Nation-Building

Obama's private election night photos - up on Flickr for all to share. Truly, Campaign 2.0. I love this sequence of photos:

I generated a word cloud of Obama's victory speech tonight at Grant Park. I edited the transcript so the phrase "Yes We Can" appears as a single word, for better visibility: Full transcript of the speech: Remarks of President-Elect Barack Obama--as prepared for delivery Election Night Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 Chicago, Illinois If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference. It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Repub...

Happy election day! (Some crazy towns in New Hampshire started voting at midnight). Courtesy of Nate Silver's simulations, here's how McCain might win . The most plausible (but still improbable) scenario: Obama takes all the Gore and Kerry states, and McCain takes everything else. Everything else in this case includes states like Colorado (9 EV), where Obama's lead is the widest it's ever been and early voting favors Obama heavily. In other words: not gonna happen. Also, Virginia (13 EV) is looking very, very good for Obama, too. However, continuing the scenario, if McCain can pick up Pennsylvania (21 EV), then he can compensate for VA and CO and win the election. This is probably Obama's worst-case, leaving him at 265, just shy of victory. However, despite McCain's late surge and heavy focus on PA, Obama still has a healthy lead . In fact, I think Obama will take PA, in part because of early voting, heavy turnout ( weather in PA today is high 40s - low 50s ...

Given the remarkable assertion that the Left is insane, offensive, and totally without moral restraint, whereas the Right is beyond compare as scions of civil discourse, and any evidence to the contrary of either is utterly non-representative, let me offer some counter-examples culled from sources that I believe we can indeed reach consensus on as representing the "mainstream" right. Obama had a gay love affair (front page post by RedState.com Editor) Obama's memoir was written by William Ayers ( recommended diary at Redstate.com, post at The Corner @ National Review) Obama's got something to hide regarding his birth certificate (user diary at RedState.com, promoted to front page by Editors) Obama's got "ties" to Osama bin Laden - Virginia GOP Chairman Rick Frederick Obama guilt by association with Marxists , Communists and Terrorists , Islamic Radicals . Obama was a drug dealer (Dan Riehl) Obama desecrated the memory of the victims of 9-11 becau...

I have laid out the case for why I am voting for Barack Obama in as much detail as I could muster. I think there's a lot of room for disagreement and healthy discussion on the issues, and wanted to be specific as to what my support for Obama is based on (not just the "D" after his name alone). I freely confess that I am biased towards Democrats in general, but that bias is effect, not cause, of my principles and beliefs and positions on the issues, and they form the basis of my judgement here. I do hope someone else makes a similar detailedcase for support of McCain in response because I think these are useful. It's not directly relevant, but I think this earlier essay of mine , reflecting on what 9-11 and the 2000 election portended for America from a civic perspective, is useful in providing some context to my worldview. If you agree with me that Barack Obama is the change we need, then please join me in making a small contribution to his campaign:

At City of Brass, I've posted my debate analysis . Long story short: Palin did not lose, but Biden did not win.

Senator Joe Biden's remarks: Governor Sarah Palin's remarks:

Governor Palin's comments from the debate, extracted from the CNN transcript. below the fold...   Thank you, Gwen. And I thank the commission, also. I appreciate this privilege of being able to be here and speak with Americans. You know, I think a good barometer here, as we try to figure out has this been a good time or a bad time in America's economy, is go to a kid's soccer game on Saturday, and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, "How are you feeling about the economy?" And I'll bet you, you're going to hear some fear in that parent's voice, fear regarding the few investments that some of us have in the stock market. Did we just take a major hit with those investments? Fear about, how are we going to afford to send our kids to college? A fear, as small-business owners, perhaps, how we're going to borrow any money to increase inventory or hire more people. The barometer there, I think, is going to be resounding that ...

I have manually extracted only Senator Biden's words from the debate transcript at CNN. Below the fold... Let me begin by thanking you, Gwen, for hosting this. And, Governor, it's a pleasure to meet you, and it's a pleasure to be with you. I think it's neither the best or worst of Washington, but it's evidence of the fact that the economic policies of the last eight years have been the worst economic policies we've ever had. As a consequence, you've seen what's happened on Wall Street. If you need any more proof positive of how bad the economic theories have been, this excessive deregulation, the failure to oversee what was going on, letting Wall Street run wild, I don't think you needed any more evidence than what you see now. So the Congress has been put -- Democrats and Republicans have been put in a very difficult spot. But Barack Obama laid out four basic criteria for any kind of rescue plan here. He, first of all, said there has to be oversigh...