We've been getting quite a bit of traffic from right wingnuttia over a reference at one of their sites (no, we're not going to give them the linky goodness and ensuing traffic).
During the campaign, on July 10, 2008, Michelle Obama came to Kansas City for a town hall on the campus of the University of Missouri - Kansas City. We covered the event:
Right wingnuttia is quite obsessed by this portion of the transcript, claiming that it's proof that President Obama is illegitimate and this is further proof to be added to the convoluted birther pantheon of conspiracies:
...He understands them because he was raised by strong women. He is the product of two great women in his life. His mother and his grandmother. [applause] Barack saw his mother, who was very young and very single when she had him, and he saw her work hard to complete her education and try to raise he and his sister...
I kid you not. These are the kinds of people who memorize and obsess over every detail of The Brady Bunch as if the complete episodes were Shakespeare's plays. They just haven't figured out that there is a difference.
The Faux News Channel will pick this up in, three, two, one... And that's the problem with political discourse in this country.
The numbers for Colorado, Nevada, and North Carolina are very similar to those for Missouri. It's interesting to note that Obama carried three of those four states (we're the exception). Gallup's methodology:
Over the course of the last year I believe I've taken close to 4000 photographs at political events in Missouri. Most of them didn't make it into the blog. Some of the things we saw and heard made us smile, made us think, made us gasp, made us hope, and made us despair. I thought I'd provide a retrospective of some of the pictures and stories I consider to be memorable.
January 26, 2008: Former President Bill Clinton speaking at a pre-primary rally for Hillary Clinton at Truman William Chrisman High School in Independence, Missouri.
Bill Clinton in Independence, Missouri on Saturday night This was a rally for Hillary Clinton in the auditorium gym at Truman William Chrisman High School in Independence right before the February 5th presidential primary. I had asked for media credentials for days and kept getting put off. I never got the credentials, but I did get into the event and I did cover it.
March 4, 2008: Antonin Scalia looking out to the audience during his speech in Warrensburg, Missouri.
Barack Obama outlined his economic recovery plan in today's weekly address:
The plan includes infrastructure investment - roads, bridges, schools, technology. And it will come with a few rules for states - "use it, or lose it". That's important. The stimulus won't work at creating jobs if states hold it and it's not spent.
There will be a recount in the 121st Legislative District race. What follow are the documents pertaining to the proceedings in a recount.
"Notification of Recount" for the 121st Legislative District race from Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan.
STATE OF MISSOURI
Office of
Secretary of State
NOTIFICATION OF RECOUNT
Pursuant to Section 115.601, 3, RSMo.
THE MISSOURI SECRETARY OF STATE
To the Johnson County Clerk:
WHEREAS, I have been duly notified that the results of the General Election November 4, 2008 for the Office of State Representative, District 1211, established the defeat of one candidate by less than one percent of the votes cast; and
WHEREAS, I have been requested by Jim Jackson, the candidate who received the second highest number of votes and was defeated by less than one per cent of the votes cast, to hold a recount of the votes in the race for State representative, District 121, pursuant to Section 115.601, RSMo.
NOW THEREFORE, I ROBIN CARNAHAN, SECRETARY OF STATE OF MISSOURI, do hereby issue this Notification of Recount to the Johnson County Clerk and further authorize the Johnson County Clerk to recount the ballots cast in his jurisdiction during the November 4, 2008, General Election for the Office of State Representative, District 121. The recount of ballots in this jurisdiction shall be conducted according to procedures directed by the Secretary of State. The Johnson County Clerk shall certify and deliver results of this recount to the Secretary of State's Office on or before December 19, 2008.
[Seal of the Secretary of State]
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I
herunto set my hand and affix the
Seal of my office. Done at the City
of Jefferson, this 4th day of December,
2008.
[signed: Robin Carnhan]
Secretary of State
The Secretary of State's office issued a memo outlining the documents and procedures used in the recount:
Over the last week I've been noticing them. It's much easier to do so since everyone else's stuff has come down. They are now conspicuous by their uniqueness. Other than my own vehicle I haven't noticed any Obama-Biden bumper stickers on cars around town (Yes, I admit to a bit of triumphalism. And the local headquarters didn't get the Obama bumper stickers in until literally the last days of the campaign, so there was no chance for wide distribution.).
Before the campaign there were a number of "W '04" and "Bush-Cheney '04" bumper stickers in our locale - sort of a defiant paean to ignoring the painful reality of dubya's incompetence. I noticed quite a few McCain-Palin bumper stickers slapped over the old dubya ones. I suppose we could call that a small sample repudiation by the base of the republican nominee's "change" message.
I suspect those McCain bumper stickers will stay up for a while, unlike my Gore-Lieberman bumper sticker from eight years ago. A few folks in the republican base appear to be incapable of being embarrassed by or recognizing the mediocrity of their presidential and vice-presidential candidates. We're just lucky that they will be the same people selecting their party's nominee in 2012.
Election Day: the Johnson County Obama campaign field organizer (back row, left) with his local volunteer team leaders - each with a specific supervisory assignment.
On Election day, after the polls had closed, the Johnson County Obama field organizer spoke to volunteers:
...getting into [garbled] organization, made it happen. XXXXXXX made it happen. Who wouldn't talk to people on the phone. [laughter] XXXX, who wouldn't talk to people, but they did. [laughter] But they said they wouldn't, a million times they said they wouldn't, because they said they couldn't. And it was, and XXX, who was convinced he couldn't operate in our universe, either. And we were all convinced that we were stuck with what we were doing whenever I got here. And y'all had your things and that's how it was gonna be forever, and it wasn't. 'Cause you acted like you could get over it. We got it done. And you're to be commended for sayin', "You know that crap I used to do or that stuff I used to do, or the way I used to do things, and the stuff I used to expect? I don't have to do that." [voice: "What are we gonna do now?"] Sleep. We're gonna sleep. Try that, too. [laughter] So, yeah, that's it. Thanks to all of you for sayin' the stuff that you've been doin' you don't have to do, and let's do it differently. Let's win this frickin' thing. [voice: "Keep it going."] Exactly. And we'll talk about keeping it going too, because I have specific ideas for what you need to do with this thing. [laughter] For real. [voice: "Assignments."] Yes, we'll have assignments. And they will be graded. So, yeah. Thank you. [voice: "Thank you..."] [applause]
Election Day: the canvass staging area after the polls closed.
A sign of the times. The only McCain/Palin door hanger I saw in Warrensburg - the day after the election.
What goes up, must come down. All those 4x4, 4x6 and 4x8 signs have to come down. It's a lot easier and faster than putting them up. Our sign crew (average age somewhere above 60) went out in three vehicles on Monday and spent quite a bit of time taking down Democratic candidate signs (screw the republicans, they've been screwing the rest of us for the last eight years). Tools include wire cutters and a post puller (those posts have been through a number of wet/dry cycles - and are now set in the equivalent of concrete)...
The race for President in Missouri is so close we have to give the results of our final poll in decimal points. Barack Obama leads John McCain 49.4 to 48.6 in the state, an outcome that needless to say is within the poll's margin of error...
...PPP surveyed 1,343 likely voters from October 31st to November 2nd. The survey's margin of error is +/-2.7%.
Missouri Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters
Conducted November 2, 2008
By Rasmussen Reports for FOX News
2* If the Presidential Election were held today, would you vote for Republican John McCain,
Democrat Barack Obama, Libertarian Bob Barr, Independent Ralph Nader or Green Party
Candidate Cynthia Ann McKinney?
...NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence
24 Hours Till Votes Are Counted, Missouri Is Still Tied, Could Go Either Way: McCain 48%, Obama 48%, in SurveyUSA's final tracking poll of Missouri, released Election Eve. No change since an identical SurveyUSA poll 1 week ago. Research, underwritten by KMOX radio in St. Louis and KCTV-TV in Kansas City...
...800 adults interviewed 10/30/08 through 11/02/08 yielded 754 registered voters and 674 likely voters....
...The surveys were conducted from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2. Sample sizes in each state ranged from 600-605, with a margin of error of +/-4.1%....
...Missouri - Nov. 2
Obama 47.4%
McCain 45.7%
Other/Not Sure 6.9%
...McCain gained a bit among Independents, but still trails with them, 57%-28%. He also cut Obama's lead among Hispanics in half to eight points. Obama's has reduced his losses among Democrats to 10% from 16% a week ago....
...The poll indicates another state Bush carried in 2004, Missouri, is basically a dead heat. McCain holds a 2-point lead in the poll, 50 percent to 48 percent, well within in the survey's sampling error of 3.5 percentage points.
The poll was also expanded to include the major third party candidates, independent Ralph Nader, Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. None of them are polling over 4 percent in any of the states CNN polled and none of them seem to be a factor in the outcome of the results in those five states other than Missouri, where Nader's 4 percent showing could have an impact...
...The CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted Thursday through Tuesday, with...825 likely voter in Missouri...questioned by telephone.
...In Missouri, Obama is up by a single percentage point, 48% to 47%. That's the strongest showing yet for McCain in polling conducted during October and comes just after his weakest showing of the year when he trailed by five a week ago. However, as we noted at the time, last week's survey was conducted the day after Obama held two massive rallies in the state. Despite these ups and downs, Obama has held a very slight lead-from one to five points--in all four Fox News/Rasmussen Reports Missouri polls conducted during October.
A conversation between a volunteer and a field person, about to go out on a canvass: "Are we going to walk there?" "Oh God no, we'll drive, I'm from LA."
SurveyUSA released a 672 sample poll of "Likely voters" on October 27th taken in Missouri October 25th through the 26th. The poll runs a head to head match up between McCain and Obama. The margin of error is 3.9%.
The poll was sponsored by KCTV in Kansas City and KMOX in St. Louis.
If the election for President were today, would you vote for ... (choices rotated) Republican John McCain? Democrat Barack Obama? Or one of the other candidates?
The actual count (frequencies) puts this into some perspective:
If the election for President were today, would you vote for ... (choices rotated) Republican John McCain? Democrat Barack Obama? Or one of the other candidates?
"Notification of Recount" for the 121st Legislative District race from Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan.
