And it has nothing to do with their position on the issues.  Actually, I’d like to hear the McCain campaign stick to the issues, but all McCain and his supporters seem interested in is hate and anger.  Is it just fear of the unknown? Is it just fear of something new and different? Is it just plain fear in uncertain times? With war, the economy, the environment – it all can seem to be going to hell in a handbasket.

Whatever the reason, trying to paint your black opponent as someone to be afraid of because of his name, his religion (supposedly Muslim, but actually Christian), and his ties to terrorism (once being on board with a sixties radical isn’t nearly as bad as supporting American torture policies, but I’m quibbling) is turning rallies into misinformation sessions that fan the flames of fear and anger – and have nothing to do with the issues.

Write the McCain campaign and ask them to stop the fear and hate mongering and stick to the issues. Here’s the link for their web site contact page.

These videos were shot at McCain – Palin rallies in OH and PA.  I find them completely disturbing.  I don’t what I find the most disturbing about them – that the McCain-Palin supporters are so angry or that they are so misinformed and ignorant (where have they been the last two years? Under a rock?)

If you want to support John McCain, fine – but do it because you agree with his vision of how the country and the world should be,  not because you (erroneously) believe Obama is a Muslim and/or terrorist or because if you don’t vote for McCain, the next president will be, gasp!, a black man.

Election day is one month away from today.  It’s increasingly looking like it’s Obama’s election to lose and tonight’s joint media appearance (again minus Nader, McKinney and Barr – something that should embarras America – at least an America that believes in democracy) did nothing to change.

I find myself checking the pulse of the projections every other day or so and I like 538 the best. Probably because the author of the site is a baseball guy and runs the election projections using statistical analysis in much the same manner he does at his day job at Baseball Prospectus.

Their process of running 10,000 simulations of the elections is fascinating:

The basic process for computing our Presidential projections consists of six steps:

1. Polling Average: Aggregate polling data, and weight it according to our reliability scores.

2. Trend Adjustment: Adjust the polling data for current trends.

3. Regression: Analyze demographic data in each state by means of regression analysis.

4. Snapshot: Combine the polling data with the regression analysis to produce an electoral snapshot. This is our estimate of what would happen if the election were held today.

5. Projection: Translate the snapshot into a projection of what will happen in November, by allocating out undecided voters and applying a discount to current polling leads based on historical trends.

6. Simulation: Simulate our results 10,000 times based on the results of the projection to account for the uncertainty in our estimates. The end result is a robust probabilistic assessment of what will happen in each state as well as in the nation as a whole.

I also like 270 to win because of its winning combination feature.

There’s also Electoral-vote.com and Election Projection: 2008.

Most of these sites feature interactive maps and historical electoral vote information.

Because these sites rely on polling information for use in their projections it’s important to keep in mind some important facts about polls and polling.  This was posted by DemfromCT on dailyKos on July 25:

1. Polls are a snapshot in time

2. Polls depend on good technique, good interpretation, and a representative sample.

3. State polling is much more difficult and less reliable than national polling.

4. Understand the difference between adults, registered voters and likely voters.

5. Get help – Compared to 2004, there are many more polling resources available on the Internet…

6. Media polls drive narrative, and often the narrative excludes other polls.

This information and 20 questions for journalists about polls from the National Council on Public Polls is not only for journalists, but important for anyone who is hearing or reading polling numbers and wondering what they mean or even if they mean anything important.

Only one poll really counts of course, and that one is conducted across the country one month from today.

This is a truly stunning, alarming, and embarassing (for those of us who fondly remember the country pre PATRIOT ACT) story, from a diary by Purple Rose of Sharon at dailyKos.  A tale of how a single mom in VT was investigate by the FBI as “a person of interest” because she had a Muslim friend in Pakistan she spoke with on the phone from time to time.

Really, I feel like I should send this woman an apology on behalf of the remaining sane people in the country that this happened to her.  She had a  Muslim friend she spoke with on the phone so she’s a suspect? Of what? For what? Why? And what kind of people are FBI agents who actually carry out orders to investigate our fellow citizens such as this woman?

I have a friend from Colombia. If I receive a phone call from her, should I be investigated as a potential drug smuggler?  I have a friend from Africa.  Am I guilty of genocide?  Should I never accept a phone call from my friends from Korea, the FBI might get it confused and think they’re calling from North Korea and then I’d be in world of trouble.

And just since when is everyone listening in or tracking all of our overseas communication anyway? How paranoid do we become in the name of anti-terrorism measures.  At this point haven’t the terrorists already won?  We’ve given up our ideals and freedoms.  We accept invasions of privacy and suspensions of rights and liberties in the name of national security and think we’re upholding freedom and democracy, but it’s the opposite and it baffles me that there’s no major outcry in the streets over this.

Maybe it’s because stupid has become the new smart.

In this Sunday’s New York Times, Stephen Pinker writes

The overall theme that Ms. Palin and Senator John McCain have been trying to advance: that expertise is overrated, homespun sincerity is better than sophistication, conviction is more important than analysis.

Being able to see Russia from Alaska, then, means you have an understanding of foreign policy; living in an Arctic state means that you have an understanding of climate change. In Mr. McCain’s case, it means, as he wrote last month, understanding technology policy because he flew airplanes in Vietnam and being concerned about the oceans’ health because he served in the Navy.

This bothers me. It’s not just that I come from an admittedly intellectual religious tradition in Unitarian Universalism or that I can be. alright I am, a geek. I don’t want people who cultivate the image that it’s okay to be ignorant running things, my schools, my financial institutions, and certainly not my government.  That they would use this as a tool to help them get to be in control of the government gives rise to the the dilemma, what is worse, that they would use such a tactic or that it works?

Maureen Dowd, also in Sunday’s  NY Times points out the stupid as smart approach of Sarah Palin:

We could, following her strenuously folksy debate performance, wonder when elite became a bad thing in America. Navy Seals are elite, and they get lots of training so they can swim underwater and invade a foreign country, but if you’re governing the country that dispatches the Seals, it’s not O.K. to be elite? Can likable still trump knowledgeable at such a vulnerable crossroads for the country?

Talking at the debate about how she would “positively affect the impacts” of the climate change for which she’s loath to acknowledge human culpability, she did a dizzying verbal loop-de-loop: “With the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that, as governor, I was the first governor to form a climate change subcabinet to start dealing with the impacts.” That was, miraculously, richer with content than an answer she gave Katie Couric: “You know, there are man’s activities that can be contributed to the issues that we’re dealing with now, with these impacts.”

At another point, she channeled Alicia Silverstone debating in “Clueless,” asserting, “Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet.” (Mostly the end-all.)