off the frustration. Runners do not tend to talk politics so I should be safe there.
Noonan is a good bellweather. She’ll go whichever way the wind blows.
PS. As sanguine as I pretended to be above, I’m too nervous and can’t concentrate on work. I’m just reading Twitter and Blogs for any and all positive signs. There do seem to be quite a few though.
That’s good news out of Colorado, Curtis. In Nevada, I heard that in early voting, it was D’s up by 7%, but that doesn’t figure independents, of course, and that is also not the whole story. In 2008, Obama won Nevada by 12.5 percentage points, 55.2 to 42.7, but he won early voting by 19 percentage points. What that means is that after early voting, Obama has seen a collapse of 12 percentage points here since 2008, and that still doesn’t figure independents, nor does it account for the fact that more Democrats vote early and more Republicans tend to vote on Election Day.
I said I’d do it, and I did it. I cast my vote for the Dingbat. Now I just want to take a bath.
Rob: you are a man of your word. Now, relax in that tub.
Workers of the world…forgive me
Graffiti on a Karl Marx statue
Moscow, August 1991
Here. From NRO. Spot on!
…which puts what I was trying to say in the more purely political terms that perhaps the political literati of the Right who gather at Neo’s can perhaps better relate to.
The Nevada numbers are very encouraging. I don’t believe Romney will win Nevada but if that much of a shift is shown between 2008 and 2012 in Nevada, then where the state races are close that shift will make Romney the winner for those states. Give a state here are there for fraud or whatever, but the end result is without doubt. Romney wins.
From MyWay website:
Lauren Clay, 28, a doctoral student in disaster science and management, voted for Obama.
“He has a done a really good job given what he was handed four years ago,” she said.
That speaks for itself.
Remind me not to turn to Ms. Clay in the wake of a flood. “Power’s out, no food ,no water…things look good considering where we started!”
Advanced degreees and lots of time studying at university don’t always result in educated.
I have a BS in physics and MS in EE, but in terms of politics, history, economics and the constitution, I’m self taught (well, I learned some history in school, but most on my own).
My small community (around 500 homes) is in SoCal, mostly white and I think mostly Republican. I voted early by mail, but this morning when I went to the community pool for my morning swim, there was a line of people (~12) waiting for the polls at our community center to open.
Curtis wrote: Lauren Clay, 28, a doctoral student in disaster science and management, voted for Obama.
It sounds to me like Lauren Clay is voting out of her own self-interest. After all, someone with degrees in “disaster science and management” stands to do very well with four more years of the disaster known as the Obama presidency.
Ace has two good posts, one on exit polls (worthless) and the other on the real proportion of Republican voters. Did you know that Rasmussen and Gallop found R+1 and R+6 using huge samples? These stats are holding up in early voting reports. Anecdotal evidence exceeds the stats, which is usually the case, still, AtlasShrugs has a great blog on Mitts rally in Pennsylvania last night.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/11/romney-rally-in-pennslyvania-enormous-monumental-gigantic-massive.html
I read a good rebuttal of the Nate Silvers 538 model the other day. Basically, Silver’s model (which has influenced the Intrade and other “market” predictions) relies on the state polls, which polls all project higher Obama turnout than is warranted. And this should be no secret, this disconnect between who is expected to vote and the ration used in the polls.
The elementary school where I mentor is a polling place. Throughout the day the numbers were obviously greater than 2008 and the voters tended to be older as opposed to a younger set 4 years ago. In the precinct where I vote the lines were much longer than 2008 and 2010. I also noticed that the poll workers were scrutinizing voters more closely than I can remember in all my years of voting. What does this mean in my area? I don’t know. But, I am not nervous, instead I am optimistic.
I agree that this is a watershed election. I will lose a great deal of confidence in my fellow Americans if Obama wins by more than 0.1%. My confidence will grow if Romney wins by 5%.
Me too. That’s a big reason why I don’t like early voting, voting by mail, or absentee voting.
Election Day was traditionally a day when Americans from all walks of life came together to do their civic duty. It was something that tied us together as a society. Anything that encourages people to vote at different times contributes to the atomization of society.
carl in atlanta Says:
November 6th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
This is why I want nothing to do with these people.
My dad was born in rural Texas 100 years ago. He told me he could remember the first Republican he ever saw. (Somebody pointed him out.)
“I find Election Day to be very solemn. Standing in that booth feels portentous, although this time my one little vote seemed so tiny. I waited in the booth–for what, I don’t really know–for quite a few moments before I could tear myself away”
Neo- youve stumbled on the ultimate legal suppress-the-vote tool..
Occupy The Booth 2012. Organized in shifts, republicans feigning ballot befuddlement in hopelessly democratic areas could tie up the dem booths all day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubRiLqAbLk4&feature=related
Pregnant paws
Google has a kind of cool election map here btw.
It auto-updates every 2 seconds.
…my finger nails are already gone, so I’m eyeing my toenails.
They’re only slightly worried though.
I think because they’re pretty sure at my age the intervening parts aren’t flexible enough to put them in much danger.
I might surprise them though.
Crap: here instead.
…the toenails were definitely worried by that.
I voted at about 7:30 this morning. Polling place was at least 10 times busier than I’ve ever seen it. Had to wait in line for over a half hour, when usually there’s maybe two people in line ahead of me. Llary mentioned the mood at his polling place was “palpably upbeat.” Felt the same way at mine….well, I admit to contributing to it somewhat, greeting people I knew and getting people to smile.
Also saw a couple of wheelchairs and walkers; broken glassers for sure.