On November 4th, 1884, New York Governor Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, narrowly defeated Republican United States Senator James Blaine for the Presidency.  Walt Whitman wrote this poem (below) 124 years ago to honor American elections and democracy.  In many ways, his words are even more relevant on this particularly historic day.   

A special word of gratitude is due to all those who actually have been out there in the arena these past two years working endless hours on behalf of the various campaigns and candidates.  Thank you!

Joseph and Isaac Block canvassing for Obama-Biden in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania on Sun Nov 2, 2008.

New Mexico poll out today Obama 51 to 43 McCain. Obama has reached the magic 66% Hispanic support level and now leads 52 to 42 with women, 50 to 44 with men and behind 43 to 52 with Anglo voters. The margin has grown from 45 to 40 Obama in late September. All three open seat congressional races find the Democrats in the lead with the strongest in the third, 51 to 23 for the Republican. Udall is up by double digits in the race for Senate. 

From Fredericksburg to GA to ND to AZ, the map is expanding.

Ohio

Cuyahoga county and much of Ohio is suffering.  The county which includes Cleveland has lost 20% of its population over the last 30 years with no end in sight.  The county has a proud history, but in spite of the Cleveland Clinic, Case-Western and the Rock and Roll museum, manufacturing has left the shores here with little but a cold wind blowing off Lake Erie.

Youngstown and Akron represent Hillary’s part of the state.  But Cuyahoga was BHO’s hope in the primary: chocolate-city Cleveland, decidedly liberal Shaker Heights and a collection

The road was dark as we came within miles of Paul O’Dwyer’s home in Goshen after midnight. It was a Friday night in April 1989 and Paul had just spent a couple of hours with about 100 bus drivers and mechanics, helping them sort out the issues of economics and race, though race never came up.

They were white and residents of New York’s whitest borough, Staten Island. Ninety-five percent of the people working at the New York City Transit Authority who were members of the Amalgamated

When I was in my 20s and Metallica came out with their wholly unbearable album “Load”, after a long hiatus from releasing original music, I was initially hopeful that the album was an Andy Kaufman-esque ruse. A slap in the face of mainstream music, shining light on the imperial nudity of commercialism.  Sadly, it turned out that this was not the case and that, the reality (10 years and 3 absolutely horrendous albums later) was they simply lost it somewhere between getting older, more sober, and more democratic (I think