Responsibility

Q. Why do people vote against their economic interests?

A. Let us recall these words from Lenin: "Is it because the economic struggle does not 'stimulate" them to this, because such political activity does not 'promise palpable results,' because it produces little that is 'positive'? No. to advance this argument, we repeat, is merely to shift the blame to the shoulders of others, to blame the masses for our own philistinism, We must blame ourselves, our remoteness from the mass movement; we must blame ourselves for being unable as yet to organize a sufficiently wide, striking and rapid exposure of these outrages."

Question for Democratic Party

Question: Why the hell didn't the Dems have challengers at every Republican Precinct in Ohio today challenging votes. Two good things come out of it. 1) Less GOP votes are counted initially and thus the numbers look different at 2:51 AM on Wednesday morning. 2) Once, just once in my life, I would like to see how middle-class white voters feel when their vote is not counted or think they might have been disenfranchised. Just once, lets see how it feels.

Fuck this Shit; Or Spin in Action

11:39 PM Eastern

I'm sick of listening to newscasts. Bush needs Ohio just as much as Kerry does-even money on Kerry taking New Mexico and Nevada versus Bush taking Iowa and Wisconsin at this point. Yet, every single newscast is saying that only Kerry truly needs Ohio. This, my firends, is a lesson in good spin-Democrats need to take note, Republicans are kicking our asses here.

The Banality of Disenfranchisement

More general observations from the 6th Ward in Toledo to come, but my first impression upon arrival this morning was this-African-American and poor disenfranchisement is, more often than not, more banal than anything. No intimidation here, just poll workers who don't know when to give a provisional ballot or not. No police road blocks, just 3 precincts voting in the same location with long lines-result: people arrive 30 minutes before work, get in line, wait 20 minutes and find out they are at the wrong "precinct" the correct one being 10 feet and 30 minutes of waiting away. I don't know about you, but when I''ve voted in a polling place with more than one precinct (tend to be more wealthy than where I was today), the marking of which line was incredibly obvious. In Toledo today, the marking was virtually inexistent. This is the definition of disenfranchisement-one class of people being given different and harder circumstances to vote-nothing illegal-remember, for at least 70 years there was nothing illegal about a grandfather clause or a poll tax.

But back to the real news

All this election stuff and the future of the world and American democracy is getting a little boring how about we follow Fox News's lead and move on to the . . . . . . . .Scott Peterson case? Is thomasgeist going to have to choke a bitch?

Report from Toledo: 8:30 PM

After further explanation, the workers at our hotel are quite happy we are here-one was planning on driving Dem's to the polls if she could get the day off-could come in handy after this commentator finds himself drunk on three bottles of champaigne and a little PCP tomorrow night, running naked around the hotel draped only in an Eminem inspired black hoody (just kidding, I forgot my PCP at home). With the dismissal of the appeal this afternoon by the Circuit Court the mystery for me going into tomorrow is what are the thousands of Republican challengers coming into the state going to do tomorrow if they can't go inside the polling site? In a way, this could lead to more intimidation as the challengers will be stationed outside the polling site and perhaps less monitored by electio officials. Hopefully, between Election Protection (the group Astro and I are with), the NAACP and the AFL-CIO will see enough monitors out tommorow in order to counteract these measures. Another encouraging sign is the possibility of a class action lawsuit by the NAACP filed on behalf of the more than 4000 people in Lucas County alone (Toledo area) who have had there names mistakenily purged and are given no opportunity to re-register. Stay tuned.

Live From Toledo

Just arrived in Toledo. In the city it seems Kerry/Edwards signs well outnumber Bush/Cheney. Hotel workers didn't seem to understand our reason for being in Toledo as "poll watching." Weather looks shitty for tomorrow, polls look good though. UAW ads playing on TV--nice. Prediction: union voters in Ohio put Kery over the top. Bottle of champaigne above the TV waiting for popping in a Holiday Inn Express tomorrow around 2 am. Bourbon next to it just in case.