See http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD80904

Capitulation and bankruptcy of OBL's message.

The polls north of Indianpolis opened at 6 o'clock this morning. My polling place, which happens to be our neighborhood community center and swimming pool, had a long line by 5:45 a.m. in spite of a constant drizzle.
It is expected to rain all day with accumulations up to an inch. Add in temps in the 50's and I expect only the hardy will show up today.

This is Bush country, short and simple. Kerry didn't even try to crack this shell. There was very lilttle political advertising by either candidate in the last few weeks. Don't expect any surprises here.
Regards,
Tim

They were lined up at my precinct in Clark County at 6:30 this morning, and it seems to have completely discombobulated the poll workers. But then, I don't think any of the poll workers are under 70, so it probably doesn't take much.

The liquor stores don't re-open until 8 pm.

At 7:15 here, lines were long but not atrocious. I had one minor coronary when something went wrong with our voting machine (but all MY levers worked, bwahahaaaa). However, the technician fixed it in about 15 minutes.

I went to the local Republican headquarters. I voted absentee but decided to put some time in there in a state that is not a swing state. And the place was packed. There were not enough phones for the number of volunteers.

People in the HQ's said it was much busier than last time. The GOTV is working, BIG TIME!

I voted at my local precint in Plymouth, Minnesota. This is a heavily Republican suburb and voter turnout was very high with long lines. Minnesota is in play, but it's going to be tough going. This is the only state that was carried by both Mondale and Dukakis, but that was years ago. We retired Mondale when he replaced Wellstone against Norm Coleman so things are swinging to the right. ( but please don't ask me to explain Mark Dayton ).

Pretty long line at 6:45 am at my polling place here in NC. It took about an hour to get in and vote. The only real hitch was the ballot-sucking-in-machine (don't know the real name), which kept rejecting ballots 2 or 3 times before it took 'em in. I expected people to start running their ballot back and forth on a table edge like you do when trying to get a dollar to work in a change machine...

No real campaign presence by the time I left, just one desultory card table with a couple of Dem campaign and MoveOn.Org signs. They didn't really try to talk to anyone while I was there.

All in all, except for the crowd kinda mundane and boring. Just the way it should be.

- Cliff

Early morning voting had lines out the door and people standing in the rain in my heavily Republican suburb of Columbus, Ohio.

My husband reported VERY VERY long lines at our polling joint (East side, in Detroit.) He said it was a rather hostile environment for Republicans, and he heard chatter the whole time about Bush bringing back the draft, and that they're kicking him out of office. Ugh, I find these willing Uncle Toms very depressing ... they are fed lies and crap by the Johns, and they don't even do a bit to find the truth. Off they go- to vote in this (embarrassingly) uninformed manner.

I voted at 6:30, which is a half hour after the polls open in IL. My polling place is Des Plaines right in the heart of Cook County a traditionally heavily Democratic area. Weather today is craptacular...rainy and in the mid 40's. There was a steady stream of voters but turnout didn't seem that excessive. About 1/2 the booths were being used and there were only 3-4 people in line at any given time.

My $.02, There aren't really any hotly contested races in IL (one of the congressional races in Lake county is). Obama has had the senate race locked up for a while. But, most interesting of all, Daley has kept his distance from Kerry for the most part. In Chicago politics, no open embrace from the mayor is a very telling sign of the lack of support from the machine. Daley has towed the democratic line but he is a strong supporter of National security following 9-11 as well as other info that has shown Chicago targets of potential terrorist attacks. Daley has also made quite a few pro-W statements in the past few years. Additionally, Blacks in Cook county just aren't energized to support Kerry like they were Clinton and Gore. Sure Jesse Jackson had to jump on board in the past month to try to fix this but there is just no appeal to these voters from Kerry. So, all things considered Kerry still wins IL but with a much closer margin than expected, which will help W in the popular vote. This is unfortunate because IL was winnable this year if the IL GOP just had its act together.

I'll be liveblogging the election tonight starting at 5:00 pm. If you want me to link back to me or if you want to help with analysis, drop me an email or leave a comment at:

http://rightwingnuthouse.blogspot.com/2004/11/rockin-in-free-world.html

30 minute wait in paradise by the Pacific Ocean this morning.....unfortunately, they're all Kerry voters...

When I finally checked my phone messages after a week of playing the new Grand Theft Auto game, I was surprised to find one pro-Kerry message from noted political philosopher Sarah Jessica Parker and roughly fifty-seven pro-Bush messages from Laura Bush, Ben Stein, Rudy Giuliani, and other Republicans. I don't know how effective telemarketing is, but in Akron, the GOP is certainly making an effort.

On Sunday afternoon a Kerry supporter knocked on the door and I stammered for about a half-minute trying to find a pleasant way to say "there's nothing for you here." He was a nice enough guy, though.

Voted up here in Eagle County CO., late of Kobe fame, this morning. They say that over 40% of the county voted early or with absentee ballots, but it was still busy at the polls this morning. I got there at 7 am sharp and was about 50th in line outside (5 degrees, pretty dang cold). By the time I got my ballot there were about 200 hundred people crowded into the pavillion, but everyone was very upbeat and seemed to be glad to finally be voting.

Go Bush!