Tag Archives: Election

I guess being a beauty pageant contestant was her primary interview training

Yet again, I’m spending a good portion of the day stewing over the selection of someone who’s grossly unprepared to serve as our nation’s vice president and the terrifying reality that, by one means or another, there’s a real chance that she’ll win that title.

My latest source of frustration and anxiety (in the event that she actually, by some act of God or Karl Rove, manages to get elected) is her disastrous interview with Katie Couric.

I read part of a transcript of the interview yesterday and my immediate thought was, “My God, she sounds like a beauty pageant contestant.” (Which, of course, she was in the 1980s.) And that was just reading the transcript. I could only imagine the visceral discomfort I would have felt actually watching the interview.

I guess I was not alone in my assessment of her performance. And here you can not only watch it, but also a painful comparison with a more recent pageant contestant as well. (Luckily, Sarah Palin sounds better than Miss South Carolina, but not by as much as I would like in a vice presidential candidate.)

Right now I am really wishing Obama had picked Hillary Clinton to be his running mate.

OK, maybe she does look like Peggy Hill

There’ve been several suggestions of other famous women, both real and fictional, that Sarah Palin resembles, and she’s been spoofed by a few of them, including Tina Fey and Gina Gershon.

One of the comparisons I just didn’t get was Peggy Hill. Yes, that Peggy Hill. But now that I’ve seen the caricature of Palin in the September 22 issue of the New Yorker, it makes a little more sense.

Now John McCain as Cotton Hill, that I can see.

Obama’s electoral college challenge

This interactive tool from the LA Times reveals the daunting challenge Barack Obama faces in this election. It lets you paint the electoral map based on which candidate you expect to win each state. Remember, the popular vote doesn’t matter: in the end, 270 electoral votes are the only thing that can make someone president.

This tool defaults to Republican, Democrat, or toss-up, based upon the 2004 election results. Any state with a margin of victory of 8 points or less in that year is considered a toss-up. This is somewhat disingenuous, as it doesn’t take into account current trends and polls (for what they’re worth). But it’s as good a place to start as any and it seems to line up pretty well with what we’re seeing in the polls (for what they’re worth) this year.

I took the challenge, and went with my best guesses for those toss-up states: I painted Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Delaware “Democrat Blue” and Nevada, Missouri and Florida “Republican Red.” That left three states in play: Colorado, New Mexico, and Ohio. Ohio is a 20-vote powder keg in this election. If McCain wins Ohio (along with the other three states that I think are fairly safe for him), and Obama prevails in the entire, aggressive slate of ten states I assigned to him, Obama still must win Colorado and New Mexico to (just barely) win the election. Ouch.

Two critical reads for anyone who’s planning to vote (and even moreso for those who aren’t!)

I just read a couple of great articles on Alternet. Now before you (as a McCain supporter) go dismissing Alternet as liberal fringe media, I would ask you to just carefully read the following two articles.

First, a roundup of excerpts from newspapers and news magazines around the country calling the McCain/Palin campaign to task for some of the egregious lies they’ve been perpetuating lately, both against Obama and for themselves.

And second, a very well-thought-out article debunking conservative myths about national security. This brilliant article shows us what’s wrong with our current administration’s clumsy assumptions about the threat of Islamic terrorism, and also points out the things we should be worried about, but aren’t. (Or at least, aren’t worried enough about.)