A Second Hand Conjecture

I’m experiencing a little déjà vu over the invective that’s starting to pour out of the left against “Joe the Plumber.” It has a decidedly reminiscent over-reactive, hysterical feel to it of the anti-Palin crusade. Here’s a typical example of what I mean from a Kos diarist:

“I have watched the Joe Plumber video several times and this right wing nut is nothing but a liar.”

Uh-huh. Regular Nazi threat to the republic that plumber.

Probably not the wisest attack. As my friend Jason puts it: “Joe the Plumber is Pennsylvania and Ohio personified.” By consequence, team Obama might want to restrain the volume on this sort of immoderate ideological raving to the fullest extent that they can.

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For two weeks, as John McCain’s national polls first rose above Obama and then solidified there, Democrats protested that the popular vote was irrelevant. Look to the state polls said they, in a sensible but amusingly opportunistic argument for the electoral college (for those of us who recall the venom of 2000). Alas, this was a comfort built upon something of an illusion, given that few state polls were available after the Republican convention. That’s begun to change of course, and for the first time Rasmussen has given McCain a slim electoral college advantage.

(more…)

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Ah, the fever of speculation. This is an interesting report from a local paper in Ohio, which found an eyewitness to the alleged Palin plane:

According to Rich Bevis of B&B Aero, the fixed-based operator at Hook Field, the jet, a Gulfstream IV which has the flight range to fly from Alaska to Europe, landed at about 10:15 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 28.

Bevis said the woman “was a real close match to Palin” and added that the flight crew that’s based in the Seattle area was told to fly to Anchorage to pick up their party and fly to Middletown.

Bevis said the jet had a woman, two teenagers and two men on board and that a couple of white vans met the plane, gathered their gear and took the party to an undisclosed location
(OxfordPress)

And yes, Palin has two teenage daughters (Bristol & Willow).

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source image: heartcores

I’m posting the news rather late because…well, because I’m writing from New Mexico. It should come as no surprise to the election observer, that the Land of Enchantment is once again rather late in declaring a winner in an election. This time it was the Democratic caucuses, and the winner was Hillary Clinton. New Mexico is always late because almost every election seems to break even in this politically divided swing state (and partly because alacrity just isn’t the state’s highest virtue).

In 2004 it took the state canvassing board three weeks to finally declare a winner in the presidential election. That year, California managed to get ten million ballots counted in a couple of hours, while New Mexico Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron, was busy complaining to the press about being overwhelmed with merely 7% as many. Incidentally, if you pronouce her name vee-hill-her-own, you could be a native.

But we should hope the occasion of the recount is just ordinary local narrowness, and not an unwelcome portent that the country hasn’t yet overcome her predilection for narrow national election results. On a raw and bitter level, I’d have trouble enduring another post-election experience full of recounts, recriminations, farcical conspiracy theories and obstinate resistance to obvious concessions. Remember this sort of thing?

Kerry won. Here’s the facts. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted….
(TomPaine)

The 2004 presidential contest between Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry and the Republican incumbent, President Bush Jr., amounted to another stolen election.
(CommonDreams)

Ominously enough, some people are already starting to say similarly strange and obdurate things:

To imply that the New Mexico gives Clinton a win amid a string of losses, is to imply a falsehood.
(Dakota Voice)

This time around I could be pleased with whomever won, if they could give me a Reagan ‘84, Nixon ‘72, or Johnson ‘64 style annihilation of their opponent. A year without another hand recount in New Mexico would be a good thing for this country.

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