voters – Don't Gel Too Soon

ONE MORE VIRGINIA CANVAS, ONE TIRED CANVASSER (AGE FOUR) AND ONE SENTIMENTAL LOOK AT WHAT OBAMA, AND THE CAMPAIGN, ARE REALLY ALL ABOUT

It was a long long Sunday canvassing for Obama, this time in Ashburn, Virginia, and it was also a very exciting one. It began far from our destination, in a parking lot in Maryland, where we were "briefed" and handed maps of our Virginia destinations.

Next stop: Virginia field offices. Once we arrived at ours, in a manufactured "village" of mostly low-rise, not-so-expensive apartment buildings, we were briefed again, presented with the usual impressive packets with maps and voter rolls, and sent on our way.

As on our other sojourns, my friend and I brought along his four-year-old son, who is a rabid Obama fan. We had 36 apartments on our list – in at least eight different buildings. The complex, nice but clearly not fancy, had no elevators. Instead, like an apartment you might rent at the beach, each building offered concrete stairs in an open stairwell, ascending four flights to the top. No doorbells, just brass knockers or — as we did — you knocked the old fashioned way.

It was a lot of steps; I clocked at least two miles on my pedometer. Leading our way was our four-year-old ambassador, who never flinched at the up-down-up-down-nobody home – maybe an answer – up – down of the day. It clearly wore him out but boy was it worth it.

I’ve always been sentimental about our country; since I grew up just outside a mill town south of Pittsburgh I’m very aware of multicultural living. In my class there were Kalcevics and Janczewskis and Brneloviches and Courys and McCurdys and Mortons and Stepanoviches — and more. But days like today – well – they’re different, mostly because many of the committed voters we met today just got here. One charming African man, with a wife in African dress, himself in shorts and a tee shirt, just became a citizen and received his voter card on October 12th. Another, Middle Eastern, immediately declared his preference for Senator Obama and asked where he could get a button (of course we gave him ours.) A third, whose son was also four, spoke to us as smells of curry and some unfamiliar seasonings drifted out the door; the scent of strange spices was all around. Some residents spoke Spanish, some perfect British English, some less perfect – and less British. But here they were, in these simple apartments in a massive series of cul-de-sacs, so ready to vote.

When I was a kid, my grandfather talked endlessly to us about how he felt coming here – what it meant to him and why he never wanted to go back to the Old Country – even to visit. He was a tough old guy – kind of scary actually – but fiercely grateful for what he had found here. That gratitude, and our own comprehension of our lives as the daughters of a Harvard-trained lawyer, educated on scholarships while his entire family worked to keep him in school; lives that were possible only because our grandparents had had the guts to pick up and leave and our country had offered them, and our father, the privilege of a chance – built an awareness that has never faded. Today though, it jumped from its quiet residence in the back of my mind to full-on awe. We are part of something wonderful here. As Jonathan Curley wrote in a Christian Science Monitor piece with similar sentiments

"I’ve learned that this election is about the heart of America. It’s about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten. It’s about those who have worked all their lives and never fully realized the promise of America, but see that promise for their grandchildren in Barack Obama. The poor see a chance, when they often have few. I saw hope in the eyes and faces in those doorways.

That’s what it is – hope. And the remarkable privilege of acting on that hope – using the power of American democracy to turn hope into action. Obama’s slogan "Yes we can!" isn’t just political. It’s a battle cry, a pledge passed on through generations – this time from my grandfather to the "new folks" living in Ashburn Village. The day we decide we are no longer obligated to help pass the legacy on will be a very sad day indeed. That’s why what happens on Tuesday is so important. Morals, ethics, values, opportunity, education, work, freedom, the pursuit of happiness… this has always been us. May it be again this week.

EMERGENCY! REPUBLICAN VOTER TAMPERING: COULD BARACK OBAMA SEE MCCAIN and PALIN STEAL THE ELECTION ? OH – AND A CHANCE FOR LAWYERS TO DO SOMETHING REALLY GOOD

Could a vast network of voter challenges (here’s help), especially toward young, newly registered and African-American voters (purges of voter rolls, craven voter challenges and other tough-to-prove but disruptive tactics) reduce votes for Barack Obama and endanger a fair election? Despite their efforts to tar Obama-related registration efforts, it appears that the truly dangerous activities — and those most likely to tip this election away from what appears to be the public will — are emerging from Republican operations. For example, on Super Tuesday in Las Vegas, "nearly 20% of the county’s voters were absent from the rolls." As one voting rights expert declared:

I don’t think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights
attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for
impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are
turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to
the GOP in half a dozen states.

There are several "games" and they’re tough to control because they come from so many different points of origin. Robert Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone, describe in horrifying detail (and no this is not hyperbole… it really is horrifying), how these vulnerabilities could play out. You can check on violations in your state here. Their account of the basics from across the U.S.:

Obstructing voter registration drives: stringent and unreasonable state laws have intimidated many registration efforts, including those of the non-partisan League of Women Voters. Oh – and in Florida they’ve ignored the law that food stamp recipients be offered registration opportunities when they apply for benefits. Those registrations, 120,000 during Clinton, are just 10,000 today.
"Perfect matches" Suppose I signed my voter registration form "Cynthia K. Samuels" and my driver’s license "Cynthia Samuels." That’s not a perfect match and in some states I could be disqualified.
Purging legitimate voters from the rolls: "All told, states reported scrubbing at least 10 million voters
from their rolls on questionable grounds between 2004 and 2006.
Colorado holds the record: Donetta Davidson, the Republican
secretary of state, and her GOP successor oversaw the elimination
of nearly one of every six of their state’s voters." The toughest thing about this one is that you don’t find out you’ve been purged until you get to the polling place, and then it’s tough to get help. It is wise for voters to check their status with their local election officials in advance of election day,
Requiring "unnecessary" voter IDs: Young and minority voters (more often Obama voters), according to Kennedy and Palast, often do not have either driver’s licenses or state-issued IDs. Without them, their legitimacy is often questioned.
"Spoiled" ballots: Blank spaces, tears that make the ballot tough for voting machines to count, or weird little extra marks can disqualify a voter. Since minority and less-affluent neighborhoods get the crumbiest, oldest voting machines, they are disproportionately affected by this factor.
Problems with provisional ballots: If our voter gets to the polls, and is challenged, federal law requires that, rather than being turned away, the challenged voter be given a "provisional" ballot – one that is supposed to be counted once the voter has been determined to be legitimate. HOWEVER there’s no way to track them – or to be sure they ever entered the vote count. In 2004, according to Rolling Stone, a third of all provisional ballots – maybe as many as a million – were thrown out.

In addition to the Rolling Stone piece, take a look at Salon’s review of hot spots. For example:

Voter suppression can be difficult to prove. Suppression tactics —
anything from purging voter rolls under suspicious circumstances to
using various justifications to question the eligibility of potential
voters — are often the product of legal gray areas being exploited at
the hands of local partisan officials. To date, no one has presented
evidence of any nationally organized effort by the Republican Party to
suppress Democratic votes. But there is little doubt that at local and
regional levels — in some potentially critical states on the electoral
map — there has been dubious activity that could result in the
disenfranchisement of voters who would likely punch the ballot for
Barack Obama.

This has happened before – and in many ways the Federal law passed in response to the 2000 election debacle makes it easier. Despite the new commitment in both the young and minority communities, local officials can challenge and prevent election day votes that may never be recovered. The young, the black and the poor are most likely to be affected – and that, of course, means, largely, potential Democratic voters, usually challenged in ways very difficult to recover. There is, however, a group called Election Protection providing resources all over the country. Not much we civilians can do – but if you are an attorney or law student or paralegal, please sign up to help . Your help on election day could count at least as much as — and in battleground states maybe more than — your vote.

FOR THE RECORD: POWELL ENDORSES OBAMA, PALIN YUKS IT UP, THAT RED-BAITING CONGRESSLADY FROM MINNESOTA

Between cooking for holidays, playing hooky at a pumpkin farm with friends and their kids, and work, I’m late writing about this, but it’s such an event that it felt unseemly not to acknowledge it. Colin Powell is highly regarded, and if you wonder why just listen to the interview with him on the sidewalk outside Meet the Press. Thoughtful, civil and committed, he related a broad and sometimes moving inventory of the reasons behind his decision. In addition to this sidewalk news conference, here’s a bit of the statement on Meet the Press itself. (skip it if you saw it – 3 graphs down)

"In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to deal with the economic problems that we were having and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that concerned me, sensing that he didn’t have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had. And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin. She’s a very distinguished woman, and she’s to be admired; but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.

On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama and I watched him during this seven-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a vice president that, I think, is ready to be president on day one. And also, in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing intellectual vigor. I think that he has a, a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well. I also believe that on the Republican side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower. Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He’s crossing lines–ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He’s thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values.

And I’ve also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about. This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign. But Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed-out terrorist. Well, then, why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted. What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that’s inappropriate."

It’s great that he’s saying it, but it’s also a bit pathetic that it takes a former general and secretary of state to open his mouth and say "cut it out." I saw that one blogger – and I’m so sorry that I don’t recall who, ran a bit of the Army McCarthy hearings along with this:

Hard to believe that people in America still sound like that, isn’t it? Back to the Fifties.
It’s this kind of talk that led Secretary Powell to speak as he did today; it’s this kind of talk that has been part of this campaign for some time.

And Sarah on SNL? She was funny and a good sport; it humanized and demystified her as a threat. Good for her, I guess, but she is a threat and she is scary and she says hateful, vicious and provocative things and none of that was apparent in this image-cleansing performance. It troubles me because the threat of her is in her firm position in the far-right, the scary, nutty, closed-ranks "base" that gets people to yell "Kill him" and "off with his head" and "terrorist" like a citizen in 1984. She lies, she uses half-truths to build anger and hatred and code words that give people embarrassed to vote against a black man an excuse to do so. To turn her into a "way hotter in person" cheerleader with a sense of humor is a dangerous, dangerous thing to do. Rehab by comedy.

My biggest fear right now though, as someone who fears deeply for a McCain-led nation, is what Obama calls "remember New Hampshire." People for whom voting is a tough logistical effort, or who are waiting in lines that are too long, or who are kind of committed but might decide things are ok without them — that these people won’t vote – will let things falter on overconfidence. I hope that we all remember that as cute as Sarah Palin might have been, the issues that drove Secretary Powell to do what he did are the issues that will determine the rest of our lives, and those of our children — and those of our country and the world that is watching so intensely to see what we will do.

HOPING FOR A DIFFERENT ENDING: “RECOUNT” ON HBO

I can remember reading Doris Kearns Goodwin‘s wonderful No Ordinary Time, about the World War II years in the White House: FDR, Churchill, Eleanor – it’s a wonderful, inspiring story and forever changed my understanding of leadership. I read the book on tape, mostly in my car. As I came to the book’s end, and the death of President Roosevelt, I drove around so that I could finish it. All the while, I kept hoping — "maybe this time he won’t die." Totally irrational but still – that was what I felt And I didn’t feel it again until tonight, as I watched Kevin Spacey, Tom Wilkinson, Laura Dern and Denis Leary in HBO‘s Recount, the story of the 2000 presidential election battle in Florida.

Reviews have reminded us that the story has been "altered" for dramatic reasons even though it’s presented as a docudrama. There may be more drama and less docu than historians would wish, — but the basic reality is there – and from the perspective of 8 years and the traumas of the Bush Administration, very painful to watch. In some ways it’s like watching a car accident about to happen – in slow motion — and not being able to do a thing to stop it. Here’s a little bit of it:

Continue reading HOPING FOR A DIFFERENT ENDING: “RECOUNT” ON HBO