The 2008 Election Day LIVE Thread

[Kevin]

Those substantive issues of American government weigh heavily on you, I see.

Puppies!!

[agzg]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Those substantive issues of American government weigh heavily on you, I see.

Puppies!!

Hey, I've already weighed the issues, picked my candidate, and cast my ballot.

Now, my vote goes to puppies.

My dog, Lucky, btw, is running for President in 2012. In dog years, Lucky is older than McCain (in human years) by a long shot.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by alphagamzetagam

My dog, Lucky, btw, is running for President in 2012. In dog years, Lucky is older than McCain (in human years) by a long shot.

I'll bet he doesn't handle those calls at 3 A.M. very well at all.

[MysticCat]

About the puppies: One of the commentators (forget which one) on FoxNews this morning warned, good-naturedly, that this was the one campaign promise above all others that Obama had better not break.

Seriously, or at least a little more seriously, it'll be nice to see children (not older teens or college-age kids, but children) in the White House again. The Obama kids are about the same ages as my kids, and my kids are enjoying thinking about kids their age living in the White House.

[agzg]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I'll bet he doesn't handle those calls at 3 A.M. very well at all.

Actually, he's so old that his time frame is flipped. He's usually up most of the night, then sleeps between eating and going outside during the day. If Lucky wins the entire country's gonna have to switch to his nocturnal schedule - can you imagine the old farts in Congress working from 9pm to 8am instead of the other way around???

[agzg]

At the Chicago Tribune, you can vote for first dog. The headline is "First family needs a dog."

I cast my vote there, too .

http://www.chicagotribune.com/featur...0,1292605.poll

ETA: Right now, getting a "first mutt" from the pound is in the lead. PETA has urged him to go with a dog from the pound, rather than from a breeder or pet store, saying that a Mutt would show the new diversity of the white house. However, you can get a pure-bred dog from the pound as well - Lucky was a rescue and is pure-bred American Eskimo. IMO, he's a better pull from Alaska than Sarah Palin . That's why everyone should vote for Lucky in 2012!

[sthrnsweetie007]

I LOVED OBAMA'S SPEECH when he told his little girls about the puppy that was going to the white house with him. that was sooooo sweet!!!!

[sthrnsweetie007]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

I LOVE IT!!!!! this is just AWESOME!!!!!

[epchick]

Originally Posted by breathesgelatin

Every state has a winner-take-all system when it comes to electors, except for Maine and Alaska.

Electors are obligated to vote for the candidate that wins the majority in their state. An elector who does not vote for the candidate they are pledged to vote is termed a "faithless elector" and is relatively rare. We're talking maybe 1 elector per election and often none. Not anything that's thrown an election to a different candidate. Ever. In the entire history of the USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

I'm not saying that an elector changed their vote in the 2000 election, I was just refering to the girls' assertation. Soemthing about the popular vote decides the electoral votes. I was just pointing out an example where the popular vote doesn't mean that the candidate will get the electoral votes. I guess I should have put that all there, but I thought by just mentioning it, that it was understood.

Although it happens "very rarely," electors are not obligated to vote for the candidate that wins the majority. According to the NARA:

It is possible that an elector could ignore the results of the popular vote, but that occurs very rarely.

In the 2000 election, Cheney had to change his "home state" from Texas to Wyoming because of the electoral college. Something about electors can't vote for two people from the same state, so either Bush wouldn't have gotten Texas' electoral votes or Cheney wouldn't have gotten the votes.

[LttleMsPrEp]

As an Obama supporter i just hope that fellow supporters don't forget what it took to get here campaign wise as far as spreading awareness on the issues, getting more involved in the communty, becoming aware of the various issues that have a direct impact on our generation and etc. It'll really suck if people just take this win.. go home and do nothing else but sit on their asses and wait for Obama to change America. Change comes from the bottom to the top not from top to bottom. I think that our generation can continue to make a great impact in our gov't as long as we keep working to see that change is actually implemented..

I'm SOO excited at the thought of a puppy being in the White House soon. (i LOOVE puppies hopefully it's something cute like a Golden Retriever or a teddy bear)

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

Ironically, this addresses an issue that UGA brought up earlier that I didn't want to address for lack of data . . . however, Silver has already discussed it, so I'll go ahead an appeal to oracle.

The reason why the Bradley Effect should have been completely discounted this election? There are TONS of people (white, black and in between) who are excited to "be a part of history" - this would, nearly by definition, offset any real or perceived Bradley Effect. Again - mobilizing the electorate was Obama's coup . . . keeping that momentum is the key.

I'm happy that there seems to be a good match-up between what people said publicly about who they were going to vote for and who they did vote for. I think it represents some progress.

But there was a chance that people were going to publicly bask in the glow of being on the side of history while privately voting otherwise. It's the ability to claim whatever you want about your vote that introduces the possible play in the results, not so much, to me anyway, actual racism or whatever.

I'm pleasantly surprised that there were fewer hypocrites of this sort than I had thought and I'm amazed by the accuracy of 538 data.

Maybe I should have realized that anyone actually likely to vote Republican gave up any pride about what other people thought about them or their politics sometime in the last four years and therefore had no reason to fib to pollsters.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

About the puppies: One of the commentators (forget which one) on FoxNews this morning warned, good-naturedly, that this was the one campaign promise above all others that Obama had better not break.

Seriously, or at least a little more seriously, it'll be nice to see children (not older teens or college-age kids, but children) in the White House again. The Obama kids are about the same ages as my kids, and my kids are enjoying thinking about kids their age living in the White House.

Yeah, I really like Obama's family.

I participated in an ongoing online political survey during election season, and view of the candidates family life was something we rated. (I don't know why.) Every time the Obamas got much higher scores from me that the McCains.

I think the Obama girls (who are total cuties and I don't mean just appearance) are one of those incidental benefits of his win for me. I'm also looking forward to less politically charged cover stories in Harpers and the Atlantic. I can't wait!

Oh, and the puppy.

[Benzgirl]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

yeah...what is Joe 6 pack and Joe the Plumber gon' do?

They Joes will look at their paychecks and realize their $250,000 salary is missing a zero, and will then get a refund based on the Obama plan that McCain's tax plan would have reserved for the rich.

[Tinia2]

I heard a story, while on the way home, that surprised me to the point I had to "fact check" it. Which in turn lead to a few other surprises.

Today's entire production run of The New York Times SOLD OUT. And The Times, in what maybe a first, ran an afternoon production run of 50,000 more papers.

Their web site hit a new record for hits.
This is the web sites front page for todays paper:
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html

Today's Times Sells Out! Printing Extra 50,000 Copies for Afternoon Rush; NYTimes.com Breaks Another Record

http://www.observer.com/2008/media/t...com-breaks-ano

While looking this up, found that this not only happened to the rest of the papers in NYC (NYC has about 4-5 different papers), it also happened around the rest of the county!!!
http://cbs4.com/local/obama.presiden....2.857277.html
http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2...spapers-today/


And I found this site which has the front page of papers around the world.
NOTE: Running very slow due to very high volume. Wonder why???
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

[Benzgirl]

Originally Posted by Tinia2

Today's Times Sells Out! Printing Extra 50,000 Copies for Afternoon Rush; NYTimes.com Breaks Another Record

http://www.observer.com/2008/media/t...com-breaks-ano

At lunchtime, I tried several times to log on to the NYT website. Too much traffic.

One of my friends tried several news stands before 8:00 am and all were sold out. I guess this really outlines how historical this event is.