actually, nevada GOP, we DID hear that. (those darn speakerphones.)

Sean Quinn rocks. From his opening line, “Gambly and whorish, Nevada is one of 2008’s biggest battlegrounds,” to this lovely vignette:

 

The strong Democratic turnout has Republicans mulling possible legal challenges. “We question whether these are valid registrations,” said Smith, the Washoe County GOP chairwoman.

While talking to Smith, she was interrupted by a cell phone call, which she inadvertently put on the speakerphone. It was the state GOP executive director Zachery Moyle, and the two discussed what could be done about the tsunami of Democratic Party registrations.

“I’m looking for people to sign on to a lawsuit,” Moyle said to Smith, who fumbled with the phone while turning off the speaker. “You didn’t hear that,” she said glancing in my direction.

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stories from 538: raleigh, north carolina. this time it’s different.

Back at the rally, after the march had left MLK Gardens, I’d gone back for the car while Brett took photos, and I spotted a very old black man in a sharp Sunday suit walking slowly at the very back of the huge march. He hadn’t yet arrived at the voting center, and I decided to find him when I got back.

I wanted to go talk to him, to ask him what this moment meant to him. He was a guy who you take one glance at, and know, that guy’s seen it all. I wanted a quote. I had my journalist hat on. I thought, this will be great.

So when I got back to the voting location with the car, I went to find him in the line. Eventually I spotted him, and was ready to walk up the few feet between us and introduce myself when I stopped in my tracks.

A young black boy, no more than eight years old, walked up to this man, who was at least eighty. The boy offered the man a sticker, probably an “I Voted” sticker, but I couldn’t see. The man took the sticker and paused. Silently, he looked down at the boy, who was looking back up at the man. The man put his hand gently on the boy’s head, and I saw his eyes glisten.

I didn’t ask the man for a quote. I didn’t need to. I walked over by myself, behind the community center, and I sat down on a bench next to the track, and wept.

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stories from 538: virginia

Much like the PA story of last week, yet another testament to the lines people are crossing in this election. The good kind of line crossing. Boundary breakers. All hail the stalwart canvassers.

 

Last week, Julie Hensley made one of her thousands of phone calls on behalf of Barack Obama. A woman answered. As Hensley ran through her short script, the husband suddenly broke in impatiently.”Ma’am, we’re voting for the n***er.” And hung up.

. . . A couple hours later during a pause in her dials, her phone rang. She recognized the number. “This is going to be good,” she remembers thinking, getting ready to scrap.It was the husband. He was calling for the woman on whom he’d hung up. She then got something she didn’t expect — an apology. Calmly, Hensley told the man she’d accept his apology on one condition — he had to tell her who he was voting for.

“Oh, I don’t normally talk about it but I feel like I owe you,” the man said. “I am voting for Senator Obama.” He asked if Hensley would like to speak to his wife, as he’d interrupted the original call. Hensley mentioned that she had been surprised when he’d called to apologize. Apparently the husband and wife had been talking the entire couple hours since the original call. “Did she get upset with you?” Hensley asked.”What do you think?” the man replied.

Eleven days.

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racists for obama?

Wow. This is one of the more memorable things I’ve read lately. And there’s been a lot.

 

So a canvasser goes to a woman’s door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she’s planning to vote for. She isn’t sure, has to ask her husband who she’s voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, “We’re votin’ for the n***er!”

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: “We’re voting for the n***er.”

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post-debate reaction

Ugh. That was a hard one to sit through. Annoying format, annoying moderator. (Was a time when Brokaw seemed more engaging.) So much for the idea of a “lively” town hall format. The first debate allowed for a much freer ranging exchange than this one; why not have a few less questions to allow more time for follow-ups? Sigh. Better luck next Wednesday with Bob Schaeffer.

McCain wins for most memorable (& most unfortunate) words of the night, referring to Senator Obama at one point as “that one,” revealing yet again his lack of respect for his opponent.

Grumpy old man was certainly out in force. McCain seemed tired, old, uncomfortable, rambly, verging on cranky. The venue only served to accentuate his tense body language. No doubt McCain’s ripping someone to shreds tonight for his chair being too tall. I kept noticing his perch/lean, which did not look good. And I say that not as a matter of finding fault, but the contrast between his and Obama’s demeanor was striking–and we’ve all learned the hard way these past eight years how much gut reaction drives people’s voting. Of course, McCain doesn’t have the issues to run on either, so he’s in a double bind there.

After a point the whole thing turned into torture by “my friends.” The Wall Street Journal put the count at eighteen. Really, was that all? Maybe it seemed like more because they started coming in swarms later on in the debate. Someone really should tell McCain that phrase is not enough to offset bad or incoherent policy.

More crunching of content to come tomorrow. But curiously, I would say one of the most telling moments of the evening happened beyond the bounds of the debate: if you were watching CSPAN, you would have noticed the usual awkward McCain point-wave-point-handshake-point meet & greet of town hall participants afterwards–and then he and Cindy were gone. And then, Barack and Michelle were still there, for twenty minutes or so (longer? the feed at the theater I was at got cut off), chatting with the crowd, signing autographs, and posing for photos. They were so noticeably relaxed, engaged, and generous with their time, in what had to be a very impromptu situation–and McCain was so very noticeably absent. Mind you, if he’d been there, he’d have been noticeably awkward, so heading out early was probably for the best. But either way, the contrast was striking. I imagine Obama may have won over some of those undecideds just by post-debate performance alone.

 

Nate chez 538 gives his debate assessment in the larger context:

 

The sense I had tonight was that McCain was overcoached — that he was trying too hard. I don’t think that he made any significant tactical errors. But he came across as nervous and awkward. And he is longer really fighting on a level playing field. In order to win this election, McCain needed to keep the Republican brand at arm’s-length. He had largely managed to do that until the Lehman Brothers collapse scared the Hell out of Main Street and reminded everyone of the failures of the status quo. McCain needed to empathize on the economy; his “fundamentals” comment made that very difficult. He needed to find some way to position himself in opposition to Senator Obama on the bailout, but he had boxed himself in with his gambit about suspending his campaign. McCain lost tonight, but the reasons for his failure stem from long before this evening.

Sullivan’s debate reaction roundup at the Daily Dish here.

 

Oh, and now I really want the skinny on Belmont University. I hope fellow 538er Sean, who made the trek to Tennessee, will follow up on this comment he made at the end of live-blogging the debate. Very strong reaction from someone who’s usually so much more even-keeled in his reporting:

 

By the way, a special shout out for an absolutely horrible experience on the campus of Belmont University. I’m not sure I’ve ever been to a less welcoming place. We hated this campus and the staff here so much that we left to watch the debate at a pizza joint. I don’t like to regret things, but it would be hard to overstate how terrible a day this has been, and how crappy every interaction we had in Tennessee was. It was a terrible decision to leave Indiana and come down here. That had to be said for the record.

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trickle-down hostility in the mccain campaign?

Fascinating post today from Sean Quinn over at fivethirtyeight.com. Team 538 has been on the road for the past couple of weeks, crisscrossing the country to take the pulse of the campaigns and voter sentiment on the ground. Rest of the post comparing the McCain and Obama operations here.

 

Something interesting is happening with John McCain’s campaign. Up until now, we’ve had no trouble gaining access to field offices and volunteers. Here in St. Louis, we were told by Tina Hervey, Missouri Republican State Party Press Secretary, that she had never heard of FiveThirtyEight, and while they trusted Politico, we were people who they had to decide whether we “shouldn’t or don’t need to be talking to.” (McCain’s Missouri press secretary actually works out of Iowa, and did not return calls or email.) I told Tina that’s not a story we wanted to write, that this was our first Republican resistance, and that while she may not have heard of us, we’d probably go over 2.5 million site visits this week, now that we’re regularly past 400,000 per weekday. I told her I’d hold off writing her flat refusal and give her the opportunity to change her mind.

No budging. We were told that we’d be asked to leave public field offices we now attempted to visit. We did not get any promised follow-up helping get access to the post-debate Palin rally last night, and we were locked out. Hmm.

. . . Here on out, our skepticism is going to be higher. We truly respect organizers on both sides, because it is grindingly hard work for minimal pay. It’s powered by a belief in doing what’s right. We do not quote them or get them in trouble. Moreover, we truly respect direct action by volunteers – who do exist on the McCain side, just as a tiny, tiny fraction of the Obama side – but if the attitude continues on this unhelpful and obstructive turn, we’re going to spend less time making excuses for what we observe. Less benefit of the doubt. Show us real work and we’ll cover it. We want to.

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