Ahhhhh….. This Makes Me Feel Better.

I’ve been having mental whiplash since the election.  I vacillate between thinking that somehow, some way, Sarah Palin is going to use her voodoo magic to end up in the White House, and then thinking that there is no more certain way to engender the implosion of the Republican Party than to get her on the ticket.  And back and forth my brain goes, like it was watching a tennis match.

So, I really liked stumbling across this article by Frank Shaeffer, a recovered Republican operative who blogs on Huffington Post.

Who voted for McCain/Palin in bigger numbers than they even voted for Bush/Cheney? Only one shrinking group: uneducated white folks in the deep south and a few folks in Appalachia. Take away the white no-college-backwoods-and/or-southern McCain/Palin vote and the Republicans would have been approaching single digit electoral college oblivion.

Sarah Palin will never hold national office nor will any Republican at the presidential level for a long time to come. Why? Because America has uneducated jerks in it but is not a nation of uneducated jerks. The Republicans are done, hoisted on the petard of their own “southern strategy.”

The Republican Party is only a step away from becoming the fringe of the fringe, identified more with cross-burning weirdos wearing hoods, folks like the Alaska secessionist party, all those gun owners stocking up on assault weapons before the “Socialist/United Nations/Obama/Muslim” conspiracy comes to fruition, than with anything remotely like a serious national political force.

The Republican Party–and I speak as a former lifelong Republican who, up through the 2000 primary campaign supported John McCain and even worked for him by arguing his case on various conservative and religious radio stations–is now the toy of the Rush Limbaugh windbags. These folks include outright crazies (such as Sarah Palin’s Assemblies of God pals who are waiting for Spaceship Jesus to rescue them and/or rooting out “witches” from their midst), white racists and a few not-very-bright attention seekers, including Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity etc.

[snip]

What’s the best defense against the rube/Palin voters derailing the Republican Party forever? If the statistics of who voted for whom are correct, the education of white people in the deep South and their economic empowerment is the best answer. Maybe it will take a black Democratic president to figure out some affirmative action program that can get our southern born-again white underclass into colleges and thereby save the Republican party.

Don’t you feel better too?

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Begich Pulls Ahead of Stevens in Latest Vote Count!

As the final numbers were tallied this evening, Democratic Senate candidate Mark Begich pulled ahead of convicted felon and frontrunner, Republican incumbent Ted Stevens by 814 votes!

The word is that the Division of Elections decided not to keep releasing new numbers as they became available throughout the day, to save people’s nerves.  It didn’t work.  The lack of information between 3:30 and when the final numbers came in at 8:30, was nerve-wracking to say the least.

Alaska bloggers, journalists, and campaign workers have been chewing their nails down to the stubs.  My activities for the evening consisted of pacing around and hitting ‘refresh’ every 30 seconds.  There are a LOT of 30 second intervals between 3:30 and 8:30.

Tens of thousands of votes have yet to be counted before the vote is certified.  But this batch gives us a clear indication of a trend.  Begich increased his numbers by a relative 4000+ votes, and took traditionally conservative districts in Anchorage’s affluent “Hillside” area.

As we move forward, Alaska’s “reddest” areas have already been counted.  Those outstanding districts are mainly rural and tend to go Democratic.  Friday will see more than 20,000 “question ballots” (provisional ballots) counted, and the remaining absentee ballots are slated to be counted Monday.

So nothing is final yet, but the news is definitely good.

Latest Alaskan Numbers and Palin’s Potential Senate Run.

So, IF Ted Stevens gets re-elected, and IF he gets expelled from the senate, we will have a special election to fill the seat.  Any takers?

In an interview today with Wolf Blitzer (I wonder if she had an urge to shoot him from a helicopter?) Sarah Palin said that she feels as though she has a “contract with Alaskans” to continue to serve as governor, but didn’t completely rule out a run for the U.S. Senate if there was an opportunity to do so.

Palin said, speaking of Alaska voters,  “if they call an audible on me, and if they say they want me in another position, I’m going to do it. … My life is in God’s hands. If he’s got doors open for me, that I believe are in our state’s best interest, the nation’s best interest, I’m going to go through those doors.”

She also said she would not appoint herself or a member of her family to the vacant senate seat….which is nice, because that would be illegal.  (bangs head on desk)

So obviously a lot hangs in the balance in this Senate race – not only another potential Democrat in the Senate, but whether Sarah Palin will gain a foothold in Washington.  The first batch of uncounted ballots will be finished tonight.  The official count from the Division of Elections has Democrat Mark Begich leading ConvicTed Stevens by THREE votes.  There are about 10,000 ballots scheduled to be counted today, and nobody is going home until it’s done.  There are about 35,000 more ballots to be counted in the next week. 

Ethan Berkowitz has made up a little ground on Republican incumbent Don Young but still trails by 15,710. 

Waiting for the Numbers in Alaska…

There are 90,000+ ballots to be counted, and more coming in every day.

Absentee ballots: 60,950 (postmarked by midnight on 11/4)
Early voting ballots: 9,507
Question (provisional) ballots: 20,178 (voters who voted outside their proper district)

Grand Total: 90,635+  (with more arriving every day)

Today the state will count 42,991 of the absentee ballots and 9,333 of the early votes.  The rest will come later, hopefully by Friday.  But no promises.

The districts that will not be counted today seem to be favoring Begich.

District  Begich  Stevens   Margin
2          54.2    40.9     +13.3
5          55.7    38.0     +17.7
6          47.8    46.3      +1.5
36         53.2    41.7     +11.5
37         50.0    45.9      +4.1
38         65.3    30.6     +34.7
39         58.3    38.1     +20.2
40         58.8    37.7     +21.1

So even if Begich does not overtake Stevens in the vote count today, those remaining districts still leave hope.  An automatic recount is only triggered if the votes are exactly the same.  However, candidates, or a group of 10 citizens can petition for a recount if the votes are within one half of one percentage point of each other.

And, of course, we’ll be looking to see if the House race, or local races take any significant changes.  Two wonderful local Democrats, Pete Petersen and Chris Tuck are both ahead but by a very slim margin.

It’s 2:00 in Alaska, and still no numbers coming in.  We weren’t sure if the numbers would come in one lump sum at the end of the day, or if they would release results throughout the day.  I’m guessing if we haven’t seen anything by now, we’ll get the final daily tally this evening.

(stares at clock)

(h/t to Daily Kos for the number crunching)

UPDATE:  Ted Stevens lead has now shrunk from 3300 to 971!  Tuck and Petersen are holding their own.  More to come.

UPDATE 2:  Begich is up by 3 votes!!!

Palin and the Crack in the Door.

Alaska, bar the door! Here’s the latest little gem from Governor Sarah Palin. For six weeks we couldn’t get her to talk, and now we can’t get her to stop!

“You know, I have — faith is a very big part of my life. And putting my life in my creator’s hands — this is what I always do. I’m like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is. Even if it’s cracked up a little bit, maybe I’ll plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it, but don’t let me miss an open door. And if there is an open door in ’12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.”

Can somebody out there help me shove this huge heavy dresser over there in front of that door? EErrrrrgggghhhh.

For more thoughts on Palin’s crack in the door, the Alaska vote, and the future of convicted Senator Ted Stevens, check out Rachel Maddow and her guest, fellow Alaskan blogger and radio journalist Shannyn Moore! Here’s the LINK.