The Buie Knife

'Sitting on Top of the World'

Gosh, the economic news sure is depressing. But I still look up, see our new president and feel a sense of hope, feel good about America, feel good about what we as Americans accomplished in 2008 in shattering an historic racial barrier. Garrison Keillor had a delightful column about Obama's election, written a few days after the election, which a friend just shared with me.

"Be happy, dear hearts, and allow yourselves a few more weeks of quiet exultation. It isn't gloating, it's satisfaction at a job well done. He was a superb candidate, serious, professorial but with a flashing grin and a buoyancy that comes from working out in the gym every morning...." Read the whole thing.

The references to Chicago being cool may not still resonate (just a month after Keillor wrote the piece) given the depth of political corruption suggested by the indictment of the governor. Indeed, see "For Chicagoans, A Slap After Obama Euphoria." But Obama is not tainted by the governor's problems -- indeed he was the focus of Blago's rage and disrespect.

I particularly like these paragraphs of Keillor's column:

It feels good to be cool and all of us can share in that, even sour old right-wingers and embittered blottoheads. Next time you fly to Heathrow and hand your passport to the man with the badge, he's going to see "United States of America" and look up and grin.

Even if you worship in the church of Fox, everyone you meet overseas is going to ask you about Obama and you may as well say you voted for him because, my friends, he is your line of credit over there. No need anymore to try to look Canadian.

2008 Voter Turnout Didn't Break 1960 Record, Bloomberg Reports, But Discounts How Voters Were Routinely Disenfranchised and Discouraged in 1960

Obama Won Without Surge in Voter Turnout Experts Had Predicted: "About 130 million Americans voted, up from 122 million in 2004. But with a little more than 61 percent of eligible voters casting ballots, the 2008 results didn’t match the record 63.8 percent turnout rate that helped propel President John F. Kennedy to victory in 1960," Bloomberg reports. Andrew Sullivan, who links to the Bloomberg article in his blog, points out that "Obama's 7 point victory margin was largely accomplished by former Republican voters staying home."

But there are different ways of analyzing voter turnout. In 1960, many people, especially minorities, who were technically eligible to vote, weren't registered and were discouraged from voting. They faced poll taxes and discriminatory literacy tests, such as being required to recite parts of the U.S. Constitution to qualify to vote if you were black. In sharp contrast, in 2008, in North Carolina for example, it is estimated that 94 percent of eligible African Americans were registered to vote before election day. And as Rev. Dr. William Barber points out, a record 74% of African American registered voters cast their ballots, compared to 59% in 2004. In North Carolina, there is now a powerful new progressive coalition of more than a million voters looking for change, he writes.

Careful analysis will probably find powerful new coalitions for change in other swing states as well.

I think it's false to assume that voter turnout didn't break records in 2008.

Obama's Inner Circle, on '60 Minutes,' Explains How He Won North Carolina and Other Red States

Obama's four key advisors, on "60 Minutes," explained their strategy to Steve Kroft in an interview at 1 am after the election. (Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs attended North Carolina State University and his parents live in Apex):

Watch CBS Videos Online

Text at CBSNEWS.COM.

Related:

• Barack Obama Blog
• David Axelrod, Obama's Alter Ego and Top Strategist

Obama's Landslide Deeper Than Reagan's, But Not As Broad

Related Column: It Still Felt Good the Day After, by Frank Rich, the New York Times.

Barack Obama's landslide victory, winning 30 states and 53% of the vote, is not as broad as Ronald Reagan's victories in 1980 and 1984, but it is deeper, in that the Democratic Party will control both branches of Congress by relatively wide margins, whereas Reagan had to deal with a Democratic Congress for much of his time in office.

Obama's victory is more akin to Lyndon Johnson's landslide in 1964, when he brought a slew of Democrats to Congress with him, giving him the mandate to push through a large package of progressive legislation, including Medicare and Medicaid, the health care programs for the elderly and the indigent, and immigration reform.

Johnson won 61% of the popular vote and all but six states -- Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and his home state of Arizona -- against Barry Goldwater (Source).

In 1980, Ronald Reagan carried 44 states with 489 electoral votes, compared to 49 for President Jimmy Carter, who won six states and the District of Columbia. But he only received 50.7% of the popular vote, while Carter took 41%, and Independent John B. Anderson (a liberal Republican) received 6.7% (Source).

In 1984, Reagan  was re-elected, winning 49 states. Opponent Walter Mondale only won his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. He received 58.8% of the popular vote to Mondale's 40.6% (Source). However, for his entire term Reagan had to work with a Democratic House of Representatives, and the Republicans only controlled the Senate by a narrow margin for part of Reagan's terms.

Obama Reaches Out to Those Who Voted for McCain and Are Skeptical, Fearful

Click.

Text. Key quote:

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House - a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends...though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection." And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

On Twitter, Sarah Palin Concedes; McCain's Gracious Concession Speech

Sarah Palin (via Twitter): "The other side wanted it more and were willing to work harder and smarter for it. That's America."

John McCain offered a gracious concession speech:

A little while ago, I had the honor of calling Senator Barack Obama -- (boos) -- to congratulate him -- (boos) -- please -- to congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country that we both love.

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

I've always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too. But we both recognize that though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation's reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to visit -- to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now -- (cheers, applause) -- let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth. (Cheers, applause.)

Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer in my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day, though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain. These are difficult times for our country, and I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans -- (applause) -- I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences, and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited....my heart is filled with nothing but gratitude for the experience and to the American people for giving me a fair hearing before deciding that Senator Obama and my old friend Senator Joe Biden should have the honor of leading us for the next four years.

(more -- full text)

Previous:

• A Republican Concession, of Sorts, Already

My Election Prediction

Tomorrow I can see how prescient, or not, I am:

I predict Obama will win NC 51-49, Hagan will beat Dole and Perdue will eek out 50% victory over McCrory. Republican Hayes of 8th congressional district (Laurinburg, Monroe, Kannapolis) will be beat by Democratic teacher Larry Kissell.

Nationally, I predict Obama will win 54% of the vote, and 35 states to McCain's 15, a near popular-vote landslide, and a definite electoral vote landslide, the biggest presidential coalition win since 1964 and the biggest win for non-incumbent since 1932.

If Obama's coattails don't bring in more than Reagan's did in 1980 and 1984 (he had to deal with Democratic House his entire term, as did Eisenhower an Nixon), it won't be a "Democratic era." I predict Obama will win close to a 40-seat majority in the House, 58 Democratic senators (with two "independents," Lieberman and the socialist Bernie Sanders of VT, who will mostly vote Democratic).

Obama Wraps Up Last Speech of Campaign in Virginia With This Inspirational Anecdote

Obama explains how one citizen's voice in Greenwood, SC made a difference to him on an early day in the January primary campaign:

Massive Voter Fraud on Election Day? A Truly Whacked Out Idea

Some paranoids are already "explaining" why their candidate will probably lose on election day: a) there's a liberal media conspiracy against them; b) the “independent” pollsters are secretly all liberals who are cooking the numbers; c) millions of drunk, drugged out, cigarette-addicted negroes are being offered booze, drugs and cigarettes to go to the polls, recite from memory the name, address and age of white or dead people and persuade poll-watchers that they are in fact those people, and are too desperate, drunk, drugged out or stupid to realize they are committing a felony. And Republican poll-watchers are too clueless to recognize fraud or challenge a drunk, drugged -out middle-aged negro posing as an 80-year-old deceased white man.

Truly whacked out.

Update: Richard Bell makes a compelling case that it's much easier to rig voting machines or electronically alter vote totals than to commit voter fraud. He writes:

Using a political version of Occam’s Razor, it is much more plausible that a few people could conspire, using the well known vulnerabilities of electronic voting machines, to alter vote counts, than it is to imagine a conspiracy in which hundreds or thousands of people have to be traduced into participating, one by one, by physically appearing at voting places to cast fraudulent ballots. Read the whole thing.

Related:

• The Myth of Voter Fraud

Even More Republicans for Obama

Former Reagan Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein is now for Obama, along with former Republican Senators Larry Pressler and Mac Mathias. Other Republicans for Obama, according to "The Moderate Voice" website, include:

Susan Eisenhower, Christopher Buckley, Alison Goldwater Ross, C.C. Goldwater, Francis Fukuyama, Larry Hunter, William Weld, David Friedman, Charles Fried, Arne Carlson, Ken Adelman, Doug Kmiec, Wayne Gilchrest, Jim Leach, Lincoln Chafee, Lowell Weicker, Linwood Holton, Jim Whitaker, Bill Ruckelshaus, Dennis Sanders

Plus, former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan.

Previous:

• Iraq Veterans for Obama
• Pam Cash-Roper of Pittsboro, NC, a Republican, Spoke at the Democratic Convention and Explained Why She's Voting for Obama
• More Republicans for Obama
• 'Obamacans': Conservatives and Republicans for Obama, Beginning in North Carolina