For weeks I’ve scoffed at Sarah Palin supporters who say they like her because she’s “like them.” The obvious rejoinder is, “don’t you want someone who’s BETTER than you to be a heartbeat away from being President?” But this morning the brick hit me on the head, and I realized that I’ll be excited if Obama wins, because by and large, he’s the candidate that’s “most like me.” That’s not why I’m voting for him (I hope). I’m voting for him because I think he has the best judgment, the most discipline, and the superior collection of advisors surrounding him. But those are observations and calculations, not emotions. The emotional part of my support for Obama comes from identifying with his education, his way of talking, his way of carrying himself, etc. It is hubris, to be sure, for me to say Obama is “like me,” but I can certainly aspire, just as certain hockey moms may aspire to combine Sarah Palin’s energy, good looks, and love of high school hockey.

So I no longer scoff at that particular tendency, and I simply content myself with my conviction that Obama/Biden will make a far better administration than McCain/Palin. And I hope that behind certain people’s desire to have a beer or shoot a moose with Palin, there is at least a belief (however misguided, in my opinion) that she could make a capable…sorry, I can’t even finish the sentence.

But whatever your emotions, whatever your convictions, now is the time to do your last minute homework, and get out and vote.

Cast your vote for President. It’s the most momentous presidential election in decades.

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It’s election eve and I can’t help but feel the same way I did on Christmas Eve as a child - I’m excited, nervous and eagerly anticipating what tomorrow could bring.

It is in that spirit that I post this video.

It will be hard to sleep tonight for sure. I just hope I don’t get coal in my stocking tomorrow…

But for now, please please please takepart and find out where you vote and VOTE!

The media continues to report about a potential Bradley effect (named after Los Angeles’ former mayor Tom Bradley who was ahead in the polls but lost the election. Pundits attribute it to white voters being afraid of publicly admitting their fear of voting for a black person, hence the difference between the polls and the outcome).  However, during this extremely long election, every state has already had a primary which has allowed millions of voters of all races to support Barack Obama. There was no Bradley effect in the primaries so why is the mainstream media hyping up this story?

The real concern for voters should be election fraud and problems at the polls. Evidence of voting problems already are rampant. Oprah already experienced problems at her voting booth. If there’s one person who shouldn’t experience voting problems, it’s the most powerful media woman in America.  There’s already video documentation of voting flipping in West Virginia and Texas, Missouri and Tennessee from Obama to McCain or Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney.

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“We don’t need perfect political systems;
we need perfect participation.”
–UFW founder Cesar E. Chavez

What a beautiful message from the late Cesar Chavez and how true. Active and engaged citizens who demonstrate their commitment to our democracy by voting are crucial to bringing about much needed reform in our country. I just want to remind all of you–in case you missed all of my other election blogs–that activist citizens are required to protect all of us against voter intimidation and election fraud. If you observe or experience any voting problems or have questions, simply call 1-866-OUR-VOTE or visit 866ourvote.org. For Spanish, call 1-888-Ve-Y-Vota. If you need to find your polling location, click here: http://www.vote411.org/pollingplacebystate.php

I’m looking forward to an election day when all registered voters are able to participate in our beautiful process without any intimidation or fraud tactics. Once the election is over, we can all take a big sigh of relief and resume our normal hell-raising activities!

takepart and GO VOTE TOMORROW!

(From baratunde’s flickr photostream)

After producing the film Election Day and witnessing the hard work and commitment of pollworkers around the country, I was inspired to work as a pollworker myself. So in the mid-term election of 2006, my friend Anayansi and I got up at the crack of dawn to serve as election officials in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We had been through a rather pathetic 2-hour training at the board of elections a couple weeks earlier. (If you passed the open-book exam at the end, you got a $30 bonus. If not, no problem! Go ahead and work the polls anyway!)

One piece of information that clearly did not sink in with most pollworkers was the nature of a provisional ballot. The biggest problem we had during the day was people whose names were not on the voter list. In some cases, they had been voting at that site for many years, and we presumed it was a database error. In other cases, we had to help them figure out if they were at the correct precinct, which sometimes they weren’t. In other cases, they were newly-registered voters and it was unclear if their registration had even been processed. If the voter’s name was not on the list, had moved within New York City, had a missing or wrong signature, or did not have the required ID, the voter had two options: vote on a provisional (aka affidavit) ballot or march down to the local board of elections office to obtain a court order to vote on an election machine.

This second option was rarely presented to voters. Instead, they were often assured, “An affidavit ballot is the exact same as voting on the machine; it will be counted.” But the pollworker doesn’t know that. It is the board of elections office that will later determine if that provisional/affidavit ballot is valid. And it will be days or weeks after Election Day, after the vote is final, when the voter has no recourse.

In their article on voting pitfalls in Rolling Stone, Bobby Kennedy and Greg Palast wrote:

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Thursday I infiltrated a John McCain rally at my old high school.  I wore a red shirt, my mom’s fleece and hoped they wouldn’t smell my elite New York liberal bias. It was a weird 6 hours in which I spoke with many different people, looked around at my old school and reflected on my past and more or less had to lie about everything I believed in.

For example I had to pretend that I didn’t care about the environment. In fact, when at one point I heard a man say, “That green stuff is crap” in response to a flyer about the environment, I somewhat quietly said (even though I knew it was a stretch in reference to McCain’s actual practices) “Well,  I think both candidates have admitted that we need to pay attention to the environment.”  I immediately got 5 dirty looks and I stopped talking about the environment.

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One day till election day!! Make sure you know where your polling place is, find out today so you don’t have to worry about it tomorrow. Voting will be over before you know it.

Also, I can’t help but wonder what any of us will write about come Wednesday..

For now, we still have an election to write about, so with that I give you some Jon Stewart, some Stephen Colbert and directly below a video nightmare courtesy of The Simpsons:

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Oh Ohio!

I’m in Ohio right now so I can vote and also to help out with the Obama campaign in my free time.  I’ve always had mixed feelings about my home state (thumbs up beautiful outdoors - thumbs down lack of diversity of culture, people and opinion) and elections don’t help with that.  As it stands, Ohio often represents the entire country - or as Ohio goes so the country goes.  And on a more specific level, my county, Lake County, determines how the state goes - so in many ways, how Lake County goes so the country goes.

Things are a bit nuts here though.  My house gets anywhere form 5-10 calls a day from various campaigns. We have stacks of mail and you can’t look out your window (car or house) without seeing campaign signs.

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I got to shake Cindy McCain’s hand on Thursday when she and John McCain (along with Joe the Fraud) came to my old high school in Mentor OH for a rally (more on the rally this afternoon!!).  I purposely let John McCain pass me by and instead made sure that Mrs. McCain took my hand when they came down the line.  For some reason Cindy McCain fascinates me and I have the feeling that she would make a great topic for a film (I’m way into woman’s melodramas about housewives like All That Heaven Allows, Safe and Far From Heaven).

I could watch her for hours - her eyes are so piercingly blue but lack any emotion, she’s dressed impeccably but her body language couldn’t be more stiff. I can’t help but think that somewhere deep down there is a different Cindy McCain that somehow got stuck in this crazy whirlwind of the life she was expected to lead.

Give a watch to this backstage SNL interview with the McCains and keep your eyes and ears open for Cindy’s brief moment in the interview…  You can just tell that she’s saying one thing and thinking something else.  I kind of love her (although I’d rather she wasn’t the first lady…).

takepart to read The New Yorker article on Cindy and please please please takepart and VOTE!

Starbucks is giving a free cup of coffee to voters on November 4th.  Like Ben and Jerry’s, Starbucks is doing its part to encourage people to get out and vote on Tuesday. Here is the AMAZING ad (I just saw it while watching John McCain on SNL!)

takepart and VOTE!