The Mad Rants of an Unconventional Soccer Mom

Good God! I just checked all the counties that have reported in. The red counties are reported in with at 100%. The blue counties of Lake, Vermillion, and Porter are still reporting in. Barack is only 6,000 votes behind...I think Indiana will go BLUE!!!

Polls start closing in Indiana in ten minutes.  Here is how I think the election will play out:  Obama will win all states won by John Kerry in 2004, in addition to Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Florida, and North Carolina, while narrowly losing Missouri and Indiana.  He can still pull off wins in the Hoosier state, but I'm not going to hold my breath.  I'm guessing that the wins will translate into a popular vote win of about 6%. 

For the Senate races I think that the Dem will come up just short of their goal of 60 seats, picking up eight.  I think they will pick up Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, North Carolina and (cross my fingers) Al Franken in Minnesota.  There's also a very good chance that there will be a December special election in Georgia, where a runoff election is held in the event that no candidate receives 50 percent plus one of the vote.

In the House I'm sure that the Dems will make more big gains.  We'll end up with more than a 100 seat majority. 

Time will tell!!!

I have waited such a long time for this day. I made calls.  I canvassed. I donated time and money.  I argued my case for an Obama presidency to friends and family.  I fought back against smears.  I waited in line for two hours on a Saturday morning in Indiana to cast my vote...which is nothing.  Lines last night in Florida were eight hours long.  I would have stood there througout the night if need be.  It's worth a wait in line to change the world.

By the end of this day, we should know who our next president is. Hopefully our long, long national nightmare is coming to an end.

I do have two pieces of advice for tonight if you are waitching any coverage.  Number One: any time one of the pundants mention an exit poll stick your fingers in your ears and scream la,la,la as loud as possible.  The exit polling today will be wrong. It will reflect who is voting today, but not reflect the totality of the race.  Many people voted early.  I am sure they have thought of ways to deal with that, but I have little faith in it after 2004.  Number two:   watch when voting ends in Georgia, Indiana and Virginia. If Barack wins any of the three, he could be on his way to a big victory.  My prediction is that he will win Virginia.  I think Georgia would be a stretch, but if he can pull off a win in Indiana...that would be icing on the cake for me!  Without these eastern states McCain doesn't really have a chance since Barack has clear leads in the red states of Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa and Nevada.   
 

Kudos to the law enforcement for putting a stop to these psychos before anyone was hurt.

WASHINGTON — Two white supremacists allegedly plotted to go on a national killing spree, shooting and decapitating black people and ultimately targeting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal authorities said Monday.

In all, the two men whom officials described as neo-Nazi skinheads planned to kill 88 people _ 14 by beheading, according to documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, TN. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

It kills me that these people exist at all. According to Kenneth, who knows way too much about Nazis, 14 represents the 14 words written by David Lane: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." I guess it is the code they live by. 88 means Heil Hitler -- H is the 8th letter in the alphabet.

And if this isn't all sick enough:

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville ATF field office, said the two men sought to go on a national killing spree that included an unnamed African-American school, with Obama as their final target.

These sick assholes wanted to decapitate children for being black! How does anyone hate this much? There is no good in these people. They are pure evil. And even though their plot was foiled, I still kind of want them to fry. It's the rare crimes like this that make me keep from demanding the death penalty be banned altogether.

I really don't know how the Obama family does it. Especially Michelle. I would be spending my day paralyzed with fear that I would lose my husband and the father of my children to some nutjob. It's remarkable that when she was asked about it during the primaries she said: "You can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen." They are simply amazing people.

The end of the Bush era will soon be here.  If you would like to give him a piece of your mind, check this out.  Some of them are really hilarious.

"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."

Paul David Wellstone

He was a great man who believed in the power of ordinary individuals.  His measuring stick was not the poll numbers, or the editorial pages, or the political pudits blathering away on tv -- it was the farmers, the students, the seniors, the people of this country.  He fought hard for what he believed in -- the environment, labor, and health care.  He made the fight for rights of victims of domestic abuse and the mentally ill the focus of his career.

I think, in large part because of Paul, that it is easier to be a liberal today, to be a progressive, to be proud. But back when Paul was fighting against Bush Senior over the Gulf War and then Junior over the latest clusterf#&@, it wasn't. Lliberalism was a dirty word and liberalism in defense of peace was mocked as unpatriotic and treasonous.  The crys against liberalism are still there but, today they are faint.

I know he would have been so proud of the campaign that Barack has run and I'm sure he would have been one of his loudest and proudest of his supporters.  I can just picture him touring around Minnesota in his green bus.  But unfortunately, he died just 11 days before election day in a crucial race to maintain Democratic control of the Senate in 2002.   In a fair world, today we'd be watching Paul Wellstone head towards his fourth term in the U.S. Senate.  What I can only hope for now is that Al Frankin will absolutely crush Norm Coleman.