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PoliGAF Election Day 2008 Thread of A New Dawn in America (OBAMA ELECT)

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C

Chris R

Member
Number of Precincts 438
Precincts Reporting 234 53.4 %
Times Counted 152520/495731 30.8 %
Total Votes 150954
Begich, Mark DEM 70338 46.60%
Bird, Bob AI 6206 4.11%
Gianoutsos, Ted NA 545 0.36%
Haase, Fredrick D. LIB 1064 0.70%
Stevens, Ted REP 72415 47.97%
Click to expand...

Looking better for Mark... Like I said, just needed more of the Anchorage vote :D
 
D

DopeyFish

Not bitter, just unsweetened
wtf

obama now 600 VOTES behind in missouri with 2% left in jackson county (voted 62% obama so far)

im wrong it seems


GOING BLUE
 
X

xsarien

daedsiluap
And finally, a President who can form a complete sentence in one shot and who won't talk to us like we're children.

It's been so long, my cynicism so deep, that I'm still pinching myself in hopes that this isn't a dream.
 
A

adg1034

Member
mamacint said:
Dunno what St. Louis Park is, but "St. Louis" is a MN County, apparently contains Deluth.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/individual/#mapSMN

Plus, Hennepin around St.Paul/Minneapolis is huge and heavily Franken and has is still being counted.
Click to expand...

Yup. Hennepin County is only at 78% reporting. That's the big one, and if it keeps the same ratio (250K:169K; 52:35), we should be looking at a slim but meaningful Franken lead by the time this thing is done.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
mamacint said:
Dunno what St. Louis Park is, but "St. Louis" is a MN County, apparently contains Deluth.
Click to expand...
Damn . . . you just killed my Hopium.

St. Louis Park is a suburb around Minneapolist where Franken grew up. Duluth is far northern Minnesota where Franken has done well but I'm not sure it will be enough to beat the gap.
 
J

JzeroT1437

Member
This is honestly the first event in conscious memory which I've experienced firsthand in my lifetime which has made me proud of my country's people.
 
N

n1n9tean

Banned
Was anyone else scared as hell while Obama was walking off stage after speaking?

I just kept saying (out loud), "Go on, Obama! Get the FUCK out of there! NO, don't turn around to wave!"

Such a tense moment. I honestly feared for his life.
 
B

Blackhead

Redarse
The end of the satirical industrial complex?
For the past eight years, Jon Stewart, Tina Fey and other comedians have had us laughing through our tears. If Obama wins, will the laughter die?

By Thomas Schaller

Nov. 04, 2008 |

In the past month, millions tuned in to "Saturday Night Live" just to see Tina Fey do her spot-on imitation of Sarah Palin. Fey's hilarious sendups of the vice-presidential candidate quickly became the stuff of water cooler legend, and Palin's own appearance on the show brought "SNL" its largest audience in 14 years.

Our perverse Palin-mania revealed a deeply felt need for a humorous escape from a broken government and financial system that the two presidential nominees pledged to fix. Because the present reality is this: Now is a very unfunny time for America. U.S. troops are fighting two very different wars in two very different countries, and neither campaign is succeeding as promised. Many Americans are uninsured, left to battle catastrophic illness on their own. Oh, and the American economy is in the crapper.

Given their angst and frustration, it is no surprise that liberals have been enjoying the loudest (and last?) laughs during our current, pioneering age of dark, ironic humor. The chuckles produced during the George W. Bush era by a veritable legion of satirists and comedians, ranging from Fey to Jon Stewart to Chris Rock, have been particularly therapeutic. Unfunny times demand the tonic of humorous distraction.

As proved by the nervous giggle that slips the lips when we are anxious, the human inclination to laugh is not consciously controlled. "We don't decide to laugh -- it just happens," says Robert Provine, a neuroscientist and psychology professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and author of the acclaimed book "Laughter: A Scientific Investigation." "Therefore it's an 'honest signal,' hard to fake, and a reflection of what we really think." (Don't tell Fey collaborator Amy Poehler that; she killed by mocking Hillary Clinton's contrived laughter.)

Bush's rise to power this decade contributed significantly, if not primarily, to the emergence of what Stewart has called the "satirical industrial complex." The complex's roster includes Stewart and his late-night Comedy Central cohort Stephen Colbert; the "Saturday Night Live" troupe, which has experienced its own surge during the 2008 presidential race; and sundry other parodists and comedic agitators ranging from low-key Tom Tomorrow cartoonist Dan Perkins to Chris Rock, who recently quipped that President Bush has "fucked everything up so much, he's even made it hard for a white man to become president."

Unlike comedians from bygone eras, today's legion of lampooners faces fewer constraints in either the appropriate cultural standards or the mediums available for their use. Will Ferrell doesn't need to wait for his next movie to come out to make an impact; he can launch any number of humor attacks on his Web site, Funny or Die. YouTube, the DVR, e-mail and text messaging magnify and accelerate the viral influence of comedic content. The greatest testament to the reach of Fey's Palin impersonations may be the complaint Barack Obama voiced to Washington television reporter Derek McGinty: "I've got to say, compared to Tina Fey, and what she's doing with Governor Palin, my imitator" -- "SNL's" Fred Armisen, who is white and does Obama in blackface -- "isn't doing as great a job."

Ultimately, though, it is the raw material -- the content of current events -- that gives political humor its heft. "The role of a satirist is to point out things that don't make sense, and if there are more things that don't make sense, there's a greater sense of urgency for the satire," explained Todd Hanson, founder of and longtime writer for the Onion.

Much of today's political humor requires a smart and savvy audience that keeps up with current events -- if only in order to mock it. "I just don't think people would find our show funny if they were getting their news from us," says Samantha Bee, "Daily Show" correspondent. "They would have to be getting the news from somewhere to get the jokes. I mean, I don't think you would understand or enjoy the show at all if you didn't know a little bit about what was going on in the world. I think you would find it terribly confusing, and would be watching it with no sense of irony, and then you would be lost and change the channel."

But has any of this smart political humor had an impact on the candidates, the election or our politics? It may be safe to argue that comedy changes the national mood, but can it change the national political climate in more fundamental ways?

"Plato and Aristotle feared humor's power to undermine authority," says Provine, who distinguishes between "laughing with" and "laughing at" types of humor. "'Laughing with' is bonding, and what we do with friends and like-minded folks. 'Laughing at' is directed to others, as in ridicule and jeering. Recently, Palin has been tapping the 'laughing at' mode toward [Barack] Obama." Provine says 'laugh with' humor tends to be more effective, however. "Tina Fey may have a very real effect on the election outcome, and to a lesser extent, so will David Letterman, because their more gentle and devastating variety is more effective than the heavy-handed Palin sort. It may sway the uncommitted and influence the faithful."

Comedian Will Durst, who appears regularly on Air America, CNN and National Public Radio, is less convinced of the satirical industrial complex's electoral impact. "I think we're good at satirizing all politicians. We always have been," Durst told me by phone from California. "But I'm not sure how widespread our effect is. Everybody talks about how powerful 'The Daily Show' is, but it's narrowcasting. I don't know how many undecideds go there."

Unfortunately, the Sampson-like potency of the satirical industrial complex may be headed for a long-overdue haircut when the Bush presidency comes to its merciful end -- especially if an Obama administration is ushered in to replace it.

"SNL" writer James Downey, for one, predicts that Obama will be "a lot tougher" to satirize than other presidents and presidential candidates his show has been skewering for the past three decades. "The media is kind of madly in love with Obama," Downey told a New Yorker Festival audience. "He is also such a smooth character that he doesn't give you many handles." (No such rule applied to Hillary Clinton, he noted. "Bill Clinton got a free pass, but we took it out on her.")

"Obama would be tougher in the beginning for me because I'm a white guy," agrees Durst, who added that the lone upside of a John McCain victory next month is that Palin would be like "methadone" for comedians who otherwise would have to go cold turkey when Bush is gone. "In front of white liberal audiences -- which is what most comedy clubs are, even in red states, it's always that blue-state element -- if I try doing race jokes about Obama you can hear the sphincters tighten up faster than lug nuts on a '57 Ford. Until I can say 'President Homey' and get away with it, it's going to be a little tougher."

An Obama era almost certainly promises to be less funny -- at least in terms of satire. So enjoy Tina Fey's Palin parodies while they last.
Click to expand...

:lol
 
G

Grug

Member
Question!

Was George Bush staying in the White House tonight?

Seeing those massive crowds at the gates would have been an eerie feeling, he would have felt like he was at Helms Deep.
 
R

ryutaro's mama

Member
bishoptl said:
Man, I half expected Biden to come out holding a steel chair for the heel turn when he arrived on stage. Rip off his shirt to show a red elephant muscle tee underneath and good ol' JR screaming MAH GAWD

I'm just sayin'
Click to expand...

en-dubya-oh....
 
S

Speevy

Banned
Cloudy said:
I WANT TO SEE SEAN HANNITY!
Click to expand...


noose.jpg
 
C

Chris R

Member
man... all these idiots who voted for the Alaska Independence party piss me off... might lose both the house and senate seats because of them :<
 
M

Marvie_3

Banned
speculawyer said:
Damn . . . you just killed my Hopium.

St. Louis Park is a suburb around Minneapolist where Franken grew up. Duluth is far northern Minnesota where Franken has done well but I'm not sure it will be enough to beat the gap.
Click to expand...
Hennepin county is only 77% in and Franken is leading by ~81,000 votes there
 
S

segarr

Member
Hello everyone, I just needed to say how great of a thread this has been (I am going to go and read through the ENTIRE thing, at some point, throughout the next few months...:D )

Man, what a fucking night. Unfuckingbelievable...a black man has one the former confederate capital, and one the election...fairly easily. Holy hell.

My idiot roommates pissed me off a bit tonight though. First of all, they were watching fucking Hulk on the digital cable box, I don't have a box in my room so I couldn't watch MSNBC (Which was my channel of choice).

One of them is democrat, but he wasn't around. The other is a republican, and the last one voted independent.

I was getting in arguments with the two dudes throughout the night after it had been officially called for Obama. It was significant stuff, they were treating this as some sort of sports championship or something, just trying to undermine the whole situation.

I haven't seen Obama's speech yet (The idiots were watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, although I love the show, COME ON!), and I was wondering if there is a full link or dl somewhere.
 
L

Learn2read

Member
speculawyer said:
Damn . . . you just killed my Hopium.

St. Louis Park is a suburb around Minneapolist where Franken grew up. Duluth is far northern Minnesota where Franken has done well but I'm not sure it will be enough to beat the gap.
Click to expand...
Check the map, don't claim to have "The Maths" but St. Louis has 68% reporting with Franken having a 23pt lead (currently a 21,000 vote lead)

Hennepin is at 78% with Franken leading 52/35 with an 80,000 point lead.

He's currently only 3,000 votes behind. Doesn't look like Coleman has any similar potential gains left.

DEVELOPING...
 
S

Seth C

Member
thekad said:
A convicted felon is going to be elected to Congress. This day hasn't been all I've hoped for.

Though it looks like I'll wake up to Georgia slipping to Obama.
Click to expand...

Question -- could he legally vote for himself?
 
Smiles and Cries

Smiles and Cries

Member
The Gay struggle is just starting there is still hope. But as a black man I cannot be fully be happy about the results today when I know a group of people who are different than me still have to suffer from ignorance.

Is this really a victory?

I don't know but its a start

America please take this chance and do better
 
X

xabre

Banned
DopeyFish said:
wtf

obama now 600 VOTES behind in missouri with 2% left in jackson county (voted 62% obama so far)

im wrong it seems


GOING BLUE
Click to expand...

What about Dunlkin County in the lower right hand corner? Razor thin this one.
 
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