Centerblue.org

I rushed out this morning, leaving my cell phone and reading materials behind, thinking today’s voting would be a quick in-and-out 5 minute affair.

Um, no.

What must have surely been a record-breaking line for a primary awaited me at the polls. I did not press the vote button until an hour and a half later.

With nothing else to do, I took note of what was going on around me–who was there to vote, what people were saying.

There were the young professionals, blackberries and iPods in hand–and those who could not afford such luxuries.

There were young people and old–a lot of older people, in fact–a busload of them arrived from a nearby senior residential home.

There were whites, blacks, hispanics, asians…people from all walks of life.

“Will be in line for 1.5 hours, but last general election was 4 hour wait,” typed the woman in front of me into her Blackberry. “At this rate, next general election will be whacked.” (Yes, shame on me for reading over her shoulder.)

Most people were cheerful, happy to be a part of something that seemed really, really important. “I’ve been in line for an hour,” yapped a woman into her phone. “But I’m not leaving–this election is important!”

Unfortunately a few did leave, unable or unwilling to wait in line for so long. One older person collapsed, requiring a 911 call and an ambulance.

Clearly, the electorate is in a mood. From gas prices, to the housing collapse, to the recession, to Iraq–people are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and they’re not going to take it anymore.

I have a feeling this angst will translate primarily into Obama votes. We will see tonight–polls in Virginia close at 7 PM.

The Clinton campaign knows it’s in trouble–setting up Ohio and Texas in March as “must win” states in the face of a string of losses on Super Tuesday and beyond.

This is a terrible strategy, and I have doubts she’ll even make it to March. The string of defeats in state after state between now and March–Obama is expected to have blowout victories in the Potomac region today and has won every other state voting since Super Tuesday–threatens to create a snowball momentum effect that may be impossible to cancel out by the time March rolls around. It’s not just the delegate count (though many Clinton super-delegates are now wavering because of the Obama snowball)–it’s also the demoralization of troops, the drying up of fundraising, and the incessant drumbeats of impending death from the media. Obama is already bringing in twice as much money per week as Clinton, choking off her ability to respond.

Oh well..this former Hillary supporter is off to vote for Obama in the Virginia primary. She just didn’t close the sale for me.

I’ll be voting for Obama in Virginia’s primary tomorrow because:

And most of all:

Today is Election Day in Virginia, where all seats in the state legislature are up for grabs. While I might ordinarily sit out an off-year election cycle, this year there is a strong chance that the razor-thin GOP majority in that body will be booted out of office. Virginia has been trending strongly blue in recent years because of the increase in Northern Virginia’s influence–we have elected two popular Democratic governors and threw the vile George Allen out of his US Senate office. People are sick and tired of the horse-and-buggy Republicans in Richmond continually getting in the way of social and economic progress. People are also very upset over the outrageous “remedial” traffic fees passed by the legislature (which can be up to the thousands of dollars), and are holding the GOP majority accountable. I sense a scalping!

I always feel kind of weepy on Election Day, even on one as relatively minor as this one. I am always reminded that this is still America, however much it may have been diminished under the thumb of a rogue regime for the last seven years–the land of the free and the brave. So many people have put their lives on the line and died so that I can push that little button at the voting booth. The images of outrage coming out of Pakistan in the wake of the Musharraf dictator’s suspension of the constitution there only serve to remind me of just how precious and fragile the right to vote is, and why I so strongly feel that every single person of every political persuasion has a moral obligation to go to the polling booths on Election Day.

Today is also one year (minus two days) away from Election Day 2008, the next chance we have of permanently repudiating the darkness of the Bush years and rejoining the community of nations. I still fume over Election Day 2000 and what might have been, and again over Election Day 2004 where we could have booted the bastard out of office. But no, it took six years of war, invasions, torture of prisoners, a collapsing dollar, a looming energy crisis, a city destroyed by the forces of global warming beginning to take hold, a burst housing bubble thanks to a negligent Fed, and more for people to finally come to their damned senses and boot the scandalized GOP out of Congress. The White House is next.

After giving a lot of thought to it, I am throwing my support behind Hillary Clinton’s campaign for President. Here are a couple of reasons why:

–She gets the climate crisis, the energy crisis, and the economic interplay between the two. They feature prominently on her campaign page. These two are the most important issues of our time, bar none except possibly nuclear proliferation. Iraq is up near there in importance, but only because of the nexus between our involvement there and our addiction to foreign oil. The predictions of climate calamity are becoming increasingly dire, and we have wasted seven years of doing nothing. As of this writing, Atlanta is a few short weeks away from running out of water, providing a second harsh reminder of how climate change could bring our civilization to its knees. Right along with that is our addiction to fossil fuels that we absolutely must break as we enter a period of increasing scarcity (oil approaches $100 a barrel even now). Making our society more energy efficient and moving to alternative sources of energy could create millions of jobs and take the country out of its economic hell-hole. Out of all the candidates, I believe she presents the best hope of implementing meaningful climate change and instituting something akin to a “Manhattan Project” to wean America off its fossil fuel addiction.

–Bill Clinton. There can be no question that, as opposed to the current Monkey-In-Chief, Bill left the country a far better place than when he arrived at the White House (despite his personal scandals). He has thrown his heart into the Climate Change Initiative, doing things like working with cities and Wal-mart to make urban locations much more energy efficient more cheaply. He will be one heart-beat away from the Oval Office, providing valuable advice to Hillary on areas in which she may be lacking a bit such as in foreign policy.

Three years ago I didn’t think she was electable. Now I think she is, or at least is the strongest and most electable of the Dem candidates. I have never really fallen for Obama’s spell. He struck me as inexperienced, and while his words are eloquent they seem tailored so that each side of an issue thinks he’s on their side. The recent brouhaha with the anti-gay preacher kind of sealed his fate with me. As for Edwards, maybe he deserves a chance. But he comes across as rather fake to me, talking about Two Americas of rich and poor at the same time he gets $400 haircuts and made millions in attorney litigation fees. If either of these two win the nomination I will support them, but for now I believe Hillary has the best shot.

Starting today I’ll dedicate a lot of my centerblue.org blog to trying to deliver Virginia for Hillary one year from now. It’s an exciting time to be a Virginia resident, a place where you can really make a difference.

Happy Election Day! (and you better vote if you live in Virginia!)

Hey Virginians! Surely you’ve heard about the new “abusive driver” traffic offense fees recently enacted by our illustrious General Assembly. No? Well, they are outrageous fines levied on top of the normal traffic infraction fees, payable ONLY by Virginia residents, for the crassly stated purpose of raising $65 million in yearly revenues for traffic projects. That sounds like a tax, but don’t tell that to those cowardly Republicans in Richmond who’d rather pull a wolf in sheep’s clothing by calling an exorbitant tax something else.

Bear in mind that a one-cent state tax on gasoline would raise $50 million yearly and spread the cost much more evenly in society–but God forbid that SUV drivers should be inconvenienced.

Check out what some of these outrageous fines might look like, which are in addition to the original fine for the offense itself, and ask yourself how a struggling middle class family or one below the poverty level might be affected by these fees if they’re unlucky enough to earn one (fees are payable in three yearly installments):

Driving 20 mph over speed limit/”reckless driving”: $1050

Driving without a license: $900

First time DUI: $2250

I’m not defending a DUI’er here…but imagine someone trying to get their life straight being socked with a fee of that magnitude. Or picture someone poor who loses their license because they can’t afford the fee, only to be socked with another $900 fee because he desperately needs to get to work and is driving without a license.

Virginia citizens are mad as wet hens. A petition with over 100,000 signatures is circulating online, and General Assembly Republicans are getting REALLY nervous as all of their seats are up for grabs in elections this November.

Do you agree the fees are outrageous? Sign the petition now!

It’s official: Obama is running for the White House.

He is the personification of the American dream–rising from the humblest of roots to obtain an Ivy League education and then launch a political career that could culminate with the ultimate prize. He also has a facility with words that make him remarkably eloquent. These qualities have combined to make him a media sensation and a cultural phenomenon.

But is being a cultural phenomenon enough to win the White House? Does he have what it takes? Some have accused him of being silver-tongued, that he says what he thinks people want to hear–and that diametrically opposed individuals who listen to him each come away convinced that Obama is on their side. Maybe that’s true, maybe not–surely the harsh spotlight of a presidential campaign will soon pin him down on his positions and test his political acumen.

There’s also the 800 pound gorilla in the room that nobody seems to want to discuss: is America ready for a black president? It’s a sensitive question, but it simply must be asked.

I sure hope the answer is yes, that we’ve come far enough along that a person’s skin color (or gender) is not an impediment to reaching the White House. The shenanigans that surrounded Harold Ford’s Senate race in Tennessee (which he lost) gives me pause, however. It was a race replete with racism and innuendo, including a commercial featuring a scantily-clad white woman asking Ford to call her, obviously playing into people’s stereotypes and fears about black men with white women. Will we see more of the same with Obama? It’s an obnoxious truth that many people still hold racist feelings, whether they say so aloud or not–and it is unknown how powerfully this will play into a presidential vote.

All he can do is try, and in that I wish him success. Whether the race goes his way or someone else’s, I’ll be watching and ready to help the Democratic winner take Virginia in November 2008. Virginia has now twice elected a Democratic governor and more recently a Democratic senator. It has become a quintessential battleground state, one that can be delivered to the Democrats in the electoral vote. What a sweet upset that would be…and I intend to help make it happen.

In an election cycle that promises to deliver a stinging rebuke to the GOP for its disastrous policies, increasingly desperate Republicans are resorting to truly disgusting and disgraceful means of keeping their claws on the levers of power at any price.

This is what Bush and Cheney had to say yesterday:

“However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses. That’s what’s at stake in this election. The Democrat goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq.”

Bush is not content to share power with Democrats, no–who are, after all, red-blooded Americans just like him. Any victory whatsoever by the Dems, any loss of absolute power in Washington by the Republicans, means nothing less than the ignominious defeat of America and a complete victory for terrorists. He makes this statement in the same breath as claiming the GOP wants to win in Iraq, while failing to explain how he intends to do that and while avoiding the NIE statement that the war is actually worsening terrorism.

Bush and Cheney are not alone in their vile rhetoric. In Tennessee, Republicans recently aired two racially tinged commercials against Harold Ford (who is black in a deeply conservative state): a universally condemned one in which a white female stripper asks Ford to call him (evoking interracial sex anxieties for voters) and a radio ad that beats jungle drums whenever Ford is discussed. In Virginia, George Allen slammed Jim Webb over fictional novels Webb had written describing hellish life in Vietnam during that conflict. And, of course, there’s always gay marriage.

These are your leaders, America–schoolyard bullies who show their true colors and throw a tantrum when threatened with losing their disastrous hold on power. It’s time to give them the butt-kicking that all good bullies deserve.

A new MSNBC/McClatchy poll shows Republican George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb in a dead heat for Allen’s Senate seat. Allen’s standing has crumbled in the wake of the “macaca” and other racial scandals.

I can’t remember another time in recent memory when a political “rising star” fell so quickly.

The stories just don’t stop coming. MSNBC has an exclusive report on a woman, Pat Waring, who overheard Allen loudly and repeatedly using the “n” word in the late 70’s as he prepared for a rugby match. This happened just before his first run for Virginia House of Delegates.

I agree with the woman in the article. He could have come clean about his past, admitted his repeated use of the word in the recklessness of his youth, apologized, and moved on. But no, he preferred to flatly deny it, which makes him a sitting duck for anyone who knows anything to the contrary. I bet we’ll get stories like this all the way to the election.

Allen is a disgrace to Virginia and to people of color. I can’t fathom how someone like him is still in office….though his presidential aspirations are probably toast, and that’s a good thing.

(The Allen campaign is fomenting allegations that his challenger Jim Webb also used the “n” word at one point. We’ll see what comes of that story, and if true is equally reprehensible, though I still consider Allen by far the worse evil for his consistent pattern of racism, from displaying nooses and confederate flags to the “macaca” incident to stuffing a decapitated deer’s head in a black family’s mailbox.)

Republican George Allen’s re-election campaign for Senate is crumbling, along with his ambitions for president. First there was “macaca.” Then came his defensive response to a question about his Jewish heritage, and his subsequent ludicrous claim that he wasn’t aware of it until now. Now witnesses are emerging to say that Allen repeatedly used racial epithets against African Americans in his younger years, and even shoved the head of a deer into the mailbox of the nearest black person during a hunt.

We’re seeing the real George Allen emerge now, especially in the way defensive, condescending way he is dealing about the questions regarding his past. This is a guy who has been photographed proudly with white supremacists, who has hung a noose in his office, who has spoken lovingly of the Confederate flag.

George Allen is and has always been a racist, and he can’t escape evidence of his true feelings anymore. Oh, he can try to hide by sponsoring useless and ultimately fruitless legislation to apologize for lack of harsher federal response to lynchings, and by providing lukewarm support for a formal apology for slavery. These are nothing but cheap ploys to deflect questions about his true racist past and feelings.

Hopefully Virginia will come to its senses and boot this bozo out office come November.