One day

I don’t even know what to say right now.

I’m sick of writing about, reading about, talking about, thinking about this election, and yet I cannot get enough of it. I’m so glad it’ll finally be over; I’m so scared it’ll finally be over.

I’m planning to spend the day in a baking frenzy, ostensibly to prepare for the results-watching party I’m having tomorrow, but really to calm my nerves and keep myself from obsessively reloading FiveThirtyEight, hoping for reassurance that the Republicans can’t possibly steal this one.

Tonight I’m going to try to do some last-minute phone banking against Prop 8. But there’s really not much left to say or do. Just this: Make sure you know where your polling place is, tell your boss you’ll be missing work, and get to the polls tomorrow.

Spreading the rage around

What the fuck, Wingnuts? Were you all asleep through 5th-grade civics?

I speak, of course, of this “Obama is a Communist” meme going around because he said his tax plan would “spread the wealth around.” Well, DUH! So would McCain’s. So would Ron Fucking Paul’s.

It’s a tax plan! Tax plans, by definition, redistribute wealth. The only questions we’re actually debating here are whose wealth, how much of it, and where it goes. Not whether or not any wealth is taken from one person or group and given to another. Redistributing wealth is the primary function of the government. And not just in Jesus-y wasteful “feed the poor, heal the sick” way us namby-pamby liberals talk about, but in the “pay … Debts and provide for the common Defence” way the Constitution talks about. Redistributing wealth is in fact the first power the Constitution grants Congress. To question whether, rather than how, wealth should be redistributed is to question whether people should be ruled by governments at all.

So the real question, my friends, is not whether Democrats are Communists, but whether Republicans are Anarchists.

Extreme voter suppression

538 is now projecting that Obama would win the election if he won a single swing state. Yes, even New Hampshire.

Obama’s win probability is up to 85.4%, and he’s projected to be able to win 269 electoral votes with just the states he’s leading by 5 or more points. Technically, this is a tie, but because a tie throws the election to the House, which would almost certainly be Democrat-controlled, ties probably go to Obama. But that “probably” is why I refuse to think about that clusterfucktastrophe, so I’m going with the winning-a-single-swing-state story.

Even more interesting, to me, is that the likelihood of Obama winning Massachusetts is now up to 99%. What, I wonder, accounts for that other one percent? The first possible scenario was that some horrible plague swept through Boston and the Happy Valley, somehow leaving the 495 loop, the South Shore and the Cape untouched. But how a plague could get from Boston to Western Mass without affecting the 495 loop I could not hope to explain to you.

The second, and much more plausible, scenario is one I’m a little ashamed I didn’t think of to begin with: Zombies. It’s the only logical possibility. As we all know, higher education tends to correspond to liberalism, and Massachusetts is just full of highly educated people and their juicy, juicy brains. Naturally, with such a smorgasbord of tasty delicacies available, the zombies would entirely bypass the serviceable but less desirable brains of those without postgrad degrees. By election day, the remaining 5% of the population would be much more likely to vote Republican.

But why would Massachusetts be attacked by zombies, you ask? Karl Rove, I say. Think about it: It’s the perfect Rovian tactic. Most of us dirty longhaired liberals don’t own guns, and with all our pesky gun-control laws, we won’t be able to run out and stock up on shotguns when the zombiepocalypse begins. In fact, we’ll probably be too busy sipping our lattes and debating Kierkegaard to even defend ourselves. We’re sitting ducks!

Joke’s on Rove, though. We have a house full of quarterstaves and chain mail. This dirty liberal, at least, is going to survive.

*Happy dance*

From TPM:

Obama’s speech in Raleigh launching his economy tour is underway, and towards the end, during a discussion of health care, he drops a surprise aside that wasn’t in the speech’s prepared remarks:

“By the way, I’m going to be partnering with Elizabeth Edwards, we’re going to be figuring all this out.”

Anything that gives Elizabeth Edwards more visibility and policy input, particularly if it’s on Obama’s health care plan—which is a bajillion times better than McCain’s, but still leaves something (*cough**universalcoverage**cough*) to be desired—is mighty fine by me.

Hat tip: Pandagon

Clinton cancels public appearances

After falling short of the double-digit win she was hoping for in Indiana, Hillary Clinton canceled all public appearances today, which probably means she’s in seclusion with her advisers discussing whether to drop out of the race. If she does, I’m going to be avoiding the blogs of all those male Obama supporters I thought were allies, because I just know there’ll be a million and one “Ding dong, the witch is dead” headlines.

I think Clinton may actually do what Romney did, which is to suspend, but not officially end, his campaign. This maneuver would mean that, while she would no longer be campaigning, her delegates would remain pledged to her into the convention. That way, if Obama did something to sink his own candidacy or all the super delegates suddenly changed their mind about his electability they could, in theory, still throw her the nomination at Denver.

When “rhymes with witch” is too subtle for you

Don’t let anyone tell you that hatred of Hillary isn’t about her gender, people. Via TPM Muckracker, a former Nixon operative has filed papers to create a 527 group whose sole purpose is to make misogynistic remarks about Senator Clinton. Well, one remark in particular. All the group does is sell T-shirts reading:

 Citizens United Not Timid

a 547 Organization

To Educate The American

Public About

What Hillary Clinton Really Is

(All wonky line breaks, weird capitalization, and un-subtle formatting are [sic].)

 

That. Is all. They do.

They don’t run ads, they don’t contribute to opposing campaigns, they just sell sexist T-shirts. From TPM:

“The more people go to the site, the more people buy the T-shirts,” [former CREEP skeazoid Roger] Stone explains…. “The more people buy the T-shirts, the more people wear the T-shirts. The more people wear the T-shirts, the more people are educated. Consequently, our mission has been achieved.”   

 

“Educated.” Classy.   

This is what it’s about. For thousands and thousands of people, this is their real objection to Hillary Clinton. They don’t hate her because she’s too liberal, or too centrist; or because she didn’t divorce Bill, or didn’t Stand By Her Man hard enough; or because her husband lied on teevee, or she was caught up in a shady real estate deal; or because she’s not “really” a New Yorker, or she’s a Washington insider; or because she’s too cold, or too weepy; or because she voted for the war, or wants to end the war; or because she wears pantsuits, or showed a hint of cleavage that one time. They hate her because she’s a woman, she’s powerful, she likes it, and she doesn’t apologize for it. And nothing says, “Put her in her place, boys,” like calling her a cunt.