How to Request an Absentee Ballot
If you are planning to vote absentee in this year’s federal elections, make sure you request a ballot early.
New ThinkProgress ad: Romney says let us just raise your taxes some more*
* Accurate, according to the Romney standard of accuracy. Yesterday, Mitt Romney released his first campaign ad, which quotes President Obama saying “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” But those weren’t Obama’s words; he was quoting a strategist for Sen. John McCain in 2008.
White House Petition re making election day a national holiday
WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO: propose legislation that would make all federal election days national holidays to increase voter turnout.
Every federal election should be a national holiday to increase voter turnout. The 2008 Presidential election holds the record for voter turnout with 63% of eligible voters voting. However good it is that 63% of voters voted, 37% did not express their opinions that day. Imagine if the record score for a math test was 63%. 37% is 78 million people, meaning 78 million people did not vote. Maybe they did not want to, or maybe they were delayed. To make every election day a national holiday (Election Day) would increase voter turnout not only by making that day a reminder to the people of their civic duty, but by giving them the time to vote. To increase voter turnout is to help show the true beliefs and opinions of the people of this great nation, and not just the beliefs and opinions of 63%
“Will the Democrats take this as a chance to go on offense? Will national Democrats take a lesson from Wisconsin Democrats?” —Rachel Maddow.
Outstanding coverage of the FAA shutdown and union rights, plus a look back at Reagan’s firing of air traffic controllers.
NYC Board of Elections: Donald Trump hasn't voted in a primary since 1989 - CBS
The New York City Board of Elections says Donald Trump hasn’t voted in any primary elections for more than 21 years. The board says the last time the possible Republican presidential candidate voted in a primary election was in the 1989 primary for mayor. That’s when Rudy Giuliani beat businessman Ronald Lauder. He also skipped the 2002 general election. TV station NY1 was the first to report the information. Trump told NY1 that it was wrong and he has voted in every general election.
“NBC News has learned, per multiple sources, that President Obama could file for re-election with the Federal Election Commission as early as Monday. That filing would allow him to begin raising money for the 2012 presidential campaign.
However, those planning the launch stress that they might delay it if a government shutdown — or another big news event — appears imminent.”
2012 Presidential Election Betting Odds
MSNBC via BoDog
Watch Reagan and the GOP get crushed in a midterm
[Here is] a video of CBS News’ Election Night coverage from 1982, edited together by an evidently sharp YouTube user. Included in the 7½ minute clip is CBS’ projection that the Democrats would pick up between 24 and 34 House seats (they ended up with 26). I know: This is smaller than the number Democrats are expected to lose next week, but remember that the GOP only had 191 seats heading into the ‘82 midterms. As Walter Cronkite, who briefly appears, puts it, the GOP’s losses in ‘82 were “far more than were being predicted by most pollsters in the last couple of days of the campaign.”
Also pay attention for Walter Mondale, who was the Mitt Romney of ‘82 — one of the opposition party’s presumed front-runners for the ‘84 presidential campaign. He tells Cronkite:
I think the public is voting rather decisively today to change that course. I think I’ve traveled this country more than anybody in the last two years, and it was clear to me that people were suffering, that they didn’t think this policy was working, that they cared about other issues, like the environment and Social Security, and that they wanted a change
Take out the environment and Social Security and can’t you imagine Romney — or Huckabee or Gingrich or Pawlenty or Barbour — sitting for an interview on a major network next Tuesday night and saying the exact same thing?
Also worth noting is Bill Moyers, then a CBS News analyst, making this point to Dan Rather:
Do you remember, Dan, just two years ago the people were saying, “The Democrats can’t govern. Get rid of Jimmy Carter! Give us a Republican Senate!” Because people were really unhappy. Two years later, they’re still unhappy, but at a different party and a different president
Again, just imagine next Tuesday night, when Howard Fineman pops up on MSNBC and declares:
Do you remember, Keith, just two years ago the people were saying, “The Republicans can’t govern. Get rid of George W. Bush! Give us a Democratic Congress!” Because people were really unhappy. Two years later, they’re still unhappy, but at a different party and a different president.
(via enteekaygee)
“It’s on the table. Some of Hillary Clinton’s advisers see it as a real possibility in 2012.”
Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton 2012? - Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward told CNN’s John King
(interview will air at 7 p.m.)
Scare your friends into voting - send them this video!
“417 Senators and Reps. have been renominated, 7 lost (98% won)”
“With just two months to go before the November elections, pollsters and political scientists are predicting a blow-out loss for Democrats that could rival the Republican Revolution of 1994. In a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, most-likely voters said — by a 9-point margin — that they want the midterms to produce a Congress controlled by Republicans, not Democrats.”
(via politico)
Can The Dems Avoid a November ‘Bloodbath’?
Newsweek’s Daniel Stone:
He’s (the President) at 47%. That’s down just one percentage point since we measured it several months ago. And what that tells us is that now that we are in sight of the mid-term elections, we can compare it historically. And Democrats now are in better shape than they were in 1994 when they lost over 50 seats. And they’re in better shape than the Republicans were in 2006 when they lost over 30 seats. So, if we’re talking about a bloodbath, and that kind of narrative with the Democrats losing everything, these numbers certainly challenge that and seem to suggest that the Democrats are in better shape than we’ve been told so far.
(via Stone’s appearance on MSNBC this morning)
“No incumbent out there last night suffered a more decisive defeat than Senator John McCain. Who, last evening was rejected by voters for his anti-tax cut, anti-border fence views. Instead they voted for a candidate who took the exact opposite position of John McCain, dark horse candidate John McCain.
John McCain really tapped into the anti-McCain sentiment. So Senator McCain, our heartiest congratulations and condolences on your victorious defeat.” - Stephen Colbert
New Forecast Shows Democrats Losing 6 to 7 Senate Seats - Nate Silver
The Democratic majority is in increasing jeopardy in the Senate, according to the latest FiveThirtyEight forecasting model. The Democrats now have an approximately 20 percent chance of losing 10 or more seats in the Senate, according to the model, which would cost them control of the chamber unless Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, who is running for the Senate as an independent, both wins his race and decides to caucus with them.
continue reading… NYTimes
