David Both

I voted today and Alice voted yesterday. For Barack Obama, of course, and most of the other democratic candidates down-ticket.

It took Alice about an hour to get through the line yesterday afternoon. It took me an hour this morning. When I arrived at about 9:50, there were already hundreds of people in line. The polling place opened its doors at 10:00am and the line moved slowly but steadily the entire time. There were many voting booths set up and crammed into a space that was really too small but things seemed to be going very smoothly despite that.

When I came out the line was longer than when voting started today and more people were heading in that direction. Expect lines to be longer this afternoon and tomorrow.

Have you voted yet? If not get out and do so. There is still time to cast your vote early this afternoon and tomorrow in North Carolina. It also looks like the county Boards of Elections will be extending Saturday hours through 7pm tomorrow. But please check before you go to make sure.

Barack Obama

CHANGE WE NEED

Alice and I were Volunteers at the Obama rally here yesterday in Raleigh, North Carolina. We arrived at about 8:30 and there were already thousands of people in two lines waiting for the security gates to open. Some people apparently camped out overnight to be sure to get a good vantage point.

It was estimated that about 28,000 people attended this rally.

We were assigned by the local Obama Campaign for Change office to work the waiting lines of people along with about 20 other volunteers. After obtaining our credentials our tasks were to inform them of the security procedures to ensure that everyone got through security with a minimum of delay, and to let them know how to deal with medical emergencies and so on. We also urged them to vote early and asked for additional volunteers to assist in further get out the vote efforts.

It was a long day but it was well worth it. We met many wonderful people of all backgrounds while we were working the lines and also saw some friends. We got in to the rally after everyone else but were quite far back. I could not see Senator Obama but could hear him on the PA system quite well.

I was able to hold my camera over my head and take some shots, a couple of which do show Obama. Please click on the thumbnail below for a full sized version of the photo. Senator Obama is very hard to see, even in the full-sized photo but you can see him near the center of the picture. If you have a slow Internet connection the picture, which is 3.3MB in size, will take a while to download.

Barack Obama in Raleigh, NC, October 29, 2008

CNN is reporting a story out of the McCain camp about Palin going “rogue.” According to a McCain staffer who chose to remain anonymous, there are complaints inside the McCain-Palin campaign that Palin is getting off-message and is perhaps more interested in the top of the ticket in 2012 than she is in VP in 2008.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/index.html

Sounds like the definition of a maverick to me. Can’t take your own maverick ways, eh, John? I guess we should not expect anything else from a campaign and a political party that are both in meltdown.

This table shows where you stand. A negative number means you get a tax cut – less taxes. A positive number means you pay more taxes.

Give me a break! Under McCain, the Americans that need help the most get only $21 per year? How stupid is that!

It is clear that with McCain’s plan, the rich get richer; the tax breaks for the richest would be the largest by far. The rich would get tax breaks many times the size of a full-year’s earnings for those on the lower income brackets. This is just more of the old trickle-down crap that we have had for as long as McCain has been in the Senate.

Under Obama’s plan, if your income is less that $111,600 you get a larger tax break than under McCain. And only when your income is more than $227,000 per year would your taxes go up instead of down under Senator Obama’s plan.

Do you think it is fair for the lower wage earners to shoulder the tax burden while the rich get richer? I do not! The rich should pay more in taxes, not less.

Here is another link with additional details: http://www.thepoliticalhub.com/list/18.aspx

There are many rumors and myths flying around about voting and voter challenges. The Durham Indy web site link below takes you to a web page that debunks many voting myths and some of the current emails going around that are blatant attempts at voter suppression.

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A266397

Don’t let one of these myths keep you from voting!

Here is a link to an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the carbon footprints of six common products we all use. There are some very surprising results in here.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122304950601802565.html

At least this item is not totally political for a change.

Good luck on finding stations with gasoline available so long as credit availability is locked down tight.

At least one person has mentioned to me this morning that gasoline is becoming more scarce. Many gas stations on his normal commute route were out of gas this morning. This is despite the reopening of the Gulf pipeline and greater supplies.

Has the credit crunch extended to the gas stations already? Can they not afford to purchase gasoline from their suppliers due to the fact that the credit markets have totally dried up?

If gas stations had to pay cash on the barrel head (pun intended) for gasoline from their suppliers it would take a huge amount of cash. Cash that no station I can imagine would have on hand or even in the bank.

If you figure a 10,000 gallon delivery at a steeply discounted price of $3.00 per gallon, that works out to $30,000 dollars for a single delivery. Perhaps company owned stations can deal with this, but the independents will be totally unable to purchase gasoline so long as credit is unavailable.

Perhaps this is part of the plan by the large oil companies to put the independents out of business. If so the timing of the credit crisis could not be better.

Look for long gas lines, and incredibly high prices when gasoline is available. Food will become scarce as will other necessary items. Many businesses of all types will fail and we will truly have a depression. This despite the fact that the current administration does not admit that we are already in a recession.

It will not be pretty.

The best thing we can do now is vote the republican greed machine who caused this crisis out of office on November 4.

Get out and Vote for Change

Vote Democratic

on November 4

Over the weekend, John McCain’s top adviser announced their plan to stop engaging in a debate over the economy and “turn the page” to more direct, personal attacks on Barack Obama.

In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to change the subject from the central question of this election. Perhaps because the policies McCain supported these past eight years and wants to continue are pretty hard to defend.

But it’s not just McCain’s role in the current crisis that they’re avoiding. The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time.

During the savings and loan crisis of the late ’80s and early ’90s, McCain’s political favors and aggressive support for deregulation put him at the center of the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan, one of the largest in the country. More than 23,000 investors lost their savings. Overall, the savings and loan crisis required the federal government to bail out the savings of hundreds of thousands of families and ultimately cost American taxpayers $124 billion.

Sound familiar?

In that crisis, John McCain and his political patron, Charles Keating, played central roles that ultimately landed Keating in jail for fraud and McCain in front of the Senate Ethics Committee. The McCain campaign has tried to avoid talking about the scandal, but with so many parallels to the current crisis, McCain’s Keating history is relevant and voters deserve to know the facts — and see for themselves the pattern of poor judgment by John McCain.

So at noon Eastern on Monday, October 6th, we’re releasing a 13-minute documentary about the scandal called “Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis” — it will be available at KeatingEconomics.com, along with background information that every voter should know.

Watch a preview right now and share it with your friends.

The point of the film and the web site is that John McCain still hasn’t learned his lesson.

And this time, McCain’s bankrupt economic philosophy has put our economy at the brink of collapse and put millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes.

Watch the video to see why John McCain’s failed philosophy and poor judgment is a recipe for deepening the crisis:

http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo

It’s no wonder John McCain would rather spend the last month of this election smearing Barack’s character instead of talking about the top priority issue for voters.

But if we work together, we can make sure the focus stays on the economy — and how to fix it.

Please forward this email to everyone you know.

Thanks,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

The voter registration deadline in North Carolina is this Friday, October 10th.

Are you registered? Are your friends and family?

If you only forward one email to your friends, family, and neighbors today — make it this one.

Each and every vote in North Carolina is absolutely crucial to victory on Election Day.

Visit VoteForChange.com, our one-stop voter registration website, and register before the North Carolina deadline.

Supporters like you have built the biggest grassroots movement in the history of American politics.

But the next 5 days are an important time for bringing new voices into the political process.

You need to be certain that you, your friends, and your family are registered by the deadline — it’s a small step that will have a huge impact on our Election Day results.

This election is too important to leave anything to chance. Make sure your voice is heard — and forward this email to all the North Carolinians you know.

Thanks,

Barack

I am a little late getting this out. These results are for the 100,000 Doors campaign of September 27 and 28.

The capital region in North Carolina was responsible for knocking on 24,086 doors…which was an amazing job. BIG THANK YOU to the canvassers who came out and helped this weekend.

The entire state of North Carolina knocked on 107,703 doors with a 30% contact rate which is incredible!!!