As Americans get ready to vote, weblogs are feverishly doing their last pre-vote posts. Here’s our linkfest taking you to sites on the right, left and center, big and small. TMV strongly urges you to bookmark these sites and return to them as part of your daily post-election reading if you want a good sampling of Internet opinion.
So What Does Karl Rove REALLY Think Will Happen In The Election?
Authorized-by-Karl Rove details here..
And While Rove Came Up With His Conclusion a blogger reached the same conclusion…
A MUST READ PREDICTION: Political Scientist Dr. Steven Taylor’s predictions. Taylor is a solid and serious analyst of politics and a longtime TMV favorite. This post is in the form of his highly accessible short-messaged Toast-O-Meter…
Another MUST READ Political Scientist Prediction is from Daniel Drezner.
John McCain’s Sagging Polls: A libertarian ponders what went wrong with the Straight Talk Express.
But Some Find Obama truly frightening due to his tactics.
Someone Else Who Finds Obama Scary: David Limbaugh, Rush’s brother who explains why HERE.
As Predictions Continue That The Demmies Will Be In Firm Control Of The White House And Congress here’s a strong case for the efficacy and wisdom of divided government.
Joe The Plumber to some is more like Joe The McCarthy…
Sarah Palin Has Been Cleared In Troopergate and another topic of rage (this time on the left) bites the dust. And some are saying I told you so…
Palin Is Ending Her Campaign With A Bang — or should we say “slime?” And she has been going after her favorite target the news media.
An Obama Presidency In Our Midst: A fascinating perspective from a Canadian perspective via the must-read-each-day site Booker Rising (a site that says it’s for black moderates and black conservatives but is required reading for people who like issues and politics versus name calling and bloggers attacking other bloggers).
If McCain Wins Some Democrats Vow To Move To Canada — and if Obama wins Tom Elia vows to move HERE.
And Some Bloggers Continue To Endorse although sometimes with reservations..
And McCain Continues To Lose Supporters such as The Washington Note’s Steve Clemons. A small part of his post:
I have known and admired Senator John McCain since 1993. I have met Senator Barack Obama several times personally and have studied his record, habits, and words very closely. I have colleagues and friends who work at the highest levels in both organizations.
Despite my having applauded John McCain’s political career and often brave policy positions many times in the past, I can’t support him and his vice presidential running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, tomorrow.
The reasons I can’t support John McCain are three. First, despite having a credible and impressive record in the United States Senate on a great number of policy issues, he chose to make military and national security issues the primary foundation of his campaign. Rather than recruiting Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, Richard Armitage, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, Robert Zoellick and others to be the primary sculptors and advisers to his campaign, he neglected most of these and ignored others in favor of foreign policy hands that reflected militant neoconservatism and strident, pugnacious nationalism.
Rather than conveying that he was a national leader who understood war and peace and would be cautious with deployments of troops and American commitments, McCain telegraphed a “recklessness” when it came to U.S. foreign policy and key national security questions.
Secondly, amplifying this recklessness, John McCain failed to make competence and a clear understanding of what America’s history and great debates and challenges are an absolute requisite for anyone he would put in line for the presidency. He chose Sarah Palin who I doubt knows much about the very DNA of the nation.
He goes into great detail so read it in full.
Meanwhile, Some Remain Curious About The Unproven Allegation of whether Ayers secretly wrote Obama’s autobiography. (If that fades, watch for a new allegation to arise: Reverend Wright wrote it.)
Bloggers Who Have Big Readerships And Smaller Ones Are Making Predictions on the voting outcome and here are predictions from Salon’s Glenn Greenwald.
What Does The Vote Mean? Left and Right (certainly) differ. One interesting take is from Jane Smiley, writing on The Huffington Post:
It is pretty clear right now that Obama supporters far outnumber McCain supporters. The country is full of people who have given up on the Republicans — who recognize that Bush and Cheney took them for a ride, that Palin was a sucker-choice for VP, that McCain is erratic and dangerous, that Obama’s race, in their minds, is an entirely secondary consideration to his intelligence and vision. In fact, the country is full of people who are more hopeful and less cynical than I am. And I find it inspiring. As much as I detested Karl Rove, he had me with that “permanent Republican Majority”. Maybe I kind of fell for that (screaming all the way down). Even as I speak, the voters are lined up out there, and most of them are voting for Obama. They can see with their own eyes what is going on, so if the Republicans steal the election again this time, they won’t believe it for a minute.
Right now, on Monday afternoon, I am not going to say that Obama’s win won’t be a fight. It could be. I hope it isn’t. And as the moderates leave, the Republican base gets more and more unpredictable. But whatever happens and however long it takes, I do believe that the majority of Americans are awake and aware. And that’s inspiring. It makes me think my country has a future. And it makes me care about that future. Thanks, Barack!
Meanwhile, Some Believe McCain Will Win and one is Pajamas Media’s Roger Kimball who, in a post that should be read in full, explains why. A small excerpt:
Nevertheless, I continue to think McCain can pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Why? Not because of any complex statistical alchemy but for the simple old fashioned reason that I do not believe the instinct for self-preservation has been entirely bred out of the American electorate.
I understand that larger and larger swaths of America are turning purple if not blue as affluence coupled with tertiary education and cultural relativism transform more and more people into latte-drinking, NPR-listening, global-warming hysterics who regard Karl Rove as an evil genius and Sarah Palin as an anencephalic breeding machine on skis.
I understand that. Even so, the current financial meltdown (and whose fault was that, Barney Frank?), like the prospect of hanging in a fortnight, has done wonders to concentrate the mind. The world, many people are beginning to realize once again, is a dangerous and unpredictable place. Bad things can happen. And in the great existential lottery that assigns everyone his chit, to be born an American–black or white, rich or poor–is to have pulled a very enviable number indeed.
I think a lot of people understand that, even though they may not wish to mention it at their Obama rally or while signing a “U.S.-Out-of-Guantanamo” petition. A lot of them get a little thrill proclaiming their solidarity with Obama–”Hey, I’m voting against the awful legacy of slavery by helping to elect the first black candidate in history!” Never mind that Obama, the child of a Kenyan father an a white American woman, has no more to do with the “legacy of slavery” than does Barbra Streisand–it’s the symbol of the thing! Obama looks the part, and he does so (as Joe Biden observed before he became the pick for VP) in a way that is “clean and articulate,” i.e. not scary.
And What Does A BIG Democratic Blogger Predict? Read Kos himself give his predictions HERE.
But The Number One Question For Many Progressives Seems To Be: “If win big do we FINALLY get to dump Joe Lieberman?” Obsidian Wing’s Publius believes Democrats should seek a wiser (and calmer) option..
Have Taking Cell Phones Into Account Or Not Taking Into Account Had An Impact On Polls? The answer: it certainly looks that way and here is a graphic. (Pollsters not taking cell phones into account would be like newspaper publishers belittling or ignoring internet news sites — and newspaper publishers could never be that dumb, could they?)
Matt Drudge Strikes Again!!!! and all we can say is “SIGH” — but we prefer to give the traffic on this item to this site (rather than enable Drudge and build his numbers from our modest little site).
Conservative Commentators’ “What If…” Scenarios For A McCain Victory: skippy (who writes in lower case) has some examples of and thoughts on it. (My grandmother used to say “If? If I had wheels I’d be a trolley car…”)
Mitt Romney Speechless On The McCain Campaign? Yes … he almost was.
Since Obama Is The Favorite Speculation Increases On His Cabinet: Below the Beltway looks at it and concludes it’s change we’ve seen before.
Voter Registration Fraud: A concern among Republicans..
Some People May Wish They Were Dead After Enduring This Long Campaign and perhaps some of them got their wish and they are some of the the ones voting in Cleveland…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.