A mixture of horseradish and hydrogen peroxide melts nanobots? That's just silly.
"Grey Goo" never struck me as a particularly interesting apocalypse, so I'm glad that it has been downgraded from Armageddon to 'sci-fi episode of Mr Wizard.'
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Liberté, Égalité, etc.
Pictures from today's NYC Marriage Equality protest
The Sun Gods smile upon gay marriage:
The Sun Gods smile upon gay marriage:
Friday, November 14, 2008
Bonzo
Thanks to this list of "things you might not know about Barack Obama," I learned that the President-elect not only collects comic books, but also that he once had a pet ape. Her name was Tata, and was his childhood pet in Indonesia. I think that this sounds like the premise for an awesomely terrible '80's comedy about the President and his ape.
The movie starts during the first week of a new President's term (probably played by an old white guy who looks like Reagan, because this is the '80's). Everyone is still settling in at the White House, when a large, mysterious package arrives! The bomb squad and the Secret Service play Keystone Kops for a while before they figure it out--It's not a bomb! It's the president's childhood pet and companion, Tata the ape!
Of course, the ape becomes the White House pet, instead of the more traditional dog or cat. At one point, a comically square foreign official, probably from England, is staying over in the Lincoln Bedroom. Tata steals his pants and wears them down the hall, forcing the official to chase after her. He ends up in a meeting full of Important People wearing his silly patterned boxers. Later, Tata gives him a hug, so its all OK.
For about 30 seconds, an actual politician makes a cameo appearance, and shakes the ape's hand. In the real world, he fires his PR guys.
And you have the requisite villain--probably a mean, over-serious staffer, who thinks Tata should go. But of course the President and the children of the nation love Tata, so she stays.
Zany hijinks, tiresome banana jokes, and an ape giving the finger ensue. In the end, the ape saves the day in some bizarre, convoluted fashion that wouldn't even make sense if you went back and watched it again.
It's a straight to home video classic!
The movie starts during the first week of a new President's term (probably played by an old white guy who looks like Reagan, because this is the '80's). Everyone is still settling in at the White House, when a large, mysterious package arrives! The bomb squad and the Secret Service play Keystone Kops for a while before they figure it out--It's not a bomb! It's the president's childhood pet and companion, Tata the ape!
Of course, the ape becomes the White House pet, instead of the more traditional dog or cat. At one point, a comically square foreign official, probably from England, is staying over in the Lincoln Bedroom. Tata steals his pants and wears them down the hall, forcing the official to chase after her. He ends up in a meeting full of Important People wearing his silly patterned boxers. Later, Tata gives him a hug, so its all OK.
For about 30 seconds, an actual politician makes a cameo appearance, and shakes the ape's hand. In the real world, he fires his PR guys.
And you have the requisite villain--probably a mean, over-serious staffer, who thinks Tata should go. But of course the President and the children of the nation love Tata, so she stays.
Zany hijinks, tiresome banana jokes, and an ape giving the finger ensue. In the end, the ape saves the day in some bizarre, convoluted fashion that wouldn't even make sense if you went back and watched it again.
It's a straight to home video classic!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The end of social conservatism
One persistent dream of the right has been to leverage conservative social views among Latinos into support for Republican candidates and causes going forward. Looking over the exit polls from California, it seems like this is going to remain a dream.
California had two ballot initiatives on hot button social issues this year--a gay marriage ban (Prop 8) and the less well known Prop 4, which would have required that minors receive parental notifications for abortions. On both of these propositions, the headline Latino category held slim majorities voting 'yes.'
The headline number is deceiving, however. As I mentioned in the previous post, there was an enormous age gap on gay marriage. While age 30+ Californians opposed gay marriage, the under 30's voted strongly against the ban. This pattern held up across racial categories, with 18-29 year old Latinos voting strongly in favor of gay marriage. Almost 60% of young Latinos voted pro-marriage equality.
This pattern held up on the abortion initiative, as well. Over 30's held more conservative views (with the odd exception of 50-64 year olds), while young voters voted heavily against abortion restrictions. Again, more liberal social views were found among young voters across racial categories. Fully two thirds--66%--of 18-29 year old Latinos voted against stricter regulations on abortions. This was almost identical to the vote in the white 18-29 category, 68% of whom voted pro-choice.
So much for conservative Catholic Latinos providing a future base for social conservatism. If these views remain even remotely stable as our generation grows up, the James Dobsons of this world are finished. Good riddance.
California had two ballot initiatives on hot button social issues this year--a gay marriage ban (Prop 8) and the less well known Prop 4, which would have required that minors receive parental notifications for abortions. On both of these propositions, the headline Latino category held slim majorities voting 'yes.'
The headline number is deceiving, however. As I mentioned in the previous post, there was an enormous age gap on gay marriage. While age 30+ Californians opposed gay marriage, the under 30's voted strongly against the ban. This pattern held up across racial categories, with 18-29 year old Latinos voting strongly in favor of gay marriage. Almost 60% of young Latinos voted pro-marriage equality.
This pattern held up on the abortion initiative, as well. Over 30's held more conservative views (with the odd exception of 50-64 year olds), while young voters voted heavily against abortion restrictions. Again, more liberal social views were found among young voters across racial categories. Fully two thirds--66%--of 18-29 year old Latinos voted against stricter regulations on abortions. This was almost identical to the vote in the white 18-29 category, 68% of whom voted pro-choice.
So much for conservative Catholic Latinos providing a future base for social conservatism. If these views remain even remotely stable as our generation grows up, the James Dobsons of this world are finished. Good riddance.
Monday, November 10, 2008
The next generation will be, hear me...
The passage of Proposition 8 in California, banning gay marriage, was the one big negative on an otherwise very positive election night. Immediately, people started with the blame game. It was the Mormon Church--they bankrolled Prop 8! My target of choice was (and is) that gutless, lying coward--Governor Schwarzenegger. Dan Savage, in particular, shot off an incredibly ill-conceived rant. Who did he blame? Those damn "black male homophobes." This wasn't the first time this charge had been made--even before the election, Savage and Andrew Sullivan were fretting about homophobia in the black community as a hurdle to marriage equality.
As always, let's look at the evidence. Looking over the exit polls, we see one group conspicuously absent: black male homophobes. The exit polls were not able to survey enough black men to be able to give us any representative data about how they voted on Prop. 8. There is no way that such a small group could have made a serious difference in the outcome. In fact, comparing the total black vote to the subsample of black women, it seems likely that black men as a group were more amenable to gay marriage than were black women.
So much for Dan Savage's "black male homophobes."
So why did such a horrible, discriminatory initiative pass in super-liberal California? The same California which supported Obama and rejected parental notifications for abortion?
We could find any number of constituencies amongst whom a minor improvement would have preserved marriage equality. I would switch the question around: Why was it so close?
Every age category above thirty supported a ban on gay marriage. Approximately 55% of Californians between the ages of 30 to 64 supported a ban on gay marriage. Among senior citizens, the vote was 60% for Prop 8. How could any initiative fail when it holds the overwhelming support of the state's 30-somethings, middle aged and old folks? (And no, it wasn't just old black grandmas, either.)
The fact that the initiative was still too close to call on election night was a fucking miracle, and the miracle was this: Among younger voters, gay marriage was supported overwhelmingly. Over 60% of 18-29 year old voters opposed Proposition 8. And they turned out in large enough numbers to keep the election close.
So what of the age gap among people of color? We don't have large enough samples to look at the age gap amongst black, Asian, or "other race" Californians. (And, at any rate, Asian-Americans supported gay marriage outright) We can look at Latinos, amongst whom 59% of the 18-29 year olds voted against Prop. 8--roughly identical to the 18-29 year old vote at large.
Amongst whites, we see a similar age gap. The only age group among whites to vote for marriage equality were 18-29 year olds. Whites ages 30-65 were split evenly, with older whites supporting Prop. 8 by 20 percent. The only reason the headline white vote shows opposition to 8 is because an incredible 67% of young whites voted against the ban. I would expect to see a similar pattern with Asian Americans, who polled a similar slight total opposition to the ban.
So the young folks, across racial categories, supported gay marriage. Older folks, across races, were split on or hostile to gay marriage. Again, how anyone could expect that a proposition supported by every group over 30 would fail is beyond me. Of course it passed. But it's a testimony to just how huge the generation gap is that we still held it close.
As always, let's look at the evidence. Looking over the exit polls, we see one group conspicuously absent: black male homophobes. The exit polls were not able to survey enough black men to be able to give us any representative data about how they voted on Prop. 8. There is no way that such a small group could have made a serious difference in the outcome. In fact, comparing the total black vote to the subsample of black women, it seems likely that black men as a group were more amenable to gay marriage than were black women.
So much for Dan Savage's "black male homophobes."
So why did such a horrible, discriminatory initiative pass in super-liberal California? The same California which supported Obama and rejected parental notifications for abortion?
We could find any number of constituencies amongst whom a minor improvement would have preserved marriage equality. I would switch the question around: Why was it so close?
Every age category above thirty supported a ban on gay marriage. Approximately 55% of Californians between the ages of 30 to 64 supported a ban on gay marriage. Among senior citizens, the vote was 60% for Prop 8. How could any initiative fail when it holds the overwhelming support of the state's 30-somethings, middle aged and old folks? (And no, it wasn't just old black grandmas, either.)
The fact that the initiative was still too close to call on election night was a fucking miracle, and the miracle was this: Among younger voters, gay marriage was supported overwhelmingly. Over 60% of 18-29 year old voters opposed Proposition 8. And they turned out in large enough numbers to keep the election close.
So what of the age gap among people of color? We don't have large enough samples to look at the age gap amongst black, Asian, or "other race" Californians. (And, at any rate, Asian-Americans supported gay marriage outright) We can look at Latinos, amongst whom 59% of the 18-29 year olds voted against Prop. 8--roughly identical to the 18-29 year old vote at large.
Amongst whites, we see a similar age gap. The only age group among whites to vote for marriage equality were 18-29 year olds. Whites ages 30-65 were split evenly, with older whites supporting Prop. 8 by 20 percent. The only reason the headline white vote shows opposition to 8 is because an incredible 67% of young whites voted against the ban. I would expect to see a similar pattern with Asian Americans, who polled a similar slight total opposition to the ban.
So the young folks, across racial categories, supported gay marriage. Older folks, across races, were split on or hostile to gay marriage. Again, how anyone could expect that a proposition supported by every group over 30 would fail is beyond me. Of course it passed. But it's a testimony to just how huge the generation gap is that we still held it close.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Omaha, Nebraska
I guess this means I was off by one electoral vote.
Predicted:
Electoral Votes: Obama: 364, McCain 174
Popular vote: Obama: 52.5, McCain 46.5
Current (final?) results:
Electoral Votes: Obama: 365, McCain 173*
Popular vote: Obama: 52.6, McCain 46.1
And half a percentage point in the popular vote. Still--not too bad!
Predicted:
Electoral Votes: Obama: 364, McCain 174
Popular vote: Obama: 52.5, McCain 46.5
Current (final?) results:
Electoral Votes: Obama: 365, McCain 173*
Popular vote: Obama: 52.6, McCain 46.1
And half a percentage point in the popular vote. Still--not too bad!
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Fake America: The Next Generation
Via Ambinder, Patrick Ruffini writes:
But it gets worse for them. Typically, partisan leanings are set fairly early, and tend to lean towards whatever party is currently dominant (i.e., young voters have not traditionally diverged significantly from the rest of the electorate). During the Bush years, this link was broken (even more than with Dick Nixon), and young voters began to oppose the sitting president by wide margins, even as President Bush remained popular with older voters.
I do not expect that this pattern of opposition to the sitting president will continue. In fact, I expect that we will support President Obama more than older voters for the foreseeable future. Younger voters do not seem to have been animated by blind opposition to authority, but by broad support for more liberal policies (especially on social issues). Furthermore, Obama has made a conscious effort to appeal to younger voters, and has been rewarded with not just broad support, but extremely strong support. When he was elected, we were literally dancing in the streets, throwing impromptu parties, and engaging in unprecedented displays of emotional patriotism.
In elections to come, the Republicans will face enormous hurdles. They will be facing an entire generation holding liberal political views, who grew up seeing the Republican Party as the party of disasters and intolerance, who have a strong emotional connection with a Democratic President, a majority of whom are not white, and more than ever are not Christians.
But clearly, we are a "center-right" nation.
the real story about the youth vote is not how many "new" voters Obama got to show up. It's how he produced a gargantuan 25% swing among existing young voters[…]I think that this and my earlier point about the racial composition of the Democratic coalition are part of the same phenomenon. Younger age cohorts are dramatically less white than our elders. "Young voters" and "people of color" are two groups with a great deal of overlap. This just underscores the problems that Republicans have going forward. They face an electorate whose demographics are trending towards traditional Democratic constituencies.
18 percent times a 25 percent increase in the Democratic margin equals 4.5 points, or a majority of Obama's popular vote margin. Had the Democratic 18-29 vote stayed the same as 2004's already impressive percentage, Obama would have won by about 2 points, and would not have won 73 electoral votes from Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, or Indiana.
But it gets worse for them. Typically, partisan leanings are set fairly early, and tend to lean towards whatever party is currently dominant (i.e., young voters have not traditionally diverged significantly from the rest of the electorate). During the Bush years, this link was broken (even more than with Dick Nixon), and young voters began to oppose the sitting president by wide margins, even as President Bush remained popular with older voters.
I do not expect that this pattern of opposition to the sitting president will continue. In fact, I expect that we will support President Obama more than older voters for the foreseeable future. Younger voters do not seem to have been animated by blind opposition to authority, but by broad support for more liberal policies (especially on social issues). Furthermore, Obama has made a conscious effort to appeal to younger voters, and has been rewarded with not just broad support, but extremely strong support. When he was elected, we were literally dancing in the streets, throwing impromptu parties, and engaging in unprecedented displays of emotional patriotism.
In elections to come, the Republicans will face enormous hurdles. They will be facing an entire generation holding liberal political views, who grew up seeing the Republican Party as the party of disasters and intolerance, who have a strong emotional connection with a Democratic President, a majority of whom are not white, and more than ever are not Christians.
But clearly, we are a "center-right" nation.
Fake America
Several times since the election, I've seen right-wing pundits, those who spent months slinging horrible smears at now-President Obama, patting themselves on the back over the fact that "we" just elected a black man to be our President.
No. You didn't. Cut it out with the first person plural here. You spent the past year throwing every old quasi-racial slur at him that you could get away with on tv. I mean, black people as possible socialists, disloyal to America? Large black men threatening white women? Those were some oldies. This happened in spite of you--you were dragged to this "great moment" kicking and screaming
Some of this, I'm sure, is genuine cognitive dissonance. Mostly, though, this is an attempt to create a story about a post-racial America, where the generous white people finally all got over our collective racism, so now all those brown people need to stop complaining.
It's a nice story, I guess. But let's look at the actual evidence. (We'll leave aside, for the moment, the odd contention that voting behavior is a good proxy for the impact of structural racism on the lives of people of color)
Did Barack Obama win the white vote? Of course not. It would be extraordinary for a Democrat to do so. Obama won 43% of the national white (non-"hispanic") vote, which is a statistically insignificant 2% increase over John Kerry's performance four years ago. There is some evidence that there was a geographic shift here, with Appalachia and the western areas of the South voting more Republican than they did four years ago (presumably made up for by an increase elsewhere).
So white voting preferences, in aggregate, stayed stable, and became more geographically polarized. White people who were inclined to vote for Democrats (mostly young people, non-Christians, single women and union households) did so. So where did Obama get the support he needed to win the election? And not just win, but win big. A majority of the electorate--the first Democrat to do so in decades?
In short, people of color. They turned out in greater numbers than ever before, and voted more solidly Democratic. As Matthew Yglesias writes:
We white folks need to stop patting ourselves on the backs. This wasn't about us.
White people didn't get enlightened. People of color got organized.
No. You didn't. Cut it out with the first person plural here. You spent the past year throwing every old quasi-racial slur at him that you could get away with on tv. I mean, black people as possible socialists, disloyal to America? Large black men threatening white women? Those were some oldies. This happened in spite of you--you were dragged to this "great moment" kicking and screaming
Some of this, I'm sure, is genuine cognitive dissonance. Mostly, though, this is an attempt to create a story about a post-racial America, where the generous white people finally all got over our collective racism, so now all those brown people need to stop complaining.
It's a nice story, I guess. But let's look at the actual evidence. (We'll leave aside, for the moment, the odd contention that voting behavior is a good proxy for the impact of structural racism on the lives of people of color)
Did Barack Obama win the white vote? Of course not. It would be extraordinary for a Democrat to do so. Obama won 43% of the national white (non-"hispanic") vote, which is a statistically insignificant 2% increase over John Kerry's performance four years ago. There is some evidence that there was a geographic shift here, with Appalachia and the western areas of the South voting more Republican than they did four years ago (presumably made up for by an increase elsewhere).
So white voting preferences, in aggregate, stayed stable, and became more geographically polarized. White people who were inclined to vote for Democrats (mostly young people, non-Christians, single women and union households) did so. So where did Obama get the support he needed to win the election? And not just win, but win big. A majority of the electorate--the first Democrat to do so in decades?
In short, people of color. They turned out in greater numbers than ever before, and voted more solidly Democratic. As Matthew Yglesias writes:
The big difference is that Obama increased the share of the black vote [in the total electorate] from 11 percent to 13 percent, increased the share of the “other [race]” vote from 2 percent to 3 percent, grew his share of the black vote by seven percentage points, grew his share of the Hispanic vote by 13 (!) percentage points, grew his share of the Asian vote by five percentage points, and grew his share of the “other [race]” vote by 11 percentage points.Despite all the Clinton campaign's claims during the primaries about those horrible racist Asians and Latinos who would never vote for a black man, Obama's share of the vote among these groups--and their share of the electorate--went up, and dramatically so. He won the votes of 66% of Latinos, 61% of Asians, and 65% of people reporting "other race." As Chris Bowers points out, "[r]oughly 60% of all Democratic voters are now non-white and/or non-Christian."
We white folks need to stop patting ourselves on the backs. This wasn't about us.
White people didn't get enlightened. People of color got organized.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Gloating
In the Dailykos election prediction contest I guessed:
Electoral Votes: Obama: 364, McCain 174
Popular vote: Obama: 52.5 McCain 46.5
Current results:
Electoral Votes: Obama: 364, McCain 174
Popular vote: Obama: 52.5 McCain 46.2
Off by a grand total of .3 percentage points. Not too bad.
Electoral Votes: Obama: 364, McCain 174
Popular vote: Obama: 52.5 McCain 46.5
Current results:
Electoral Votes: Obama: 364, McCain 174
Popular vote: Obama: 52.5 McCain 46.2
Off by a grand total of .3 percentage points. Not too bad.
Deep thoughts
If everyone expects President Obama to not live up to expectations, what exactly are we expecting?
The hour that the ship comes in
Yesterday, I was canvassing in NE Philadelphia, where people were really 'fired up,' as the Obama campaign says. It was a heavily Democratic area, with Obama signs in every store window and nearly every house. A couple of old ladies asked me for Obama pins. I had been given an extra one at the staging area, so the first time this happened I went ahead and pinned it on the woman's coat for her. The second old lady was very insistent on wanting one that I had bought for myself.
"What are you going to do with that pin after the election, that's what I want to know," she asked.
"What am I going to do with it? I plan on wearing it in four years, that's what." She burst out laughing, and thought that was a pretty good explanation.
Having canvassed and handed out fliers for hours (as well as eating an embarrassing quantity of Philly Cheesesteaks), we headed home. While on the bus, Pennsylvania was called for Obama. Everyone cheered, though most of us were still too wary to celebrate quite yet. A bit later, the back of the bus cheered again. "What happened? What state got called," we asked. "No, no--we're back in Brooklyn." We had just crossed the Verezzanno Narrows Bridge. Thank god we are not in Staten Island!
After we got back to Brooklyn, some of us went over to Obama HQ down in the Financial District for some last-minute phonebanking. We were calling Colorado and Nevada, where the polls had not yet closed. I had never seen an excited phonebank before, let alone anything like this. The energy there was incredible. Our calls kept getting interrupted when the campaign's internals would call new Electoral College or Senate victories, and everyone would cheer (even for obvious wins like New York and Maryland).
I was in the middle of dialing when a voice called out, "we won Ohio!" The noise was deafening, as we all knew what that meant. We had won. People were crying, and the staff had to start whipping us back into shape--it's not over! The polls haven't closed yet in Nevada! Immediately after Nevada did close, the campaign called the state in our column (by double digits!), and kicked us out. Good job--go to the victory party at the Sheraton.
Once in Midtown, we were greeted by crowds celebrating in the streets, and an army of cabs and cars on 6th Ave honking their horns. We didn't make it into the party itself--the thousands gathered there spilled out into Rockefeller Center and the surrounding streets. NBC had built a very dramatic election night set, with the electoral map on the ice rink, huge screens showing the tv coverage, and banners up a skyscraper tallying the electoral votes.
The crowd was crazy--cheering and clapping at new calls for the Democrats, chanting "Obama, Obama," "Yes we can, yes we can," "No more Bush," and, finally, "Yes we did." We cheered for the (obviously exhausted) David Plouffe and David Axelrod, architects of the Obama campaign, and for David Patterson, our governor, announcing that we had finally taken the NY State Senate.
I hear that up at Sarah Lawrence College, the students chanted "USA, USA, USA" completely without irony. I can say with absolute confidence that this has never happened before.
In Midtown, people were crying and dancing in the streets. Others drove by in their cars honking and screaming out the windows. Complete strangers were hugging, three or four at a time. Somewhere there were fireworks going off. We all jeered and booed at Senator McCain's speech, and laughed at every mention of Governor Palin. But the crowd ultimately cheered his conciliatory gestures ("the American people have spoken, and spoken clearly." Damn right.) One of the people from the bus to Philly was calling her relatives in the South--"He just won Virginia--the capital of the Confederacy!" When Rachel finally got over her disbelief, she sent me a simple message: "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!"
Oh, indeed.
The real celebration in New York seemed to be up in Harlem, but there was plenty to go around. The Midtown crowd cheered for a man shown on the screens dancing in the middle of 125th street while holding up a glass of champagne. In Chicago, Jesse Jackson didn't say a word--he just stood in the enormous crowd, weeping silently with his hand over his mouth. Congressman Lewis was barely holding his composure. In Washington DC, the White House was surrounded by thousands of people cheering and celebrating for hours, chanting "nana nana, nana nana, hey hey, goodbye!" (Ever classy, Republican pundits referred to black people celebrating in our nation's capitol as a "mob") In Philadelphia, the liquor stores sold out of champagne. These scenes were repeated in cities across the country.
When Barack Obama gave his first speech as President Obama, the whole crowd became completely silent, but for the raucous applause lines (and a bit of awkwardness at his invocation of our slave-owning founding fathers to the mostly non-white audience). After the speech, more crazy applause and chanting for First Lady Michelle Obama, and Joe The Vice President. After that, the crowd began to disperse, but there were still cars driving along the edges, honking and screaming, while chanting and cheers echoed between skyscrapers. More group hugs. On the subway, people spontaneously burst into applause and cheers.
Crazy things are happening. The big question for everyone? How to get down to Washington on January 20th.
Some photographs I took in Rockefeller Center:
And some videos posted by others of the celebrations in the Village:
First Avenue:
St. Marks:
"What are you going to do with that pin after the election, that's what I want to know," she asked.
"What am I going to do with it? I plan on wearing it in four years, that's what." She burst out laughing, and thought that was a pretty good explanation.
Having canvassed and handed out fliers for hours (as well as eating an embarrassing quantity of Philly Cheesesteaks), we headed home. While on the bus, Pennsylvania was called for Obama. Everyone cheered, though most of us were still too wary to celebrate quite yet. A bit later, the back of the bus cheered again. "What happened? What state got called," we asked. "No, no--we're back in Brooklyn." We had just crossed the Verezzanno Narrows Bridge. Thank god we are not in Staten Island!
After we got back to Brooklyn, some of us went over to Obama HQ down in the Financial District for some last-minute phonebanking. We were calling Colorado and Nevada, where the polls had not yet closed. I had never seen an excited phonebank before, let alone anything like this. The energy there was incredible. Our calls kept getting interrupted when the campaign's internals would call new Electoral College or Senate victories, and everyone would cheer (even for obvious wins like New York and Maryland).
I was in the middle of dialing when a voice called out, "we won Ohio!" The noise was deafening, as we all knew what that meant. We had won. People were crying, and the staff had to start whipping us back into shape--it's not over! The polls haven't closed yet in Nevada! Immediately after Nevada did close, the campaign called the state in our column (by double digits!), and kicked us out. Good job--go to the victory party at the Sheraton.
Once in Midtown, we were greeted by crowds celebrating in the streets, and an army of cabs and cars on 6th Ave honking their horns. We didn't make it into the party itself--the thousands gathered there spilled out into Rockefeller Center and the surrounding streets. NBC had built a very dramatic election night set, with the electoral map on the ice rink, huge screens showing the tv coverage, and banners up a skyscraper tallying the electoral votes.
The crowd was crazy--cheering and clapping at new calls for the Democrats, chanting "Obama, Obama," "Yes we can, yes we can," "No more Bush," and, finally, "Yes we did." We cheered for the (obviously exhausted) David Plouffe and David Axelrod, architects of the Obama campaign, and for David Patterson, our governor, announcing that we had finally taken the NY State Senate.
I hear that up at Sarah Lawrence College, the students chanted "USA, USA, USA" completely without irony. I can say with absolute confidence that this has never happened before.
In Midtown, people were crying and dancing in the streets. Others drove by in their cars honking and screaming out the windows. Complete strangers were hugging, three or four at a time. Somewhere there were fireworks going off. We all jeered and booed at Senator McCain's speech, and laughed at every mention of Governor Palin. But the crowd ultimately cheered his conciliatory gestures ("the American people have spoken, and spoken clearly." Damn right.) One of the people from the bus to Philly was calling her relatives in the South--"He just won Virginia--the capital of the Confederacy!" When Rachel finally got over her disbelief, she sent me a simple message: "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!"
Oh, indeed.
The real celebration in New York seemed to be up in Harlem, but there was plenty to go around. The Midtown crowd cheered for a man shown on the screens dancing in the middle of 125th street while holding up a glass of champagne. In Chicago, Jesse Jackson didn't say a word--he just stood in the enormous crowd, weeping silently with his hand over his mouth. Congressman Lewis was barely holding his composure. In Washington DC, the White House was surrounded by thousands of people cheering and celebrating for hours, chanting "nana nana, nana nana, hey hey, goodbye!" (Ever classy, Republican pundits referred to black people celebrating in our nation's capitol as a "mob") In Philadelphia, the liquor stores sold out of champagne. These scenes were repeated in cities across the country.
When Barack Obama gave his first speech as President Obama, the whole crowd became completely silent, but for the raucous applause lines (and a bit of awkwardness at his invocation of our slave-owning founding fathers to the mostly non-white audience). After the speech, more crazy applause and chanting for First Lady Michelle Obama, and Joe The Vice President. After that, the crowd began to disperse, but there were still cars driving along the edges, honking and screaming, while chanting and cheers echoed between skyscrapers. More group hugs. On the subway, people spontaneously burst into applause and cheers.
Crazy things are happening. The big question for everyone? How to get down to Washington on January 20th.
Some photographs I took in Rockefeller Center:
And some videos posted by others of the celebrations in the Village:
First Avenue:
St. Marks:
Friday, October 31, 2008
The Obama Halloween Special
Robot's Attack! Starring Gort:
Though it's not like the Obama campaign doesn't have some robot allies of their own:
The Day The Earth Stood Still was such a pessimistic movie. Klaatu comes to Earth from a fantastically advanced society which has abandoned violence and war. But not because they have created better means of conflict resolution--because giant robots will kill you if you act violently. It was a strange attempt at an anti-war message, because it seems to fit so well into the logic of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Anyway, how weird is it to have a presidential campaign putting up these kinds of youtube videos? They're usually way too square and cautious to put up videos with robots or using the infamous Epic Bike Fail clip. The Obama campaign is clearly aware of all internet traditions.
Though it's not like the Obama campaign doesn't have some robot allies of their own:
The Day The Earth Stood Still was such a pessimistic movie. Klaatu comes to Earth from a fantastically advanced society which has abandoned violence and war. But not because they have created better means of conflict resolution--because giant robots will kill you if you act violently. It was a strange attempt at an anti-war message, because it seems to fit so well into the logic of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Anyway, how weird is it to have a presidential campaign putting up these kinds of youtube videos? They're usually way too square and cautious to put up videos with robots or using the infamous Epic Bike Fail clip. The Obama campaign is clearly aware of all internet traditions.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Ta-Nehisi Coates and Andrew Sullivan have been posting over at the Atlantic about their hopes for a new and improved Republican Party after this election. I have to concur with this, even if it makes the Republican Party more competitive.
I'm sick of our political discourse being centered around bullshit issues--who loves terrorists, and who is a Real American? I don't want to have to constantly defend the right of queer people and women to live their lives free of pointless, bigoted government meddling in their life decisions. I'm tired of a Republican Party which believes it's own spin, and lives in a world where Saddam planned 9-11 and Obama was secretly born in Indonesia or Kenya. I'm tired of dealing with a Republican Party which sees rigorous study and consideration of policy as the 8th deadly sin.
It would be a lot harder to argue against someone making an honest defense of a flat tax than this bizarre Red Scare nonsense. It would be more difficult to defend a candidate against actual arguments than conspiracy theories. But we'd get better policies out of it.
I'm not, however, nearly as optimistic as Coates and Sullivan are about this. This Real America business is failing not because America has changed, but because of the places they are talking about. If the Republicans had stuck to bashing New York and San Francisco and Washington D.C., no one would have noticed. The problem is that they started applying this same language to the newly expanded map. Richmond, Virginia is a hotbed of commie-liberal elitists? Really? No one is buying that.
After the election, assuming McCain loses, the Republican base is not going to enter the period of self-reflection and questioning needed to move towards sanity. They have been taught over the past 8 years that those self-doubt and intellectual consideration are unmanly sins of the left. They are going to go into conspiracy land--it's going to be the Clinton years all over again, but now with the full force of racism and xenophobia behind the madness. We will hear no end of the right's parallel universe Obama, complete with forged birth certificates and secret, anti-American views that he's waiting to deploy until... who knows.
I'm sick of our political discourse being centered around bullshit issues--who loves terrorists, and who is a Real American? I don't want to have to constantly defend the right of queer people and women to live their lives free of pointless, bigoted government meddling in their life decisions. I'm tired of a Republican Party which believes it's own spin, and lives in a world where Saddam planned 9-11 and Obama was secretly born in Indonesia or Kenya. I'm tired of dealing with a Republican Party which sees rigorous study and consideration of policy as the 8th deadly sin.
It would be a lot harder to argue against someone making an honest defense of a flat tax than this bizarre Red Scare nonsense. It would be more difficult to defend a candidate against actual arguments than conspiracy theories. But we'd get better policies out of it.
I'm not, however, nearly as optimistic as Coates and Sullivan are about this. This Real America business is failing not because America has changed, but because of the places they are talking about. If the Republicans had stuck to bashing New York and San Francisco and Washington D.C., no one would have noticed. The problem is that they started applying this same language to the newly expanded map. Richmond, Virginia is a hotbed of commie-liberal elitists? Really? No one is buying that.
After the election, assuming McCain loses, the Republican base is not going to enter the period of self-reflection and questioning needed to move towards sanity. They have been taught over the past 8 years that those self-doubt and intellectual consideration are unmanly sins of the left. They are going to go into conspiracy land--it's going to be the Clinton years all over again, but now with the full force of racism and xenophobia behind the madness. We will hear no end of the right's parallel universe Obama, complete with forged birth certificates and secret, anti-American views that he's waiting to deploy until... who knows.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Redbaiting is the new retro-chic Republican trend
MCCAIN: So is one of the tenets of socialism redistribution of the wealth? Not just socialism — a lot of other liberal and left wing philosophies — redistribution of the wealth? I don't believe in it. I believe in wealth creation by Joe the Plumber.
So... is John McCain endorsing the Labor Theory of Value here? Because that's a lot closer to actual Marxism than redistributing "wealth." (You'd have to redistribute Means of Production to be socialist. Say, by nationalizing the banks.)
Or does he literally believe in a Joe The Plumber-based economy?
Monday, October 20, 2008
Adelman
Ken Adelman: Superhawk has announced that he's voting for Barack Obama. This is surprising, but not, you know, really all that surprising. He reads the same polling data as the rest of us.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Abandon hope all ye who enter here
Frank Rich:
The election isn’t over, but there remain only three discernible, if highly unlikely, paths to a McCain victory. A theoretically mammoth wave of racism, incessantly anticipated by the press, could materialize in voting booths on Nov. 4. Or newly registered young and black voters could fail to show up. Or McCain could at long last make good on his most persistent promise: follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell and, once there, strangle him with his own bare hands on “Hannity & Colmes.”
So the Gates of Hell are behind the Hannity and Colmes set at the Fox News studio? Why does this not surprise me.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Mickey Mouse: non-voter.
As someone who has worked as a canvasser in the past, I can guarantee that this claim that ACORN is attempting to "destroy the fabric of democracy itself" through false registrations is 100% pure bullshit.
Canvassing is a job which involves minimal supervision. Unlike working in an office or a store, employees (the canvassers) are on their own for nearly their entire shift. Groups like ACORN need to make sure that canvassers don't just register voters for 20 minutes then sit down and listen to music for a few hours, so they pay their workers on commission. Register x voters, earn y dollars.
Most of these workers are idealistic kids--usually college students, glad to have a chance to work in politics and earn a few dollars at the same time. Most of them wouldn't dream of filling out a fraudulent form.
There will, however, always be people who are a bit less scrupulous. It isn't very hard to fill out a couple extra registration forms to meet a quota, and earn a few more dollars.
Thankfully, the people who try to pull this stunt seem to be almost universally suffering from a chronic lack of creativity. Fake registrations are filled out for Mickey Mouse and Michael Jordan, and the canvassers responsible get fired.
Here's the thing, though--these registrations still need to get turned in. It would be illegal for ACORN (or anyone else collecting registrations) to throw out a completed form. We don't want to have Democratic groups throwing out Republican registration forms, and visa versa.
So ACORN turns in the phony registrations, alerts the registrar to possible fraud, and Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck never show up to vote.
Canvassing is a job which involves minimal supervision. Unlike working in an office or a store, employees (the canvassers) are on their own for nearly their entire shift. Groups like ACORN need to make sure that canvassers don't just register voters for 20 minutes then sit down and listen to music for a few hours, so they pay their workers on commission. Register x voters, earn y dollars.
Most of these workers are idealistic kids--usually college students, glad to have a chance to work in politics and earn a few dollars at the same time. Most of them wouldn't dream of filling out a fraudulent form.
There will, however, always be people who are a bit less scrupulous. It isn't very hard to fill out a couple extra registration forms to meet a quota, and earn a few more dollars.
Thankfully, the people who try to pull this stunt seem to be almost universally suffering from a chronic lack of creativity. Fake registrations are filled out for Mickey Mouse and Michael Jordan, and the canvassers responsible get fired.
Here's the thing, though--these registrations still need to get turned in. It would be illegal for ACORN (or anyone else collecting registrations) to throw out a completed form. We don't want to have Democratic groups throwing out Republican registration forms, and visa versa.
So ACORN turns in the phony registrations, alerts the registrar to possible fraud, and Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck never show up to vote.
Wile E. Coyote Economics: a (probably oversimplified) explanation of the financial apocalypse
One of the cardinal principles of Cartoon Physics is that a cartoon character may remain suspended in air without any physical support, but only until it looks down. At that point, they get a moment to give a deer-in-the-headlights look to the audience at home, before plummeting to earth to be squashed flat. For the past few years, the US government has been applying this principle to its economic policies: The Wile E. Coyote Theory of Economics.
Our story begins at the turn of the century. The dot.com and telecom bubbles had just burst, and everyone in America was alternately frightened of economic turmoil and relieved that Michael Ian Black would start doing something other than voice-overs for the pets.com dog puppet. In order to ensure a fairly speedy recovery, the Bush Administration (specifically, Alan Greenspan) decided to encourage a move onto a new bubble: housing. Rather than let us fall into a serious recession right then, they would run off the cliff, and just make sure not to look down.
By now most people are pretty familiar with the housing bubble. Everyone began to believe--against all historical precedent--that home prices would appreciate in real terms indefinitely. Lots of people took out really bad loans, expecting to make a profit in the end. Developers began building extremely ill-conceived neighborhoods and towns--the exurbs that David Brooks would champion for their vast lawns and megachurches. TV reality shows began to tell people how they could make money buying and reselling houses (Flip This House!). People bought houses as investments, intending to sell them for far more money in a few years, to fund their retirements.
What was less noticed was what happened to all the mortgages on these houses. This isn't the age of Bailey Building and Loan--the mortgages don't sit in the vault. They get cut into pieces, bundled together, repackaged, and sold on securities markets. This, combined with new bankruptcy rules and a hands-off regulatory attitude from the Bush Administration fed the speculative monster. The big banks and investment firms had leveraged their assets far more than would have previously been allowed. And it all went reasonably well, as long as we didn't look down.
Houses do not appreciate dramatically over time. They generally follow inflation pretty closely, with deviations being very geographically specific. There just weren't enough home buyers out there making enough money to justify this rise in prices. The problem with the housing bubble was not subprime loans being given to irresponsible brown people, as conservatives now claim, but the fact that the premise fueling the growth in housing costs was entirely false. Billions of dollars which were assumed to reside in these houses, and which had been traded and bought by banks and investment funds around the world, were entirely imaginary. Houses weren't worth as much as had been claimed, and the mortgages were much less likely to be paid back than advertised. The ground beneath our feet wasn't really there.
Early this year, banks and investment funds began to realize that they were no longer standing on firm ground. Like Wile E. Coyote, they felt around with their toes for something to stand on and found nothing but air. This began a scramble to minimize their exposure to the billions of imaginary dollars. They started spinning off subsidiaries and hiding their bad assets--what Atrios calls "Big Shitpile." They used accounting tricks to hide their losses from the public and from credit ratings agencies.
But they couldn't hide forever, the fall was inevitable. We all saw what happened next. Billions of dollars which had previously greased the wheels of capitalism--being loaned back and forth between banks, and to firms to invest and meet costs--evaporated. The largest bank failures in American history. Financial institutions needing to be bailed out (or bought out) by the federal government. An ongoing collapse on Wall Street. The credit markets have seized up, and banks have a hard time getting loans from one another. Governments have declared bankruptcy (Iceland) or called out for federal loans (California).
This is where we are right now. We're falling, but we haven't hit the ground yet.
So what do we see when we look down? What's waiting for us?
Now that the credit markets have become frozen, businesses are going to have a very difficult time getting loans--not just loans to expand and invest, but loans to pay their day to day costs. This is going to cause a wave of bankruptcies and layoffs.
Another problem that would have been noticed by someone other than crazy leftists, had they looked down, is the fall in real wages and consequent rise in household debt. For the past decade or so, real wages have been falling. Consumers have been relying on (mostly) credit card debt in order to make up the gap. With the age of cheap credit coming to an end (along with the age of cheap gas) consumer spending is likely to stagnate, making our fall just that much more painful.
As bad as things are right now, they're only going to get worse.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Debate 3: The Maverick's Revenge
Was finally able to fix my computer's streaming, and caught the whole debate uninterrupted.
John McCain was genuinely crazy angry the whole time. And came of as far more of an extreme right winger than any presidential candidate I can remember. His callous sneer and scare quotes around "women's health" was shocking. So wanting to ban abortion except when the woman's health is endangered is now an extreme pro-choice position? When did that happen? He might as well have stood up on his chair and told all the womb-having Americans watching that he doesn't care about their health or well-being at all.
Obama has gotten a little better at giving narrative descriptions of things, rather than just the stream of consciousness flow of factoids from the first debate. He was pretty clearly being intentionally boring when talking about Ayers and the weird conspiracy theories about ACORN. Having the press spend a couple days talking about his great zinger on Ayers would have been completely Pyrrhic.
Really impressed that Obama brought up the murder of labor activists in Colombia. Not sure he would (or really could) do that much about it. But I've never heard a presidential candidate bring up one of the pet issues we crazy leftists care about before, so points for that.
And then there was Joe The Plumber. What is up with Joe The Plumber.
John McCain was genuinely crazy angry the whole time. And came of as far more of an extreme right winger than any presidential candidate I can remember. His callous sneer and scare quotes around "women's health" was shocking. So wanting to ban abortion except when the woman's health is endangered is now an extreme pro-choice position? When did that happen? He might as well have stood up on his chair and told all the womb-having Americans watching that he doesn't care about their health or well-being at all.
Obama has gotten a little better at giving narrative descriptions of things, rather than just the stream of consciousness flow of factoids from the first debate. He was pretty clearly being intentionally boring when talking about Ayers and the weird conspiracy theories about ACORN. Having the press spend a couple days talking about his great zinger on Ayers would have been completely Pyrrhic.
Really impressed that Obama brought up the murder of labor activists in Colombia. Not sure he would (or really could) do that much about it. But I've never heard a presidential candidate bring up one of the pet issues we crazy leftists care about before, so points for that.
And then there was Joe The Plumber. What is up with Joe The Plumber.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Snobs
The level of cognitive dissonance on display in this David Brooks column is pretty impressive. For example:
Yes. David Brooks wrote that. The same David Brooks who has spent the past 8 years adding a pseudo-sociological sheen to this exact argument. He has two books extolling the simple, exurban virtues of Patio Man while mocking the Thai food and concern for social welfare of the coastal Bobos.
He has built his name and his New York Times column around the idea that there are two kinds of people--rich cosmopolitan white people with degrees on the coasts--who are bad--and rich conservative white people with John Deere dealerships in the exurbs--who are good. He has written possibly hundreds of columns with this exact premise. And now he notices that this argument could become part of a conservative anti-intellectualism?
I'm sure we'll hear Brooks in a future column repudiate his past decade of writings romanticizing white flight and deriding "snobs… doctors and lawyers and journalists and media consultants [who] went to fancy colleges."
Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts.
What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole. The liberals had coastal condescension, so the conservatives developed their own anti-elitism, with mirror-image categories and mirror-image resentments, but with the same corrosive effect.
Yes. David Brooks wrote that. The same David Brooks who has spent the past 8 years adding a pseudo-sociological sheen to this exact argument. He has two books extolling the simple, exurban virtues of Patio Man while mocking the Thai food and concern for social welfare of the coastal Bobos.
He has built his name and his New York Times column around the idea that there are two kinds of people--rich cosmopolitan white people with degrees on the coasts--who are bad--and rich conservative white people with John Deere dealerships in the exurbs--who are good. He has written possibly hundreds of columns with this exact premise. And now he notices that this argument could become part of a conservative anti-intellectualism?
I'm sure we'll hear Brooks in a future column repudiate his past decade of writings romanticizing white flight and deriding "snobs… doctors and lawyers and journalists and media consultants [who] went to fancy colleges."
Friday, October 03, 2008
History blogging!
In the debate, Senator Biden called Dick Cheney "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history." Now Dick Cheney is genuinely a bad guy, but I think that this does a grave disservice to Vice President Aaron Burr, who not only shot Alexander Hamilton, but actually killed the guy. He had to flee New Jersey in order to avoid being charged with murder. He was later tried for treason for trying to seize control of part of what is now Texas.
Also--like last time, I listened to the debate on NPR. Did Sarah Palin really keep winking at the camera?
pew pew pew!
Also--like last time, I listened to the debate on NPR. Did Sarah Palin really keep winking at the camera?
pew pew pew!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Monkey Rank
I've got to agree with Joshua Micah Marshall on this one. I had never considered monkey rank, either.
The rhetorical style used in Presidential debates is absolutely painful. Rather than try to develop a coherent thought, the preference is for rapid-fire, vaguely related factoids. A typical exchange on domestic policy is structured as follows:
I'm sure there must be some polling data or focus group report supporting this tactic (or is it a strategy? this is a very important distinction.), but it's mystifying to me. In this debate, the candidates were even given more time to talk out their answers. But they didn't use this time to narrate clear arguments about the economy or their policies, they just ran out the clock cramming as many little semi-related tidbits as they could.
I'm not a swing voter so maybe this appeals to them? Or is it directed more towards the media, with their need for five second clips and their constant refrain about needing more "specifics"?
Things seemed to be getting better when they turned to foreign policy, but then NPR's streaming audio cut out.
Also: when did we collectively decide to forget that John McCain was, as recently as this morning, bizarrely threatening to not show up for the debates? It wasn't that long ago!
The rhetorical style used in Presidential debates is absolutely painful. Rather than try to develop a coherent thought, the preference is for rapid-fire, vaguely related factoids. A typical exchange on domestic policy is structured as follows:
Obama: Healthcare factoid, Employment factoid, Energy independence.
McCain: Factoid about Obama's voting record on taxes, spoken in accusatory tone of voice.
Obama: Unrelated factoid about John McCain's policy proposals
McCain: Wistful, rambling old-man story, followed by a one-liner that felt tired when he used it 3 minutes ago.
I'm sure there must be some polling data or focus group report supporting this tactic (or is it a strategy? this is a very important distinction.), but it's mystifying to me. In this debate, the candidates were even given more time to talk out their answers. But they didn't use this time to narrate clear arguments about the economy or their policies, they just ran out the clock cramming as many little semi-related tidbits as they could.
I'm not a swing voter so maybe this appeals to them? Or is it directed more towards the media, with their need for five second clips and their constant refrain about needing more "specifics"?
Things seemed to be getting better when they turned to foreign policy, but then NPR's streaming audio cut out.
Also: when did we collectively decide to forget that John McCain was, as recently as this morning, bizarrely threatening to not show up for the debates? It wasn't that long ago!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
We live in interesting times
A week or so ago, Sarah Palin, trying to sound tough in an interview, said that we might have to go to war with Russia.
Today, we find out that the United States is in some sort of cold war against Spain (along, apparently, with most of Latin America) because John McCain forgot what Spain was during an interview.
If these two assholes end up winning the election, we're in for an interesting few years.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration nationalized a huge chunk of the insurance industry? Don't they give stern lectures and withhold loans from countries who pull shit like that?
What the fuck is going on here? I've never seen it this crazy.
Today, we find out that the United States is in some sort of cold war against Spain (along, apparently, with most of Latin America) because John McCain forgot what Spain was during an interview.
If these two assholes end up winning the election, we're in for an interesting few years.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration nationalized a huge chunk of the insurance industry? Don't they give stern lectures and withhold loans from countries who pull shit like that?
What the fuck is going on here? I've never seen it this crazy.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Thursday, January 03, 2008
The Buffyverse Primary
Neil the Ethical Werewolf has written a brilliant post comparing the GOP primary field to villains from the Buffyverse. For the most part, it's spot-on, but I wanted to take issue with his Rudy-as-Angelus comparison and add in the Democratic field as Our Heroes.
Rudy is Glory
"In torture, death and chaos does my power lie."
Both Rudy and Glory revel in destruction, and are famed for their cruelty. They are also infamous for their vanity, loving gaudy creature comforts and expecting the world to reshape itself to their whims. On their home turf, they were fearsome, but in the larger world are largely clueless, though still very dangerous. And neither care how many people's deaths occur incidental to their own plans.
(Update: on second thought, maybe he's Snyder--a petty tyrant who is annoying, but ultimately completely unimportant)
Barack Obama is Angel
Specifically, Angel during the fifth season of his show. He has a long history of fighting against evil, but also a disturbing tendency to ignore or stab his friends in the back. He's getting caught up in the system, and no one is really sure if he's actually becoming co-opted or has a plan to overcome it. He's starting to talk like one of them, and that is making his old friends very nervous.
Hillary Clinton is Quentin Travers, head of The Watcher's Council
Senator Clinton is on the right side, and has enormous resources behind her. But she is stuck in her Establishment ways. Generally assumes herself to be in charge of the good guys as a matter of right.
John Edwards is Xander Harris
A regular schmo fighting the good fight. He has made some mistakes in the past (voting for the Iraq war/summoning Sweet), but now realizes the importance of his ability to empathize with others. People sometimes write him off, but he comes through in the end.
Dennis Kucinich is Anya
"The worker will overthrow absolutism and lead the proletariat to a victorious communist revolution, which will result in socio-economic paradise on earth. It's common sense, really."
Has a tendency to sound a bit strange to those of us who have been humans all our lives, but this outsider perspective sometimes allows him to have insights that may be lost on others. Used to be a demon (anti-choice).
Joe Biden is Spike
Was once on the side of evil (voted for the war, the bankruptcy bill), but now takes real pleasure in hitting the bad guys in the face ("a noun, a verb and 9-11"). He has been around forever, and has a tendency to run his mouth. He's trying to become a better person but still--probably not to be trusted.
Al Gore is Rupert Giles
The important, beloved, and experienced leader. Flirted with the Clinton/Watcher establishment in the past but was always at his best on his own. Is currently overseas pursuing other projects.
Bill Richardson is Jonathan
Has been around since the beginning and had a great deal of potential. We all wanted him to make something more of himself, but his mistakes cost him dearly.
Chris Dodd is Charles Gunn
He has been sticking up for the powerless for longer than anyone. While everyone else is sitting around talking, he's the one who actually goes and takes action. Ultimately, though--this just isn't his story.
Mike Gravel is Sid
Rudy is Glory
"In torture, death and chaos does my power lie."
Both Rudy and Glory revel in destruction, and are famed for their cruelty. They are also infamous for their vanity, loving gaudy creature comforts and expecting the world to reshape itself to their whims. On their home turf, they were fearsome, but in the larger world are largely clueless, though still very dangerous. And neither care how many people's deaths occur incidental to their own plans.
(Update: on second thought, maybe he's Snyder--a petty tyrant who is annoying, but ultimately completely unimportant)
Barack Obama is Angel
Specifically, Angel during the fifth season of his show. He has a long history of fighting against evil, but also a disturbing tendency to ignore or stab his friends in the back. He's getting caught up in the system, and no one is really sure if he's actually becoming co-opted or has a plan to overcome it. He's starting to talk like one of them, and that is making his old friends very nervous.
Hillary Clinton is Quentin Travers, head of The Watcher's Council
Senator Clinton is on the right side, and has enormous resources behind her. But she is stuck in her Establishment ways. Generally assumes herself to be in charge of the good guys as a matter of right.
John Edwards is Xander Harris
A regular schmo fighting the good fight. He has made some mistakes in the past (voting for the Iraq war/summoning Sweet), but now realizes the importance of his ability to empathize with others. People sometimes write him off, but he comes through in the end.
Dennis Kucinich is Anya
"The worker will overthrow absolutism and lead the proletariat to a victorious communist revolution, which will result in socio-economic paradise on earth. It's common sense, really."
Has a tendency to sound a bit strange to those of us who have been humans all our lives, but this outsider perspective sometimes allows him to have insights that may be lost on others. Used to be a demon (anti-choice).
Joe Biden is Spike
Was once on the side of evil (voted for the war, the bankruptcy bill), but now takes real pleasure in hitting the bad guys in the face ("a noun, a verb and 9-11"). He has been around forever, and has a tendency to run his mouth. He's trying to become a better person but still--probably not to be trusted.
Al Gore is Rupert Giles
The important, beloved, and experienced leader. Flirted with the Clinton/Watcher establishment in the past but was always at his best on his own. Is currently overseas pursuing other projects.
Bill Richardson is Jonathan
Has been around since the beginning and had a great deal of potential. We all wanted him to make something more of himself, but his mistakes cost him dearly.
Chris Dodd is Charles Gunn
He has been sticking up for the powerless for longer than anyone. While everyone else is sitting around talking, he's the one who actually goes and takes action. Ultimately, though--this just isn't his story.
Mike Gravel is Sid
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