Last Call

Nate Silver believes there’s a 50/50 chance that Ohio is decisive.

Strap in, folks.  I’ve been saying for a while now that as goes Ohio, so goes the nation in this election, and two weeks out Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com finds the math is shaking out to match that exact scenario.

We are now running about 40,000 Electoral College simulations each day. In the simulations that we ran on Monday, the candidate who won Ohio won the election roughly 38,000 times, or in about 95 percent of the cases. (Mr. Romney won in about 1,400 simulations despite losing Ohio, while Mr. Obama did so roughly 550 times.)

Whether you call Ohio a “must-win” is a matter of semantics, but its essential role in the Electoral College should not be hard to grasp.

I’ll go one step further.  If Ohio will decide this election, then the Cincinnati metro area (Hamilton, Butler and Warren counties) will decide Ohio.  If the urban turnout in Hamilton County and Cincinnati proper is good like it was last year (sweeping into power a nearly all Democratic City Council), Obama will win.  If it gets buried like it did in 2010 by Boehner country in the Warren and Butler County suburbs north of the city, say hello to President Romney.

That’s how important I think southwest Ohio will be to the state and the nation in the next two weeks.  The recent early voting victory for the Democrats here is going to make all the difference I believe, and I see the President pulling it out here by a couple of points as a result.

If you’re in Ohio, GET TO THE POLLS.  You can still vote early all the way through until Election Day, including next weekend and the weekend before Election Day.  Your vote matter no matter where you are, but your vote will absolutely matter in the Buckeye State.

Get out there.  Help others get out there.  Help get Souls to the Polls in Ohio.  Please.

The Changing Face Of Climate Change

BREAKING NEWS:  The Vice-Presidential candidates for both parties not only mentioned that climate change was real, but both candidates pledged to do something about it as David Roberts points out at the Grist.

The questioner doesn’t mamby-pamby around with he-said she-said, he states flatly that “most scientists” agree and that future generations are at risk.

And neither candidate bothers with dissembling or dodging. Both acknowledge the problem and promise to address it.

Of course the catch is that the year is 1988 -- 24 years ago -- and that the candidates were Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle:



So, Roberts asks rightfully, what the hell happened?  Corporate America happened, of course.

Now, what happened in 2008 that might have turned conservatives against climate? Hm … thinking … wait, wasn’t there an election that year? Why yes, I believe there was. Black Democrat took office, as I recall.

The sharp conservative turn against climate was part and parcel of the Tea Party phenomenon. When Obama and congressional Democrats championed legislation to address climate change — legislation not that different from what McCain championed in 2008 — the right immediately aligned against it, like a school of fish. Once cap-and-trade failed spectacularly, the issue went underground. The right is united in implacable opposition to all solutions. Burdened with so many coal states, the Dem coalition doesn’t have the votes to overcome the right’s opposition. So there’s just nothing to say. There’s no margin in talking about it. It doesn’t get Dems any votes they don’t already have. It doesn’t — despite the festival of self-delusion going on lately — move any independent or undecided votes. And it activates furious right-wing activism. So … who has incentive to talk about it? No one. As [Chris] Hayes says, Obama can’t single-handedly change this dynamic, no matter how many times he says the words “climate change.”

And so nothing will happen because the right will forever oppose anything a Democrat wants to see passed.   This goes times ten for Barack Obama.  The Earth will burn because of petulant children and corporate greed.

But of course, that's just humanity reverting to form.

Why Would Republicans Investigate Voter Registration Fraud By Republicans?

Seems like an obvious question with an even more obvious answer, but not one Republican will say anything about the continuing problems with the firms the GOP has outsourced they registration to.

The Virginia State Board of Elections announced Friday that it will not ask the state’s attorney general to investigate the Republican operative accused of tossing out eight completed voter registration forms, rejecting Democratic-led efforts at a full investigation into the alleged tampering.

State Senator and chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus Donald McEachin had called for a complete investigation of the incident, in which 31-year-old Colin Small is accused of deliberately discarding valid voter registration forms. 

“This is simply too serious an issue,” McEachin said in a statement. “Voting is the bedrock of our democracy and we, as Virginians, deserve to know exactly what happened, how widespread the abuse and under whose orders, if any, the individual in question acted.”

Yet the board decided not to request a formal investigation by Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, leaving the matter up to local authorities. A spokesman for Cuccinelli’s office told the Washington Post that the attorney general could only review the case if the State Board of Elections asked him to do so.

There's no fraud here, because ACORN and New Black Panthers.  Please ignore our actual, documented voter registration fraud while we continue to push laws making it harder for Democrats to vote and we buy voting machine companies with questionable software security, all while blaming Democrats.

Boston Buzzing Over Vibrator Giveaway

Condom maker Trojan, which gave away 10,000 vibrators in the streets of New York City in August, is having trouble bringing the same promotion to Boston.

The company had requested a permit for a giveaway in Boston’s City Hall Plaza. But the mayor’s office sent Trojan a letter, asking it to find an “alternative site.”

Michael Galvin, the chief of property management in the Mayor Tom Menino’s office, wrote, ”I am told the public nature of the plaza affords you legal protection to distribute these products should you insist against our objections, but I would tell you in the strongest terms allowable that I feel this is an inappropriate and irresponsible use for the plaza.”

The mayor’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

Bruce Weiss, vice president of marketing for Trojan Sexual Health, said, the company will continue to work with the city to find the right location to host the Trojan vibrator giveaway.

So Trojan showed class and is working with the city.  They have the legal upper hand in every regard, but are at least exploring options that will work for everyone.  Meanwhile, the mayor's office has made a mountain out of a molehill.

The Importance Of Voting

(CNN) - A photo of World War II veteran Frank Tanabe casting what will likely be his final ballot in a presidential election has gone viral –and captured the hearts of thousands.

Tanabe, 93, is in the final stages of inoperable liver cancer and is currently at home receiving hospice care, surrounded by his wife and children in Honolulu.

He has always been a true patriot, his daughters said. In 2010 he was among a group of Japanese-Americans who were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal as part of the Military Intelligence Service Unit during World War II.

According to his daughters, Frank has never missed a presidential election, and wasn't about to let his illness deter him from voting this time around.

When his absentee ballot arrived on Wednesday, his daughter, Barbara, sat at his bedside and read aloud the candidates and issues.

"I helped him. He either nodded 'yes' or shook his head 'no'," Barbara said. "He didn't always vote for my candidate."

Nonetheless, she followed his directions and mailed in the completed form. He hasn't been able to speak since.

When you face death, every  moment is precious.  This is important enough to spend his time on, to use his last words for.  He held on to make sure his vote was counted, and if that doesn't make you appreciate our right to be heard, nothing will.

Debate Deblogging

The round up of analysis from last night's debate shows a pretty clear win for President Obama, and a near Palin-like indifference to foreign policy on the part of Mitt Romney. My scoring is here, as I thought it was a clear blowout for the President last night.  Pretty much the rest of the pundit class either agreed, or was more likely dumbfounded by just how simply impossible it was to ignore just how awful Romney was last night.

The collected wisdom of the Village, as it is, after the jump.

The Donald's Game Changer?

Donald Trump has a "big announcement" about President Obama.  I wonder if he's donating his hairpiece to science.

Conservative reality star and business mogul Donald Trump appeared on Fox & Friends this morning to hype what he’s calling a “big announcement” about President Barack Obama.

The Romney backer says intends to share his revelation on Wednesday, the same day the president will be appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

“Will it change the election?” asked Fox host Gretchen Carlson.

“Possibly,” Trump replied.

“Is it personal, or is it how he governs?” co-host Brian Kilmeade asked.

“It’s all in one,” said Trump. “Everything. It’s very big. Bigger than anybody would know.”

Oh please let this be such a tinfoil pile of overtly racist stupid that The Donald is run out of town finally.  Please, please, please.

StupidiNews!

• A major outage of Amazon's cloud computing services knocked out Reddit, Foursquare, and several other web giants on Monday for hours.
• Louisiana police say an African-American woman was set on fire by three men in white hoods who painted "KKK" on the hood of her car.
• Columbia's vice president, Angelino Garzon, announced Monday he is suffering from prostate cancer and will undergo chemotherapy.
• After just three weeks on the job, Japanese Justice Minister Keishu Tanaka has resigned for health reasons after being tied to organized crime.
• US immigration officials will drop some 21,000 Blackberry units in favor of iPhones, further damaging the already embattled Canadian firm RIM.