I went to bed around 1 AM on Election Night (well, the morning after Election Night if you want to be precise).  I probably could have gone to bed after the networks called Ohio and, if I had listened to pollsters, I could have gone to bed long before that.  I’m more excited for President-Elect Obama’s term to start than I have been about any other president’s term starting.  (That’s not saying much, though.  I was born during the Clinton years and the first election I remember was Bush’s first term).  A lot has been written about how historical this election has been and how amazing his term will be, so I doubt I can top the experts, but this is my take on this election, devoid of hyperbole.

Going into election night, I was cautiously optimistic.  During election night, I was overjoyed.  And now I’m back to cautiously optimistic.  A lot hinges on this next term - Supreme court justices, tax policy, the war in Iraq, and economic policy.  The promises made in a campaign are never promises to enact legislation; they’re promises to try.  By the time the promises get on paper, they become subject to political realities.  That’s why it’s not enough for a candidate to win the presidency.  They have to win decisively or they’re dead in the water.

The President-Elect has won decisively but I’m still worried.  Yes, this win is historic.  I still wake up every morning and I’m proud of the progress we’ve made.  But we’ve only made the first step.  The Republicans are in minority, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be a quiet minority.  No, the ones who are left are the most conservative wackos of their party and they will give the President-Elect no end of trouble.

In other words, we have a couple weeks of happiness and marveling in the amazing step the country has taken.  But then, as Jed Bartlett would say, “Break’s over.”

Hello everyone.  Yeah, yeah, I haven’t written lately.  I’m working on that.  Indeed, it will probably be easier to write after the election.

If you want good election coverage, I suggest NBC if you must watch one of the news networks (CNN would be alright if Wolf Blitzer could speak in a complete, fluid sentence).  For great online coverage, check out pollster.com and fivethirtyeight.com, as well as the websites for the major news networks.  Pollster.com is great because they will show the calls of all the major networks and the AP as they happen.

Have a great election night!

The Vice Presidential debate is tonight and the Republicans are already looking for a way to cover in case Palin doesn’t deliver.  The moderator is a woman so they won’t be able to whine about the sexist coverage in the media and the moderator is a fair, unbiased journalist - a characteristic which drives Republicans crazy…with annoyance.

They’ll probably try to whine about the “gotcha” questions.  They have a problem though.  Not every question for which the candidate does not have an adequate answer is a “gotcha” question.  And not having good answers doesn’t endear the candidate to anyone with a middle school education.

So now they’re fixated on the moderator, Gwen Ifill.  I’ve written before about how I’m a big fan of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, for which Ifill is a correspondent.  PBS is about as fair as they come and I’ve always appreciated their philosophy, characterized by this Jim Lehrer quote:  ”..I am not in the entertainment business.”  But the McCain campaign has fixated on a book that Ifill is writing called The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

First of all, no one has actually read the book, so it’s not fair to jump to conclusions based on manufactured information.  All we have is an Amazon.com book summary:

“In The Breakthrough, veteran journalist Gwen Ifill surveys the American political landscape, shedding new light on the impact of Barack Obama’s stunning presidential campaign and introducing the emerging young African American politicians forging a bold new path to political power. 

Ifill argues that the Black political structure formed during the Civil Rights movement is giving way to a generation of men and women who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the 1960s. She offers incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, and also covers up-and-coming figures from across the nation. Drawing on interviews with power brokers like Senator Obama, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and many others, as well as her own razor-sharp observations and analysis of such issues as generational conflict and the “black enough” conundrum, Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history.” 

So the book is obviously not just about Obama, nor is Obama really the subject of the book.  Ifill is trying to make a broader point about African Americans in politics.  Obama is the clearest example of that, so it makes sense that Ifill would include him.  He has defined this era for African Americans in politics.

But Orin Hatch seems to turn what I’m sure will be a scholarly exploration of African Americans in politics into an Obama bias.  He wrote: 

“Watch out. 

“Sarah Palin is being set up. 

“The moderator of tonight’s debate is in the tank for Obama — this liberal PBS reporter is releasing a pro-Obama book . . . to debut on inauguration day.”

The Republicans are looking for some way to bail themselves out of a potential disaster.  And Orin Hatch is brilliantly demonstrating the abandonment of integrity for party politics.  PBS is not liberal and there is no evidence that the book is pro-Obama.  The only people being set up are the American people and they’re not being set up by Gwen Ifill or even Barack Obama.  They’re being set up by John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Republican party.

In my several years following politics, Sarah Palin is probably the worst candidate I’ve seen ascend to the vice presidential level. I’m going to present a very clear case against Sarah Palin in this post, but even if you don’t agree with any of those reasons, here’s one more: When voters choose a vice president, they realize that his or her Constitutional duties are to be ready to assume the presidency. When nominees choose a vice president, they realize that the most important factor is the vice president’s preparedness to assume the presidency. Sarah Palin is not ready to assume the presidency and she is therefore unfit to assume the vice presidency.

Her experience is limited to salmon fishing and moose hunting. Her foreign policy experience is non-existent. John McCain is 72 years old and he’s had several recurrences of cancer. The actuarial tables aren’t looking so good. McCain’s death is not imminent, but it is more likely with this particular president that he will expire before his term is done. Voters understand that, so they immediately look to the bottom half of the ticket. And who do we see there? Sarah Louise Palin.

So who is she? Palin is in the middle of her first term as governor of Alaska. Before that, she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Population: 5,469 in the 2000 census. How can people who say Obama is inexperienced say that Palin is even comparable? While Palin was mayor of a 5,500 person town, Barack Obama was a state legislator serving 12.5 million people. While Palin was governor of a state with a population of 650,00, Obama was in the United States Senate serving 300 million people.

Going further back, Palin attended the University of Idaho with no further education. Obama started at Occidental College, then transferred to Columbia University. He attended Harvard Law School and became president of the Harvard Law Review (I mention that because it is no minor accomplishment). I’m not against public or even community colleges, but do you think that Palin’s degree in journalism is going to be much help in anything but being nice to the press?

And now to the issues. Palin is pro-life, but also pro-capital punishment. In other words, everyone should have their babies because if they do something wrong, she’ll just advocate killing them later. This is not the woman I want to run the country. She supports drilling in ANWR, even though that will clearly not help anything. As for other issues, she’s such an unknown that nobody really knows where she stands on most important issues.

Given that her state is so important as it is her only experience, it’s worth it to think what some of her colleagues think about Palin’s appointment. Fellow Republican State Senate President Lyda Green from Palin’s own town said,”She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she’s done to this state. What will she do to the nation?” In the article linked above, Green cites an oil tax increase Palin pushed through and a $500 million state subsidy Palin awarded to a Canadian firm to build a natural gas pipeline with an uncertain future.

To top it all off, Palin even said to a question about VP speculation, “I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the V.P. does every day.”

Normally VP picks don’t matter so much, but in this particular case, McCain’s choice really matters. She is not ready to be vice president by her own statement. She’s not ready to be president. Her views are shrouded in mystery because she’s never had to address many national issues in Alaska. She has zero experience on the national scene, zero experience of the international scene. Sarah Palin is not a good choice. She’s a small time governor being brought out on to a big stage.

Please, please, somebody who has read this explain to me why they would still vote for Palin. In my opinion, even if someone were voting for McCain, the Palin choice would be enough to persuade someone to vote for someone else. If the VP has to assume office, Palin isn’t ready.