After seventeen years, Gregory Taylor was finally freed on February 17th when the three judge panel of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission unanimously ruled to exonerate him. North Carolina created the commission to investigate and evaluate post-conviction claims of innocence in 2006 and is the first of its kind in the United States. Taylor, wrongfully convicted of first degree murder in 1993, is the first person to be exonerated by the commission.
It is a popular today to say that the South has switched from voting Democratic to Republican. Many people are fond of looking at previous electoral maps. Hey, isn't that funny - the states have completely switched parties. It's like the Republicans have recreated the Solid South.
That statement is unequivocally false. Most people have no idea how unbelievably Democratic the Solid South was. For half a century, Democrats in the Deep South did about as well as the Communist Party did in Soviet Union elections.
Here is a map of a typical Solid South state, filled with blue counties. It is the 1940 presidential election. I invite you to guess - what do these blue counties represent? Counties in which Roosevelt won over 70% of the vote? 80%? 90%? Remember, Roosevelt was quite a popular guy. He must have done pretty well in Alabama, part of the Solid South.
The California Legislature approved a bill last week to extend voter registration privileges to 17-year-old citizens. If signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bill would help put California youth on the road to a lifetime of democratic participation.
(This is one of the key battlegrounds moving forward into future elections. Right now, it's a still-fragmented multi-front battle, but that only makes the need for national attention and federal action all the more apparent. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Following an historic turnout in the 2008 election comes a flurry of election reform agendas from both sides of the battle over voting rights. Since November 4, some state lawmakers have seized on the success of early voting and Election Day Registration (EDR) as models for facilitating voter registration, while others appear to have been threatened by the heightened turnout and inspired to introduce restrictive voter ID and proof-of-citizenship bills for the 2009 legislative session.
Following what appears to be significant progress this year in closing participation gaps among historically underrepresented young and minority voters, we review Election Day stories in states with voter ID and EDR laws, and preview next year's legislative battle for election reform.
Well, she's not in North Carolina. In recent years, she has only spent a few weeks in the state. All the while, she's voting with President Bush 92% of the time. This has resulted in a very low effectiveness ranking.
Elizabeth Dole has been busy in Washington DC representing the failed policies of the Bush administration. We need someone to represent North Carolina.
After 6 years on the Senate banking committee she managed to not ask a single question, about anything!
And now, our economy is in trouble, banks are failing, and the stock market is dropping.
Elizabeth Dole's lack of action on the committee is an appalling level of oversight. Adding to that, she voted against legislation to help people stay in their homes, and has been labeled as ineffective by North Carolina newspapers.
While Dole sat in silence, she did manage to collect donations from Wall Street to the tune of $850,000. Was it all just "hush-money?"
It's time for Dole to leave the Senate, and clear the way for someone who will speak up for North Carolina.
Survey USA is starting to report crosstabs for early voters in many of their recent state polls. In every state where they have such crosstabs, Obama is ahead by shocking margins. First, Georgia:
Early and absentee voting began in Georgia on 09/22/08. Among the 18% of Georgia voters who tell SurveyUSA they have already voted, Obama leads by 6 points; among those who have not yet voted, McCain leads by 11.
With 18% of the vote in, this crosstab is effectively an "exit poll" showing that Obama is literally winning in Georgia right now. Similarly surprising pro-Obama margins can be seen in several other states, like Iowa:
Among the 14% of Iowa voters who say they have already cast their ballot, Obama leads by a 2:1 margin.
Of the 12% of respondents who tell SurveyUSA they have already voted, Obama leads by 18.
None of the other Survey USA polls released this month included early voting subsets. Still, these numbers are enough to indicate that Obama is clearly over-performing among early voters compared to his standing among all voters. This means that the Obama field campaign is obviously superior to McCain's, and that even if McCain tightens the campaign later on, Obama will already have banked a substantial lead. Early voting is also an excellent protection against the voter suppression tactics Republicans regularly employ.
Obama is winning big across the board right now. Best of all, this lead is not just in polls, but in actual votes.
Update: Survey USA also reports that Jim Martin leads by 4% in the Georgia Senate campaign, among early voters.
Update 2: Also, I should note that I share skepticism of those who think this all sounds like 2004, and as such is too good to be true. However, keep in mind that during the early voting phase in 2004, Kerry never actually led Bush. During early voting in 2008, we all know that Obama is well ahead right now. That, combined with a less than effective McCain ground game (Bush's was excellent, McCain's isn't) makes things very different from 2004.
Update 3: It should be noted that these subsets have very high margins of error. However, that Obama is outperforming his overall numbers in every single one of these subsets makes it highly unlikely that this is just "statistical noise." If it were truly random, than the early voting numbers would be pro-McCain in at least one of the five states listed here. Instead, Obama outperforms in all five.
Update 4: If Obama is ahead by 30% in Iowa with 14% reporting, should we already call the state for Obama? I'm tempted.
As history has shown, there is a difference between submitting a voter registration application and finding your name on the rolls when you go to vote. With registration coming to a close, Project Vote is conducting emergency efforts to ensure that no one who wants to vote is left out on Election Day.
Project Vote's Registration Repair Program is an intensive and urgent effort to collect and rectify large numbers of registrations that have been rejected by boards of election. We have been working all over the country to obtain disqualified applications and to contact would-be voters to repair applications with missing or erroneous information.
I have spent much of this week lobbying my representatives in Congress to vote against the proposed bailout legislation. If this issue is of importance to you, then please call your Congressional representative this morning and weigh in.
The blogosphere is game-changing medium for our democracy and its impact will only grow. However, on the eve of an unprecedented Congressional vote on a $700 billion bailout bill, our Congressional representatives were not reading blogs. A day after the Senate loaded a revised bill with $150 billion of enticements to change the votes of House members, our Congressional representatives were not reading blogs. And regardless of whether one blogged about a sky which is falling or a ground which is shaking, our Congressional representatives were not reading blogs.
They are counting however. In the cloakroom, votes; in their offices, phone calls. So call. They work for you. Tell them what you want, not what you think you can get.
I watched the VP debate earlier and was put off by the sense of alarm expressed by Governor Palin and Senator Biden as they bandied their respective ticket's budgetary excesses back-and-forth: "$10 billion per month.." or "$1.5 billion on.." or "a $1 trillion increase over four years.." Put off by their avoiding any debate on the merits of the Senate's record-breaking passage a $700 billion bailout to shareholders of private sector corporations and a $150 billion bribe to swing votes in the House today.
To hell with talk of a pig with lipstick; there was an 850 billion dollar pink elephant in that auditorium in St. Louis which neither Gov. Palin nor Sen. Biden had any interest in discussing before the American public. An 850 billion dollar pink elephant which was crafted over the span of eight days. In just eight days Senators Biden, McCain and Obama have voted to spend more on a bailout than has been spent on the "war" in Iraq over the past seven years. Anyone remember the certainty and resolve with which the Congress rushed to judgment about Iraq? Over eight days, Congress has made a risk assessment which necessitates a $700 billion subsidy plus a $150 billion tip. In the context of what happened in the Senate, I'm not particularly fired up by fist-pounding over, what, a trifling $40 billion in tax break to oil companies over the past eight years?
I have called and emailed my Representative in NC, David Price, twice (Monday and Thursday.) He voted in favor of the bill last Monday. I called and emailed NC's US Senators, Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr on Wednesday. Senator Dole voted against the bailout; Senator Burr voted for its passage. Wednesday evening, Sen. Dole's challenger, Democrat State Senator Kay Hagan (who defeated me in the May primary)announced that she would have voted against passage.
At the end of the day, however, what really matters is how you feel, what do you want? Your voice counts as much as anyone's. "The highest office in America", said Harry Truman, "is that of citizen."
Call your Representative and tell them. Trust me: they're counting those calls.
Below is the email which I sent to Representative Price echoing my opposition to the bailout bill.
John Robinson, editor of the Greensboro News and Record writes: One thing has bothered me about the discussion of the distribution of the "Radical Islam" DVD. Some of those papers explaining their decisions to distribute the DVD to readers suggest that not doing so is censorship. And that they are erring on the side of free speech.
Of course, it's not free speech. It's a paid advertisement making the case for one side of a complicated, controversial issue. The papers will distribute the other sides, presumably, if they can come up with the money to pay for it. But most likely, the papers will not publish their information because the other sides won't take out ads.
As for censorship, not distributing a paid advertisement is not censorship. Newspapers decide not to publish information every day. Most of the time we call it news judgment. Other times we call it lack of space. We never call it censorship...particularly when the information is readily available elsewhere, as it is in this case (on YouTube).
Elizabeth Dole's absence from North Carolina has long been fodder for discussion among Democrats. We're prone to refer to her as a carpetbagger and talk about her 40+ year absence from the state, her voting history in Kansas, her run for president as a Kansan and her residence at the Watergate where she and husband Bob have lived since they were married in 1975. What we don't talk about is her long history of service in North Carolina because there is no history to speak of.
You would think that after a rushed residency period and her election to the U.S. Senate as a "North Carolinian" in 2002 that Dole would start spending a little more time in this state. Time she could use to get to know the people and our goals, dreams and hopes for the wonderful state we live in. Time she could use to gain understanding of the challenges and obstacles we face in North Carolina. If you honestly thought Dole was going to spend any substantive time here, you're wrong. Dead wrong.
Here are a few items for a fine Wednesday evening:
Two new national polls, from NBC and CBS, both show Obama up by 3%, down from 6% in both a couple weeks ago. Obama continues to lead, but McCain continues to catch up.
"If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system," Obama told some 1,800 people at a town-hall style meeting on the economy.
That's cool. Although, I do wonder about single payer sometimes. I mean, France isn't single payer, and they have just about the best system in the world (not to mention a lot of private, supplemental insurance), so it isn't exactly the end-all, be-all of good health care systems.
QUESTIONER: If we don't reenact the draft, I don't think we'll have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.
[Appaluse]
MCCAIN: Ma'am, let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said.
No matter the context, a competent, properly vicious, attack minded Democratic campaign would go after McCain hard for this.
Speaking of attacks, during the Democratic national convention, just about every speaker should mercilessly attack Republicans for their convention themes: peace, prosperity and reform. That is just bald face lying, and it needs to be called such. It needs that these are the three things that have been most lacking under Republican governance. Republicans brought us nothing but war, corruption, and an erosion of our national wealth. And, to boot, they continue to lie about it, by claiming they are bringing the opposite. During the convention, Democrats must hammer this home by directly, repeatedly attacking Republicans for their convention themes. Do it.
I have been very spotty on checking my email over the last few days. I just don't want to do it all the time anymore. Weren't there times in our lives when people would call other people if they had something important to say to them? Now, I get hundreds of emails a day, most of them I either don't want to read because they are press releases and email list discussions, or because it is just piling another hour or more onto my workday. Email has become an omnipresent source of work related stress-you are never done or free from work, because you have to check your email. Aarrggghhhh. It just never ends, and I need a breather.
This is an open thread. What are you thinking, reading, or doing tonight?
Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters
Weekly Voting Rights News Update
By Erin Ferns
In light of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to uphold Indiana's voter ID law, the state-by-state battle to pass similar legislation has escalated with politicians seeking partisan gain furiously pushing laws that hinder access to the ballot. However, lawmakers seeking to dismantle barriers to electoral participation are just as committed to election integrity and protecting the voting rights of potentially millions of voters by calling out voter ID laws as "sheer political posturing." Meanwhile, positive measures to increase participation through Election Day Registration (EDR) are gaining ground in several states even as Iowa prepares to test-drive its new EDR law in the June 3 primary.
There are lots of great posts concerning state polling for the upcoming General Election such as Chris' just begun Presidential Forecast. A topic I have been thinking about is how much better Clinton seems to do against McCain than Obama in some state polls. A recent example is the NC SUSA poll, and people like Jerome at MyDD like to cite such polls as evidence that the Dems are picking the wrong (weaker) candidate. Jerome's point is largely irrelevant - Obama is the nominee and whining that your candidate would be doing better in General Election polls only serves to weaken the Dem cause. But the NC SUSA poll raises some other interesting questions.
The first question that comes to mind, which is about as irrelevant as Jerome's whining: Does anyone think Clinton would be polling so well in places like NC if she were the nominee? Looking at the internals of the NC SUSA poll, it is clear that women are the primary difference. They support Clinton 56-37 over McCain, yet they support McCain 47-46 over Obama. That is a 20-point swing towards McCain. From my perspective, as an Obama supporter, this seems like sour grapes. The differences between Obama and Clinton are minor compared to the difference between either Dem and McCain and I cannot for the life of me explain why some one who supports Clinton would vote for McCain against Obama. Thus, I believe that if these women truly bought into Clinton's message, then they will also buy into Obama's message. Back to the question: would Clinton would be polling so well in places like NC if she were the nominee, or do people think there would be Obama supporters telling pollsters that they will vote McCain rather than Clinton. The most talked about constituency of Obama's base is African Americans and they break 89-7 Obama/McCain and 74-9 Clinton/McCain in SUSA's NC poll. While this does represent a 17-point difference in favor of Obama in a match up with McCain, I wouldn't call it a swing to McCain like the female vote. For the women, there is 7% other/undecided in both Obama/McCain and Clinton/McCain matchups. Ten percent of NC women are truly telling SUSA that they would vote for Clinton in a Clinton/McCain contest, but they would vote for McCain in a Obama/McCain contest (note there is a statistically insignificant 1-point difference for men: 41% for Clinton and 40% for Obama). For African Americans there is 4% other/undecided in the Obama/McCain match-up, but 17% other/undecided in the Clinton/McCain match-up. The subgroup of African Americans who support Obama, but not Clinton, largely fall into the other/undecided category. If Clinton were the nominee I am sure these African Americans would support her. However, if she were the current presumptive nominee, after all of the racist rhetoric that has come out of her camp, do people think African Americans would still be telling pollsters that they wouldn't vote for McCain, or would we see something like a 15-20 point support for McCain among African Americans? I think it would be the latter and thus Clinton's impressive 8-point lead over McCain in NC would shrink substantially.
While thinking about the first question, a second, and I think much more relevant question came to mind: Who are the 10% of women who are telling SUSA that they would vote for Clinton over McCain but McCain over Obama? This is a question that could be looked at from two ends of the political spectrum. We could view these women as conservatives who generally vote Republican in federal elections, and they simply refuse to vote for a black man for President. On the other end of the spectrum we could view these women as Clinton's most diehard supporters, currently very depressed and frustrated at losing a close contest, believing that the Obama campaign has belittled Clinton, possibly believing the Obama campaign has been sexist, and as a result of all of this telling SUSA they will vote McCain over Obama. The optimist in me believes the latter. Since, as I said earlier, the differences between Obama and Clinton are minor compared to the difference between either Dem and McCain, to believe the former is to believe that 10% of NC women are racists (while apparently none of the NC men are), and I cannot be persuaded to believe that. Thus, I believe that a large portion of these women who are currently telling SUSA they will vote for Clinton over McCain but McCain over Obama will ultimately vote for Obama. It will be interesting to see if future polls show this to be true.
I just got a form fundraising email from JB Poersch, the head of the DSCC and Chuck Schumer's acolyte. Poersch is quite good at political strategy, and he's discussing Senate candidate Kay Hagen in North Carolina versus Liddy Dole as 'the sleeper' race of 2008. It might be, and could bring us to 58 or 59 in the Senate. Much as the open secret of South Carolina is that Lindsay Graham is closeted, the open secret of North Carolina is that Liddy Dole is senile. She could lose if she acts too much like a bumbler.
Here's Poersch:
Kay Hagan is a great Democrat and a great candidate to topple Dole. As a leader in the state Senate, she has developed a statewide reputation as a moderate who can run and win in November. Her favorability ratings are already as high as Dole's, and Hagan doesn't carry nearly the same level of unfavorable baggage.
That said, Hagen supported retroactive immunity for telecom companies, didn't know if she would support Mukasey for Attorney General, and would not support children's health care (SCHIP) if it were funded by tobacco taxes (unlike the rest of NC's Congressional delegation). She might be a good Democrats, but she's also conservative.
Party organizations like the DSCC support conservative ideas because it is easier to raise money from business with conservative candidates while going to liberals, offering nothing and saying 'we need to get to 60'. There's going to be a lot of chatter about getting to 60 votes in the Senate, and there's a good reason to want to get there to break filibusters. But the reality is that the Senate is going to be conservative regardless of whether we're at 60 votes or 58, with people like Max Baucus Chairing powerful committees. We need more liberals in the Senate, not just more Democrats. We ought to go directly to the more liberal Senate candidates, like Al Franken in Minnesota, Novick/Merkley in Oregon, Tom Allen in Maine, and Tom Udall in New Mexico. Let the telecom PACs fund the DSCC and candidates like Kay Hagen, they get good value for their money.
Time for another look at the results maps for Guam, Indiana, and North Carolina:
Click to enlarge.
Overall, the results in all three contests were pretty solidly linked to demographics. Poblano has been busy running the regressions and making predictions, but for those of you who don't get much out of t-values, I've included some maps for several demographics below. And, the usual nationwide views. Finally, some evidence that Clinton's support in Appalachia isn't necessarily about race.
Obama has won North Carolina's pledged delegates 63-52, according to Green Papers. Their estimates are usually accurate to within one delegate either way, so I trust them. Obama also appears to have won the North Carolina popular vote by 226,500 or so, which is almost identical to Clinton's margin in Pennsylvania and Indiana combined.
The delegate count in Indiana is murkier, largely because the votes are coming in slower. In the extremes we have Democratic Convention Watch, which currently projects Clinton 35-33 Obama with four undecided, and CBS, which projects Clinton 38-29 Obama with five undecided. While these are not incompatible projections I am strongly prone to lean toward the DIY independent site, since such sites have shown, time and time again, to be way ahead of established news sites in delegate counts. In terms of the popular vote, Clinton is currently ahead by 20,000 and dropping with 92% reporting. I don't regret declaring her the popular vote winner at all, since I'll still be proven correct and since only one delegate is decided by the popular vote. I've been wrong about individual delegates before, and really that is all that is at stake in the popular vote.
Still, a very, very big night for Obama. The media has been giving him stupid rules to follow (pierce your nipples with flag pins or we will run Rev. Wright 24 / 7!), and he beat those rules tonight. I don't like those rules, but Obama played them, and won. The narrative will reward him as a result.
It looks like Obama will win North Carolina by 15% or more, and manage to only lose Indiana by only 3-4%. Overall, he will beat expectations in both states, so long as expectations are defined as final polling averages. Further, these wins will translate both into an overall delegate victory, and a substantial popular vote victory. Given that Obama was already ahead in both categories (delegate info here and popular vote info here), and that there are now very few states remaining, that is a very good night for him. Really, even though he was already gaining on McCain, it is just what he needed to help turn around the media narrative.
Even though she has some good states left--West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico--it is extremely hard to see how Clinton catches up now. Obama's overwhelming advantages should start to sink in with the media now, especially given that he beat expectations despite Wright and arugula and whatever. Those attacks are not working. Obama's wins tonight will net him a bunch of superdelegates, too, such as Heath Shuler in NC-11. Fact is, Obama is ahead even with Michigan and Florida included, and even if he receives zero delegates from Michigan. However, it appears he has already won at least 31 delegates from Michigan, even if Clinton gets everything exactly her way when it comes to seating those delegations.
Anyway, I'm taking about three hours off. We know the winners and general trend of the evening, but the final delegate and popular vote counts won't be determined for a while. This is an interim period in the returns, and so here is an interim thread for the evening. I'll be back to blog the final details and totals at midnight.
Clinton wins Indiana, Obama wins North Carolina. Overall, Obama wins most delegates and popular vote for the evening.
Indiana: 67% Reporting, 72 pledged delegates at stake
Clinton: 53% (38 del)
Obama: 47% (29 del)
Popular Vote: Clinton +52,200. Trend moves back to Clinton.
North Carolina: 22% reporting, 115 pledged delegates at stake
Obama: 61% (35 del)
Clinton: 37% (23 del)
Popular Vote: Obama +146,300. Trend favors Obama.
Update 7--Why the networks still haven't called Indiana: I guess the networks still haven't called Indiana because there are no results from the pro-Obama counties of Lake, St. Joseph's, and Tippecanoe, which are all university areas. Also, the northeast part of the state close to Illinois has no results in. While I stand by my projection for Clinton to win Indiana, it does seem like there is no way Clinton can win the overall popular vote tonight. So, Obama wins May 6th by every measure, strengthening his already solid grip on the nomination.
Update 6--Delegate Tracking: The key delegate threshold for the at-large vote in Indiana is 53.125%, which would give Clinton 1 9-7 split of the at-large delegates. In North Carolina, the at-large delegate thresholds are 13-13 below 51.93%, 14-12 Obama at 51.93% and 15-11 Obama at 55.77%. The PLEO delegate thresholds in NC is 6-6 below 54.167%, 7-5 Obama above 54.167%. All of these numbers are only for the votes for viable candidates.
Update 5--Obama will win most delegates tonight: Looking at the exit polls and early results, it now seems certain that Obama will gain delegates tonight. Considering that he was already well ahead, that is pretty crushing for Clinton.
Update 3--I am projecting Clinton as the winner of Indiana popular vote: The early returns from Marion county (Indianapolis) indicate that Obama will not make up enough votes there to close the gap. In fact, Clinton's popular vote lead continues to grow.
Update 2--High turnout, McCain's base troubles: Indiana turnout looks to be about 1,000,000 voters. Pretty impressive for a primary. I'm kind of surprised they haven't called this for Clinton yet. Also, McCain wins Indiana with only 76% of the vote, which is kind of paltry given that he hasn't had an opponent in two months.
Update--Indiana Exit Polls: CBS has the exit poll here. First look says Clinton 52%-48% Obama. That probably means that Clinton won Indiana by more than 4%.
Polls in Indiana close at either 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. eastern, depending on the time zone the precinct is in. For North Carolina, polls close statewide at 7:30 p.m. Given the polling averages in the two states (see here and here for Indiana, and here and here for North Carolina), popular vote winners should be called fairly quickly. Of course, delegate counts will take quite a bit longer.
Turnout is, of course, very heavy in both states, just as it has been this entire primary season. There might be some exit polls at some point, but I wouldn't trust any of them. I'll be back at 6 p.m. eastern to blog the results live
