Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Notes on my early voting experience

• Waited about 50 minutes at my early polling place, the Naperville Municipal Center.
• It’s one of 15 early polling sites in my county, Dupage in Illinois, a part of suburban Chicago. County population is about 900,000. A poll worker said they’ve seen about 10,000 early voters at just that location since Oct. 13.
• The county is using Diebold machines. Each operates independently—not hooked up to any server. Storage cards will be removed on Nov. 4 at poll closing time for the state, and added to the election day totals. (I asked a lot of questions.)
• I was worried about minor identity mismatches. I filled out an “application to vote,” a half sheet of paper required so there was something to sign since they don’t have the big rolls available during early voting. Not sure if my voter registration included my middle name, I asterisked the space where I printed my name and mentioned in a footnote that sometimes I omit the middle initial. Turns out I had registered to vote without including the initial, and it didn’t matter; they allowed me to scribble it out on the form, since the signature, photo and birthdate all checked out.
• I don’t remember having to show ID when I’ve voted before. It must be something new. Also don’t recall ever seeing a “No cell phones” sign before.
• I saw a lot of happy faces in line. It seemed odd for a public place full of strangers. I don’t think I’m projecting but their mood seemed to reflect my own—kind of an excited anticipatory feeling, the way you feel when you’re keeping a birthday surprise. Of course, there were some resentful faces in the crowd, and they were attached to bodies that tended to be older, sleeker and better-dressed. Draw your own conclusions.

Let’s hear just a little about neocon foreign policy in the last days

The economy’s meltdown has been a ghastly godsend for Barack Obama’s campaign, and it doesn’t seem like a very good idea to change a subject that seems to be working. In the final days of the campaign, though, sometimes I wish we would hear a few more reminders about our occupation of Iraq, and about the kind of shoot-first commander-in-chief that John McCain would become.

Think Progress points to a Der Spiegel interview with Robert Kagan, the neocon McCain advisor who was a signatory to the 1998 letter (.pdf file) to Bill Clinton urging regime change in Iraq. 

Matt Duss, the Think Progress writer, picks out the astonishing part of the interview with the German newspaper. In response to a question about the Bush administration’s dishonest rationalization for invading Iraq, Kagan says characterizing it in that way is “a silly conversation” and “absurd conspiracy theories.”

SPIEGEL: Isn’t it true that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld took advantage of the outrage over the 9/11 terrorist attacks to strike Iraq? Is it even possible anymore to deny that the war was based on manipulation, exaggeration and flat-out lies?

Kagan: That’s absurd.

SPIEGEL: It’s a commonly held view…

Kagan: The Bush administration’s intelligence on Iraq was the same as the Clinton administration’s, the German government’s and the French government’s before the war. We now know that Saddam wanted the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction—and the world did.

SPIEGEL: But, unlike Washington, both Paris and Berlin did not want to go to war without UN approval. And the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna asked the United States—unsuccessfully—for a few more months to complete its investigation in Iraq. But the US wanted this war for strategic reasons.

Kagan: In retrospect, we have to admit that Washington could have waited a while longer. That’s a different question. But I think it’s about time we moved beyond this silly conversation and these absurd conspiracy theories. There is a real debate as to whether we should have gone to war in Iraq. And now we should have an intelligent discussion about the new challenges we face in Iraq and elsewhere.

It’s so crazy and disrespectful to hear these guys continuing to pretend they didn’t have a clear aim in mind from day one and concocted a case to fit the aim. Most Americans and most of the world know that much of the justification for invasion was a fiction, and still they try to con us. They must think we’re idiots. When I see the word “neocon” it’s the con part that rankles.

Also check out ThinkProgress’s McCain war cabinet. You want more neocon foreign policy? McCain’s your guy.

Obama talks mostly about more of the same George Bush economic policy. I can’t think I’m alone in being even more frightened by more of the same George Bush foreign policy.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

John McCain in 2001

“I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief.”

— John McCain‘s May 26, 2001 statement on the Senate floor.

The St. Petersburg Times/Congressional Quarterly’s Politifact.com site gives the position modification a “full flop.” I wonder if he regrets selling out. I think he must by this time.

Obama tax calculator

A simplified version of the calculator is embeddable. I missed it when I wrote about it yesterday.

It’s made with Clearspring.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Obama’s tax proposal: a little perspective

If you’re arguing with undecided voters about the socialism charge leveled by the McCain campaign against Barack Obama’s tax proposal, give them a little historical perspective and explain it’s a tiny tweak—not the huge deal McCain seeks to make of it.

Obama proposes to raise the top marginal rate to 39%—up from 35%. Note that the top rate hovered around the 90% mark all during the 1960s and stayed up in the 70% range throughout the 1970s.

The McCain campaign can try to make spreading the wealth into a mountain of an issue, but it’s not. It’s a small change. It won’t threaten the fabric of democracy.

Ask your disputants to enter their income into Obama’s tax calculator. See how they’ll be affected.

The Obama campaign should have made the calculator into an embeddable widget. I’ll take a look at it tonight and see if I can pluck it out.

My inauguration countdown widget continues to be a relative hit by my modest standards, getting 300,000 views so far this month. It seems like a very long time since I made it over the Christmas holidays last year. It has been fun to see it show up on other people’s blogs. Since the widget is available as a Google gadget, it’s been especially well patronized by Blogger bloggers.

Whatever will we talk about and think about when this is all over next week? Maybe some of us will stay involved and channel our interest into making things better and more just.