Reply #83: Great Post

[Mark D.]

But two things.

1) I hope we can eventually just call him "Barry" as his friends did and probably do. Any less fuel to the 'he's a muslim/terrorist' crowd of FAUX SNOOZE liars isn't helpful in this. Nothing wrong with his name for anyone who gets it. But the easily (mis)lead and the right wingers who want to tarnish him will use this and anything they can.

2) I do think he's likely to win. If everyone votes, and the voter turnout causes a wide enough victory to allow him to win DESPITE republican vote stealing tactics, that WILL happen since 8 years after the first major problems popped up, we have ever more polling places using electronic voting with no paper trail. And having one doesn't matter anyway, paper 'recounts' only happen when it's a close decision. If one side wins big enough, the electronic count wins. We should have two counts in every election, electronic THEN public paper counts by non-partisans closely watched.

But aside from that. Too much, 'we're going to win' celebration may lead to 'I don't have to vote, everyone else will vote for him'. Everyone needs to vote. Pessimism in this case would help get a higher turnout maybe. Especially given the above likelihood of right wing voter sabotage. We have to win big, or we may not win at all. That is the reality.

PS. That is if late October polls don't show an easy win for Obama, so Bush nukes Iran and uses an expected national uprising in protest as the 'emergency' he's qualified himself to use (and Congress allowed) to take over the guard from states, roll out Blackwater (after all the shooting practice they had in Iraq) and overrule Congress/Senate objection (as if the largely complicit Democrats would bother) and suspend the Constitution (which he can also do now) and elections too.