Whooohooooo!!

OBAMA--MERKLEY---OBAMA---MERKLEY--OBAMA--MERKLEY!!!

GO GO GO!!!

Perfect! Excuse me while I pat myself on the back for thinking of this before it was reality. OK. Now, Go Merkley! I can't imagine anyone voting for Barack and not voting for Jeff.

It is a matter of national importance to get Smith out of the Senate. It has as much to do with the country as it does Oregon. That's why Obama came here first. That and the 100,000 people who came out when he came to town.

Excellent! Talk about a brand that a politician should want to be associated with. Barack has run an excellent campaign. It defines "disciplined." Or, to use a football analogy, it could be compared to a football team that, heading into game 15 or 16 of the season, has only turned the ball over one or two times all year.

Go Merkley!

This is from NPR today - an interactive map showing, at a glance, the strengths of each state at each level of race in relation to the two major parties.

Is American THAT strongly-GOP? Is this for real?

Someone tell me if this is bunk.

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/election2008/2008-election-map.html#/governor-nprOvM/

"I have no idea what you are talking about".

Ah.... I'm an idiot. Gotcha. You are an insider, you know what's really going on. Me, I keep on getting surprises to grok each time I take a new look at something NEW to me. I'm in a learning mode. This here is my great adventure - look at that huge map and ALL that territory folks. And how VERY much of it is solidly red, and how very much of it is NOT decidedly BLUE.

We may feel smugly in the bag here in this li'l pond, but it feels not so sure when you remember this is dynamic business.

Well, Kari: that's a VERY red map I'm looking at. I see the midsection looking awfully awfully red, and the borders looking like the inside of my head.

Forgive the depths of my surprise to see it in representation - the expansive sea of potential conservatism!

I know that the population is more dense at the margins/seaboard states. However, it threw me back to realize just how huge the task of any unification of this nation might be.

Is there room for discovery? It ain't a sure thing, and I'm tasting that again.

I'm a bit used to having it snatched away, you know. I will not believe it's safe, it's done, till it is done. And if the "man in the middle" takes it away again, I will hope the legal battles will not stop until there are computer guts in the streets.

With the economy being disastrous, and Americans needing jobs, healthcare and a plan to regain some prosperity, we should be hearing more about labor and union issues from the candidates. So Merkley and Obama, let's hear your response to this short video clip about the card check issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LX0pyVwG94&eurl=http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2008/10/bill_the_union.html

"I can't imagine anyone voting for Barack and not voting for Jeff. "

You don't have to look too far. Merkely is NO BO and never will be. Or should I say, I hope to hell Obama doesn't turn out to be a Merkely.

"Merkely is NO BO and never will be. Or should I say, I hope to hell Obama doesn't turn out to be a Merkely."

Merkley isn't running against Obama. He's running against Smith. Put that way, shouldn't this be a clear choice for all progressives?

re "Barack has run an excellent campaign. It defines 'disciplined.'"

It's Change Big Donors Can Believe In.

"Their coffers, particularly the Democrats’, are swelling with larger and larger bundles of cash, ensuring that politicians will remain beholden to special interests and wealthy donors...Obama’s campaign is credited with receiving an unprecedented number of small donations from among its historic 3.1 million donors. Campaign manager David Plouffe says the campaign’s average donation is under $100. A Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows, though, that only a quarter of this vast number of donors fall into the 'small' category (under $200), which is a smaller percentage than that achieved by George Bush in his 2004 run."

re "OBAMA--MERKLEY---OBAMA---MERKLEY--OBAMA--MERKLEY!!!"

Have I hypnotized you yet?

Jester, I am not really sure you are truly a Jester or understand the tasks of the Jester. You seem to simply be ranting-against without huge thoughtfulness.

Could I invite you to consider being the voice of accountability applied bias notwithstanding? The one to criticize no matter the target, if speech is fettered in that wise?

This is your task, if Fool you really are, you know... not simply someone declaring himself Jester then ranting his own heart's will.....

From Wiki: "Political significance In societies where freedom of speech was not recognized as a right, the court jester - precisely because anything he said was by definition "a jest" and "the uttering of a fool" - could speak frankly on controversial issues[3] in a way in which anyone else would have been severely punished for, and monarchs understood the usefulness of having such a person at their side.[4] Still, even the jester was not entirely immune from punishment, and he needed to walk a thin line and exercise careful judgment in how far he might go - which required him to be far from a "fool" in the modern sense.

The position of the Joker playing card, as a wild card which has no fixed place in the hierarchy of King, Queen, Knave etc. might be a remnant of this position of the court jester"

As an Obama supporter who cannot be blamed for the Bush debocle, registered independent and a previous Smith voter with reservations this year, this ad had the exact opposite effect on me. I have been listening to Merkley simply re-generate Obama talking points against Smith and this is the final politically charged insult to my voter intelligence.

Merkley is simply a mediocre candidate fortunate enough to be running in the year 2008 and really just doesn't give me that same Obama excitement factor. He really is a placebo and it is not worth it for me to vote in a freshmen Senator even further away from any semblence of seniority because of the impending surplus of Senate D's.

Now a Kitz Senate endorsement from Obama...that would have generated a MUCH different response probably resulting in a knee injury after my initial jump for joy.

Feel free to insert "troll" label here, but as a first time BO poster and single opinion all I can say is that's how I feel.

As an Obama supporter who cannot be blamed for the Bush debocle, registered independent and a previous Smith voter with reservations this year, this ad had the exact opposite effect on me. I have been listening to Merkley simply re-generate Obama talking points against Smith and this is the final politically charged insult to my voter intelligence.

Merkley is simply a mediocre candidate fortunate enough to be running in the year 2008 and really just doesn't give me that same Obama excitement factor. He really is a placebo and it is not worth it for me to vote in a freshmen Senator even further away from any semblence of seniority because of the impending surplus of Senate D's.

Now a Kitz Senate endorsement from Obama...that would have generated a MUCH different response probably resulting in a knee injury after my initial jump for joy.

Feel free to insert "troll" label here, but as a first time BO poster and single opinion all I can say is that's how I feel.

look at that huge map and ALL that territory folks. And how VERY much of it is solidly red, and how very much of it is NOT decidedly BLUE.

Good thing PEOPLE not ACREAGE get votes.

Here is a better map: Electoral Map of Pollster.com Running Poll Averages

Here is the same type of work applied to the 2004 election: Maps and cartograms of the 2004 US presidential election results

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