Just read a great interview with photo-journalist (and my neighbor) Scout Tufankjian in The Brooklyn Paper. Tufankjian wisely predicted very early on in the game (December 2006) that Barack Obama was going to run for president and begged her editor to let her cover his not-yet-existent campaign. Here she recounts a stop by Obama at a coffee shop-bookstore two months before his announcement:
“One person asked him to sign her copy of ‘Lady Chatterly’s Lover,’ and they got into a long talk about the book. Then the next person asked him about philosophy and suddenly they were talking about Kant and Heidegger. I thought, ‘Wow, this guy is smart.”
She also tells the story of overhearing a phone conversation three boys in an inner-city neighborhood were having with a friend who couldn’t make it to an Obama rally:
...but what do you think? Spill it. Predictions welcome. Open thread.
BULLETIN: We’ll be doing a pre-election version of Radio Rumproast tomorrow night at 8:00 PM ET. It’ll be an expanded version of our bloggers roundtable. Still working on the line-up but so far the panel will include ts from Instaputz and our very own Betty Cracker. Stay tuned for more details. UPDATE: Denise Williams from AOL’s Political Machine and Rumproast’s Poputonian will be joining us as well.
MORE INFO: We’ll be hosting one of our raucous open threads on election night starting at 5PM and going all night. Also, our pals at Unusable Signal will be doing a 4-hour election night show on Tuesday (8PM-12AM ET) with reports from the Obama event in Chicago and the Comedy Central party. Oh, and if you need a laugh today, you can listen in on this. Ghouliani, Lady Lynn de Laughingstock and Flowbee, together at last.
Supporters of John McCain, long less enthusiastic than Obama’s, have become increasingly glum about the presidential campaign in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Saturday. Their feelings have turned more negative during a period that has seen Obama, the Democratic senator from Illinois, take a firm lead in many polls.
Obama’s backers have retained a higher level of excitement. One expert says the contrasting moods could affect how likely the two candidates’ supporters are to vote on Election Day, possibly dampening McCain’s turnout while boosting Obama’s.
While 43 percent of Obama’s backers said they are excited over the campaign, just 13 percent of McCain’s said so, according to the survey of adults, conducted by Knowledge Networks. Six in 10 Obama supporters said the race interests them, compared to four in 10 backing McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona.
On the flip side, 52 percent of McCain supporters said the campaign has left them frustrated, compared to 30 percent of Obama’s. A quarter of McCain backers say they feel helpless, double the rate of those preferring Obama.
RELATED: It looks like the “tightening” is “loosening”…
From The Patriot Room ("On Politics, We Can Always See the Whites of Their Eyes."):
GOP Internal Polls (NJ, CA, MI, PA) Show Possible Landslide for McCain
David Jeffers runs a blog called the Salt and Light. He is linking to something called the Quinn & Rose Show. The host is talking to a guy who seems to be connected to some of the GOP bigwigs, who give him internal polling numbers. The audio link is here. If this is accurate, and I cannot vouch for it, but it sounds like it might be, we could be in for a really great night of schadenfreude on Tuesday, watching the Chernobyl meltdown on MSNBC.
[via the comments at Riverchucky’s The Effluent, where that miserable wretch has resorted to pitting Piper against Sasha]
MORE: TexasMess is pushing this, too. Doesn’t that count as an instant disqualify at this point?
A lot of people are getting panicky out there as this race “tightens.” Me? Still not worried…
The political landscape could be improving for Barack Obama in the waning days of the campaign. Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Oct. 28-30 shows him with an eight percentage point lead over John McCain among traditional likely voters—51% to 43%—his largest margin to date using this historical Gallup Poll voter model.
Today the Morning Joe crew was making a big deal about this video of co-host Willie Geist pretending (?) to be a McCain-Palin supporter on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They were shocked (shocked, I tell you!) about the responses Geist got from passerbys. You’ll see at the end of it Mike Barnicle says it proves “why so many people are so right, no pun intended, to really loathe so many on the left.” Mika Brzezinski was playing the full-on drama queen after it aired (she was “troubled”!) and everyman’s everyman Joe “Gumby Head” Scarborough wanted people on the Upper West Side to “take a closer look at themselves” because they’re “really, really hostile people.” Sounds pretty bad, right? Take a look:
Yep, that’s it.
And since I’ve been documenting the “polite” way McCain-Palin supporters “disagree” with people who are backing Obama, I felt the need to bang out a quick email to them…
Visit your local Barack Obama field office and volunteer for GOTV.
They need lots of arms and legs (and mouths for talking and fingers for dialing.)
GOTV runs Saturday through the closing of the polls on Tuesday. There are plenty of short shifts and simple tasks, and every ounce of help is important. If nothing else, you will be amazed at how organized the Obama field operations are.
Do it for Charles.
You can also volunteer for battleground states here. Not sure if we can pull it off, but there’s a chance my lovely wife Chris and I may be able to make it out to Pennsylvania or possibly Ohio to chip in this weekend. If any Rumproast readers in “hot spots” in one of those two states wouldn’t mind putting us up for a few days (we’re tons o’ fun!), please drop me an email at kevin|at|rumproast.com. Thanks a bunch.
MORE: If you’ve volunteered for Obama please share your experiences in the comments. We’d love to hear from you.
SOMEWHAT RELATED: Our buddies Mr. & Mrs. Wedge traveled out to Chester, PA yesterday to attend a rain-soaked Obama rally. You can read about it here (w/ pics). And fans of The Wire will want to check this out (warning: the end may provoke tears of joy).
