Why Obama Will Win - Arithmetic

 

I tweeted yesterday that despite all the fretting I hear in the media about the election being "uber close," I believe President Obama will win decisively tonight.  Yes, the country is fairly evenly split, but the electoral college math favors the president in a way that may not be good for cable news ratings, but which will nonetheless result in his reelection.  Since some of you have been asking why I'm so confident in this, here is some of my reasoning.  This is an excerpt from an email I shared with some friends on this topic yesterday:

 

"I think we've all got to assume that anything can happen in an election this close, because that's the name of the game.  That said, I just don't think it's going to be that close & certainly not in the electoral vote.  For one thing as you mentioned early voting has been strong for the President in a number of key states.  The polling has also favored the president and yet standard polling overwhelmingly undercounts young voters who are a) less likely to have a landline, and b) less likely to answer an unknown call on their cell phone.

Additionally, I'd argue that the voter suppression efforts in places like PA, OH & FL has had a boomerang effect against the GOP.  Folks keep talking about a lack of enthusiasm on the DEM side, but I think what they're talking about is the lack of euphoria that accompanied much of the campaign in 08.  Then people voted because they were excited - this time people are excited to vote because they're pissed that someone has tried to take the vote away from them.

I had a chance to interview David Axelrod last Nov...and these guys have been all over the voter suppression issue for a strong minute.  I'm giving NV, IA, WI, OH, PA & NH to the president.  I'm also going out on a limb and giving him VA as well.  NC & CO I'm not convinced he wins, and FL could go either way, but from the math I see President Obama wins big."

I think there's a good chance President Obama takes FL as well, given the ongoing demographic shift in that state (eg. the Latino community there is deep and increasingly "non-Cuban"; the young Cuban demo is not as deeply committed to the Castro issue that has galvanized previous generations behind the GOP).  Additionally, the Obama campaign has a far superior ground game to the Romney campaign nationwide (particularly in the battle-ground states) and ultimately this numbers game boils down to who shows up to the polls & has their votes counted.  

The bottom line is, yes the country is divided but the electoral college will not be.  Tomorrow we'll be hearing the news media all abuzz about how the polls were so bad, of course they couldn't tell it wouldn't be close.  Except for Nate Silver, who's been doing the math all along.

D.N.A

At the RNC - Day 2

 

Today was my 3rd day in Tampa, 2nd day at the Republican National Convention.  So far it's been a BLAST! First of all, I know maaad heads down here! Mind you, I didn't really know in advance any of these herbs were going to be attending. We've mostly all discovered each other on Twitter & then linked up in person.  Some of these folks are definitely not good Republicans.  I hooked up w/ Baratunde and some cool peeps from WNYC for Cuban food last night & it was like a Communist revival over black beans & rice! Salud Comrades! Pass me another Negra Modelo (I was gonna' write Negro Modelo, but you nerdikins would be so busy correcting me, you'd completely miss the joke).

 

Definitely had a good time w/ the progressives last night & went home w/ a bellyfull of beer & arroz con pollo.  Today, the fates flipped the script on me & I ran into some of my peeps who are doing varying degrees of some real GOP ish. One of them is a key blogger for the Romney Campaign & the other is the big cheese at Breitbart.com. We all shared hugs & took pics and I told them that for the sake of their jobs, they should deny any witnesses who saw them smiling all over me. Baratunde on the other hand outed all of us on Twitter already, so here's the pic anyway:

 

 

As you can see, no one is foaming at the mouth and none of us is beating the other with a large, heavily-bound piece of legislation.  I know there's a lot of vitriol in our political discourse today, but standing around sharing baby pictures & catching up about music, travels & life since our school daze, reminds you how much we all still have in common.

 

Speaking of things in common, I also ran into a gang of my peeps from AJStream! I didn't get a pic of them, but they snapped one of me as soon as we rolled up on eachother:

 

Where am I? And WTF are y'all doing here??

Note the look of surprise as I stumble upon my Al Jazeera crew in the middle of the awesome tunnel of foottraffickery that leads from the media circus building, to the delegate circus building (ie. where all the action is happening). We naturally commenced to ulullating and speaking in Arabic which drew a large & appreciative crowd of Republicans who were excited to meet some real life Muslims, they pulled out their guns & started shooting in the air!

  

Ok only one of us was Muslim (I don't wanna' be like Shaggy on that "it wasn't me," but since I get accused of all kinds of falsehoods anyway, I'll say for the record...it wasn't me).  And no one pulled out a gun, security down here is tighter than a yellow bear huggin' a honey pot.  And we didn't really speak in Arabic (we ain't crazy now...).

 

All in all it was another super fun day.  I ran into a well known GOP commentator who spoke to me off the record about some of the challenges facing the Romney/Ryan ticket, as well as some of the mistakes the Obama administration has made from a political strategy perspective, rather than a partisan one.  It's amazing hearing a Republican operative break down what the administration could/should have done early to defuse some of the criticisms that are dogging them now.  When you turn off the talking points, some of these cats are on some real political Jiu-Jitsu.

 

Something I've been thinking a lot about is the dismal 17% favorability rating for the GOP (72% unfavorable) among African-Americans that was reported in a recent BET News Poll. We interviewed some prominent Black conservatives for Thursday night's broadcast and their comments, combined with some of the off the record conversations I've had, lead me to believe that a significant reason that Black folks have such a dismal view of the GOP is that the party really hasn't made any serious effort to speak to US.  Rather, they've counted on a narrow, xenophobic and often straight-up-racist segment of the party, to drive engagement and play on racial fears to corral and motivate a broader swath of GOP voters, particularly in the South (I know, I know y'all hate to hear me talk about "race" and the "South" but that is where much of this ish goes down so walk up & smell the pork rinds).

 

If the GOP would actually try serious outreach to Black & Latino communities, not just the playtime efforts of speaking at the NAACP while claiming the first Black President is an illegal immigrant, or claiming that Latinos care about the economy & jobs, while encouraging them to self-deport and find those jobs in Mexico - if Republicans would take a moment and seriously talk to these communities that have historically held a bevy of conservative beliefs, our political landscape might be altogether different.  But then the GOP would be an altogether different party, wouldn't it?

 

Good thing the Democrats don't take the Black vote for granted...that would be a fatal error if a genuine alternative were ever to present itself.

 

More to come,

D.N.A

Bully

Photo by: Jonathan Ernst / Getty Images

Today's Washington Post online has a revealingly in-depth story on Mitt Romney's mistreatment of some of his classmates as a high school student at the Cranbrook private school in Detroit back in the 1960s.  In short, it details conversations with a number of his peers who recount him engaging in, and sometimes leading, bullying behavior towards students perceived to be gay (among other youthful "pranks"). Romney has denied any recollection of these activities, and issued the usual tepid Washington non-apology.

A couple of quick thoughts. First, I don't think it's fair to judge Mitt Romney the "60-something-year-old presidential candidate" by something Mitt Romney the "high-school prankster" did. I know it's tempting to all the people who can't stand the guy, and I must admit he's not currently on my Christmas card list. But something he did FIFTY YEARS AGO would have to be a lot worse than this to disqualify him from consideration - President Obama was smokin' weed and carrying on himself around the same age, and Lawd knows that Bill Clinton and GW were up to...

That said, what is fair to consider is how the present-day Mitt Romney responds to the allegations of misdeeds against his younger self. I kind of wish he'd just said "you know, I remember that incident and I've always regretted it. I wish I'd taken the time to apologize to that gentleman before he died." Oh yes, if you missed that part of the story, the victim of the most disturbing act of bullying succumbed to cancer in 2004. Today Mitt issued a general apology for any ancient malfeasance, even though he claims not to remember it. I wonder if he ever apologized to the victim, while dude was still alive? That's a greater measure of the man than the childhood ignorance we were all complicit in to some degree or other.

Turns out a second victim of Mitt Romney's bullying is in fact still alive today. Care to apologize to him Governor Romney? The rest of us don't really need the generalized apology, so maybe you might make a phone call?

It would say a lot more to us about the kind of man you are today.

D.N.A

Streaming Saturdays 12/11/2010

It is Saturday once again and that means we are coming to you LIVE with some great interviews and DNA's take on the week's news and events. On deck this week: Obama's Tax Deal with the GOP, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Julian Assange and the Hactivists, plus some great convos about Bullying and Facebook Cheating. We have a great LIVE show lined up for today.  We're live at noon ET (9am PT)! C ya online!

Stupid is As Stupid Says

Dr. Laura Schlessinger

I love it when people who have problems with race use the idea that others are overly sensitive about race to unveil their own bigoted tendencies.  You've all heard the news about Dr. Laura Schlessinger dropping the n-bomb 11 times in a 5min conversation.  Aside from the impressive rate of slurs per minute there are a few other points I think are worth touching on.

First, let's just get out of the way the obligatory acknowledgment that everyone who says something racist is not necessarily a racist.  I know some of you don't want to hear it, but you know & I know it's true.  Sometimes good people say stupid things.  Sometimes good people say stupid things that reveal elements of bigotry within them. However you want to slice it, it is becoming increasingly apparent to me that people can say reprehensible things, without necessarily being reprehensible people (ask anyone whose grandparents grew up under Jim Crow...whatever race they may be).

That said, "not being a racist" is no excuse for being an idiot.  Just look at the "bad behaviour" of TV producer Mark Gordon who recently dropped the n-word multiple times at a reading.  Fortunately his co-Executive Producer of "Grey's Anatomy" Shonda Rhimes, did the neighbourly thing and provided a black-person-said-I'm-not-racist card to get him out of jail mostly free.  He's not a racist, she told a friend, he's "an idiot."

Idiots are a dime-a-dozen in America these days.  And since we've elected our first Black president the idiots have been coming out in droves.  Take Dr. Schlessinger for example.  When asked by a Black caller for advice on how to deal with racist comments from her White husband's friends, Dr. Laura opens by asking the woman to define racism because "sometimes people are hypersensitive."  It is the height of good fortune that we've got benevolent White folks like Dr. Laura around to help Black people know racism when we see it.

The conversation continues with the caller trying to give Dr. Laura examples of what's troubling her & Dr. Laura helpfully informing her that none of these things are racist. Dr. Laura even goes on to tell a story about her big, Black bodyguard who she wants on her basketball team because "white men can't jump."  Apparently that's not racist...it's funny.  Dr. Laura is an expert on comedy as well.

I won't regale you with the details of the rest of the interview, as you can get the full audio & transcript here.  Let's just say that soon enough, Dr. Laura gets on her n-word roll, dropping lyrical bombs like a rhythmless MC, arguing that Black guys use it all the time and so why shouldn't she.

And here's the problem with stupidity.  The argument that "you did it, why can't I" is the kind of moral reasoning that is typically left on the playground around the 5th grade, unless of course you find yourself in the unpleasant position of having to defend the indefensible.  I've heard certain White people argue time & again that Black people use the n-word so why can't they and the question that always jumps to my mind is:

"Why would you want to?"

I don't walk around wishing I could freely use the kind of racial slurs Latinos or Asians, Jews or Italians use for each other.  It hardly bothers me that gay people call each other words that I wouldn't feel comfortable using myself.  But there appears to be a real anger among some White folks, that they've been left out of the n*gger party.  Trouble is, like an alcoholic trying to convince the bartender that this next drink will be his last they neglect the obvious fact: "White people have been at this particular party for a loooong time...aren't you ready to go home yet??"

How long before you get tired of wishing you could do something that many people find patently offensive? Then again, I'm forgetting that the problem is not that they're offended.  The problem is that you're offended that they're offended...right?

Clearly folks like Dr. Laura don't have enough Black friends to know that lots of Black people don't like the word no matter who uses it.  Just look at the comments by renowned former "n*gger lover" Paul Mooney in the ABC article above.  Maybe Dr. Laura uses that word all the time when she's kickin' it with her Black friends & bodyguards.  But if it popped out of my mouth around my parents I might catch a closeup of the back of somebody's hand.  Matter of fact Doc, you really should come over sometime...

I'd love to see Dr. Laura call her Black bodyguard a nigger.  That would be a great way to prove her point. Lots of Black people are oversensitive about this stuff, but just look at this nigger that works for me - he loves it!  Let's just drop all the euphemisms and the aster*sks and unveil the word in all its glory.  It'll help niggers to be less sensitive & gosh-darn it, Dr. Laura's here to help.

The most offensive part of Dr. Laura's comments is not that she purports to know what's best for niggers.  It's that she takes the woman's personal struggle and uses it to grind her own personal political axe.  "We've got a black man as president, and we have more complaining about racism than ever. I mean, I think that's hilarious" she tells the caller (remember folks, Dr. Laura knows comedy).  When the caller isn't buying what the good doc is so fervently selling, Miss Laura drops her and declares "if you're that hypersensitive about color and don't have a sense of humor, don't marry out of your race."  Great advice for all you future callers: don't come around here calling Dr. Laura with your "miscegenation woes," unless you're funny.  Real funny.

Listen folks, unlike Dr. Laura I'm no expert on race or identity politics.  I dropped out of my PhD program long before I got that kind of street cred.  I wouldn't know where to start telling a Jew how he should feel about anti-semitism or a gay person how to stop worrying so damn much about homophobia and I'm waaay too "sensitive" to have the stomach to issue a phalanx of racial epithets along with the advice.

But I've been around long enough to know stupid when I see it.  And there's been a whole lot of stupid going around ever since we elected a Black president.  You Lefties kept saying GW was dumb.  Wait'll you see the nation he left behind...

Full audio of Dr. Laura's Interview with a Nigger below.