Monthly Archives: October 2008

So let me see if I have this right. When it came out that John Edwards was paying $400 for his haircuts, that told us everything we had to know about him being vain or vapid or phony or out of touch with America or something. Whatever it told us, it was pretty derogatory about Edwards.

But the folks who said that didn't care that John McCain usually wears $600 shoes or that Cindy McCain has worn gowns (including one dress at the G.O.P. convention) that cost over $100,000…and they're not going to care that the Republican National Committee has coughed up more than $150,000 to clothe and coif Sarah Palin. That kind of spending says nothing about the person wearing all the money. Right?

I actually don't think it does about the McCains and Palin and it didn't about Edwards. And I'm really sick of that mode of politics where if your opponent eats an almond, you have to immediately issue talking points about how the eating of almonds proves someone is unfit for public office.

The polls are now saying that Barack Obama has a commanding lead in five of the houses owned by John McCain…

Hey, you'll want to tune in for this, especially if you have the kind of mania some of us have for The Three Stooges. Tomorrow afternoon on Stu's Show, my pal Stuart Shostak is going to be welcoming a terrific guest — Joan Howard Maurer, daughter of Moe and therefore niece of Curly and Shemp. Joan is a lovely lady who has helped preserve and advance the family legacy, and she has some great stories about what it was like to grow up in that clan.

(Note to Stu: Joan has more than enough great anecdotes about the Stooges to fill your two hours but make sure you get her to talk about her own work for charity, which has been most impressive. Also, get her to talk a little about her late hubby, Norman Maurer. Norman was a superb comic book artist (the one-time partner of Joe Kubert) and a fine writer-producer of motion pictures and animated cartoons. I was honored to work with him a few times as he was a nice, talented man.)

Joining Stu and Joan for two hours will be a couple of other folks who figure large into the Stooge world: Broadcasting legend Gary Owens, who was responsible for securing a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame for the nitwits, and Lon Davis, co-editor of a new book about them. Matter of fact, I should plug Lon's book and not just because I have an essay in it…

It's called Stooges Among Us and it contains articles by folks who knew and/or worked with Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Joe and/or Curly Joe. Books about funny people are often not very funny but some of this book is quite funny…and some is touching or at least passionate. You can order a copy here and if you have any interest at all in the Stooges, you'll enjoy it.

You'll also enjoy Stu's Show tomorrow. The show is done live at 4 PM Pacific (6 PM Eastern) and it airs for two fast-moving hours. To listen in — and you can even call in and participate — go to the website of Shokus Internet Radio at the correct time and do what the website tells you to do. You'll hear the show streaming live to you over your computer and you'll have a fine time. And if you really want to get into the spirit of things, you can poke yourself in the eyes and rip a few handfuls of hair out of your head.

If you'd like to try out different electoral vote scenarios, here's a website that'll let you click and theorize. It starts you off with the 2004 vote totals and then you can change states from red to blue or vice-versa and see the running total. It's a lot more fun than that online casino where you just lost all the money Grandma asked you to invest for her.

I am told by half the known world that tonight on the TV show The Big Bang Theory, one of the characters made reference to stopping at Souplantation for the Creamy Tomato Soup. No, I don't know if the line was put there by a reader of this weblog or just someone with good taste in soup.

I have returned from eating Creamy Tomato Soup at the Souplantation.

I am at the Souplantation and I am eating Creamy Tomato Soup.

If you need me, I'll be at the Souplantation eating Creamy Tomato Soup.

I was playing around with electoral vote totals this morning, trying to figure if there was some route via which John McCain could win. Assuming someone doesn't come up with proof that Barack Obama funded the 9/11 hijackers or something equally game-changing, he pretty much has a lock on states totalling 264 electoral votes. That's all the states John Kerry won plus Iowa and New Mexico (252 + 7 + 5). So he's six short of the big 270.

The "swing" states turn out to be Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. Obama appears to be ahead in all these but in some cases, the lead is within the margin of error or is contradicted by occasional other polls that give McCain a slight lead. I'm not considering anyone "ahead" unless they're ahead by more than the margin of error through multiple polls conducted by multiple firms.

If McCain can win all seven of those states, he wins the White House. That sure doesn't look likely to me. Today's Public Policy Polling survey has Obama up seven points in North Carolina. Rasmussen has him ahead of McCain in Virginia by ten points. There are also polls that show closer numbers but it's hard to see how McCain could win all seven. But that's pretty much what it would take.

If Obama wins Nevada (5 electoral votes) and McCain wins the other six along with every other state where he's presently ahead, we wind up with a 269-269 tie and the election gets decided by the House of Representatives. Since the Democrats would dominate that vote, Obama would win.

And if Obama wins even one of the other six "swing" states, all of which have more than five electoral votes, he'd have the 270 necessary to win. Those states may be all we need to watch. Obama could also win with Indiana's 11 electoral votes or get partway to 270 with Montana (3) and/or West Virginia (5) — but those are all states where McCain presently has a small lead. Presumably, if Obama had enough of a landslide going to pick up those states, he wouldn't need them.

By the way: I said in this post that Kerry in '04 received 251 electoral votes so Obama needed 19 to get to 270. That's misleading. The combined electoral votes of the states won by the Kerry-Edwards ticket actually totalled 252. When the Electoral College convened and the votes were actually cast, one of the Kerry electors made a mistake on his ballot so his vote was voided and Kerry officially received 251. But the relevant number is that if/when Obama wins all the same states, he'll have the 252 noted above. I don't see any poll anywhere that thinks that's not going to happen.