Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Contest! Contest!

Okay, let's have a contest to predict the outcome of the presidential race next week! The prize will be absolutely nothing but a mention on this blog and bragging rights.

How many electoral votes will Barack Obama receive? Take your best guess, put the number down as the subject in an e-mail and send it to...

• vote2008@newsfromme.com.

Only numerical guesses in the subject line will be counted. You can leave the body of the message blank except you should give me the name you want me to announce as the winner if you're the winner...and I may or may not announce some runners-up. I'm unpredictable that way.

You can enter as many times as you want but only one guess per e-mail and only your last e-mail will be counted. So if you send a guess on Friday and you change your mind later and send another one on Sunday, only your Sunday guess will count. All entries must be in our special e-mailbox by Midnight (Pacific Time) on Monday night/Tuesday morning. The winner will be the earliest vote received with the correct total...or the closest guess if no one hits it on the button. I will declare a winner whenever I think the final electoral total is official and unlikely to change.

Is that enough rules for you? Okay, I'll start. My guess is 349.

• Posted at 11:16 PM · LINK

Go Read It!

Here's the definitive electoral map. This will tell you everything you could possibly want to know about the election, including where they're high in the middle and round on both ends. Thanks to Scott Marinoff for the tip.

• Posted at 9:27 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

All of a sudden, we're hearing that Barack Obama is an unabashed socialist. He apparently has always had this agenda but the McCain campaign didn't talk a lot about it until around the time they wrote off Michigan. Hendrik Hertzberg explains why the charge is nonsense.

Incidentally, I am well aware that there are some folks who like this site for its non-political posts and who wince that I don't share their views and write what I do believe. I'm sorry...but blogging is only fun for me when I can write whatever pops into my mind without anyone inhibiting me. The election, I'm sure, will be front and center in there for the next week or so. You might want to find another site to read until it's over.

• Posted at 5:36 PM · LINK

Today's Bonus Video Link

This is an amazing bit of video editing. It demonstrates exactly what I think is wrong with so much of the political discourse during an election...and with those "three" debates the presidential contenders had. Remember how I said it was like instead of having three debates, they had one debate three times? (If there's no video embedded below, try this link.)

• Posted at 3:49 PM · LINK

Following Up

A few hundred years ago, back when this presidential campaign was just getting started, I directed you to a website which would be tracking the electoral votes and other polling goodies. This prompted the following e-mail, which I reproduced here, from one of my more Conservative readers...

I am not surprised that you linked to electoral-vote.com since that's another socialist (i.e., liberal) website run by another one of your Anti-American defeatists. I wouldn't trust a comma on that Obama Osama loving site. If you are as fair minded as some claim, why did not you link to election projection, which is run by a good, God-fearing American who also lists and analyzes the polls? Could it be that you do not live in the reality-based community of your mind and think you can trick Republicans into the same kind of defeatist mindset you favor for Iraq, making us believe we cannot win?

In response, I noted that the so-called "liberal" site then (June 20) had Obama at 317 and McCain at 194, whereas the site run by the "good, God-fearing American" had Obama at 349 and McCain at 189.

Today, one week before the election, the site run by the Conservative guy has Obama at 375 and McCain at 163 and is forecasting, and I quote: "Barack Obama will win this election in a landslide. He will capture at least 350 electoral votes and win the popular vote by 7% or more." The site run by the alleged socialist has Obama at 364 and McCain at 157. In fact, the site my above correspondent recommended has pretty consistently scored Obama higher than the one he called "that Obama Osama loving site."

• Posted at 3:44 PM · LINK

Voice Actor Site of the Week

My pal Gregg Berger has been mentioned often on this site as one of the top voice actors in the business and heard in many of our video links. He's set up a great MySpace page with interviews and fan stuff...and I'll just warn you that if you go there, audio will automatically play of Gregg's voice demo. Go give a listen to it and you'll hear how versatile and good he is. Here's the link.

• Posted at 3:28 PM · LINK

Today's Political Question

Why are John McCain and the Republican National Committee spending money on McCain-Palin ads in Montana? If Obama has even a decent chance of winning Montana, doesn't that mean the election will be over before the polls even close there?

• Posted at 10:23 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here's a nice little music video...the song "Stand by Me" by Leiber and Stoller as sung by different singers around the world...

• Posted at 12:23 AM · LINK