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Archive for the ‘2008 election’ Category

Obama wins!!!

Posted in 2000s, 2008, 2008 election, America, in the news, obama on Tue Nov 11th 2008| 11 Comments »

20081101issuecovus400Barack Obama won the 2008 election!!! The first black American president.

I was overseas in Rome at the time. There were posters of him all over the place. One said “Il Mondo Cambia” (“The world changes”), another said, “Yes He Can” and a third said, “Oh yeah”.

Overseas, people seemed to think it was a great day in American history. They were proud of America! It was almost as if Obama had become the president of the world, not just 4.6% of it.

It was not till I got back home to America that I began to hear of the ugly doubts and fears: the flags at half-mast, white people buying guns, the Associated Press asking whether whites should be frightened.

Sad. But what is sadder still is that it does not surprise me. There is something dark and ugly in the American soul that is still far from dead. A side that has been there for hundreds of years and which Sarah Palin tried to call forth.

Obama’s victory speech – the whole thing, not the little bits that CNN kept showing – was so beautiful it made me cry. No speech has ever affected me like that. I know he will be a great man, one of the best presidents America has ever had. A good thing too since we seem to be entering bad times.

Of all the reactions I liked that of Condoleezza Rice the best, a black Republican who remembers the Jim Crow South. I forget what she said, but the look on her face – the joy, the pride and the happy wonder – said it all.

The best newspaper headline: “In Our Lifetime”. How many of us even a year ago ever thought we would live to see this day?

It seems too good to be true. So good that it makes me afraid that something terrible will take it all away.

Barack Obama is only a man. He cannot walk on water. He cannot cast out demons from the American soul. He cannot work wonders: America will remain divided by race. But a black president is still a huge step forward and a cause for hope.

Most white people voted for McCain, it is true, yet Obama won because race in America is changing: partly because it is not as white as it used to be, partly because the bad old Jim Crow ideas of race are dying out (even as the more subtle ones of colour-blind racism live on).

If nothing else, with a black man as the commander-in-chief and a black woman as the first lady – the closest thing America has to a king and queen – white people will never be able to think about blacks quite the same way again.

And, if nothing else, my two sons, 11 and 13, who take Obama’s victory for granted, being too young to understand how wonderful a thing it is, they will know – better yet, take for granted – that they can do anything they set their minds to.

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Christopher Hitchens: Vote for Obama

Posted in 2008 election, christopher hitchens, mccain, obama, palin on Tue Oct 14th 2008| 4 Comments »

Christopher Hitchens has come out for Obama, but mainly because of how sad the Republicans are (the bold lettering is mine):

...the Obama campaign’s choice of the word erratic to describe McCain is also an insinuation. But really, it’s only a euphemism. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out. The train-wreck sentences, the whistlings in the pipes, the alarming and bewildered handhold phrases—”My friends”—to get him through the next 10 seconds. I haven’t felt such pity for anyone since the late Adm. James Stockdale humiliated himself as Ross Perot’s running mate. And I am sorry to have to say it, but Stockdale had also distinguished himself in America’s most disastrous and shameful war, and it didn’t qualify him then and it doesn’t qualify McCain now.

The most insulting thing that a politician can do is to compel you to ask yourself: “What does he take me for?” Precisely this question is provoked by the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin. I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party’s right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama’s position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.

Read the whole thing on Salon.com: “Vote for Obama”.

I do not agree with everything that Hitchens has said over the years, but I respect him for being honest enough to call a spade a spade. And in this case I think he is mostly right.

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The race factor and Obama

Posted in 2008, 2008 election, America, obama, race, the bradley effect on Fri Oct 10th 2008| 17 Comments »

As I write this a month before the 2008 election for the next American president, Barack Obama is leading in the opinion polls over John McCain by 11 percentage points. So at the rate things are going Obama should crush McCain.

But wait, not so fast!

In 1982 Tom Bradley ran for governor of California. He was leading in the polls and even on election day the exit polls showed that he would win. But he lost.

Tom Bradley was black. As it turns out, when a black man runs against a white man in America, between 5% to 15% of white voters will lie when answering opinion polls and even exit polls. Maybe because they do not want to seem racist.

This is called the Bradley Effect. It affects not just blacks, but women too.

So will the Bradley Effect affect Obama, a black man running against John McCain, a white man? Well, it did in some of the Democratic primaries earlier in the year when he ran against Hillary Clinton, a white woman. You saw it in some of the states, but not all of them: mainly those that were less than 8% black. In other states stronger-than-expected black support was able to match or overcome the Bradley Effect.

The country as a whole is 13% black, so while Obama might not win by 11 points, he would still win. But in the primaries he was running against a white woman. Against McCain, a white man, the Bradley Effect should be worse.

The Bradley Effect only concerns whites who lie when answering polls. Some whites, of course, are plain about not voting for Obama just because he is black.

What the primaries told us:

Obama did well among those whites who are under 45 and have a university degree; he did poorly among whites who are old enough to remember Jim Crow.

Going state by state:

  • Obama won the 10 blackest states and 15 of the 20 whitest states.
  • Clinton won 16 of the 21 states in between – those that are between 4% and 19% black.

Going county by county:

  • Obama won the black belt of counties that stretches from Maryland to east Texas by way of Atlanta and goes up the Mississippi as far as Memphis.
  • Clinton won the redneck belt that runs just north of that from Arkansas to Pennsylvania by way of Kentucky. Black T-shirt country. The very places where people are most likely to Google the n-word.
  • Clinton did well in the Hispanic belt from south Texas to California.
  • Obama did well in the Yankee belt that runs from New England to Washington state by way of Minnesota. It is whiter than the redneck belt, but in general it is richer and more liberal.

In the closing days of the primary race, Hillary Clinton appealed to the white racist vote more and more nakedly. Now McCain and his supporters are starting to do that by drawing attention to Obama’s middle name (Hussein) and William Ayers, trying to make Obama seem different and dangerous.

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The Sarah Palin Kool-Aid Drinking Society

Posted in 2008, 2008 election, America, in the news, kool-aid drinkers, palin on Mon Oct 6th 2008| 4 Comments »

I know what I saw at the Palin-Biden debate for the next American vice president on October 2nd 2008: Sarah Palin could not answer all the questions. She did not even try. She was like a talking doll: she could only give canned answers. And if one of her canned answers did not fit the question, she would just pick any old one and start saying that with a smile, pouring on the charm and the gosh-darns and doggone-its.

Proof that she was not thinking on her feet, that her performance was completely canned, that it was not at all her true self, was what she did when Biden came close to tears telling of his dead wife: she did nothing. There was nothing in her canned answers or her notes about dead wives.

And yet some Republican talking heads said she did great! That she is fit to be vice president! Maybe they were blinded by her charm. Maybe they were blinded by their party loyalty or the party line. Maybe they were just not honest. Whatever the reason might be, you cannot trust what comes out of their mouths!

If they are like that now, how will they be if she ever becomes president? Or, more to the point, how can we trust anything they say from now on?  Being Republican is one thing, but drinking the Kool-Aid is something else.

So for future reference here are some of those who belong to the Sarah Palin Kool-Aid Drinking Society (links go to their opinions of the debate where I could find them expressed online):

Those who do not drink her Kool-Aid (though they may well be drinking someone else’s):

Most of these are known or suspected Obama supporters, like me, but not all of them. George Will, Rick Santorum and The Economist, for example, are all well to the right.

A Kool-Aid drinker is someone whose common sense judgement is blinded by his loyalty to an idea or a person. Like when nearly a thousand followers of Jim Jones died after drinking poisoned Flavor Aid (not Kool-Aid, like people think) at Jonestown in 1978.

Thanks goes to The Black Snob, who unwittingly did some of the research for this post!

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Gratuitous Obama picture #2

Posted in 2000s, 2008, 2008 election, America, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, obama, pictures on Fri Sep 5th 2008| Leave a Comment »

I saw this at the Black Snob:

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Cindy McCain

Posted in 2000s, 2008, 2008 election, America, arizona, cindy mccain, in the news, mccain, Phoenix, white women on Thu Sep 4th 2008| 9 Comments »

Cindy Lou McCain (1954- ) is the wife of John McCain, the American senator from Arizona who is running for president in 2008.

John McCain met her in 1979 at a party in Hawaii. He was 42 and married, she was 24 and the daughter of one of the richest men in Arizona. They had an affair. A year later he left his wife: “he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona”, as Ross Perot put it. Cindy used her fortune – she is worth about $100 million (8 million crowns) – to help John run for Congress.

Her father was the country’s third largest beer distributor for Anheuser-Busch. Cindy McCain is now the head of his company, Hensley & Co, employing about 650 people. She does not run the company day-to-day, leaving that to others.

She keeps her money separate from her husband’s. She is far richer than he is.

In addition to beer, she founded the American Voluntary Medical Team (AVMT) in 1988, which helps to get doctors, nurses and medicine to parts of the world struck by war and disaster, places like Bangladesh and Vietnam.

Although AVMT came to an end in 1995, she still continues doing that sort of work, frequently going overseas to see how her money is spent to help the poor and the suffering.

She sits on the board of CARE.

Her children:

  • 1984: Meghan, news reporter
  • 1986: Jack, in the Navy
  • 1988: Jimmy, in the Marines
  • 1991: Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh

In the 2000 election John McCain’s enemies spread a lie that he had Bridget by a black woman out of wedlock.

Cindy McCain’s sufferings:

  • 1980s: several miscarriages
  • 1989: slipped disc (twice)
  • 1989: became hooked on the painkillers Percocet and Vicodin
  • 1993: hysterectomy
  • 2004: stroke, short-term memory loss
  • 2000s: carpal tunnel syndrome

She suffered back pains from at least 1989 to 1993. That was when she became hooked on painkillers. She got a doctor who worked for her as part of the AVMT to prescribe them.

In 1993 Tom Gosinski, who also worked for the AVMT, told the government about what was going on. That brought the DEA down on her. If it was one of us, we would be in prison.

A year before Gosinski wrote this in his journal:

In reality, I am working for a very sad, lonely woman whose marriage of convenience to a U.S. Senator has driven her to: distance herself from friends; cover feelings of despair with drugs; and replace lonely moments with self-indulgences.

That same year John McCain called her a “cunt” in public: she said his hair was getting thin and he said, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.”

She lives in Arizona, seeing her husband mainly on weekends.

When she was younger she worked with children with Down syndrome, like what Sarah Palin’s youngest child has.

In the 2008 election she informed us:

I have and always will be proud of my country.

This was in answer to Michelle Obama’s comment about being really proud of America for the first time in her adult life.

See also:

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Sarah Palin

Posted in 2008, 2008 election, America, governors, in the news, mccain, Republicans, vice president, white women on Sat Aug 30th 2008| 11 Comments »

Sarah Palin (1964- ) is the governor of the state of Alaska and John McCain’s pick for Republican vice president for 2008. She is part of the Christian right and once supported Pat Buchanan on the far right.

McCain’s choice was so surprising that some wonder about his judgement. It seems like a cheap, desperate move. It is either that or a bold and brave master stroke. Only time will tell.

The choice is not quite as desperate as it might seem at first sight. Of all the Republican governors she is the most beloved by her citizens: she cuts taxes and cleans up government. She stands up to the bad apples even in her own party and gets them kicked out.

She has courage and faith in God. Instead of working all the angles and playing the game, like a Hillary Clinton, she looks at it this way:

I believe everything happens for a purpose. In my own personal life, if I dedicated back to my Creator what I’m trying to create for the good . . . everything will turn out fine.

Like most Republican voters she is a regular church-going Christian who believs in old-time Christian morals. She is a Pentecostal Christian (Assemblies of God) who is against same-sex marriage and abortion. She has said  creationism should be taught in schools.

If the 2008 election comes down to voter turn-out, as it looks like it will, then McCain needs a vice president that the Christian right can go wild for.

Palin’s main drawback is her lack of experience. She has even less of it than Obama. Which seems to destroy McCain’s main argument against him.

She grew up in Alaska hunting moose with her father and used to work with her husband in his fishing boat. As a hunter she is a strong supporter of gun rights.

Her husband has worked for BP, one of the three big oil companies in Alaska. She is for pumping all the oil out of ANWR, the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, a vast untouched piece of wilderness in Alaska.

She has five children:

  • 1989: Track, joined the army on September 11th 2007. He will soon be in Iraq.
  • 1990: Bristol, pregnant but intends to marry the father.
  • 1995: Willow, a girl
  • 2001: Piper Indy, a girl
  • 2008: Trig, a boy. When Palin was four-months pregnant she knew he would be born with Down syndrome.

The daughter of schoolteachers, she is from Wasilla, a town north of Anchorage:

  • In high school she led its basketball team to state-wide victory, getting the name Sarah Barracuda.
  • In 1984 she was crowned the town’s beauty queen, and almost became Miss Alaska (she came in second).
  • In 1996 she became its mayor.

After her two terms as mayor, ending in 2002, she went on to become the state’s regulator of the oil and gas industry and then, in December 2006, the governor, defeating men with bigger names and bigger money.

Of past presidents she seems most like Harry Truman.

See also:

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Joe Biden

Posted in 2000s, 2008, 2008 election, America, Delaware, senators on Thu Aug 28th 2008| 17 Comments »

Joe Biden (1942- ) is an American senator from the state of Delaware. In 2008 Barack Obama chose him to run as his vice president. Biden has been in the Senate since 1973, when Obama was just 11 and Biden himself only 30. Only six senators have been there longer.

Although he is from a small state, he has been in the Senate long enough to have risen to the top of some powerful committees, particularly the Foreign Relations Committee and the Judiciary Committee.

Biden helps to make up for some of Obama’s weaknesses:

  • He has a great knowledge of foreign affairs, probably more than John McCain.
  • He is a good debater. Obama is a great speaker but not as sharp a debater as Biden.
  • He has been in Washington for over 30 years, so he knows how it works inside-out.
  • He is a white Catholic with working-class roots in Pennsylvania – just the sort of people Obama needs but has trouble reaching.
  • Biden is acceptable to the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party.

Biden’s mouth gets him into trouble sometimes:

  • He said Obama was “articulate and bright and clean”, as if that is a surprising thing for a black man to be.
  • He said of Delaware: “You cannot go into a Dunkin Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

Biden ran for president himself in 2008 and 1988. He got nowhere in 2008. In 1988 he had to drop out after it came to light that he was copying parts of his speeches from Neil Kinnock, leader of the British Labour Party. A few months later Biden almost died of two brain aneurysms.

Among other things, Biden:

  • Voted for the war in Iraq.
  • Liked Reagan’s Evil Empire speech.
  • Voted for the Patriot Act, giving the government powers to keep an eye on Americans.
  • Favours abortion but not whole-heartedly: NARAL gives him a 60 out of a 100. (It gave Obama 100.)
  • Opposed the Supreme Court confirmations of Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and John Roberts – all of them Catholics who are against abortion.

Biden was the head of the Judiciary Committee during the Clarence Thomas hearings in which he sat back and let Republicans go after Anita Hill. He was not particularly nice to her either from what I can remember.

He seems to be an honest public servant. He is one of the poorest senators, his net worth being between $100,000 and $150,000 (about 10,000 crowns). Many make their fortune before joining the Senate, but he has been there since he was 30. The money he makes from speaking he gives away to charity and he takes the Amtrak train home from work. His wife is a schoolteacher.

His first wife died in a car crash along with his one-year-old daughter right after he won his Senate seat. His two sons lived.

He is the son of a car salesman. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he spent the first ten years of his life. He is Irish-American.

– Abagond, 2008.

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Michelle Obama speaks tonight

Posted in 2008 election, dnc on Mon Aug 25th 2008| 10 Comments »

Michelle Obama speaks tonight (Monday August 25th 2008 ) at the Democratic National Convention at about 10:30 pm Eastern time (02.30 GMT).

Here is the line-up for the week:

Thursday will be the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the one he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

There are seven black bloggers at the convention, the so-called Denver 7:

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white patriotism

Posted in 2000s, 2008, 2008 election, America, in the news, patriotism, white patriotism, white people on Wed Jul 30th 2008| 23 Comments »

White patriotism in America is different than black patriotism, but it is still patriotism.

White Americans love their country. They are quite willing to die for it. You see that in the war in Iraq, which has been fought without forcing anyone into the military. Even with all the blacks in the military, it would not have been possible unless whites loved their country too.

John McCain is a true patriot. Even though he is white, almost everything I said about black patriotism can be applied to him. He served his country in war, he has worked to make it better through public service and he knows that a true patriot does not turn a blind eye to the injustice in his country but stands up to it. He knows that patriotism is something deep, something more than merely liking one’s country.

Cindy McCain, his wife, on the other hand, was not a patriot when she said:

I have and always will be proud of my country.

Apparently that sort of blind pride in America is fairly widespread among white Americans, even those with good educations, because so few of them pointed out how utterly brainless and heartless her words were.

You see this same blind pride at work when people think that saying bad things about America means you must hate it, that you are not a true American.

This sort of blind pride is far more common among whites than blacks.

Blacks know all too well from their own experience that America is far from perfect, that injustice comes built in. Even blacks as successful and rich as Michelle Obama know it. You do not have to live in a ghetto to see it.

Many whites, on the other hand, live in an apple-pie America. Their own power and white privilege protects them from much of the bad that goes on in the world – much of it, in fact, done in their name to make their lives so nice and comfortable. But they do not see that.

They have been brought up to turn a blind eye to the injustice and suffering their lives are built on.

They do not understand that the ghettos are so screwed up because of them. They do not understand that the Middle East is so screwed up because of them. They do not understand that the Twin Towers are gone – because of them.

They do not see that. Because they do not want to.

Because they do not want to give up their Disney World lives. Yes, Disney World lives, because compared to most of the world that is what it is. Because it is not rooted in anything honest and true.

Cindy McCain was 53 years old when she said those words. Not 17 but 53. How in the world can someone live 53 years on this earth and not see the evil done in her name? It is far from being an accident.

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Barack Obama’s patriotism

Posted in 2000s, 2008, 2008 election, America, in the news, obama on Mon Jul 21st 2008| 16 Comments »

There is a good chance the 2008 election for the next American president could turn on Barack Obama’s patriotism. In fact there are already doubts about his love of country, like his not wearing a flag pin.

Towards the end of Hillary Clinton’s run for president, she appealed to white voters more and more nakedly. The over-45 white vote is Barack Obama’s biggest weakness, like it or not. Expect John McCain to take advantage of it too.

The easiest and safest way for McCain to say “Vote for me, I am white” without seeming to be racist about it is to play up his war record. He never has to say a bad word about Obama, trusting that enough whites will fill in the blanks on their own: Barack Obama is not a true American, he does not truly love America, you cannot trust the country to him.

True, Obama has never served his country in war like McCain did. But America was at peace in the early 1980s when he would have served. Meanwhile both Bill Clinton and the present George Bush avoided fighting in the war of their time, and yet no one has doubted their patriotism for one second.

Unlike John Kerry, Barack Obama has never given anyone reason to doubt his patriotism. There is no speech he gave in his university days, for example, where he said “God damn America”. He had a pastor once who said that, but Obama himself has never come close to saying anything like that.

Black patriotism is different than white patriotism, but it is still patriotism. To me it seems truer and deeper: it is not a sunshine patriotism built on sugarcoated lies.

Does Obama love his country? Of course: everyone knows his getting shot and killed is all too possible. It is why Colin Powell did not run in 1996. If putting yourself in harm’s way to serve your country does not prove a love of country, then nothing does.

Why is Obama’s patriotism constantly doubted? After all, no one ever doubted Hillary Clinton’s patriotism.

Because he is black.

The New Yorker’s sick attempt at humour on their cover last week shows the Obamas in the White House. He is dressed like a Muslim, she is dressed like a black revolutionary. The American flag is burning in the fireplace.

Where does that picture come from?

There is a part of white Americans that fears black men. It is the part that makes white women hold their handbags closer, the part that makes whites move out of a neighbourhood when blacks move in.

It is that part which fears Obama. In the back of too many white minds is the fear that Obama would use power to get back at whites for all the evil they have done to blacks. Payback time.

That is why they notice things like his flag pin – or lack of one. That is why his patriotism is even a question to be asked.

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Michelle Obama’s Afro

Posted in 2000s, 2008, 2008 election, Afro, America, beauty is political, haha not funny, in the news, Michelle Obama, natural hair, obama, tasteless elitist humour, the new yorker on Sun Jul 20th 2008| 11 Comments »

I like what the Luscious Librarian said about Michelle Obama’s Afro on this week’s New Yorker cover:

… but what got me was not only the unfunny elitist satire that says “If you don’t get you’re just not sophisticated as we are”, but the depiction of Michelle Obama with an afro that somehow makes her sinister and terrorristic.

As a natural woman it is disheartening to still see the politics of hair played out on a national external scale. I understand that internally black folk have issues with straight and nappy (that’s hundreds of years of psychosocial indoctrination), but we really have a long way to go if the entire nation still feels that way.

That cover says that with my natural hair I am not to be trusted, I am serious and pro-black, which means that I am anti-white and because of that I am anti-America and to be feared. I resent it and I have to say if you tell a joke and you’re the only one laughing it’s because it’s not funny.

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Cindy McCain: always proud of her country

Posted in 2008, 2008 election, America, cindy mccain, in the news, patriotism on Sat Jun 21st 2008| Leave a Comment »

I have and always will be proud of my country. – Cindy McCain

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In defence of Michelle Obama

Posted in 2008, 2008 election, America, in the news, Michelle Obama, patriotism on Sat Jun 21st 2008| 18 Comments »

For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.

When I heard Michelle Obama speak those words and saw how she said them, it blew my mind. It was just how I felt too! It was wonderful.

So many people in public life seem like car salesmen: they smile too much and they do not call a spade a spade. They do not say what is in their hearts, they do not say what they see with their own two eyes. Michelle Obama does. That makes her beautiful.

She is the only one in this stage show that we call the 2008 election who seems like someone I might know – or care to know. Despite all her money and despite all her education, she is down to earth and honest. She is the opposite of Hillary Clinton. And, as much as I like her husband, he is too busy trying to look like he belongs on Mount Rushmore. (Is there room?)

Later that day Cindy McCain said this:

I have and always will be proud of my country.

Well, duh: she is rich and white. She does not know the half of what goes on in America – or what is done in its name overseas. Her words show it. Has anyone told her about Abu Ghraib? Or Katrina? Is she proud of that? And how would she feel about America if she had to give up her money and her white skin? Or if she had to live as an Arab in the West Bank? Would she still be able to say all ten words about America? Not just proud, but always proud?

People jump on Michelle Obama, but she is just saying what anyone would say who has a brain that is turned on, eyes that are open and a mouth set to honest. Well, at least any black person with an Ivy League education who grew up in a place like the South Side of Chicago. And plenty of other people too. I do not think Michelle and I are alone on this one.

But what about the fall of communism? What about her own rise from low beginnings? I doubt she was thinking about those things when she said it: she was talking about the country not about herself or the world.

Does Michelle Obama love her country? Of course she does. Only someone who loves America would talk about it like that. My wife, for example, is not always proud of what I do and when I screw up she tells me straight out. Does that mean she does not love me? To the contrary.

But why should a woman who has so much be so bitter, as they say? Because she is honest. Because sees with her own two eyes. Because she cares.

Some may call her angry or bitter, but to me she is beautiful. Just the way she is.

– Abagond, 2008.

Update (2019): Unfortunately this was like the last honest thing she said. Both she and Barack Obama sold out. 

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If the election were held today…

Posted in 2008, 2008 election, America, in the news on Fri Jun 20th 2008| Leave a Comment »

If the election were held today Obama would defeat McCain by 336 to 189 electoral votes. Only Virginia is too close to call, but with only 13 electoral votes it would not make a difference in this case. Notice Obama wins Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Those are the three big swing states where the election will be won or lost.

Notice that Obama wins only two of the old slave states – Missouri (just barely) and Florida (which now has many Northerners). And loses only one of the old free states: Indiana. Given that he is black, that cannot be an accident.

Postscript: This was pretty close. Obama did win Virginia and picked up North Carolina too but lost Missouri, winning 365 to 173.

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