Prairie Angel tells a wonderful tale from Virginia: And here’s anecdotal evidence from Leesburg, Virginia, which every October 31st has a big halloween parade downtown. Every firetruck, marching band, karate class and insurance company for miles around decorates a truck to parade down King Street past the courthouse (and not incidentally, right past the front of my store.) This year we (Esoterica) fielded a truck, complete with bellydancers and cloaked witches. This all to explain why I was standing outside my store with a camera as the parade went by. This is the first election year since we purchased the … Continue reading Happy Kerry Story

Courtesy of First Drafter CrispyShot: A. Continue reading Happy Kerry Photo: Halloween Edition

Check that out, kids. That’s in the “conservative” city paper in Madison, Wisconsin, the day after a Kerry/Springsteen rally that drew 100,000 people. By the time I got there the next day, city workers had cleaned up most of the debris from the rally, though I did see a guy walking down the street carrying a Kerry/Edwards sign and wearing, round his neck, a beer funnel. Every other ad on the radio, and I mean on the football broadcasting radio, was for Kerry. Unions, Planned Parenthood, left-wing loonies I remember from my student days, all said “Vote Kerry.” And perhaps … Continue reading Travels In A Purple State: The Ultimate Happy Kerry Photo

At this point, I will take all the signs of hope and happiness I can get. If a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan and it gives us a hundred more votes in Ohio, I’m over there feeding the butterfly whatever butterflies eat and telling that little bitch to flap harder, dammit. So while this prediction model may be a load of crap, I still say the final score of Green Bay 28, Washington 14 warms my political heart as surely as it does my cheese head. Al Harris for Secretary of Football. A. Continue reading Go Pack!

From Holden: Newsweek pegs Georgie’s Job Approval Rating at 46%, same as last week. Can he poll higher than 46%? I doubt it. As for the horse race, here are some Sunday numbers: Democracy Corps Bush 47 (unchanged) Kerry 48 (+1) Fox Likely Voters Bush 46 (-1) Kerry 46 (+1) Registered Voters Bush 45 (-1) Kerry 47 (+1) ARG Likely Voters Bush 48 Kerry 49 Registered Voters Bush 48 Kerry 49 Link. Continue reading Polls and More Polls

Steve Gilliard has a story up from the WaPo, about Americans living overseas who have returned to work on the election. “What began as a steady trickle of overseas volunteers two months ago has developed into a concentrated final push in the last week before the election. Some expats are returning to their home towns in crucial swing states to take part in door-to-door canvassing; others are running phone banks or driving voters to the polls. a number have arrived in Florida to act as election observers. Whether they are from as far afield as Japan or Europe, or are … Continue reading Expatriates return to U.S. to work on the campaign

From Holden: VICTORY! I have a neighbor here in South Austin, TX, who worked for Rove & Company throughout the 1990s and during the 2000 election. Last night, at a costume party, she told me she was voting for Kerry this year. She came as close as her pride would let her to an outright apology for what has happened to our country over the past four years. Kerry in a landslide! Continue reading Sunday Happy Kerry Photo

From Holden: The New York Times tells us why: [I]n mid-December 2001, the United States intercepted a radio transmission on which analysts believe they could hear Mr. bin Laden giving orders to Qaeda fighters from within Tora Bora. The intercept was the most solid piece of evidence of Mr. bin Laden’s location since the war in Afghanistan had started two months earlier, and was corroborated by sightings of the distinctive Qaeda leader. [snip] “We made a conscious decision, the United States government, that there were organized Afghan forces on the ground that could be helpful to us,” Defense Secretary Donald … Continue reading Hey, How Come Osama is Free Three Years On?

From Holden: Kerry 47 Bush 46 Continue reading Today’s Zogby Poll

From Holden: Remember what it was like as the end of the millineum approached in 1999? All the dire warnings about ariplanes falling from the sky and our toasters attacking us with laser beams if we did not resolve the Y2K problem in time? This election year, with the fear that something will go wrong on Tuesday followed by weeks of litigation, reminds me of Y2K. As we were on December 31, 1999, this country is fully prepared for Y2K4. We’ve been forewarned and forearmed. Be it Florida felon lists, Ohio voter challenges, or paperless Diebold machines, we’ve been preparing … Continue reading Y2K4

From Holden: Last week I criticized the Times’ Nic Kristof for for making the ridiculous claim that George W. Bush never panders. This week he redeems himself, a bit, by reciting a series of Bush promises that have either gone unmet or been directly contradicted by his actions. Read it. Continue reading Kristof Somewhat Redeemed

From Holden: I’m with DHinMI over at Kos. If the latest OBL video breaks for either candidate it’s Kerry. I can’t fathom any benefit for Bush from a healthy Osama reminding voters that he’s still alive and free while he criticizes Georgie’s resolute reponse to September 11th. The statements I’ve seen from both Bush and Kerry suggest that neither man wants to be seen as taking advantage of Osama, so it may be a wash. But a wash is the best Bush can hope for. The video also plays into the theme of the week, the fact that Bush is … Continue reading The Bin Laden Bounce

I’m kind of late in the day with this, since both Josh Marshall and Kos posted stories on it this morning. I’m talking about the story of the Bush rally in which the 2000 or so people who were there were asked to stand, raise their hands and recite the following in unison: <p. “I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care I promise to work hard to re-elect George W. Bush president of the United States.” To be perfectly honest about this, I find the idea of 2000 … Continue reading The Bush Pledge

From Holden: Athenae is out for the weekend (I think she’s getting her vowel collection cleaned), so here’s your photo. Spider-man’s girlfriend says, “Go Big John!” Continue reading Happy Kerry Photo of the Day

From Holden: CRAWFORD, TX, Nov. 3 – President George W. Bush concedes defeat as Sen. John Kerry is elected as the 44th President of the United States in a landslide victory. Continue reading Things to Come

From Holden: Everyone’s favorite pouched blogger skippy points us towards Bill in Portland Maine’s DKos diary which in turn leads us to this photo of Chimpy getting pissed when the confetti went off too early during his speech today in Manchester, New Hampshire. HA! Continue reading Mission Accomplished

From Holden: In today’s gaggle Little Scottie went so far as to claim that David Kay doesn’t know anything about Iraqi munitions or US efforts to locate them. We also got a peak at Scottie’s big asterisk again today. Q The former chief weapons inspector, David Kay, said that, to him, it looked like that white powder was HMX. Are you disagreeing with his assessment? MR. McCLELLAN: I think there’s others that have said they’re not sure what’s in those boxes. It’s not clear, it’s not clear what’s in those boxes. And there are others that question what’s in those … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle: Explosives Are Bad, mmm-Kay.

From Holden: I’d advise Little Scottie to get his missing Iraqi explosives story straight, but apparently he doesn’t have a story. He was all over the map today and seems to have forgotten his GPS equipment: Q ABC ran some tape of the seals still being on that bunker when U.S. troops got there, suggesting the explosives were still in there. What do you think? MR. McCLELLAN: I think, you know, it’s premature to draw conclusions because the facts are not known. We seized or destroyed — our troops seized or destroyed already more than 400,000 tons of munitions. Securing … Continue reading Obsession Part II: Some People are Saying Scottie is a Liar

From Holden: Such a juicy gaggle today that I’m breaking it into three parts and posting them in reverse order (don’t try too hard to figure it out, just obsess with me). In Part III, it looks like Little Scottie is setting up Don Rumsfeld to take the fall for the no-bid Halliburton contracts: Q Are you concerned about the timing of this Halliburton probe expanding now? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I mean, one, you ought to talk to the Department of Justice or the FBI about any specific matters they’re looking into, because I don’t have knowledge of those issues. … Continue reading Obsession Part III: Rummy is to Blame for Halliburton Scandal

From Holden: It’s pretty obvious that U.S. forces in Iraq are preparing for a major push into Fallujah soon. It’s obvious to the major media, the citizens of Fallujah (espcially the 300,000 who have reportedly fled the city in advance of the attack), and the Brits who have reluctantly shifted their forces to fill in the gaps our attacking Marines will leave behind. I think we all were assuming that any big offensive would be delayed until after the election so that voters are not reminded of the carnage that Georgie’s incompetence has wrought. But now I’m not so sure. … Continue reading Fallujah Offensive as October Surprise

From Holden: The Russians are none too pleased with the Bush administration for pinning one of Chimpy’s many failures on them: Russia summoned a U.S. diplomat to protest at a Pentagon claim that Russian soldiers spirited away hundreds of tons of explosives from a site in Iraq just before the U.S. invasion, Interfax news agency said on Friday. [snip] In a Washington Times story this week, Pentagon official John Shaw pointed the finger at Russian special forces, saying they had moved many of Iraq’s weapons into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 invasion. “The Russian Ministry of Defense … Continue reading Pissing off the Russians

From Holden: Both senior officers and ordinary soldiers in the UK’s Black Watch battle group are not happy with Blair’s decision to send them to an area where American tactics have enraged the populace: Senior officers with the Black Watch battle group sent north to replace American soldiers believe that the Government agreed to send them there without properly understanding the risks the troops face. They said the United States marines they were replacing had suffered more than 200 casualties, including nine dead, since July. “We expect every lunatic terrorist from miles around to descend on us like bees to … Continue reading Pissing off the Black Watch

From Holden: The GDP increased by a disappointing 3.7% during the 3rd quarter of 2004, a good half a percentage point below what had been expected. The Commerce Department is trying to paint a rosy picture, but the Greenspan-favored index of personal consumption expenditures minus food and energy costs increased at a paltry rate of 0.7%, the lowest increase in that measure since 1962. In other words, the highly touted increase in Consumer Spending is primarily due to higher energy and food costs. Whoopee! The U.S. economy expanded at a 3.7 percent annual rate in the third quarter, below expectations … Continue reading Maybe Amelia Earhart Has My Bush Boom

From Holden: Your preznit: “I have a piece of brain lodged in my skull!” Continue reading Your Morning Caption Contest

From Holden: Michael at One Caveat points out that yet another conservative publication, The Economist, has endorsed John Kerry. Continue reading The Economist Endorses Kerry

Peekaboo. A. Continue reading Friday Ferretblogging

From Holden: Exactly even. Bush 47 (-1) Kerry 47 (+1) Continue reading Latest Zogby Numbers

From Holden: The Bush administration’s hands-off approach to high oil prices is helping one hard-pressed group of folks: ExxonMobil Corp. and Royal Dutch/Shell Group yesterday reported large increases in third-quarter profits, part of an industry-wide windfall caused by high oil prices and strong demand. Irving, Texas-based Exxon said its profit was $5.68 billion, up about 56 percent from the third quarter last year. Royal Dutch/Shell, based in London and The Hague, said that its profit more than doubled, to $5.4 billion. [snip] “It’s like the gold rush,” said Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York. [snip] … Continue reading Georgie’s Parting Gift

Not like we didn’t know that anyway, but this is buried at the end of a story about the record-breaking Kerry/Springsteen rally in Madison, Wis. today: The Madison City Clerk’s Office has drawn fire from state Republicans for agreeing to keep the office open for absentee voters after its usual 4:30 p.m. closing time. Republicans had talked of taking legal action to force the clerk’s office to close. But no suit had been filed as of this morning. This is really kind of stunningly dumb. As one commenter on the discussion boards over at a Madison TV station put it, … Continue reading Republicans Hate Voting

Dental work sucks. However, Chardonnay dulls the pain of a root canal considerably. Wheee! Here’s what I want, I mean in life. If I could have this, I would want for nothing else. I want people to stop coming up to me and saying things like “I hate Kerry” or “Kerry’s a liar” and then immediately adding, “I don’t really want a political debate.” Then keep your GOD DAMN MOUTH SHUT in the first place, you slag at my office who I intend never to speak with again. I am not dogmatic. I am willing to allow that people disagree … Continue reading A Series of Random Observations and a Happy Kerry Photo