2004 vs 2008

[ldzppln]

A few interesting comparisons between the two elections - there are plenty more to be made, of course, but I'm just picking out a handful that jump out at me.

The United States of America
2004: Bush beats Kerry 51/48, with 121.1 million votes cast.

2008: Obama beats McCain 53/46, with 120.4 million votes (and counting) cast.

Virginia
2004: Bush beats Kerry 54/46, 3.17 million total votes cast.

2008: Obama beats McCain 52/47, 3.43 million total votes cast. (with 99% of precincts reporting)

Colorado
2004: Bush beats Kerry 52/47, 2.10 million total votes cast.

2008: Obama beats McCain 53/46, 2.07 million votes cast (with 92% of precincts reporting)

Indiana
2004: Bush beats Kerry 60/39, 2.45 million votes cast.

2008: Obama beats McCain 50/49, 2.71 million votes cast (with 99% of precincts reporting)

Bush won by 21 points in 2004, and Obama wins in 2008?

Pennsylvania
2004: Kerry beats Bush 51/49, 5.73 million votes cast.

2008: Obama beats McCain 55/44, 5.77 million votes cast (with 99% of precincts reporting)

An increase in margin of victory by the democrats of 9 points. And we were supposed to believe that Pennsylvania was a battle ground state? How much time & money did the McCain campaign pour into PA only to lose by 11 points?

[rich76]

now we'll be subjected to your "kick 'em while they're down" barrage of assinine posts?

[hork]

In all honesty, I'm not sure McCain lost this election as much as A) Obama won, or B) Bush and Palin lost it for him.

As for places like VA, NC, CO, and IN, we have to remember the trends don't necessarily reflect a change in folks opinions as much as it represents a change in the overall demographics of those states. The NE continues to undergo a mini-exodus and in doing so is changing the face of what we've come to expect. And we can't forget the motivation displayed by the youth, who in my opinion deserve a huge pat on the back for taking the initiative to get involved and throw away the stereotypical apathy we've come to expect from young folks.

But truth is, if real progress isn't made within 2 yrs everything could easily sway the other way. So now is not the time to rejoice. It's essential to refocus and start to push out some of the progressive agenda we've heard so much about.

Now that's not to say a little joy can't or shouldn't be taken in the results. Aside from the amazing historical relevance (I mean really, 50 yrs ago black folks couldn't even drink from the same water fountains as us and were being tormented and killed just for thinking about voting) of this election (a fact I hope is not lost on anyone), we finally have a real chance at new direction and genuine hope for something better. Let's just hope we're not completely let down.

[tymy]

Originally Posted by rich76

now we'll be subjected to your "kick 'em while they're down" barrage of assinine posts?

Rich, like I told both of my first time voters, one of two things will happen. Either Obama will improve things over the next four years or the Republicans will take control again in four years. Which ever the case, never think your vote did not matter. Voting is not about "picking the winner", like it is in high school when you vote for class president (wonders how many first time voters that Ken is so proud of treated this election like they were still in high school?) but rather voting for who you think will better serve our country.

Time will tell...........no doubt he has one helluva a mountain to climb.

[P562045]

Originally Posted by ldzppln

The United States of America
2004: Bush beats Kerry 51/48, with 121.1 million votes cast.

2008: Obama beats McCain 53/46, with 120.4 million votes (and counting) cast.

I thought we were supposed to be getting a historic record turnout because of Obama of course.

Originally Posted by hork

In all honesty, I'm not sure McCain lost this election as much as A) Obama won, or B) Bush and Palin lost it for him.

As for places like VA, NC, CO, and IN, we have to remember the trends don't necessarily reflect a change in folks opinions as much as it represents a change in the overall demographics of those states. The NE continues to undergo a mini-exodus and in doing so is changing the face of what we've come to expect. And we can't forget the motivation displayed by the youth, who in my opinion deserve a huge pat on the back for taking the initiative to get involved and throw away the stereotypical apathy we've come to expect from young folks.

But truth is, if real progress isn't made within 2 yrs everything could easily sway the other way. So now is not the time to rejoice. It's essential to refocus and start to push out some of the progressive agenda we've heard so much about.

Now that's not to say a little joy can't or shouldn't be taken in the results. Aside from the amazing historical relevance (I mean really, 50 yrs ago black folks couldn't even drink from the same water fountains as us and were being tormented and killed just for thinking about voting) of this election (a fact I hope is not lost on anyone), we finally have a real chance at new direction and genuine hope for something better. Let's just hope we're not completely let down.

No one like me can really put a real dose of reality into this election quite like me.

Now as a person may have noticed I was the one that came right out and said McCain would lose starting in mid April and this was even before I knew who his opponent would be.

Now I gave several reasons why I thought this way and one of them was that Obama was basically going to outspend McCain by a very large margin.

Now of course we should not focus on this because it could appear that Obama has just bought this election.

Another reason I gave was that McCain was not going to be able to convince the extreme right part of his party to vote for him no matter what he said.

Now as we all should know McCain found one of the weirdest extreme right wingers he could possibly find to be his running mate and that did not even get the group I just mentioned to vote for McCain.

The democrats base that does go out and vote will not go out and vote for McCain no matter what. They would rather just not vote than do something like that.

People want us to get out Iraq consequences be darned. And did we discuss these consequences as a people during this extremely long campaign.

People so want Washington to change. This is extremely unlikely to happen though.

I was listening to the two most famous voices on WABC in New York starting at noon along the east coast on the radio yesterday and both of them are hell bent to say no to just about anything this congress proposes.

The intensity of the debate may far exceed the discussion about comprehensive immigration reform last year. And this will be about even the pettiest of stuff sort of like when William wanted a race track at the White House a little less than sixteen years ago and that had awakened the minority in congress to say heck no to even something like that.

This almost getting to 60 in the senate is actually going to be the downfall of any meaningful change in Washington anytime soon. This could change starting in 2011 but the voices against this congress coming up are going to be about as loud as a minority in the congress has been in quite some time.

The most fascinating thing at least from my perspective will be will we getting out of Iraq when Obama says he wants us out of Iraq. I think that this may even be in doubt because this will be seen as a victory for the democrats. Democrats have been telling us for how many years now of their great desire to get us out of Iraq. The other thing about this is I would not be surprised if republicans start asking the very question I mentioned earlier about the consequences of us getting out of Iraq to early. And don't think for a second that Iraq is this wonderful place all of sudden and part of the reason is that there have been very low casualties in Iraq the last few months. Iraq is a still a very fragile place just by the mere fact of its neighbors.

I can not wait for Obama's reasons to get us out of Iraq. It will not be the same reasons why we went into Iraq in the first place but Obama darn well better sound very convincing to people on why we should get out Iraq. But if Obama does this he will be sounding like the president we have now. The only real difference is that Obama's list of reasons will be to get us out of Iraq.

I have noticed something about democrats for the last twenty years. The arguments for what they want to happen are usually about as convincing as McCain should not be president because he can not use a computer; and of course he is to old.

This is just part of the reason why democrats are so eager to get there agenda back on track. Well they have controlled congress for almost two years now and much of their agenda back in 2006 has not been accomplished yet. The most famous example of course was two years ago democrats in the congress promised that we would be mostly out of Iraq by now.

Just remember this is coming from a person that said McCain would lose this presidential election over six months ago.

[P562045]

Obama has been giving people unreasonable expectations that he can not keep throughout this campaign. McCain did this as well and the one that always jumped out at me at the time was he would not raise people's taxes.

These unreasonable expectations that people have about Obama and his ability to bring meaningful change to Washington is a recipe for a not so pleasant experience for Obama if he can not deliver on his promises to the people and voters.

So just days after he was elected Obama wants to lower the expectations people should have of what he can do in Washington as president.

I just gave the reason why in my previous post.

Of course it takes time to fix the mess we are in that is a little over seven years in the making.

But we very much live in a society that demands things happen much more quickly than in the past.

The magical 60 is on the line here.

Because I would not want to have to go find my thread about what this particular congress has been doing for almost two years now.

The mess that the republicans have created for themselves the magical sixty should have been no problem for democrats.

Another reason for this is that there were many more republican seats up in the senate in this particular election.

Now I must ask this rather basic question about Obama. What evidence do people have that Obama can get republicans to come around to his way of thinking? Because as it stands now if the democrats are going to get all of there little desires passed in the next few years at least a few republicans in the senate are going to have to go along with what the majority says.

So sorry for wrapping a wet blanket around this historic election but people need to realize what I have been saying in this post and my previous post to this one as well.

I have watched C-SPAN from almost the very first day it was on television.

And I have learned one thing from over twenty years of watching this particular television station it reminds me of the old saying that is so true when talking about Washington the more things change the more they stay the same.

I want to mention one other thing about what I just mentioned. When things do change in Washington I have noticed in my other thread about what this particular congress has been doing for almost two years now there is one thing missing in that particular thread. The positive comments from people that this idea or that idea was a really good for the people as a whole.

So sorry to be such a cold dose of reality but when I read this article in the New York Times today I asked myself a very basic question. Why would Obama just days after being the president elect want to lower people expectations of him and what he can do as actually do as president going forward? I have tried to explain the very reasons why this is the case in this post and another part of the reason why is in my previous post as well.

So why would Obama want to lower people expectations of what he can actually do as president.

[P562045]

How could I forget the Mrs. Clinton factor?

Remember her if Obama is around for eight years Mrs. Clinton will be almost 70 by the time 2016 comes around.

She sounded old and bitter when she was barely in her sixties.

There is something odd. Democrat base still came out and voted for their elected officials even though they have not delivered what they promised back in 2006.

There were several major themes a couple of years ago change is needed well I guess to this day despite the democrats running the congress for almost two years now it is still needed two years latter, republicans are evil, we will be out of Iraq by now.

Well I guess the republicans are still evil now no matter what they do.

[ldzppln]

Originally Posted by P562045

I thought we were supposed to be getting a historic record turnout because of Obama of course.

We're up to 122.6 million votes now, and still counting.

The question is, where are all the votes up there in Alaska? In the 2004 presidential election, there were a total of 311,808 votes cast. In 2008, with an Alaskan on the ticket and a heated Senate race, we've only counted 216,688 votes. That's 95k, or 30% fewer votes counted in 2008. Are there 95k+ votes yet to be counted? Could nearly 1/3 of the votes have been cast by absentee ballot? Convicted felon Ted Stevens is ahead by 3,353 votes, but with nearly 1/3 of the votes not yet counted, that lead could easily evaporate and turn into a lead for his not-a-convicted-felon challenger.

[P562045]

Originally Posted by ldzppln

The United States of America
2004: Bush beats Kerry 51/48, with 121.1 million votes cast.

2008: Obama beats McCain 53/46, with 120.4 million votes (and counting) cast.

Originally Posted by ldzppln

We're up to 122.6 million votes now, and still counting.

So we have counted just over two million votes in the last two days?

Now I know that Oregon has a mail in a persons vote type of system but the number of votes I just sited seems extremely high to me.

At least we are at historic record level of votes cast now. But we still need another 5-7.3 million more votes to count if we are going to get what some media outlets said was the extremely high end of the number of votes people were going to cast in this presidential election.

Where is ACORN when you need them?

[ldzppln]

We're up to 123.9 million votes counted.

Still wondering why Alaska appears to be missing ~90k ballots. The vote count totals have hardly budged since I posted about the numbers a few days ago. It doesn't make a lot of sense - could voter turnout in Alaska really be down 30% from four years ago, even with an Alaskan on the Republican ticket?

[ldzppln]

Found a write-up on the Alaska vote count - it seems there are ~81k ballots yet to be counted.

Alaska's voting turnout puzzling
LESS THAN '04? Total isn't in yet but appears below expectations.

Did a huge chunk of Alaska voters really stay home for what was likely the most exciting election in a generation?

That's what turnout numbers are suggesting, though absentee ballots are still arriving in the mail and, if coming from overseas, have until Nov. 19 to straggle in.

The reported turnout has prompted commentary in the progressive blogosphere questioning the validity of the results. And Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore, who usually works with Democrats, said Friday that "something smells fishy," though he said it was premature to suggest that the conduct of the election itself was suspect.

With 81,000 uncounted absentee and questioned ballots, some of which will be disqualified, the total vote cast so far is 305,281 -- 8,311 fewer than the last presidential election of 2004, which saw the largest turnout in Alaska history. That was the election where Alaska's selection of George Bush for a second term was a foregone conclusion, though there was an unusually hot Senate race between Sen. Lisa Murkowski and former Gov. Tony Knowles.

Four years later, the lead-in for the 2008 election was extraordinary:

• Unheard of participation in the Democratic caucuses and strong Republican interest in theirs as well.

• A huge registration drive by Democrats and supporters of Barack Obama that enrolled thousands of first-time voters.

• Obama's historic candidacy.

• Gov. Sarah Palin's unprecedented bid for vice president as an Alaskan and a woman.

• A race in which Republican Ted Stevens, a 40-year Senate veteran, was facing voters as a recent convicted felon against Anchorage's popular mayor, Mark Begich, a Democrat.

• A Congressional race in which Republican Don Young, in office almost as long as Stevens, was seeking re-election after a year in which he spent more than $1 million in legal fees defending against an FBI investigation of corruption involving the oil-field services company Veco Corp. Young's opponent, Democrat Ethan Berkowitz, had been filmed on the state House floor in 2006 demanding an end to Veco's corrupt practices weeks before the FBI investigation became known. The news clip played over and over as legislators and then Stevens were indicted and convicted, boosting Berkowitz's status.

"Everyone had a reason to vote," said Shannyn Moore, whose blog on one of the most popular liberal Web sites in the country, the Huffington Post, suggested the Alaska election was "stolen."

"Then people were what, listening to the news and couldn't pull away from their TVs to go vote at the last minute?"

Even conservatives appeared to be short counted, Moore said. The latest tally showed that the McCain-Palin ticket had almost 55,000 fewer votes than Bush-Cheney in 2004, she said.

Moore's blog, posted Thursday, has already been reposted or commented upon around the Internet. But even Democratic Party officials are saying she's jumping the gun.

"Nobody is charging 'shady,' " said Bethany Lesser, spokeswoman for the Alaska Democratic Party. But she said she's also confused about why more Republicans didn't support Palin, let alone Democrats coming out for Obama, Begich and Berkowitz.

"When I look at that vote, where are the people who are her people?" Lesser said.

While Democrats were charged up by Obama's candidacy and volunteered to help in Alaska, some of that effort was redirected after Palin's nomination, when it became obvious that Alaska would vote strongly Republican for president. Lesser said that Obama volunteers in Alaska spent time telephoning voters in swing states like North Carolina and Ohio rather than spend all their time getting out the vote in Alaska.

One volunteer, Jane Burri, said she was asked to address postcards to swing state voters in between registering Alaskans to vote while she attended an Obama rally in Anchorage in October.

"I remember I wrote, 'It's a really cold day in Alaska but we're sitting out there, writing to you, because we need your help,' " Burri said. She wrote that Alaska, with only three electoral votes, didn't amount to much, "but your vote counts."

Moore, the Anchorage pollster, had predicted a victory for Begich and Berkowitz, as did David Dittman, who usually polls for Republicans.

Moore said he's seen anecdotal evidence of both strong support for Democrats, and also low turnout at the polls, so he's waiting for the final count before reaching any conclusions.

Still, with the increase in registration and population since 2004, the total vote this year should have been around 330,000 to 340,000 had it been just an ordinary election, Moore said

"Given that interest in this election could not, under any circumstances, have ever been greater this year than it was in other years, it's almost inconceivable to imagine that the number of votes cast would drop" from 2004, he said. "It smells to me like you had a really, really, really weird turnout where all the Palin mothers and all the Ted Stevens supporters came flooding en masse out of the woodwork to make a point, and the Dems somehow sat on their hands and enjoyed the presidential news as it filtered up from the Lower 48 through the day."

Dittman says that seems to have been what happened, though it probably wasn't Democratic Party members who stayed home -- rather independents who may have been leaning that way because of the corruption charges against Young and Stevens.

Polls published just before the election that suggested strong victories for Begich and Berkowitz, plus cold weather and warnings of long lines at polling places, might have suppressed turnout, Dittman said.

"They didn't see any reasons to endure," he said.

McHugh Pierre, a spokesman for the Republican Party, said Republicans also had reason to not show up.

"A lot of people were torn: How do I morally vote for someone who is guilty of seven felonies?" he said, referring to Stevens' conviction a week before the election. "They don't show up to vote."

Director Gail Fenumiai of the Alaska Division of Elections said someone sent her Moore's blog, but she hadn't had a chance to read it -- she's too busy organizing the effort to count the absentee ballots and the review panels that will look at the questioned ballots. She urged patience before making a judgment on the election process.

"People just need to wait until the last ballot is counted," Fenumiai said.

[ldzppln]

1, 2, 3, 4....

It looks like the US Senate will house one less convicted felon in 2009. Praise the LORD the good people of Alaska (well, the educated ones) had enough sense to vote out convicted felon Ted Stevens.


Stevens falls further back in Alaska Senate count

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, a stalwart of Alaska politics who was convicted of felony charges last month, fell further behind his Democratic rival Friday, and most remaining ballots come from parts of the state that have favored the challenger.

Mark Begich, the two-term mayor of Anchorage, increased his lead from 814 votes to 1,022 as state election workers counted 17,100 ballots. Begich had 47.4 percent of the vote to Stevens' 47.0 percent.

"With the gap widening slightly in our favor today, I feel even more optimistic that when all the ballots are counted next week, we'll see Alaskans came out to vote for new leadership in Washington, D.C.," Begich said in a statement.

The 25,000 remaining votes will be counted Tuesday. They come mostly from Anchorage and the surrounding area, where Begich is leading, and from the state's southeastern panhandle, where he was doing even better.

Stevens, 84, is seeking his seventh term in the Senate, where he has served since 1968. He's renowned for bringing federal funding home to Alaska — as well as for wearing his Incredible Hulk tie when the going gets rough in Congress.

But last month he was convicted by a federal jury in Washington, D.C., of lying on Senate disclosure forms to conceal more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from an oil field services company.

About 5,000 of the votes tallied Friday came from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough north of Anchorage, a conservative area home to Gov. Sarah Palin. Stevens has been leading in that area by a margin of 2-to-1. Also counted were votes from the interior city of Fairbanks and surrounding areas, where Stevens has a slight lead, and the vast Alaska Bush, where Begich is winning easily.

Even David Dittman, a pollster who has worked for Stevens, said his friend's chances were extremely slim. He said many of the votes now being counted were cast before Stevens returned from his trial and began to campaign personally, which helped him in the polls.

"That doesn't change anything for all those votes that were cast earlier," he said.

Absentee ballots went out Oct. 14; Stevens was convicted Oct. 27.

Statewide, about 8,500 of the remaining votes are questioned ballots, known elsewhere as provisional ballots. They are most commonly cast by people who are voting away from their home polling places.

Ivan Moore, an Anchorage pollster who has worked for Democrats, said those voters tend to be younger, single and more likely to vote Democratic.

"I just don't see a significant bloc of votes that's remaining for Ted to get him back into this," Moore said.

Stevens' campaign didn't return calls seeking comment.

[ldzppln]

It's all but over for convicted felon Ted Stevens.

Begich claims victory over Stevens for Alaska Senate seat

(CNN) -- Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, the Republican lawmaker convicted on felony corruption charges in October, appears to have lost his bid for re-election to Democrat Mark Begich, according to a release from Begich's campaign and unofficial results from state officials.

The statement and results Tuesday come two weeks after the election, after absentee ballots were counted.

With 100 percent of Alaska's precincts reporting, Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, had roughly 47.7 percent of the vote, compared with about 46.6 percent for Stevens, according to unofficial results posted on the Alaska Secretary of State's Web site.

He appears to have bested Stevens by 3,724 votes, according to the posted results.

Alaska elections Director Gail Fenumiai said 2,500 overseas ballots remain to be counted.

She said officials hope to make an official announcement during the week of December 1 -- and that Stevens would then have five days to request a recount.

Stevens, who turned 85 on Tuesday, was convicted in October of filing false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. Prosecutors said Stevens hid hundreds of thousands of dollars in "freebies" from an oil-field services company in his home state.

On Tuesday, his fellow Senate Republicans postponed a vote they had planned on whether to kick Stevens out of their caucus pending the final vote results.

Stevens maintained his innocence even after the conviction. At a debate days before the election, he said he had "not been convicted of anything."

In his statement claiming victory, Begich said he was "humbled and honored" by the apparent results.

"It's been an incredible journey getting to this point, and I appreciate the support and commitment of the thousands of Alaskans who have brought us to this day," he said in the written statement. "I can't wait to get to work fighting for Alaskan families."