Finally, just one week left

Mitt wishes you a Happy Halloween

If there is any good news out of "Frankenstorm" that pounded the eastern seaboard is that it kept politics off the top of the evening newscast.

One of the worst things about our democracy is the seemingly interminable presidential election cycle.

From the TV ads to the debates to the newscasts devoid of any real substance, this election just begs to be over.

Almost all of the $2 billion raised by the Republicans and Democrats goes towards TV advertising.

In order to keep that revenue flowing, TV news stations hype the presidential race to ridiculous levels rather than give viewers information that is useful.

Yes, the presidential race is close, if you look at the national polls of the popular vote, with Mitt holding a slight edge.

As we learned in 2000, though, the popular vote means nothing compared to the electoral vote (EV) count. The winner needs 270 EVs.

And, we know that there are three battleground states (Ohio, Florida and Virginia), but that Ohio is the key to it all.

And, in Ohio, about four counties will decide the next president of the United States. Those counties have balloting machines owned by a company with ties to Romney by way of Bain Capital.

News events, including Hurricane Sandy, probably will have little impact on the race, unless the power is still out.

With that said, President Obama still has a tenuous lead in Ohio. Republicans appear to be turning out better in early voting than they did in Ohio in 2008. Conversely, Democrats appear to be doing much worse than they did 2008 in early voting there.

And yet, the number crunchers at Real Clear Politics, a right-leaning website, give President Obama the edge to claim 281 EVs.

A professor with a civil engineering background in Orange County, Calif., used his computer model to forecast President Obama's reelection. He thinks Obama will get 286 EVs. Predicting this in one of the most Republican areas of the country could put the professor's life in jeopardy.

The Intrade gambling folks, who only care about money, still show President Obama with better than a 63 percent chance of winning.

At fivethirtyeight, Nate Silver, who is a left-leaning numbers guru, is still giving President Obama about a 73 percent chance of winning with 294.6 EVs.

Meanwhile, the Princeton Election Consortium sees Obama taking 305 EVs.

We can only hope.

Still, many right-wing blogs are predicting a 5 percent to 7 percent Mitt victory. They claims the polls are biased because they under-represent Republicans.

Commenters on political stories on the Wall Street Journal and Fox News websites are confident that Mitt will blow the president away. Whenever the Journal runs stories that suggest perhaps the president has a slight lead, these ranters accuse the Journal of being another left-wing rag.

Progressives, though, are nervous.

I think both sides can agree that the sooner this thing is over, the better.

Why do corporate czars hate Obama?

Thrifty rental car bumper sticker

Check out this story on how corporations have done better under President Obama than all of our presidents in history since 1900.

And yet, corporate honchos are threatening their own workers if they vote for President Obama.

They even have bumper stickers to show their disdain for a president under which they have made record profits. Check out this story about bumper stickers on Thrifty rental cars in Buffalo that say: "Vote for the American."

Well, we know that since American corporations would rather see millions of Chinese have jobs that once went to Americans, we know who is a real American and who is not.

Republicans say that regulations have stifled corporate America.

Well, guess what, America could soon overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's largest exporter of oil. 

Obviously, President Obama's policies have NOT stymied oil companies from record output and record profits.

That hasn't stopped oil companies from taking all that cash they've gouged from drivers and pumping it into GOP's coffers.

American corporations claim that they alone create jobs. They do. In China.

If you want a real American, re-elect President Obama.

Not much of an early turnout in Deschutes County

We've had our ballots for a week now and the Deschutes County Clerk's office is reporting just a 19 percent return rate. My ballot is in.

Statewide, the Secretary of State's office is showing the turnout by party as 16.4 percent by Democrats, 15.8 percent by Repubicans and 9.5 percent by non-affiliated voters.

Oregon, of course, was the first state in the nation to go to all-mail balloting in 1998.

Consequently, Oregon has one of the highest turnout rates for presidential elections at over 80 percent. It was nearly 86 percent in 2008.

Still, the turnout so far suggests a lack of interest compared to four years ago.

In fact, the primary last May had the lowest turnout since 1960.

That was to be expected since President Obama was the nominee for the Democrats and since the Republican field was so weak and weird with Willard (Mitt) Romney the presumptive nominee.

It doesn't seem, though, that the get-out-the-vote efforts from either party are producing big results in Oregon.

The Beaver State is not considered a toss-up state, but President Obama's expected margin of victory should be less than it was in 2008 or in the 5 percent range.

That doesn't mean Oregon voters are smitten with Mitt. In spite of a sizable Mormon population in the state, particularly in Bend, the Mitt-wit does not energize the GOP here.

He's a one-man, voter-suppression machine.

Forward.

'My party is full of racists'

The truth hurts.

Below is the story from the Huffington Post about the reaction from a retired Army colonel about the Republican response to Colin Powell's endorsement of President Obama:

Colin Powell's former chief of staff condemned the Republican Party on Friday night, telling MSNBC's Ed Schultz, "My party is full of racists."

Retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson made the comment in response to Mitt Romney campaign surrogate John Sununu's suggestion on Thursday that Powell's endorsement of President Barack Obama's re-election was motivated by race. Wilkerson, who served as Powell's chief of staff when the general was secretary of state during the first George W. Bush term, told Schultz that he respected Sununu "as a Republican, as a member of my party," but did not "have any respect for the integrity of the position that [Sununu] seemed to codify."

When asked by Schultz what, if anything, the remark said about the attitudes of the Republican Party, Wilkerson said:

My party, unfortunately, is the bastion of those people -- not all of them, but most of them -- who are still basing their positions on race. Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists, and the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin, and that's despicable.

The retired colonel also said that "to say that Colin Powell would endorse President Obama because of his skin color is like saying Mother Theresa worked for profit."

Powell, a Republican, endorsed Obama for the second time on Thursday morning --he also backed the president in 2008 -- saying on CBS' "This Morning" that he was "more comfortable with President Obama and his administration" than with Romney on a host of issues.

Sununu, no stranger to incendiary rhetoric this election cycle, reacted to the endorsement on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight," saying that "when you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder whether that's an endorsement based on issues or whether he's got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama."

Obama himself dismissed Sununu's suggestion on Friday, telling radio host Michael Smerconish:

Any suggestion that Gen. Powell would make such a profound statement in such an important election based on anything but what he thought was what's going to be best for America doesn't make much sense.

Positive news on polls

It's hard to make sense of all the polls that show conflicting results for the same race and state.

Like Ohio.

President Obama continues to lead in Ohio, but the advantage is either within the margin of error or above that same margin.

Well, here's an article that helps explain the differences between the polling methods used today.

Some outfits, like Rasmussen, use "robo-calls" of "likely voters," as opposed to "live" calls of likely voters.

Likely voters apparently are more valid than "register voters."

Robo-calls are computer generated. Live calls are people calling people.

The big difference between the two methods is that robo-calling cell phones is prohibited by law, but live-calling is not.

Live-calling of likely voters evidently yields the most valid responses.

This makes sense since virtually no one under the age of 35 owns a land-line these days.

Conversely, robo-calls target older voters who tend to vote Republican.

Anyway, President Obama holds a larger lead in Ohio, about 4.5 percent, with live calls.

This is critical, because if President Obama wins Ohio, it is all over for the Mitt-wit.

So, this is good news for President Obama's chances of winning re-election.

However, as noted in the previous posting, a company with close ties to Mitt owns the voting machines in the key counties in Ohio that will decide the entire election.

It's crucial for the media to be vigilant of "irregularities" in voting results in those Ohio counties.

Trouble on election front

While the presidential election remains incredibly tight, there are some good and bad trends for President Obama.

The Intrade numbers are moving in his direction again, roughly 62 percent to 38 percent as of Thursday night.

Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight still gives Obama a 73 percent chance of winning even as the national polls show a dead-even race.

Obama is fading a tad, though, in Florida and Virginia, but retains a slight lead in the polls in Ohio.

However, the voting machines used in certain key counties in Ohio are owned by a company with ties to Mitt Romney.

It worked in 2004 when a Bush buddy at Diebold skewed results in Ohio in favor of Bush over Kerry.

Also, states with Republican governors or legislatures, from Pennsylvania to Florida to Virginia to Colorado to Ohio have worked hard to slant the election toward Republicans by repeatedly purging voter rolls, even of citizens who are entitled to vote. They also tried to suppress the vote by passing voter I.D. laws that most courts said were discriminatory.

Republicans are the first to cry "voter fraud" because they are the ones who are practicing it. Almost no one else is committing voter fraud.

The company that the GOP hired to register voters was fired because it committed actual voter fraud in Florida. 

It's gotten so bad that an affiliate of the United Nations is sending people, from countries with their own problems with democracy, over here to monitor our election.

And, if this isn't enough to hand the election to the Mitt-wit, he's got his buddies in the corporate world to threaten their workers if they vote for Obama.

Judging from these episodes, it doesn't appear America is that exceptional after all.

We rue the day

Ben Affleck directed and starred in 'Argo'

Having just seen "Argo," the entertaining movie of the astounding rescue of six Americans from Iran in 1980, it's time to look back at those emasculating times and wonder what it means today.

There are no direct comparisons with the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979 when 52 Americans were held captive for 444 days until the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, to anything today.

Six diplomats escaped during the embassy takeover on Nov. 4, 1979.

They hid at the home of the Canadian ambassador for a couple of months before they were rescued by Tony Mendez, a CIA agent, on a ruse that they were scouting locations for a sci-fi movie called "Argo."

It was nice to be at the theater to hear almost a full house erupt in applause as the Americans, against rapidly diminishing odds, got out on a Swiss Air flight.

I'm sure there are a few who would equate the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya last month to the Iran-hostage situation.

Well, they aren't that similar at all. The murders of our ambassador and three others were tragic. The Iran-hostage crisis was one prolonged nightmare that still haunts us today with our continuing problems with Iran.

But, there are definite parallels to our invasion of Iraq.

In "Argo," the American embassy workers are portrayed as wimpy nerds. With their oversized glasses, ridiculous haircuts and elitist attitudes, they don't appear worthy of saving at all.

The CIA operatives, as portrayed in the film, are clueless, having been completely wrong about the Iranian revolution.

And the military, well, the few defenders at the embassy in "Argo" are simply ill-prepared and overwhelmed.

In our 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, on which the invasion was premised.

The military was ill-prepared to deal with improvised-explosive devices and scores of Americans were blown to bits.

And, the diplomats? Well, let's just say their attire and grooming improved, but they were as elitist, condescending and clueless as their counterparts were in 1979.

Yeah, let's disband the Iraqi military and ban former Baathist party members from having any say in the new American-imposed government.

That didn't work out too well.

What is also impressive about "Argo" is how it deals with the uncomfortable facts about how America laid the groundwork for the Islamic revolution, that's still sweeping the world today, by deposing a democratically elected leader and installing the Shah in 1953. We still rue that day.

Dictatorships don't work out too well, particularly when you torture and imprison thousands of your countrymen and women. But, that's what the Shah did, to our nodding approval.

Afterall, we got oil out of the deal. That's all we ever wanted.

We invaded Iraq for the same reason.

And, look what that has done to the Middle East. It's less stable now than any time in history.

The Arab Spring will do what it should: Allow self-determination of each country, from Libya to Syria.

They may choose Islamic governance, which is not good, but in the long run, it simplifies the potential conflicts. Instead of fighting a word like "terrorism," we would be fighting a country like Egypt or Syria or Libya.

It would be nation against nation and it's a battle we can win decisively and swiftly.

As President Obama debates Mitt Romney tonight, we should think of "Argo" and Iraq.

The president was handed a devastated economy and, for good measure, a complete mess on the international front. It will take years to undue the harm.

President Obama is on the right track. Mitt would takes us backwards to the Bush era.

We must move forward with President Obama.

If not, we'll rue the day.