Imagine for just one moment that a Republican made a joke about ANY Kennedy, or a Clinton, or any one of thier families.

But what we will hear? “Oh relax… it was just a joke.”

Really? Had a talk show host or radio jock made a joke about Ted Kennedy, or anything like this about a Democrat, there would be calls for them to be fired, Olbermann would be pitching a fit and people would cry to boycott sponsors… But it was not a radio person. It was the next President of the United States who asked for a new civil tone and dignity in politics. Wow, between this comment and choosing Rohm “Republicans can go fuck themselves” Emanuel as COS (yes he said that in an interview in 2006), looks like we are off to a great start for “change”. (sigh)

TRIVIA: Guess which board Emanuel has served on? If you guessed Freddie Mac, you are right. Funny how these folks all seem to be connected to this crisis they now claim to have the answers for, isn’t it?

Throughout the day I will be updating from the all important swing state of Ohio. So far there have been little reports of troubles. The average wait time to vote appears to be about an hour with the exception of Toledo (Lucas County) in the NW part of the state where the wait is longer. What I do not know is if the longer wait is due to the volume or the speed of the polling center. More to come!

Right now I am in the Ohio Victory HQ for the Ohio Republican Party in downtown Columbus making GOTV calls. The phones are packed and record number of GOTV calls are being made.

UPDATE 1:53pm (EST) There is a buzz in the Ohio blogosphere that there are long lines in the rural areas of Ohio. This is a break from the trends of the past. The rural areas that are showing a large turnout tend to be very ‘red’. This, of course is anecdotal, but what is true is that there is heavy turnout throughout the Great State of Ohio.

In other Ohio news, according to the Dayton Daily News, paper ballots may delay counting of votes in the Dayton Area until Wednesday.

DAYTON — Nearly half of Montgomery County voters were expected to use paper ballots Tuesday, Nov. 4, which could delay the count, according to the board of elections director.

He said paper ballots will take longer to count and “we expect the count to continue into Wednesday afternoon,” said Steve Harsman, director of the Montgomery County Board of Elections..

Barack Obama is against requiring any photo ID to avoid fraud when voting, but attend the Messiah’s $2 million crowning bash?

When those on the right say that Obama is all about Wealth Redistribution, it is called scare tactics. When the candidate himself says it… well, they will spin it some how, I am sure. One of the Liberal talking heads said we should not consider this interview because he said this before he thought of running for President. Uh, what?

I guess when your experience is as limited as Obama’s is, 2001 does seem like a lifetime ago.

“You know if you look at the victories and the failures of the Civil Rights movement and its litigation strategy in the Court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples so that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I would be okay. But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical, it didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and the Warren Court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf and that hasn’t shifted. And one of the I think the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court focused I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change and in some ways we still suffer from that.” – Barack Obama

Yes. That is what they want; a government with absolutely no checks and balances. A filibuster proof Senate for the Democrats and a Congress where Pelosi of San Francisco calls the shots for all of us. And to head this up, a rubber stamp President Obama to do whatever they tell him to do. They know this; even Hillary Clinton is being open about it in her ad for Comedian Al Franken’s run for Senate

Add to this a media that has proven that their lust for Obama prevents them from questioning him (and is punished if they dare ask hard questions), and a clear message that if any private citizen questions the “Political Messiah” they will be ‘watched’ and you have a bright future for America(?)

What a great guy!

All we have (predictably) heard this week is how “angry” McCain supporters are and how American should be afraid of them. Hell, even Rep. Lewis basically called McCain and his supporters separatists. Well, I am not sure a few people standing up at rallies and yelling is scary, but if MSNBC and CNN say so, then it must be true.

So what should we do? How can we better ourselves? How does one conduct themselves in a calm, rational manner to show support of their candidate in an enlightened, civil and intellectual manner? Look to the bastion of liberal enlightenment, of course: New York City. Here is how some Obama supporters calmly showed that they disagreed with McCain supporters.

I am inspired!

Darke Blog (one of my favorite Ohio Blogs) has a very interesting post in which he demonstrates how ABC is deleting conservative comments.

After I posted this comment, I noticed another commenter included the same link as me. I went back to look at the reactions to both comments - and one at a time - they were both pulled from the comments. My original comment was time-stamped 7:42:49 PM - and as you can see below there is no remaining comment for that time. It was removed.

You MUST read this post.

It’s long (10 minutes) But Worth Watching. Comments?

So many people are against the $700 Billion ‘Bail Out’ because they do not want to help Wall Street ‘Fat Cats’ who they said caused this.

Is this outrage well placed?

This crisis is because of bad loans, deflated home values and under-valued mortgages. Fat Cats? Where is the outrage and blame of those who had no business taking loans they could not afford at rates that doubled after a short amount of time? Fat Cats? No. The bail out is because of folks who had a household income of $50k thought they were ‘entitled’ to a loan of $350k for a house bought on terms only an idiot would agree to. I suppose these people put flat screens on lay-away or LOVE stores like USA Discounters. Can’t afford it? No problem!

The same ideology that told you that everyone is entitled to a house regardless of their ability to pay for it, is now blaming the very industry they pushed and provided incentives to make these bad loans happen. Now obviously there are exceptions, some opportunistic and criminal mortgage scams, but I am talking about the majority of the loans.

So who loses in this? People like me who got a traditional 30-year fixed rate mortgage that I could afford based on the over prime good credit I earned and protected all of my life.

Who wins? People who were irresponsible with a sense of entitlement who this bail out with save.

So what have we learned? Buy whatever you want, comrades. Your government will save you.

So if you know anyone who has a mortgage for a house you know they could not afford, tell them ‘thank you.’ Thank you for the crisis.

During an interview with CBS’ Katie Couric, VP Candidate Sen. Joe Biden says about his attack ads, “didn’t know we did it, and if I’d had anything to do with it, we would have never done it.”

And then I think we all know what happens next… Lather, Rinse, Repeat… Attack, Apologize, Repeat. Change we can believe in?

Gov. Sarah Palin was originally scheduled to appear at the protest in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza today toprotest of the UN appearance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Her appearence was cancelled when Hillary Clinton aides complained. Clinton was invited as well and instead of standing together as a sign of American Unity, Clinton aides chose to make it a partisan political issue (of course).

Below is the text of the speech Gov. Palin was to give (source).

The “Chosen One’s” campaign used to love citing the numbers of people who would attend his appearance as proof he was “Who we were waiting for.” If this is true, maybe people were actually waiting for Gov. Sarah Palin.

“Sa-Rah! Sa-Rah!” they chanted at every mention of her name, applauding loudly and waiving tiny American flags that were distributed — along with free water bottles — by local volunteers. The fire chief estimated the crowd at 60,000. (Source)

This Rally was held at a large planned community in Florida. Hey Joe, where was this rally?

Thanks, Joe. I’ll buy the next round