Post-election stats wonkery

I'm a big nerd. So here are some stats I found interesting relating to the election:

The most Democratic county in the nation was Prince George's County, Maryland. Fully 89.1% of the vote in PG went to Obama, beating even the 88.7% of Shannon County, South Dakota, which was the most Democratic county in the nation in the 2004 election. (92.9% of the District of Columbia voted for Obama, but that's not really a county since it's not a segment of a state.)

The only state without a Democratic county was Oklahoma. The New York Times, where I got the stats, doesn't have county-by-county breakdowns for Alaska, but among the lower 48 and Hawaii, only Oklahoma didn't have a single county turn blue. By contrast, six states - Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire - didn't have any red counties.

The county map still shows mostly red, but that doesn't matter. After the 2004 election, I recall seeing a map showing how most of the counties in America were red and how this was somehow proof that the Republicans were dominating the country. While a look at the '92 and '96 electoral county maps does show that many more counties are red now than were red even just 12 years ago, it's kind of important to know which counties are red. And the fact is that most populous counties went to Obama. Of the 49 states for which the Times has county results, Obama won the most populous county in 40 of them, and often by huge margins: he won Los Angeles County by 40.5%, Denver County by 52.1%, Cook County by 53.2%, Orleans Parish by 60.1%, Kings County (Brooklyn) by 58.7%, and Philadelphia County by 66.7%. All told, of his 40, Obama won 25 of them by at least 20 points. McCain's nine were the biggest counties in Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming; only two of them he won by more than 20 points (Greenville County, SC and Laramie County, WY). Even in some of the states that Obama lost, he won the biggest counties by sizable margins, including Orleans in Louisiana; Hinds County, MS (which he won by more than 40 points); Shelby County, TN (27.6 points); St. Louis County, MO (almost 20 points); and Fulton County, GA (35 points).

What's more, of the 50 most populous counties in the entire country (which, oddly, is the same as the list of counties with 900,000 people or more), Obama won 46. The only four he didn't? Maricopa County, AZ (home to McCain's base of Phoenix), Orange County, CA (rich people), Tarrant County, TX, and Salt Lake County, UT (reliably Republican Mormons, although McCain won this county with less than 50% of the vote and by just 0.5 points). Obama also won many of the 46 quite handily, taking at least 60% of the vote in 25 of the 46 and more than 70% of the vote in ten of them. Even in McCain's most commanding win of his four, Tarrant County, he took just 55.6% of the vote.

And even besides that, Obama's most motivated counties were more populous than McCain's in most states. In fact, the county that gave Obama the highest percentage of its vote among the counties in its state was often the largest or one of the few largest in its state (this includes Cook in IL, Wayne in MI, Philadelphia in PA, Bronx in NY, Suffolk in MA, San Francisco in CA, Multnomah in OR, King in WA, Ramsey in MN, Essex in NJ, Cuyahoga in OH, and Shelby in TN), whereas McCain's most motivated supporters were usually found in more rural and/or less populated counties. In only seven states was McCain's most motivated county more populous than Obama's, and only in Hawaii - where the most "staunchly" McCain county, Honolulu, gave him a full 29% of the vote - was the county that gave its biggest percentage of the vote to McCain the biggest county in its state.

The greatest percentage of votes in one county was 93.2%, going to McCain in King County, Texas. I love this one mostly because of how few voters there were in King County (the third-smallest county by population in the US). 151 people voted for McCain, and eight voted for Obama. Eight??? I love it. Who are these eight people and why do they live there?

Nearly every state got more Democratic. Indiana went from +21 GOP to +1 for the Democrats, amazingly. And it's not just the ones that switched - already blue states got bluer. California, for example, went from +10 for Kerry in 2004 to +24 for Obama. Hawaii went from +9 for Kerry to +45 for Obama. Even Kerry's home state of Massachusetts went from +25 to +26. The only states that got redder? Arkansas (+10 to +20), Louisiana (+15 to +19), and Tennessee (+14 to +15). Oklahoma and West Virginia stayed the same.

Obama got 52.6% of the popular vote. It's the most of any candidate since Bush I in 1988, and the most for a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, also the last time the Democrats won Indiana and Virginia. Of course, this part you probably already knew. I bring it up more to point out how hilarious it is that conservatives have jumped right on the "This isn't a mandate for the Democrats" wagon. This is the same party that bragged about Bush's "political capital" after he won 2% less of the popular vote and almost 80 fewer electoral votes than Obama got this year. (In case you didn't buy that the results of the election aren't a mandate for Obama, some conservatives have started to argue that he's "center-right" and that his policies resemble Dwight Eisenhower's. Anything to avoid the fact that this election was an absolute destruction of the Republican party.)

January 20 can't come soon enough.

The Official BigFlax.com Presidential Endorsement

I know that a number of you have been waiting patiently to see which candidate this blog would endorse for President in the upcoming election. So here's your answer: Barack Obama.

I usually try not to be too political here, mostly because people get bored by that kind of stuff rather easily, and also because if you agree with me you don't need much preaching to, and if you don't you're probably not interested in my opinion. But I think we can all agree that after eight long years - emphasis on the long - it's time for a change.

John McCain might have been that change once. I know that some people who remember his 2000 campaign and his early opposition to the Bush tax cuts still think of him fondly as a maverick. But look at his record since then. He has drifted to the right on many issues, including now suddenly taking a hard line stance on abortion, his suggestion that he would extend the Bush tax cuts, and his selection of a far-right evangelical Christian with no national political experience as his running mate. 2000 John McCain wouldn't have won the Republican primaries, but 2008 John McCain can't win the general election. He's moved too far right at a time when that's clearly not what this country needs.

Even if you believe that McCain has only behaved this way to get elected, why should that be encouraging? Do you want a president who's willing to compromise everything he believes in just to win the office? Furthermore, his decision-making during the campaign has been severely questionable, and even if he were to turn back into Maverick McCain the second he was sworn in, it's unlikely that he would suddenly surround himself with better, smarter advisors, and Sarah Palin would still be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and I speak with no hesitation when I say that I find her the most unpleasant, least intelligent person to grace a presidential ticket in my lifetime.

By contrast, consider the case for Obama. While his enemies on the right charge that he is inexperienced, he has fashioned from nothing - with the help of talented advisors - possibly the greatest electoral machine this country has ever seen, one that swallowed up not one but two candidates who were sure the presidency was theirs for the taking. For all of Sarah Palin's posturing regarding executive experience, the mobilization of the Obama juggernaut is far more impressive to me than two years in charge of parceling out oil revenues. Throughout the entire campaign Obama has remained level-headed while McCain and Palin have increasingly frothed at the mouth; while he has misstated McCain's record at times to score points with supporters, he certainly has done nothing that has risen anywhere near the level of the far more personal attacks the right has leveled at him (and in fact many of his misstatements of McCain's record have later been corrected, suggesting that they may be misunderstandings rather than deliberate attempts to deceive in at least some cases). The right has run one of the dirtiest campaigns in history against Obama - and coming on the heels of two GEs with Karl Rove in charge of the GOP's sleaze machine, that's saying something - and Obama has not just weathered the storm but largely risen above it.

Obama's promises may seem to some like pie-in-the-sky, but most campaigns are like that. With a Congress that will be controlled by the Democrats (who still have a slim chance at a supermajority in the Senate), Obama certainly has a much better chance to enact his policies than a President McCain would. In that scenario, the only reason to vote for McCain is if you prefer inaction, but given the support Obama has been getting, it appears that much of the country prefers his plans to reverse the recession, fix health care, and deal with education, among others. Certainly I do - at the very least, considering how Republican policies have failed to do these things over the past eight years, what could be wrong with letting the Democrats have a turn? If they mess up, I'm sure people will be lining up to vote them out in 2012, if not sooner.

Finally, an Obama presidency ensures a Supreme Court that continues to have balance. A Republican president - even one with McCain's supposed moderate streak - is likely to nominate more conservative judges to fill the inevitable vacancies, and while the Senate will be in position to block any Robert Borks or Harriet Mierses after tomorrow, they'll have a tough time holding out forever. A Republican president means the Court is lost to the conservatives for a generation, legitimately putting Roe v. Wade at stake (while this is a decision that should probably have been left to state courts in the first place, it's become too important as a national issue to allow the decision to fall by the wayside).

Many of you have probably already voted, but for anyone left, I urge you to vote Barack Obama tomorrow. A vote for Obama is a vote against the fearmongering and divisive politics of the right, and a vote for a legitimate chance to save the country's reputation at home and abroad. If the future of the country genuinely means more to you than scare tactics and race-baiting, there's only one choice to make.

You're doing it wrong, Part 2

Today on CNN.com they had a story about an ad the GOP was running in support of Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina, and an analyst wondered if it implied that the GOP was effectively conceding the White House to Barack Obama:

A new Republican ad appears to suggest that Barack Obama has all but won the presidential race, an argument several vulnerable Senate Republicans may have to reluctantly embrace with only days until Election Day, an expert in campaign advertising said.

Aimed at Kay Hagan, Sen. Elizabeth Dole's surprisingly strong Democratic challenger in North Carolina, the 30-second spot from the National Republican Senatorial Committee warns voters against Democrats holding the White House and Congress, and flatly states that if Hagan wins, the party will "get a blank check."

"These liberals want complete control of government in a time of crisis, all branches of government," the ad's narrator states. "No check and balances, no debate, no independence. That's the truth behind Kay Hagan. If she wins, they get a blank check."

So, that's one item of interest, I guess. But here's the part I found more interesting: The GOP apparently has nothing better with which to promote Elizabeth Dole than "Hey, you wouldn't want Democrats running both branches of government, would you?"

Really, GOP? Really? You expect people to vote for Elizabeth Dole solely because she isn't a Democrat? Or, more accurately, you expect people who are otherwise inclined to vote for Kay Hagan - presumably the targets of such an ad - to vote instead for Elizabeth Dole solely because she isn't a Democrat?

This is the truth of the GOP these days. They aren't winning the war on policy, so all they have are scare tactics, name-calling and advertising that damns their own Senate candidates with the faintest praise possible. Elizabeth Dole is a sitting senator; don't you have anything in her record to run on? Nothing but "I sure hope people like divided government so much they're willing to vote for someone they otherwise wouldn't just to prevent, maybe, a Democratic supermajority in the Senate?" All right then.

The Politics of Division

In 1999, during the early part of his campaign for the White House, George W. Bush described himself as "a uniter, not a divider." This phrase was widely used for mockery when Bush turned into one of history's most partisan presidents, but compared to his successors as conservative-value standard bearers, Bush is starting to look like Gandhi. Sarah Palin and the far-right-wing cadre that John McCain never wanted a part of until he deemed it necessary to be a viable Republican candidate have amped up their rhetoric in recent weeks to a degree that McCain's campaign now looks like the most bitterly divisive since George Wallace took five Southern states in 1968.

Here are just some of the many recent examples:

* During a speech in North Carolina, Palin discussed how much she liked visiting "pro-America" parts of the country. Naturally, this implies that there are "anti-America" parts of the country. Her pro-small-town rhetoric during the RNC equally implied that urban areas - which tend to go heavy for Democrats at election time - were not full of the "good people" whose virtues she extolled. Then, of course, there's her use of inflammatory terms when referring to Obama, suggesting that his policies are little more than socialism and accusing him of "palling around with terrorists," as though he and Osama Bin Laden were playing Connect Four or something.

* McCain advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer saying the following on MSNBC: "I certainly agree that northern Virginia has gone more Democratic. As a proud resident of Oakton, Virginia, I can tell you that the Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved in to northern Virginia, and that's really what you see there. But the rest of the state, real Virginia if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain's message."

That's right: real Virginia. Not that ersatz, Virginia-like substance in the northern part of the state. Clearly Democrats have just been flooding in from DC, which explains why DC no longer has any people in it. What the fuck is she talking about? Guess what - it's yet more division. If you're not receptive to McCain's rhetoric, it must be because you're some sort of liberal carpetbagger. That's the only reason McCain could be losing ground in traditional Republican strongholds. I wonder what her excuse is for North Carolina and Colorado?

* The worst of them all comes from Minnesota representative Michele Bachmann:



Bachmann can't even be bothered to separate her talking points, which Matthews calls her on; Tony Rezko isn't exactly known as a "radical leftist." But the scariest part is the last minute or so of this, in which Bachmann asks the media to "do a penetrating expose" to find out which members of Congress are "pro-America or anti-America." If this sounds like McCarthyism, that's because it is.

If you think this all reeks of desperation, you're right. Because that's all the Republicans have left. Even fear tactics, which have dominated recent elections as Republicans insist that only they are equipped to defend America, haven't been working. Division is the only avenue even more extreme. People aren't swayed by the suggestion that Barack Obama is too liberal? Then call him anti-American. Districts aren't voting your way? That's not the real part of the state anyway.

The irony in all this is that the only thing that seems to qualify someone for the "anti-American" label is not being a flag-waving, jingoistic yahoo who supports the government no matter what it does. So, assuming Obama wins, is that going to make all the Republicans who hate him "anti-American"? (Of course not! Nothing can be negative if it's done by Republicans.)

It always reminds me of the quote from The American President, in which Sydney Wade asks liberal-minded president Andrew Shepherd how he's able to keep quiet in the face of mounting attacks on his character by his Republican challenger (not so ironically played by Richard Dreyfuss, who would go on to play Dick Cheney in W.). "How," she asks him, "do you have patience for people who claim to love America but clearly can't stand Americans?"

That's exactly how I feel. How can you take the McCain campaign seriously when it's talking out of both sides of its mouth? It's ready to label anyone who isn't voting for McCain as "fake," and people with liberal viewpoints as "anti-American." But what's more anti-American than slandering half the population like that? It doesn't even matter what McCain's policies are anymore, apparently - you're either for them or you're against them. Of course, if you're Palin - the nasty, mud-slinging attack dog who has lied about virtually every facet of her record as mayor and governor - that's the only reason you're here. She doesn't have the background that would lead her to have formulated any national or foreign policies. All she has is supposed blue-collar cred, enabling her to toss around words like "terrorist" and "pro-America" with no regard for the issues (never mind her connections to the Alaskan Independence Party, at least as solid as Obama's ties to William Ayers and about as "anti-American" as it gets).

Some people wonder how much of this ultra-right-wing attitude McCain really buys into, speculating that maybe he's just doing it because he thought it was the only way to win the presidency in what's clearly his last chance. I say it doesn't matter. Are you really willing to take the chance that McCain the Maverick would suddenly show up again on his first day in office, with a wingnut VP ready to step forward should anything happen? The Republicans would like you to believe you can judge a man by the company he keeps, but if it's true of Obama, it's true of McCain as well. And McCain has surrounded himself with people who clearly loathe more than half of the country. After eight years of failed Republican policies, why should we accept more leadership from a party that openly hates those of us who aren't willing to goose-step?

Posting

Wow, it's been a month? It's amazing how little has been going on. I did have my 26th birthday, which was pretty non-noteworthy. I got Blue Planet DVDs from Alma to accompany the Planet Earth she got me last year, which was nice, and my parents got me both a subscription to The Economist and the Rosetta Stone software for Tagalog, which I really need to get started on. So I got everything I really wanted, which is always nice.

Class has started up for this quarter and my time is already running pretty short. I'm just praying that as few Cubs playoff games as possible are scheduled on Monday and Thursday nights, although I'm also praying, of course, that there are as many Cubs playoff games as necessary for a title. If the expense of that is me having to watch a couple on DVR, I could live with it. If a potential World Series clincher was on one of those days, maybe I could make an exception (we get one free skip).

Politics are making me ill. I really just need to avoid this garbage until Election Day. And no offense, but if you're voting for McCain you're probably an idiot.

A lame excuse for an excuse

Did you hear about Jesse Jackson's comments about Barack Obama? No? Here they are:

The remarks came Sunday as Jackson was talking to a fellow interviewee, UnitedHealth Group executive Dr. Reed V. Tuckson. An open microphone picked up Jackson whispering, "See, Barack's been talking down to black people ... I want to cut his nuts off."

Well! That's certainly a classy statement. Reverend Jackson, anything to say in your defense?

Jackson told CNN's "Situation Room" that he didn't realize the microphone was on.

"It was very private," Jackson said, adding that if "any hurt or harm has been caused to his campaign, I apologize."

Private, huh - you don't say. I'm shocked that you didn't think the microphone was on. But let's not bullshit here, Reverend - you clearly believe what you said, or you wouldn't have said it. And note that nothing in Jackson's words actually backs off the statement itself. He says that he didn't realize the microphone was on and that the comment was private - as if blaming other people for having heard him - and then apologizes for the following things:

* "if any hurt or harm has been caused to [Obama's] campaign"
* the fact that the particular words used were "crude"

Earlier, Jackson told CNN he felt "very distressed because I'm supportive of this campaign and with the senator."

"So supportive that I would like to cut his nuts off for being, supposedly, condescending." Nice work, Jesse.

Hey, who left all this garbage on the steps of Congress?

Showing he completely lacks a sense of irony or historical perspective, President Bush gave a speech today in which he compared Iraq to Vietnam. I know what you're thinking - finally, he admits it! But no, surprisingly, he didn't take the "quagmire we should never have gotten into" approach.

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

We got into the Vietnam War because we were afraid of the domino effect of Communism. Except that the Communists were already active in Laos long before we got seriously invested in Vietnam. Also, what were we planning on doing? Fighting wars in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia simultaneously? The whole enterprise was an absolute lost cause right from the start, to say nothing of the fact that we got into it because of red panic and the need, which continues to this day, to play World Police.

We left because the war was supremely unpopular. And why? Because (a) we weren't making progress; (b) stories of war crimes like My Lai were coming out and turning people against the military; (c) we spent 15 years in Vietnam and lost 47,000+ lives (and ruined thousands more), and for what? We couldn't win and Vietnam still went to the Communists. How many more years and lives did we need to spend? Does Bush legitimately think we ever could have won? I know he wasn't there - much too busy not flying planes over here - but this just displays a level of cluelessness that... well, no, no level of cluelessness from Bush surprises me at this point.

"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.

A lot of innocent citizens were killed by Agent Orange, too. Also, the "killing fields" were in Cambodia. Perhaps Bush wishes we'd gotten involved in a difficult, possibly unwinnable war there too.

Look: there's no denying that a lot of what went on in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the years following the Vietnam War was pretty unspeakable. But a lot of what the U.S. did during the war itself is pretty unspeakable too. And there's two points I would offer up on this front:

(1) It is highly, highly debatable - if not, based on actual results, an outright lie - that continued American involvement in the Vietnam War would have prevented the things that Bush references. To prevent the killing fields, we would have to have started a war with Cambodia, either abandoning Vietnam anyway or drafting millions more troops. Does this sound like it would have been a good idea to anybody? How long does Bush want the Vietnam War to have lasted? Into the 1980s?

(2) It is pretty convenient that we were willing to bomb the shit out of poor countries without nuclear technology and yet we leave China alone. Considering the millions of people killed by the Communists there - even if the bulk of those weren't as intentional as in Cambodia - and the human rights abuses alleged to this day, you'd think we wouldn't want to get in bed with them. Wait, what's that? They're one of our largest trade partners? Huh.

But House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said more Democrats are "bucking their party leaders" in acknowledging progress in Iraq.

"Many rank-and-file Democrats have seen this progress firsthand and are now acknowledging the successes of a strategy they've repeatedly opposed," Boehner said in a statement. "But Democratic leaders, deeply invested in losing the war, would rather move the goalposts and claim that a precipitous withdrawal is the right approach despite the overwhelming evidence of significant progress."

It's convenient that the only Democrats supposedly acknowledging the successes of the surge are the ones who we aren't likely to hear from. But let's assume Boehner is right on that point. Can the Republicans please stop saying that Democrats want to lose the war? This isn't just disingenuous, it's a lie. John Boehner and everyone who has parroted this talking point for months, if not years, is a liar. Democrats don't want to lose - they just don't think winning is possible. And they're right. Because it isn't.

Very quickly: explain to me the stated goal of the Iraq war.

Was it to rid Iraq of WMDs? Well, seeing as how there weren't any in the first place, I guess we can claim to have accomplished that.

Was it to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein's oppressive rule? We did that, although it's so far arguable whether the complete power vacuum left, and the unsolved and unsolvable conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, is really a whole lot better. But let's say that it is. We've done that. So why are we still there?

Was it to rid Iraq of terrorism? That certainly wasn't the stated goal, but let's give the administration the benefit of the doubt and say okay, that was the goal as it evolved. So now that's the goal.

Now hear this: if winning a war is defined as meeting your goal, and our goal is to completely rid Iraq of terrorism... WE ARE NEVER GOING TO WIN THIS WAR. It is functionally impossible. Terrorists aren't beholden to a population. They aren't going to surrender based on a reduction in their numbers. This is the critical point that the war hawks have never understood: we aren't fighting another country this time. This isn't an enemy that borders contain. And that's why drawing comparisons to Vietnam, or Korea, or World Fucking War II, all of which Bush did in his speech, is totally specious. Sure, it sounds great to say, "Hey, no one thought we could make Japan a democracy! But we did, dammit! And that means we can do the same anywhere!" Because yeah, I would totally compare Iraq and Japan. Are you even listening to yourself? I'm not saying Iraq can't turn into a futuristic, technological paradise through the sheer force of Bush's conviction, but... well, no, I guess I am saying that. 'Tain't happenin'. It's a ridiculous suggestion anyway - the fact that Japan and South Korea are free and prosperous nations does not mean that any nation we want to fix up can be fixed up. Also, Japan and South Korea never had to deal with the kind of internal religious struggles that are going to continue to cripple Iraq, nor with the kind of terrorism that has become such an established force in that region that it will probably never be stamped out entirely. It's an idiotic comparison, made by an idiot, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. And oh hey, looks like commanders on the ground are starting to believe that democracy in Iraq is looking less feasible. Good to know we've been so successful.

The old adage is that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. Bush and those who think like him have taken this one step further and one step worse - they don't ignore history, they just use it in all the wrong ways. Bush has taken a war that we probably should never have been involved in to begin with and couldn't win, and used it to argue that unwinnable wars can magically become winnable if you just dedicate endless time and resources. And a million monkeys with typewriters will eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare, but I'm not going to sit around watching them try.

Damn, Keith

Edward R. Murrow, eat your heart out.

Wait a minute... I know this one...

The National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement saying that "House Democrats have failed to deliver on their campaign promises to change Washington" since taking majority control of Congress in January. The statement accompanied a video highlighting what was supposedly the poor record of Democrats since taking over.

Well, let's see here. The Democrats don't actually have a majority in the Senate - it's 49-49 and there are two independents, who happen to caucus with the Democrats (usually; Lieberman can be up for grabs sometimes). 51-49 is still the slimmest majority you can have, and it isn't enough to override a presidential veto. And guess what Bush likes doing to aggressive Democratic legislation?

The House is 232-201, but since acts of Congress have to pass both houses, it's kind of irrelevant (and 232 out of 435 is only 53% anyway, hardly overwhelming). In either event, Republicans have about as much to do with not getting things passed as Democrats do, if not more.

Here's a logic exercise. Let's say you are someone who wanted the Democrats to gain power and pass the laws they promised to. If those laws don't pass because when the Democrats try to get them through Congress, they're voted down due to Republican opposition, do you think the solution is to elect more Republicans?

In other words, if you agree with the NRCC's video that the Democrats haven't been able to live up to their promises, the choice next election is clear: vote for even more Democrats! (Particularly for president, thus taking that pesky veto out of the equation.)