Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

We'll miss you, Toot:

Barack Obama's ailing grandmother, who he left the campaign trail recently to visit, passed away today. Obama's half-sister issued a statement to the media:

"It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and
great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure.

"Our family wants to thank all of those who sent flowers, cards, well-wishes, and prayers during this difficult time. It
brought our grandmother and us great comfort. Our grandmother was a private woman, and we will respect her wish for a small private ceremony to be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you make a donation to any worthy organization in search of a cure for cancer."

Dunham, who helped raise the Illinois senator, was 86 years old.

I wish she'd lived to see tomorrow. Hopefully, we'll be voting her a legacy.

Things certainly look to be headed that way:

Here's our final daily composite of the six major national tracking polls. Many national polls have coalesced around a projected 52% popular-vote share for Barack Obama, and it shows in our composite:

• Gallup: Obama 53%, McCain 42%, with a ±2% margin of error, compared to a 52%-43% lead from yesterday.

• Rasmussen: Obama 52%, McCain 46%, with a ±2% margin of error, compared to a 51%-46% Obama lead from yesterday.

• ABC/Washington Post: Obama 53%, McCain 44%, with a ±2% margin of error, compared to a 54%-43% Obama lead yesterday

• Hotline/Diageo: Obama 50%, McCain 45%, with a ±3.3% margin of error, unchanged from yesterday.

• Research 2000: Obama 51%, McCain 45%, with a ±3% margin of
error, compared to a 51%-44% Obama lead from yesterday.

• Zogby: Obama 51%, McCain 44%, with a ±2.9% margin of error, compared to a 50%-44% Obama lead from yesterday.

Adding these polls together and weighting them by the square roots of their sample sizes, Obama is ahead 51.9%-44.3%, a lead of 7.6 points, compared to the 51.5%-44.2% Obama lead from yesterday.

There's long lines at the polls. It's going to be tough to vote in some places. But those of you who haven't voted yet: there's nothing more important that you can do right now. Get out there and get this man elected.

Otherwise, we could still end up with this:

Sarah Palin has been an embarrassment to herself and her party since joining the Republican ticket in late August, so it stands to reason that she'd want to end the campaign season with her most disgraceful rhetoric to date.

After blasting the notion that some Democrats want to cut the defense budget, Palin told a Missouri audience this morning:

"What do they think? Do they think that the terrorists have all of a sudden become the good guys, and changed their minds?
No! The terrorists still seek to destroy America and her allies and all that it is that is that we stand for: Freedom, tolerance, equality."

[snip]

Greg Sargent concluded, "Palin's final appeal on the eve of almost certain defeat puts it right out in the open: It's war hero versus ally of terrorists who want to destroy America and kill your children."

The entire Republican campaign is built entirely on hate, fear, and ignorance. If there's ever been a more offensive campaign for national office, it doesn't come to mind.

The entire bloody right wing is losing its mind:

Yesterday, a YouTube user named NakedEmperorNews uploaded an audio clip of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) telling the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board in January 2008 that under his cap and trade plan, “if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” but “it will bankrupt them.” The right-wing blog Newsbusters lactched onto the audio, falsely claiming it had been “been hidden from the public” and “kept under wraps until this time.”

[snip]

As Fox News reporter Shushannah Walshe notes, the charge that the paper was “withholding the information” is hard to support considering that the audio file has always been available. In a blog post yesterday, senior Chronicle political writer Carla Marinucci points out that the paper “has never, hidden any interview, audio or video, of Obama from its readers”:

The truth: the paper’s January editorial board session with Obama included comments about coal. The entire interview has been in the public domain, available on line to the public — and to the McCain campaign — since early January.

”How can anyone suggest that we hid an interview that we did, immediately put up on the web — and advertised to our readers,” said editorial page editor John Diaz Sunday, regarding his hosting of Obama at the session. ”We promoted it like like hell…and I’m sure the Clinton campaign and the McCain campaign scrubbed it. You can still find the whole 48 minutes and 33 seconds on line.”

Marinucci also called Newsbusters out on its “shoddy” work, adding that they have “been caught in the past simply fabricating news regarding the Chronicle’s coverage.” Marinucci says that Newsbusters has never offered a correction when errors have been pointed out.

Well, you know, a little thing like reality never gets in the way of these fucktards making any outrageous claim they wish. As Rob Cordry once said, reality has a well-known liberal bias, and to the right, there's nothing more evil than a dirty stinking liberal.

Too bad they're about to get trampled by a herd of them. It'll be a nice change for them, because they're certainly not in any danger of getting crushed in the crowds at a McCain rally:

Here's what John McCain had to say this morning in Tampa:

"The pundits may not know it and the Democrats may not
know it, but the Mac is back! We're going to win this election."

Perhaps the more notable development, though, was the audience for McCain's message. (via Ben Smith)

About 30 minutes before John McCain is scheduled to lead a rally outside Raymond James Stadium, looks like maybe 1,000 people here. What's up with that? On the day before the election? Bush drew at least 15,000 people to a rally just across the street on the Sunday before the 04 election.

"We are the quiet majority that goes out and gets things done. I smell victory,'' said state Rep. Kevin Ambler. Good thing he smells it, because it's hard to see it with this crowd.

Republican consultant Chris Ingram of Tampa added, "If you can't round up 1,500 people the day before the election, you've got a serious problem. From an organizational standpoint, they've done a terrible job."

It would be sad if it wasn't so deserved.

And that's it. The last Happy Hour before the election. Tomorrow promises to be one of the most incredible days any of us has ever lived through. I'm sure there'll be some impressive right-wing idiocy to scream at, some incredible election-day stories to cheer at, and a lot to keep us on the edge of our seats.

The most important thing about tomorrow is this: we need to elect a president whose campaign can spell.

We need hope. We need change. We need intelligence. We need a statesman.

Go forth and make it happen.

We need Obama.