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06 November 2008
NC is blue, baby. AP news reports there weren't enough outstanding provisional ballots for McCain to close the 13,693 vote deficit to Obama.
I keep telling myself that the combination of McCain's lame campain, including Palin, the economic meltdown, W, etc etc contributed to the "electoral" landslide.
But still even with all of McCain's missteps and the Bush legacy, and with Obama's near-perfect campaign, maybe 47 of the 100 voters you see on the street voted for him and are disappointed.
Won't take much for the pendulum to to a quick swing the other way.
The south (like all of America) will suprise you sometimes. I never lost faith and sometimes it gets rewarded.
Won't take much for the pendulum to to a quick swing the other way.
Well, along with being charismatic and smart, Obama strikes me a very shrewd man and he's surrounded himself with people like joe Biden (who I think will be a great behind-the-scenes man, which Obama as a relative newcomer to Federal government, definitely needs), which I think speaks well of things going well.
And 53%/47% is a hell of a lot more encouraging than the numbers back in the Reagan era, so I'm not all that worried.
The NC Board of Elections is still saying it's unofficial... this morning, I heard that they are hand-counting some ballots.
Melismata, rural/urban divide: I've lived in NC for almost 50 yrs - sometime in urban and sometimes in rural. So, I'll throw out a few thoughts off the top of my head:
Rural NC is populated by folks who are somewhat more prone to stick with their republican ideals. These families may still be in the same town for generations. Some small, rural places don't have a great influx of jobs and the new people who come with these jobs. It's more insular.
Rural NC has folks that are just not ready to elect a person who's not like them.
Two more areas of NC have very large military bases - which tend to vote republican.
The research triangle, the triad and Charlotte have lots of people who aren't originally from NC and tend to be more like those in other urban areas.
Religion is strong in some areas of NC, and that plays a role.
There seems to be a big urban/rural divide. Why is that? Are one's needs so completely radically different than the other's?
regardless of whatever accuracy there might be in this statement, one thing I've gotten really tired of over the last couple decades is the portrayal of complex issues into simple rich/poor, black/white, urban/rural, red state/blue state,whatever/whatever divides. That's poisonous to actual discussion.
(Also, I expressly not accusing you of this, Melismata. I just wanted to articulate something that's been on my mind.)
Oh, and this was sweet: when I went up to the cafe for lunch today, one of the cooks ran out of the kitchen when he saw me come in. "WHOSE COUNTRY?" he exclaimed; "OUR COUNTRY!" I hollered. And then everyone in the cafe instinctively went "WOOO!"
For those who haven't seen the full scores, this one's partly on Bob Barr. He's got 0.6% of the votes, way more than the gap.
To be precise, it's on Bush - Libertarians historically vote with the GOP, but after W the social-liberal part of the spectrum just went for Obama, and most of the remaining fiscal-conservatives would probably just sit this one rather than voting for McCain.
But still, the libertarians finally jumping ship on the GOP are one more nail on the "relegated to regional party" republican coffin. May the neocons soon become a Know-Nothing-like historical oddity.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
