Obama did improve on Kerry's numbers in Arizona. AR is the postal code for Arkansas, not Arizona.

I found the ending heartbreaking - be warned.

a burning cross? sigh... some of our canvassers here in MO had dogs sicked on them and guns pointed at them... sigh...

i thought nro was a 'house of crazy" til i stumbled upon a place called atlas shrugged..theos folks are batshit....

loved the butler story...i second the warning about the ending..have a hanky handy..

in the "somethin to add" department...dig this

just got an email from the National Republican Senatorial Committee:

Russell --

The fight goes on ... as three Senate races have yet to be decided:

Georgia's Senate race is headed for a December 2nd runoff.

Minnesota's Senate race (the race angry, liberal Al Franken is trying to win) is headed for a costly recount. Norm Coleman is leading, but Franken's lawyers are already crying foul.

Votes are still being counted in Alaska.

The liberals are mobilizing an army of lawyers in Minnesota and Alaska to try to steal these seats they could not win outright on Election Day. And MoveOn.org is sure to add to the $217,741 they raised to help elect a Barack Obama rubberstamp.

[then there's some begging for money]

Thanks for your support,
Senator John Ensign
Chairman,
National Republican Senatorial Committee
=================
yes, you read that right...

forcing a runoff is trying to STEAL an election

having a legally-mandated recount is trying to STEAL an election

still counting votes is trying to STEAL an election

f@ck these people.....

The Eugene Allen story -- the end will make you sob.

Byrd, 91, handed the leadership of the Appropriations Committee to spring chicken Inouye, 84. Heh.

Obama may yet pick up one more electoral vote, this time from Nebraska.

It was called for Obama a short time ago. So his EV total is now 365 and McCain's is 172.

Disposition of Missouri's 11 EVs is still pending.

Here in UT police are investigating a flag burning. Get this: an African American family got back from some friends' house where they had gone to watch the election returns and ensuing speeches. When they got home they were so proud and happy that they turned on all of their outside lights and hung their American flag back up on its pole. About an hour later they noticed that somebody (presumably a very patriotic, rightwing someone)had burned their flag. Lovely.

It was called for Obama a short time ago. So his EV total is now 365 and McCain's is 172. Disposition of Missouri's 11 EVs is still pending. - Cervantes

The 365-172 ( which I think should be 173) suggests that your source has given MO to McCain. The total should end up 538.

having a legally-mandated recount is trying to STEAL an election

Just repeating what they said in Washington in 2004.

* And finally, it's only the first week in November, but don't worry, Bill O'Reilly is already thinking about the "war on Christmas."

Wow, it's fun to not care about that at all.

That's Just What I Said

The 365-172 ( which I think should be 173) suggests that your source has given MO to McCain. The total should end up 538.

Sorry for the typo: that should have been 365-162 with 11 outstanding.

Regarding the Georgian/Russian war, I wonder how long the information was known by the US military/intelligence forces, and even the NY Times. Funny that this information just happens to come out only a couple days after the election. I wonder if the Times once again held off on the story so as to not affect the election.

It looks like Reid is prepared to let the Democratic caucus decide Lieberman's fate.
"Prepared" is an adjective that should not appear with "Harry Reid" in the same sentence.

Could we please, please, please stop paying so much attention to what NRO, O'Reilly and the rest of the gang at Fox News have to say and are doing? I mean, we should assign someone (a couple of Kos diarists perhaps) to keep an eye on them. But otherwise, don't we have something better to do with our time? Let's focus on educating ourselves and our friends about the policy issues that matter so that we can contribute constructively in the upcoming debates over health care, energy policy and economic stimulus.

If we are concerned about the deranged cranks at NRO having Obama derangement syndrome, let's not ourselves have Corner Derangement Syndrome. They speak for no one. They don't even speak for themselves anymore, or at least not for the relatively principled, intelligent folks that they used to be that somehow disappeared over the course of the past three years.

The Gene Allen story was beautiful - and a tear-jerker. I guess it shows once more how important it is to vote early...
Thank goodness Granma Tutu did...

We still have a ways to go on the racial reconciliation front. This is truly sickening.

Stories like this are why I fear we will see another Oklahoma in this country before another 9/11. I remeber well the rise of the militia movement during the Clinton years. Their close ties with White Supremacists.

Those people view Obama as being just this side of the antichrist. And the republican machine whipped a lot of them into a frenzy.

If you haven't seen the most recent cover of the Weekly Standard, check it out. It has to be one of the most offensive covers of any magazine that I've seen in recent memory. It depicts caricatures of Obama, Biden and other Dems, all with angry, vicious expressions on their face driving a blue military tank with John McCain standing in front of it. Quite reminiscent of Tiananmen Square and the iconic stand off between the young Chinese protester and the column of tanks.

Appalling.

This "accepted" propaganda , that Georgia was merely responding to Russin aggression requires one to ignore all the evidence to the contrary that points out American collusion.

Rove's secret meeting with the Georgian president 2 mos prior to the outbreak (What was Rove even doing in the region?)

Randy Scheuneman"s (sp) highly paid lobbyist's effort to lobby McCain for Saachasvilli which shortly after his firm was hired by the Georgian president got McCain to recommend Saacha. for the nobel prize...convinced the Georgian pres that America stood behind him and his efforts to break away his "territories" from the Russians, suddenly attacks Russian territories doing a little ethic cleansing of civilians Saaschavilli wanted purged anyway as well as giving the McCain camp a little boost on National security (which McCain blew badly with his "We are all Georgians now" crap as if he were the president) and which resulted in the neocons convincing the dems that we should give over a Billion $s to Georgia to rebuild as well as military experts and cupplies etc.

Except for the thousands dead and disabled displaced citizens the Georgian President came out very well. Except for the majority of the country disagreeing with McCain's response of threatening war with Russia over a tiny unimportant border conflict, McCain's campaign got lots of needed attention too.

That is the real McCain camp...willing to start a war to win an election...human life is only valued when it is American so he can gain political points from it. McCain's "honor" is as phony as Palin being a maverick. Thousands dead from political maneuvering for personal ambition. Just makes me sick. As bad as Iran/Contra. I am so glad Obama is president because it gives me hope. He should never turn his back on these people that's for sure.

This should be Bill O'Reilly's merriest War on Christmas season EVAR, since all of us serfs have no money to buy anything, thanks to the gross fiscal mismanagement and policies of the Bush maladministration that O'Reilly has been propping up lo these many years. I'm sure the lack of spending will be attributed to a general hatred for Christmas by O'Reilly. The great irony is that it took Bill O'Reilly's Republican heroes to really kill Christmas.

(The exceptions were Alaska, Arizona, Louisiana, and Tennessee.)

Steve, are you going to do a report on the strange post-election numbers coming out of Alaska?

The story about Mr Allen is so wonderful. It is so sad that his wife died before she could see Senator Obama elected President.

Hey, it's been War on Christmas Season for >2 weeks already!

And I still haven't bought my Secular Gingerbread Co-op.

The story about Mr Allen is so wonderful. It is so sad that his wife died before she could see Senator Obama elected President.

Hey mishanti--thanks for spoiling the story for those who haven't read it yet. Sheesh.

Derbyshire oce issued what seemed to be a call for the death of Chelsea Clinton. Judge for yourself:

http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire021501.shtml

No word yet on what he'd like to see happen to the Bush twins.

A truly sick little man.

This is what we have to look forward to for at least the next four years.

From Michelle Malkin an article entitled "Child abuser: Obama-supporting teacher bullies soldier’s daughter". Here is the link:

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/11/06/child-abuser-obama-supporting-teacher-bullies-soldiers-daughter/

Of course, bullying a child in class in not acceptable but Barack Obama cannot be responsible for this.

It looks like the right has completely run out of things to say and are attacking Obama supporters and their actions. So, be careful what you do and say out there, you too could be the subject of a report like this one.

What's next? Obama supporter wrecks car!

Can I just say what a week, huh?

Can I just say thanks Steve Benen for all your fantastic work that has kept me sane...

I am still in shock Obama won....
=================================================
Hey, and I love how Maddow uses a Palin comment to stop and pause and say "Hmm..." because otherwise this is the seemingly trivial but really not so trivial stuff that gets lost--If you just pause and listen to what she said about the media, about being paranoid with the media and creating an overblown distorted sense of distrust that seems ready to aim at anyone at all...oh, and of course, how she is now imagining she'll come in and save the day and fix it all...well...it's winter in Alaska, so I guess I'll just say it's all rather chilling.

But Maddow and Benen and Olbermann allow me to breathe a tad easier.

Have a fantastic week-end everyone, and revel in what we did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Talk about awesome. It's beyond words.

Steve: "We still have a ways to go on the racial reconciliation front. This is truly sickening."

Yes, it is. I was also somewhat disappointed in Mr. Grewal's response to Editor & Publisher. Try as we might to shield children from life's ugly truths, I can't help but wonder whether we might be better off allowing children to sometimes see the world for what it is, rather than what we wish it might be for them.

This was a true teaching moment between parent and child, a chance for that father to influence his little girl's thoughts in a profoundly positive manner, which she would carry for the rest of her days and hopefully pass on to her own offspring. I hope he grabbed the opportunity.

As an eight-year-old military brat, I distinctly recall asking my mother when we were stationed at USMC Camp LeJeune, NC and shopping in nearby Jacksonville, why there were separate rest room facilities and water fountains for "Colored Only." Rather than shy away from what some might consider an uncomfortable discussion, my mother instead siezed the chance to introduce to me the concepts of tolerance and diversity.

Her candid honesty about her outrage over the pervasive racism in the Jim Crow South had a lasting impact upon me, because she made it known in no uncertain terms that she would expect much more from my brothers and me. She bluntly challenged me to be better than what we both saw that summer morning in Jacksonville, and to never accept the status quo as an inevitability, especially when that status quo assaulted your proper sensibilities.

Steve wrote:
With arguments that deny reason, reality, and common sense, Fox News personalities are blaming the market declines on Obama.

Oh, boy, here we go again. And I suppose market declines prior to November 4th were the fault of... Bill Clinton.

WOW! Whatever happened to a honeymoon period? I guess it only applies to repukes... :(

someone should keep an eye or more than the NRO. Read around the responses to Obama's call for national service in a time of war (that the right created and wants to continue to the end).

They're comparing it to Hitler and the rise of Nazi Germany and arming themselves to the teeth. Seriously.

I guess theyr'e tryig to protect themselves from a bunch of 19 year old with clipboards helping out old folks homes, unemployment offices, cleaning up trash, and feeding homeless shelters.

Like it or not Obama's going to have to go with a Lugar or a Hagel for the State Department to carry out alot of stuff. The right's blaming him on the stock market while he sits in front of team America Buffet et al. yet they're still calling him a pinko scum.

I'd like to see us engage and make peace with the Americas forming strong alliances in this hemisphere. It's a strategic ally that shares our interests that is wasted because of 1950s and 60s multinational corporate bullshit.

July 27, 2004 was a turning point in American political history, even though we didn’t know it at the time. That was the date that a young Illinois state legislator who was largely unknown on the national scene gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston. It was a speech which grabbed the attention of all who heard it.

Like so many, I heard that speech and thought that this young black man had a bright future in the Democratic Party. However, if you had told me that in a mere four years Barack Obama would be elected president of the United States, I would have bet the farm against it. Today, I am ecstatic to admit how wrong I was.

That a relatively inexperienced black man named Barack Obama could be elected president is proof that this country has come a long way in its thinking about race. Clearly, in 2008, a majority of voters was open to the idea of electing an African-American president. But let us not get too comfortable, too satisfied, with this progress. Let us not think that we have reached the goal line in the battle against racism and bigotry. I suggest we are somewhere at mid-field, not even in the red zone.

The landmark 1967 movie, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, broke new ground on the subject of mixed-race marriages. However, to sell the idea, to make it plausible to the audience, the black man in the relationship was written as an extremely handsome, articulate, well-educated, high-achieving physician portrayed by Sidney Poitier. Forty-one years later, it was plausible to a majority of the American people to elect an extremely handsome, articulate, well-educated, high-achieving lawyer portrayed by Barack Obama. But one of Joe Biden’s celebrated gaffes inadvertently accentuated this point when he said about Obama, then his opponent in the Democratic primaries, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." While it was politically incorrect for Biden to have said this, it resonated because so many people understood and agreed with Biden.

The attitudes of many Americans (including liberals who enthusiastically supported Barack Obama, a group to which I proudly belong) toward blacks who are less handsome, educated, and achieving than Barack Obama has not fully evolved. Is there anyone who would doubt that with the concern the American people have for the direction of this country, had the Democrats nominated a candidate who was as handsome, articulate, well-educated, and high-achieving as Barack Obama but who was white, that candidate would have been elected by a landslide of historic proportion? The number of McCain voters whose votes were largely motivated by race is easily the difference between 53% and a landslide.

Bigotry, racial and otherwise, is still with us and is not in its last vestiges. If you doubt this, ask the gay community who had to be saddened, if not surprised, last night by the easy passage of anti-gay marriage initiatives on ballots from Florida to California.

I regret being a party pooper at a time when we, as a country have so much to celebrate, so much of which to be proud. It’s just that we cannot allow ourselves to be collectively lulled into complacency, thinking that bigotry is in our past. No. It is a battle that all of us, myself included, must continue to fight.

He didn't beat Hillary or McCain because he was black. I,like many Americans, said after his speech in 2004, that he would be president one day. His eloquence and intelligence surpass decades.

Bill O'Reilly shows why liberals won in such a rout on Tuesday. If you let them, conservatives will turn even Christmas into a wedge issue.

Warning about the end of the butler story came too late. I'm about to teach a class and I've got tears in my eyes.

As to bigotry being a thing of the past, consider the many African-American pastors urging their flocks to vote for Prop 8.

Sort of one major step forward, one major step backwards. Have seen how disasterous the "I've got mine" attitude has taken this nation.