If nothing else, this election season has taught me one absolute truth: always take Sarah Palin’s advice.  So when it came to casting my vote today, what did I do?  Doggon’ it, I got all mavericky in that booth.  I voted for myself! Read more »

I don’t like elections or democracy in general.
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“Obama, Obama, Obama. All anybody ever talks about is Obama.”

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Expat Sydney, here, with another report from the land of pasta and wine.

There haven’t been any earth-shattering, American political demonstrations this week, even with the clock ticking on the election. Nevertheless, on my quest for a better understanding of the Italian political psyche, I conducted a few interviews.

I spent fall break in Munich and Vienna, which did not offer much blogging fodder. But on the crowded trains back into the country, I met several Europeans who shared their take on the importance of image in the upcoming election.

After a quick reprimand for putting my feet on a seat, the Greek man next to me on my struck up a conversation with me. We couldn’t understand each other very well, but we quickly became friends. After half an hour of chitchat about my studies in Art History, I started to question him.

On the cover of the Austrian magazine he was a picture of Sara Palin. Even in broken English, my Greek friend clearly conveyed his dislike for the GOP VP choice.

But while he prefers Obama, he said, it’s mainly for the intelligent and accepting image the candidate brings to the table. He admitted on policy, he was not 100 percent behind the Democratic nominee.

My Greek friend was not alone. One Neapolitan, who’d crammed into space between cars on the Eurostar train to Florence, had a simple reason for supporting Obama – he reminded him of John F. Kennedy. There was no hard evidence in his reasoning, just a gut instinct. Image was important to these Europeans.

And it’s a topic that my friends here cannot seem to shake. It seems like a silly reason to hope for one candidate victory. But there is something inherently positive about the image Obama offers to our nation. It’s something akin to competency and tolerance in the eyes of many of my American interviewees.  Clearly, at least a couple of Europeans feel the same way.

I’ll be back with more closer to the big day.

So, the two competing urban legends: all college students love Barack Obama, and Vandy is conservative (competing urban legend: “Vandy is more liberal than you think it is.”). Last week, I administered a political opinion poll for the Vanderbilt Hustler and InsideVandy.com that sent a survey to 590 randomly selected undergraduate students, 241 of whom responded. Here are the full results, but below’s a decent representation of what the data tells us:

• 43% self-identify as Republicans; 35% as Democrats; and 22% as independents which seems contrary to accepted perception of college students in general
• 55% support Barack Obama (including about 17% of Republicans, and about 70% of independents); 38% support McCain; 5% are undecided. Compare that to UPenn, where 81% of the undergraduates support Obama.
• 55% say they will vote by absentee ballot
• Sarah Palin is viewed “Very Unfavorably” by 45% of students (the other candidates all have a plurality of votes around 30-35% as “Favorable”).

A little more conservative than people argue? Perhaps. It would be interesting to have comparative data for how the political affiliations have changed over the past fifteen years as the school has risen in rankings. Also, it would have been awesome to have been doing this all fall to get read on how the campus was trending on the election. Blast!

ETA: I’ve always perceived the campus to be largely moderate with some leaning towards center-right; at the same time, 55% support for Obama is totally not surprising — even just given the t-shirts and buttons on campus this year. Neither political side has much to get worked up about at Vandy, basically.

Moments following the terrifying Obama logo in motion that concluded tonight’s look deep into the heartland of people who voted for Hillary Clinton, Mike and I headed off to the Torch office per usual to deride Barack Obama.

To the surprise of no one, the level of discourse in the comments on YouTube has been at its usual magnificent peak. It would have been so much better if they had just done the song.

A few additional thoughts on the spot:

Gallup says only about 4% of voters are truly undecided at this point, so the ad tonight functioned more as reinforcement, with shades of a GOTV. In that capacity, the rate of return here can’t be all that bad; Obama had the money to do something like this, and considering the high production values and message clearly tailored to middle class voters in the Rust Belt, the ad was successful in conveying several of Obama’s specific policy goals while maintaining positivity free from attacking McCain. We’ll know tomorrow how many people actually viewed it, but in the meantime, Obama succeeded in that pursuit Read more »

Bob Kerrey calls himself a hypocrite in today’s New York Post on public financing:

He settles on hypocrite. But then is all, “Hey, maybe, restrictions on political financing…aren’t good?” Which, yes, welcome to being a Republican with John McCain as your candidate. There’s nothing wrong with Obama buying the road block — just pretending like we got here because of his virtuous campaign. Campbell Brown, of the network who has denied the Obama Variety Hour, would like to remind you just why Obama denied public financing:

So Obama could form his own 527 machine! But how could anyone have known he was being insincere about his intentions what with this spellbinding beacon of sincerity:

Mickey Mouse can both give money, on credit, from multiple addresses, to the Obama campaign and vote for Barack Obama (as Mickey Miller probably), but whither the day he tries to attend a party for Barack Obama without producing a form of ID. With hat tips to Michelle Malkin and Ace of Spades, here’s the information for the rave (which is now on WAIT LIST status):

Now, clearly, this is for security, and with all the crazies in the world, it’s for the best. But isn’t voting the most important thing in the history of the written word, as every spoken word, hand-jiving, t-shirt wearing, white backdrop, smarmy, two-minutes-too long, B-list celebrity Rock the Vote / MoveOn.org ad tells you? Surely, the security and integrity of an American electoral system that will probably produce a victorious Barack Obama is just as important as the security of just one party, right? God, no. And shame on you for even thinking it might be.

Katherine Miller is a junior at Vanderbilt University. She blogs daily at Right-Wing Vitriol.

I don’t really believe that, but John and Sarah seem to.

The McCain campaign’s favorite line of attack this week is that Barack Obama’s plan to roll back the Bush Tax Cuts and give new tax cuts to the middle class is socialist. This came after Obama made the comment that it was time to “spread the wealth.” I’ll willingly admit that this was very unfortunate wording from a candidate who rarely makes verbal blunders. But poor wording is all it was.

First of all, if opposing the Bush Tax Cuts is socialist, then McCain was socialist for most of Bush’s time in the White House. He apparently saw the light once he started running for President…funny how that works. I guess he was enlightened by the Republican base of CEO’s with billions of dollars and rednecks with delusions of billions of dollars.

The other leg of Obama’s tax plan is cutting taxes for Middle Class families. I’ve never heard a Republican argue that less taxes is socialist.

So is Obama socialist? No. at least not because of his tax plan. One could make the argument that his healthcare proposals lean toward socialism, but that is not what the McCain campaign is arguing.

And McCain’s not socialist either. But Sarah Palin might be. She routinely touts the fact that while governor she helped the state government take stricter control of the oil industry in that state. She then took a portion of the profits from those oil companies and sent her constituents checks. Socialist? very. Bad? not necessarily.

American society is in no way free of socialism. We have public schools, public roads, fire and police departments, social security- all things that could be considered socialist, and no one suggests getting rid of these things, save for a few leftover Ron Paul supporters. I’m of course not advocating a socialist state. I think it’s important to recognize the tremendous wealth that capitalism has brought to our country. However, when “socialism” is discussed in American politics it is rarely a true policy discussion, but rather a meaningless ideological hot button used to scare the masses.

And unfortunately, that’s exactly how it’s being used here. McCain is probably going to lose. If people vote based on hope for the future, McCain is definitely going to lose. It seems the Democrats have the monopoly on hope this year. The Republicans are just hoping to maintain their monopoly on fear. With this kind of ideological baiting, it seems they probably will.

Always Useful, If Not Relevant

So, the Great Saks Fifth Avenue Slaughter of 2008 has been my come to Jesus moment with Sarah Palin. Yeah, I’ve gone all the way around back to loving her again. It’s like she’s the Washington Redskins, nobody’s allowed to say anything bad about her except me, and then it’s only because I want her to do well. Place me aboard Marc Ambinder’s 2012 Sarah Palin game plan. Nevertheless, the Ballad of the Epic Pencil Skirt has dominated the news cycle while Obama’s in Hawaii.

Via Captain Ed, Campbell Brown identifies and spits on the double standard Althouse tackled last night:

Politico reported this morning that stylists defended the $150,000 — adding that Michelle Obama’s campaign outfits routinely cost $2000. E.M. Zanotti, the American Princess, if you will, echoes Brown’s comments, but has something to add about that double standard (as well as a quality detailing of what labels the RNC probably went with, which I agree with, though I don’t think I’ve seen Palin in St. John):

“We’re brutal. If Sarah Palin walked out of her motorcade dressed in an ill-fitting shantung pant-suit with a too-short jacket and a pair of Payless heels, we’d have eaten her alive. And I’m nice to her, and here I am admitting to you, my loyal audience of five, that I, personally, would have taken her, brutally, to task for her choice of campaign finery. And I’m not even close to Perez Hilton. [...]

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