Another Historic First for America

This afternoon, the Pentagon announced the promotion of Ann E. Dunwoody to the rank of four-star General.  General Dunwoody is the first woman in the history of the US military to attain the rank of full General. She is a native of New York and has served in the Army since she was commissioned as a second Lieutenant in 1975.

General Dunwoody, 55, holds graduate degrees in national resource strategy and logistics management. She will be in charge of the Army's Global Materiel Command which is responsible for equiping, arming and outfitting US soldiers around the world. 

ElectBlue congratulates General Dunwoody on her promotion and her historic achievement for women. 

Bush Recession Gets Much Worse In October

As reported by Bloomberg News, retail sales in the US declined 2.8% in October, the largest one-month drop on record. Even worse, the decline in consumer buying was broad-based, cutting across virtually all segments of the economy.  Coming on the heels of the September collapse of the financial industry and the sharp rise in the unemployment rate in October, today's bleak economic news leaves little doubt that the Bush Recession is very bad and getting worse by the minute.

The current Republican Administration's reckless spending, irresponsible tax cuts for super-wealthy individuals and big corporations and its gross lack of regulatory oversight have finally yielded the inevitable -- and totally predictable -- results. The American economy is in shambles and sinking ever closer to depression-level territory with each passing day. Very tough times lie ahead.

President-elect Obama will no doubt be facing an even more dire economic situation when he takes the oath of office in the third week January next year. There is no real hope that the lame-duck Congress and the lame-duck President can, or will, take the tough measures necessary to begin a recovery. With only a one-seat Democratic majority in the Senate (and that's counting Mr. Unreliable, Joe Lieberman) and a disengaged, unresponsive Republican President, nothing of any real substance is likely to be enacted into law before February or March of 2009. It is going to be a long, slow crawl back from the edge of the economic abyss.

As progressives, it is important that we keep the mainstream media honest in their reporting about how we got into this mess and who is responsible for it. The chattering classes will, I fear, be all too willing to parrot the right wing wackos' efforts to blame the Democrats and President-elect Obama. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have already started down that path. They will certainly soon be followed by other wingnuts. Many in the mainstream media will be sorely tempted to take the bait because it is easy (no work involved) and simplistic (requires no real understanding of the issues).  

We can't let that happen.

Updated Update In Alaska

Begich extends his lead to 814. More updates as they come in from the Alaska Division of Elections.  At least 15,000 questioned ballots and 20,000 absentee mail-in ballots are still uncounted.  Many of these ballots are thought to come from pro-Begich precincts.

Current total concludes today's counting.

Begich 132,196

Stevens 131,382

Alaska Update: Begich By .001%

Mark Begich now leads by just three votes out of 250,035 total ballots counted after trailing by more than 3000 yesterday. And they are still counting. 

The total number of votes counted so far includes the 41,000 absentee ballots which were counted today. More ballots are expected to be counted over the next week.  Currently Begich leads 47.238% to Stevens'  47.237%.

If it takes this long in Alaska to get a first count, just imagine how long it might take for a recount. Maybe they're waiting on Christmas? Palin's in charge?

Obama Cabinet Speculation

A thorough list from First Read.

Begich vs. Stevens Resumes Today

The state of Alaska will begin counting today the remaining 90,000 ballots which have yet to be tallied (in other words 29% of the vote). The current count gives convicted Republican felon, Ted Stevens, a 3,257 vote lead.

Current Vote Totals

Begich 103,337

Stevens 106,594

In a press release yesterday, the Alaska Division of Elections expects that 50,000 votes will be counted tomorrow alone. The rest will be counted on Friday, and everyone is hopeful the election will be certified on November 25th..unless there's a recount.

Here's a breakdown of votes that remain uncounted. From the Anchorage Daily News:

• 61,000 absentee votes
  
• 9,500 early votes
  
• More than 20,000 "questioned ballots"

Update on US Senate Races

Three contests for US Senate seats remain undecided as of this writing: 

1. In Alaska, Democratic Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage trails Republican incumbent (and convicted felon) Ted Stevens by just over three thousand votes. At least 90,000 absentee and early votes remain to be counted. Late-breaking word from the Alaska Division of Elections indicates counting of these votes will begin as early as tomorrow. We shall see.

2. In Minnesota, Democrat Al Franken is some 200 votes behind Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in a race in which more than 2.8 million votes were cast. A legally mandated recount will be conducted, presumably by the end of November. As the recount process seems to be very rigorous and disciplined, the exact timing of the completed recount is not known with certainty at this time.

3. In Georgia, Democratic challenger Jim Martin will face Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss in a run-off on December 2nd. 

All three of these races are critically important to expanding the Democratic majority in the new US Senate. Direct links to the campaign websites for Begich, Franken and Martin are located on the left side of this page. There is also a direct link to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) which can always use your help.

ElectBlue urges our readers to contact these campaigns and offer to help in whatever way possible. Hint: financial contributions are always appropriate. The Georgia run-off will be expensive. The on-going efforts to count all the votes in Alaska and Minnesota will most likely involve costly legal assistance. 

Please help Martin, Franken and Begich today!

Dems, Dems Everywhere... and the Voters Do Approve!

CNN reports that, according to a just-conducted poll of voters, fifty-nine percent of the American electorate think that Democratic control of both houses of Congress and the White House is a good thing for the country. So much for the Republican attempt at fear-mongering about one-party control in the closing days of the election...

Speaking of not understanding the electorate, we have noticed the pathetic - but sustained - attempt by many on the Right, and some in the punditocracy, to characterize President-elect Obama's sweeping victory as confirmation that America is somehow still a "center-right country". These geniuses go on to promote the preposterous idea that increased Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are 'proof' of this delusional notion. 

This is what I call 'Animal Farm' political analysis. You know, analysis from some perverse parallel universe in which up is down, left is right, freedom is slavery and black is white. Those who promote such nonsense would, I think, have felt spiritually at home in the old Soviet Union.  They would be perfectly comfortable asking: what's truth got to do with our political propaganda? 

Last Tuesday, the American people voted - in lopsided numbers - for a man who had been portrayed by extremists in the Republican party as the most liberal, socialist, Marxist, redistributionist politician in our Republic's history. Now, these same wingnuts - and their allies in the chattering classes - want us to believe that Obama really ran as a centrist, or even as some sort of Reagan-lite conservative. Hooey. Barack Obama is a reasoned, thoughtful, center-left politician. He campaigned as such... and he won a decisive victory as such.  No amount of post-election revisionism can change those facts. 

A Day For Remembering

ElectBlue salutes all American Veterans today.  Thank you for your service.

Bitter? Do They Seem Bitter?

h/t: TMV

Dixie Is Losing Its Political Relevance

Today's New York Times has a thought-provoking and insightful analysis of this year's Presidential election. The article, written by Adam Nossiter, focuses on the diminishing influence of the South in national elections caused by the complete dominance of the GOP in the region. If there had ever been any doubts about the Republicans' vice-like grip on Dixie, they were removed on November 4th.

Reaching many of the same conclusions we drew in our Hold-Recapture-Add blog earlier this week, Nossiter points out that the South has lost its ability to dictate that the Democratic ticket contain at least one Southerner. The Obama-Biden team is the first totally non-Southern Democratic ticket to win the White House since FDR, with Iowa native Henry Wallace as his VP, achieved that feat in 1940.

Worse yet, Dixie has become the only truly reliable base of what is now a very regionalized - and therefore highly marginalized - Republican Party. With the South so firmly in the GOP camp, it is one of those paradoxes of politics that Southern influence over the selection of the next Republican national ticket will also be severely limited. Republicans will simply be forced to give non-Southerners high profile slots on their Presidential tickets in order to be competitive on the national electoral map.

The Southern strategy of Richard Nixon has not only taken deep root in Dixie, it is sufficiently strong to ensure GOP victory in Dixie even in a year when all the headwinds were strongly against them. Nossiter's conclusion as to why the South, bucking the trend in every other part of the nation this year, went so overwhelmingly for the Republican team of McCain-Palin is as obvious as it is painful: race. 

The verdict of Appomattox, it seems, has yet to be accepted by far too many white Southerners.  Maybe it will come in time. After all, it has only been just over one hundred and forty-three years...

Help Defeat Shamless Chambliss

In 23 days, Georgia voters will go to the polls to decide who their newest US Senator will be..again. 

Jim Martin fell less than 3 points shy of beating incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss on November 4th. Neither candidate reached the 50% threshold required to win the seat outright and so the runoff is set for December 2nd.

Chambliss' dirty record over the past six years began with a disgusting ad against former Senator Max Cleland. Cleland, a Silver Star recipient who lost three limbs while serving in Vietnam, was portrayed in the ad alongside Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.  Although the ad was quickly condemned by Republicans John McCain and Chuck Hagel, Cleland fell victim of the once popular Rove politics of fear. John McCain, no stranger to shameless ads himself, will be campaigning alongside Chambliss in the coming weeks.

Chambliss stood side by side with George W. Bush when privatizing social security seemed like a good idea and has been a very good friend of big oil. His record on veterans' benefits is one of the worst. He voted against funding modern body armor for soldiers in Iraq and opposed increased funding for veterans' health care programs 16 times. Overall, according to the Washington Post, Chambliss voted with George Bush 92% of the time. 

Here's Chambliss speaking for himself in this video: 

"One of the main reasons I'm running for the United States Senate is to make sure we get the Bush agenda enacted into law."

Help Jim Martin crush Shameless Chambliss on December 2nd by making a contribution to his campaign and by volunteering today.

November 4 Results (99% reporting)

Chambliss   1,866,612 (49.76%)

Martin 1,756,864 (46.83%)

Buckley    127,974 (3.41%)

Barack Go Bragh!

This video will get your shamrock blood stirring:

h/t: PostPolitics

Quote of the Day

"...this year's presidential election was a clear referendum on political philosophies - and the progressive philosophy won."

-- Paul Krugman

Professor of Economics, Princeton University

Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times

2008 Recipient, Nobel Prize for Economics

The Aussie Perspective

Presidential Shoes...

...from Australian cartoonist Paul Zanetti

h/t: TheModerateVoice