Motley Moose – Archive

This is partly a diary to celebrate the survival of the Moose over the dangerous last few months while Sarah Palin was circling in a helicopter with her telescopic rifle, and also a summary of a talk I will be doing on Thursday November 20th, at a plenary session that will start at about 10 a.m EST and last for an hour and a half.

The Conference is called No Frontiers? Free Speech and the Internet and is hosted by English PEN, the 21st Century Trust, and is being covered by The Guardian in its Comment is Free section. My specific talk is: Crashing The Sweetiegate – how online forums and political advocacy could transform the political sphere

For my fellow Moosers, the title (suggested by the organisers) is self explanatory, and some of you will be familiar with basic argument from my Flaming for Obama piece in Prospect Magazine last month, which drew an unexpectedly benign response from the proprietor of MYDD.

But here I’m inviting you all to show how the liberal blogosphere works, and respond in real time, or whatever time you choose, to the basic points with critiques, thoughts, flames or fail cartoons.  

Good morning/afternoon/evening, my fellow Mooses! Sricki here, welcome to her sentimental rant.  Okay, so I posted some of this in a comment and it was so long I thought I might as well just ramble in a diary.

This election saved my sanity.

No, really.

That is not an exaggeration.

I was the 8th in line.

About 200 people were behind me when the polls opened at 6am.

I voted for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

For Mark Warner.

For Glenn Nye.

I voted for Change.

Lurkers, Find Your Polling Location Here – The Editors

After all the elegies and eulogies, this is the best. From Obama himself in North Carolina.

“She has gone home”

Full text below

O My Prophetic Soul  Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, Scene 5, Act I

Words are all I have. As a British citizen I cannot vote in this election. I cannot phone canvass. I cannot donate. All I have are words. But  after this amazing  campaign and all the words we’ve all expended, I just want to release two more crucial words into the blogosphere: thank you.

Thank you for the flames and mojos, criticisms and kudos: thank you for the fail pictures and the poll analysis, for the LOLZ cats and live blogging threads. But above all thank you for your tolerating me here. As a foreigner in these virtual forums I’ve experienced the best of American hospitality, just as my son has experienced it during the last few days in Pennsylvania, organising, canvassing, getting out the vote.

Thank you. These are just words.  But I cannot vote or donate. Words are all I have.

Words were all I had four years ago when I first became actively engaged in your debates. I had my reasons for being so caught up in the last election, but I was mainly a lurker. But nearly exactly four years ago, on November the fourth 2004, just after the savage and dispiriting defeat, I wrote my first ever diary on a blog to thank Democrats, even in defeat, for providing such inspiration and passion and hard work.

On that terrible day in November 4th 2004, I also tried to write some words of consolation. I don’t know how much they helped. I drew analogies from the Labour Party’s three successive defeats and 18 years in the wilderness, to encourage you all to rebuild and regroup.

A few days ago I took a look at that diary for the first time in four years and I was stunned to find this:

Senator John McCain’s vice presidential pick is looking like a bigger mistake day by day. There is growing evidence that Governor Sarah Palin has become a drag on the flailing Republican ticket.  The Republican nominee is already weighed down by the failures of the Bush administration and our deteriorating economy, but it’s looking more and more like Palin may be the final nail in the coffin.

Update: this was one of the more substantive and interesting interviews I’ve seen with Obama so far — definitely worth watching.   Part 1 begins around 3:30:

Part 2:

(thanks to this dailykos story for tips on embedding recalcitrant iframe-only msnbc clips.)

Barack Obama came to Sarasota Florida today for an intimate gathering with about 15,000 people.

I volunteered and had the honor of assisting the elderly and disabled into the stadium, keeping them all hydrated and otherwise fussing over them.

This is almost sad, guys.

Well, not really.

But I think this shows us the depth of the hole McCain has dug running this disgraceful campaign. He has never lost an election in Arizona, but now he’s poised to lose the most important race of all. According to a new a Cronkite/Eight Poll, AZ is now a toss-up. Obama has whittled McCain’s lead down to two points, 46 to 44, a statistical tie.

So, I’ve been having a look at the latest maps the last couple of days, and things are looking better and better for us.  Maybe what I’m doing here is a bit controversial, but this by far is my favorite map: