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Who is this “Batman?”

(Props to Ezra Klein.)

Late Joe the Plumber coverage: According to Ben Smith at The Politico, it appears Joe the Plumber is not registered to vote in Ohio. He’s apparently going to be on all morning shows ever created, including “Wake Up Finland.” Maybe someone will ask him about this whole “actually bothering to vote” thing. Seeing as he’s so, so concerned about his taxes.

(UPDATE–8:40 AM Oct. 16– I wanted to go back to Politico this morning to double-check about Joe the Plumber’s voter registration, and sure enough Politico has a link to the Toledo Blade, which reports that a Samuel Joseph Worzelbacher is registered to vote in Ohio as a Republican. Not clear why the difference in spelling.)

Joe the Plumber told Katie Couric he doesn’t actually make $250,000 a year yet, but is concerned about a “slippery slope.” Then Joe the Plumber compared Obama to Sammie Davis, Jr., (as in he was dancing,) which made Katie LOL. I wonder if Joe the Plumber knows Sammie was um, Jewish?

As if McCain needs more problems in Florida…

Even MORE debate coverage Although this time it’s from the WSJ 2000 election archives. Good old John Fund ‘splains about sighing.

Mr. Gore sighed with deep impatience throughout the debate in an attempt either to distract George W. Bush in his answers to debate questions or influence the audience. Yesterday Mr. Gore blamed his behavior on the TV cameras. “Under the debate rules, we were told there was going to be no coverage of our reactions when the other guy was talking.”

This is preposterous. Mr. Gore’s sighs were highly theatrical in nature, and he accompanied them with a series of squints, grimaces and eye-rolling that couldn’t have been accidental.

I’m sure Fund will be in similar high dudgeon tomorrow.

Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire and Republican challenger Dino Rossi like to talk a lot about bipartisanship and “reaching across the aisle.” 

I guess it polls well. 

But I think Washington voters are lying to the pollsters. 

Check this out. Washington, right behind Oregon, is the most polarized state in the union. 

Thanks Sightline thanks FiveThirtyEight.

I’m still at the Ale House, but can’t hear the debate, and Trivia Night starts in half an hour, so I’m not sure how much live blogging I can do.  But that doesn’t stop you from spewing your hearts out in the comment threads.

UPDATE (8:05):
Minimum wage, right of the bat, an issue by the way, that was first brought to attention via Josh’s coverage of the AWB debate.  Your contributions at work.

UPDATE (8:08):
You know, I’m not so sure that Rossi wants to make this about who shares whose values.

UPDATE (8:13):
I guess, the bright side about Postman leaving, at least for Andrew Garber, is that Garber gets to do a little TV for a change.

UPDATE (8:19):
Rossi keeps talking about how he balanced the budget in 2003.  Um… he wasn’t governor in 2003.  (Or ever.) He started with Gov. Locke’s budget, and then made it a bit more draconian.  In fact, at the press conference in which he announced “his” budget, the PowerPoint presentation started with the headline:  “Following the Governor’s Lead.”  So why the fuck does everybody let him get away with this bullshit about how he supposedly “balanced” a budget?

UPDATE (8:21):
So far, neither candidate has mentioned “Joe the Plumber.”  Refreshing.

UPDATE (8:26):
So Rossi shrugs off an accusing Gregorie of “laundering money” by saying it was produced by a “third party”… you know, the BIAW “fund for Rossi” for which he solicited contributions.  You’d think maybe, our editorial boards would comment on the irony.

UPDATE (8:42):
I don’t think transportation is a winning issue for Rossi. Voters here are about to pass Prop 1 to expand light rail, and voters in the rest of the state couldn’t give a shit about traffic congestion or our infrastructure deficit.  But what do I know?

UPDATE (8:47):
The problem with Gregoire arguing that Rossi cut a billion dollars from education, is that it validates the notion that Rossi actually balanced budgets.  Which he didn’t.  He chaired the budget committee in the state Senate, which was only marginally in Republican hands, and the final budget was large based on Gov. Locke’s initial proposal. So if I were Gregoire, I’d be talking about what Rossi wants to cut, or wanted to cut, rather than what he did cut.

UPDATE (8:51):
The camera isn’t loving Gov. Gregoire, particularly in the split screens.  But here’s a question… is Rossi coming off as more likeable?   I think voters thought he did in 2004, and it was largely on that basis (plus the lack of understanding about where he actually stood on issues) that he made the election so close.  But even if four years later, voters don’t particularly like Gregoire (I’m not saying they actively dislike her, but it’s the whole who would you like to have a beer with thing), they’ve grown comfortable with her.  She’s not scary.  So does Rossi come off as genuinely likable, or just less wonky and officious than Gregoire?

WRAP UP (SORTA):
From where I was sitting, it was hard to hear the debate above the background noise, so I’ll have to watch it again to get a fair impression, but anecdotally, those in the bar who did watch the debate, both inside the bubble bloggers like myself, and ordinary citizens, thought that Gregoire just plain kicked Rossi’s ass.  I hope so.  And I hope there were enough viewers to make a difference.

I’m trying to live blog the presidential debate from the Montlake Ale House, wireless router gods permitting.

UPDATE (6:12):
Anybody who had “Joe the Plumber” on their debate bingo card has already won.

UPDATE (6:17):
When John McCain speaks, the CNN squiggle flat-lines like Dick Cheney’s heart.

UPDATE (6:18):
McCain:  “I know how to save billions of dollars in defense spending”… but I’m not going to tell you.  Shhh.

UPDATE (6:20):
McCain brings up the “overhead projector” bullshit again, even after it has been thoroughly debunked.  Has he no shame?  (Don’t answer… it was a rhetorical question.)

UPDATE (6:25):
Obama:  “Even FOX News disputes it.”  Big laugh here at the Ale House but little response from the squiggly line.  Speaking of which, there have been huge disparities between the men and the women in the CNN squiggly line.  Lee’s theory is that the men in the squiggly line group are drunk.  Could be.

UPDATE (6:29):
This is, by the way, a crappy, uninformative debate, and I don’t think either candidate is doing particularly well.  But then Obama doesn’t have to do particularly well, he just needs to do well enough.

UPDATE (6:31):
McCain:  “Joe the Plumber”…!!!

UPDATE (6:33):
Obama said “tit”…!  (Of course, he also said “tat”, but I’m sure there’s an FCC fine in there somewhere.)

UPDATE (6:40):
Apparently, due to a glitch, comments have been off.  Oops.  Fixed it.

UPDATE (6:41):
The candidates have been asked about their running mates.  Lee asks whether it’s too late for McCain to dump Palin in favor of Joe the Plumber.

UPDATE (6:42):
Obama:  Joe Biden “fights for the little guy.”  How many electoral votes does Munchkinland have?

UPDATE (6:45):
McCain:  Palin “understands the needs of special needs families.”  And nothing meets the special needs of a Downs baby like running for Vice President.  I’m just sayin’.

UPDATE (6:47):
McCain thinks we can build 45 new nuclear power plants “right away.”  What… are they built out of Legos?  Mashed potatoes?

UPDATE (6:56):
The squiggly line (which by the way, represents Ohio voters) really liked Obama talking about Detroit making the fuel efficient cars of the future.)

UPDATE (6:59):
McCain:  “Joe the Plumber”…!!!

UPDATE (7:04):
First candidate to promise to buy the Ale House a new wireless router gets my vote.

UPDATE (7:10):
So… McCain says that there should be no litmus test for appointing a Supreme Court justice, and that he would appoint justices purely on their qualifications, but… he doesn’t believe that a judge who has supported Roe v. Wade is qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.  Get that?  No litmus test.  Except, you know, abortion.

UPDATE (7:15):
I’m not so sure that Obama should be going on the defensive so much.  He’s spending way too much time defending himself against McCain’s bullshit charges, when he should be either attacking McCain, or talking substantively about issues.  But maybe that’s just me.

UPDATE (7:18):
Turns out, the plumbers union was the first national union to endorse Barack Obama.  Got that Joe?

UPDATE (7:20):
McCain wants to “find bad teachers another line of work.”  You know, like plumbing.

UPDATE (7:25):
I think Obama started slow, but once again is closing stronger than McCain, providing more specificity, and being more considerably more coherent, whereas McCain stays mostly on the attack. Perhaps this debate might be considered more of a draw than the previous two, but that’s just not good enough for McCain, who not only needs to win over undecided voters, he needs to win over some soft Obama voters as well.

UPDATE (7:29):
McCain’s closing statement:  “America needs a new direction.  We cannot continue doing what we’ve been doing for the past eight years.”  And so, that means we should elect a Republican?

UPDATE (7:31):
Obama’s closing statement.  He also doesn’t think we can afford to follow the same failed policies of the past 8 years.  So they agree on something.  More substantive, policy oriented closing, and that pleased the squiggly lines, especially the women.

GOLDY’S WRAP UP:
Not as sucky as the second debate, but not as good as the first one, and there’s no way McCain did what he desperately needed to do to change the dynamic of this race.  We’ll wait for the insta-polls to figure out who won, but it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it.  Stick a fork in it, this race is done.

Oh… and I loved David Gergen’s comment about McCain… it looked like “an exercise in anger management.”

The markets are down, the financial sector is a shambles, and yet even facing an economic downturn and declining revenue projections, Washington state government bonds continue to enjoy one of the highest credit ratings in the nation, earning an AA+ score from Standard & Poors and an AA rating from Fitch.  Meanwhile, King County announced today that both Standard & Poors and Fitch have renewed its coveted AAA rating, the highest score possible.

What that means for taxpayers is that it costs our government less to borrow money, at least a quarter point for every ratings step.  And if you read the reports issued by these credit rating agencies, our high ratings are largely due to the sound financial management of the governor and the executive.

Dino Rossi says he wants to change the culture of Olympia.  The question is, to what?

“Cheney experiences abnormal heart rhythm.”
You mean, Dick Cheney has a heart…?  Maybe the “abnormality” was that his heart was actually beating…?  (Add your own punchline in the comment thread.)

Sarah Palin’s Alaska fringe alliance
Seattle’s own Dave Neiwert, an author and expert on the formation of  the Northwest militia movement, appeared on CNN yesterday to outline Sarah Palin’s connections to the Alaska Independence Party, a far-right secessionist organization who’s founder dabbled in domestic terrorism.  Must see TV.

“Sorry Dad, I’m voting for Obama.”
Conservative columnist Chris Buckley is no longer welcome at the National Review, the magazine founded by his iconic father, William F. Buckley Jr.  Why?  Because of a blog post in which he announced his intention to vote for Barack Obama.

Is FL-16 cursed?
If freshman Democratic Rep. Tim Mahoney’s reelection prospects are sunk by his arrogance and hypocrisy, there won’t be many tears shed in the progressive netroots, who have long berated him as a bad vote and an even worse team player.  But I take issue with those who say he’s as bad as the Republicans, for if he was indeed a Republican, Mahoney’s sex scandal most likely would have been with a boy.

SurveyUSA has released a new poll in the governor’s race it conducted for KING-TV (Seattle) and KATU-TV (Portland.) No surprise really, the race is a statistical dead heat, with Gov. Chris Gregoire polling at 48% and Dino Rossi (GOP Party) 47%.. From the SurveyUSA summary:

Among men, Rossi has regained the nominal lead, swinging from a tie to a six-point lead. Among women, Rossi has fallen off, increasing Gregoire’s lead from 4 points to 7. The gender gap between the two candidates is now 13 points, the largest since Mid-August. Independents, who make up 28% of likely voters, have consistently preferred Rossi since June, by margins of 24, 8, 10, 6, 2, and 10 points; today, independents favor Rossi by 8.

While there’s always a danger in becoming too reliant on polls, two other things are worth mentioning. Rossi has a large lead among 19-34 year old voters in the poll, leading Gregoire 54%-38%, and Rossi is ahead everywhere outside Metro Seattle.

So the fact that the final debate tonight between the pair is in Seattle and will be available outside the Seattle market only on cable is something of a tactical victory for the Rossi campaign. Plus it’s after the presidential debate, and surely only the hardest of hardcore followers of politics could sit through four hours of debates and coverage.

People are going to be voting any day now, so it looks like another extremely close gubernatorial election is a possibility. The BIAW and the Republican Governor’s Association obviously think they can buy the election for Rossi, but dropping such obscene amounts so late could backfire on them as traditional journalists inform the public about it. Postman or Ammons or Herrington or Mulick will be all over it.

(To be fair, Garber is on it. At the Seattle Times. Which I believe is widely read in um, Metro Seattle.)

And yes, Gregoire benefits from union money. Whatever. It’s not even as much as the phoney-baloney PAC money BIAW alone raises, however it actually raises it.

The Darcy Burner campaign has seemed awfully cheerful in recent days, and now we know why.  A new poll conducted on behalf of the campaign by pollster Lake Research Partners shows Darcy now leading Dave Reichert 47% to 40% in the hotly contested race for Washington’s 8th Congressional District.  And this comes on the heels of yesterday’s DCCC poll showing Darcy with a 49% to 44% lead.

I’m sure Reichert fans will self-soothe themselves with the notion that this is just an internal poll, but as I mentioned yesterday, campaigns are not in the business of deceiving themselves.  In fact, this represents a substantial turnaround from previous Burner campaign internal polls, which have never once before shown her with a lead. The partisan propaganda part of internal polling comes not from how they are conducted, but rather, from whether or not they are publicly released.  And there’s a damn good reason the Burner camp is releasing this poll, as the internals are just as promising as the top line.

Reichert’s job performance rating has “plummeted” to 34% “good or excellent” versus 54% “fair or poor.” And Reichert’s re-elect now stands at just 36%, meaning nearly two-thirds of 8th CD voters would consider voting for somebody else.

No doubt this race is far from over, and will likely come down to a point or two in either direction, but the gloom and doomers who had already written off this race based on polls conducted during the now deflated Palin bounce better start rewriting their post mortems.  Given sufficient resources and effective messaging, Darcy is in a position to win this race.  So if you haven’t already given all that you can toward turning WA-08 blue for the first time, well, ever… please give to Darcy today.

UNCONFIRMED TIDBIT:
Reliable sources tell me there is another, as yet unreleased private poll that shows Darcy with a small lead over Reichert.  I’ll publish details if I can track it down.

UPDATE:
I don’t know if this is the third “poll” I’ve been hearing about, as it’s not really one per se, but a source with the Washington State Labor Council confirms that they are doing phone ID work in preparation for their GOTV efforts, and that among union members, Burner is above 50% and Reichert is down around 38%.  Not a scientific poll, but encouraging nonetheless.

It is a fact that there are folks out there who actually believe that Barack Obama is an Arab, a Muslim, a terrorist, a communist or some combination of all four, and who believe that those of us who describe ourselves as progressive, liberal or even as nondescript Democrats, are traitors and appeasers who represent a clear and present threat to the security of the republic. Add to that the Republican Party’s far-right evangelical base, a constituency that fervently believes that all those who do not believe as they do will be condemned by God to suffer eternal torment, and you have the real potential for violence.

Given the far-right anger that McCain and Palin have been only too eager to whip up, it has become increasingly important that Obama not only win this November, but that he win by a convincing margin, carrying states in every region of the nation.  Any close Obama victory will be portrayed by the angry right as a stolen election, and any failure by Democrats to totally capitulate to the Republicans, like we did in 2000 and 2004, will be viewed as an attempted theft itself, thus confirming right-wing fears. And considering how dangerous and un-American these people think we are, we should be prepared for some on the angry right fringe to respond with actual violence.

Sure, such musings might come off as a little paranoid. But a little paranoia can be a healthy thing during times of crisis.

Obama	McCain
100.0% probability of winning	0.0% probability of winning
Mean of 370 electoral votes	Mean of 168 electoral votes

Yesterday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 369 to 169 electoral votes, on average, in a hypothetical election held today. There were 16 new polls in 11 states released today. The polls lean Obama’s way, so that he gains a bit.

After 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins every one. Obama receives (on average) 370 to McCain’s 168 electoral votes. Needless to say, Obama would have a 100.0% probability of winning an election held now.

Detailed results for this analysis are available at Hominid Views.

Methods are described in the FAQ.The most recent version of this analysis can be found on this page.

– Glenn Greenwald catches the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein unloading some grade A bullshit on Treasury Secretary Paulson’s role in the economic crisis. It’s amazing that there are still journalists who don’t comprehend out how easy it is to compare something you said a month ago to something you’re saying today and then compare both of those things to facts. Or they just don’t care.

– Latin America’s revolt against the drug war continues with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Honduran President Manuel Zelaya talking about various forms of decriminalization and legalization and Bolivian President Evo Morales blocking U.S. anti-drug flights.

– Someone snarkily emailed me this link about how pot farms are destroying national parks, apparently as evidence that marijuana is dangerous. The danger is not from marijuana, though, which can be grown safely all over the world. The danger is from marijuana prohibition, which forces this crop (the #1 cash crop in the United States) to be grown in hidden and secret locations; and also ensures that criminals who could give a fuck about the environment will be the only people overseeing it’s production. You want to fix this problem? Legalize it. Regulate it’s production and sale. And tax it. Hell, that might even raise enough public revenue to clean up the messes being made in those parks.

– Sarah Silverman wants young Jews to go on a Great Schlep to Florida to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama. After watching this Daily Show video, all I can say is, good luck with that…

– Finally, How awesome is Dino Rossi’s old Idea Bank Committee? While Mathew Manweller (known to us at Effin Unsound as the Nutty Professor) was going off on a protestor who dared challenge his middle school-level understanding of liberty and free markets today, a post at the top of their WhackyNation blog from fellow Idea Banker Lou Guzzo was advocating that tobacco be banned nationwide. I don’t know how Dino Rossi stays so serene and smiley being surrounded by such crazy people.

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. Officially, we start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some of us show up early for Dinner.

Tonight’s special guest will be Seattle Mayor Greg Nickles who will discuss, among other things, Sound Transit’s Prop. 1.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.