Daily Report from the Battleground State of Wisconsin - 10.31.04
Saturday brought both Bush and Kerry back to the Green Bay area. A large number of folks from Green Bay met W with John Kerry signs. One elderly woman (a life long republican-She joins a ever growing list of Republicans....to see who: click here) showed up with a sign that read “PEACE NOW”. Several young men sporting Bush t-shirts flipped this elderly lady the bird and yelled obscenities. The lady stood proud with her sign held high. She turned to me at one point and said “Don’t those people know nine more of our young soldiers were killed today in Iraq?” This whole incident reaffirmed to me how important it is to elect John Kerry President.
As we enter these final days of this election, we all need to know what is at stake in Tuesday’s election. Good must prevail over evil; the hope of John Kerry must prevail over Bush and his gang of thugs. As Bruce Springsteen sang at the big rally last Thursday: “No retreat baby, no surrender”. (Click here for a video/audio of Springsteen’s introduction of John Kerry at last Thursday’s mega-rally in Madison).
The polls continue to demonstrate this election is too close to call. My analysis is that Kerry will win the election by two electoral votes. TWO!!! I have added my electoral analysis to this post in the comment section. To see my picks: CLICK HERE.
Be assured, my compatriots and I out here in Wisconsin, will work every waking hour from this moment to 8:00pm on Election Day to elect John Kerry. Bear in mind my Dear Friends: “No retreat baby, no surrender”.
If you have any comments on this post - send me an e-mail at unionman11@yahoo.com, and I will post it.
Goodnight Friends, and God Bless you!
-Robert
posted by Unknown | 1:01 PM
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The following is my prediction (Robert Leonard) on what states Kerry and Bush will win on Election Day. My predictions are based on the current polls, past voting patterns and party enrollment. As you can see, my model confirms what many others are saying, this election is very very close.
BUSH:
I start my prediction giving Bush 125 electoral votes from his solid red states and:
Arizona - 10
Arkansas - 6
Colorado - 9
Florida - 27
Iowa - 7
Kentucky – 8
Louisiana - 9
Missouri - 11
Nevada - 5
New Mexico – 5
North Carolina - 15
Tennessee - 11
Virginia – 13
West Virginia - 5
BUSH GETS 266 Electoral Votes
KERRY:
I start my prediction giving Kerry 146 electoral vote from his solid blue states and:
Delaware – 3
Hawaii – 4
Maine – 4
Michigan – 17
Minnesota – 10
New Jersey – 15
New Hampshire – 4
Ohio – 20
Oregon – 7
Pennsylvania – 21
Washington – 11
Wisconsin – 10
KERRY GETS 272 Electoral Votes and wins the electoral collage by two and becomes our next President!!!
A Final Plea To Nader Supporters
by Paul Loeb
If Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jim Hightower, and Ralph Nader's former running mate Winona LaDuke haven't convinced you that voting for Nader is too great a risk this election, maybe nothing will. But the stakes are high enough to try.
As Nader supporters continually point out, Kerry is a compromised, centrist Democrat, ambivalent at best on a host of key questions including the Iraqi war. And yes, Nader's positions are better, and it may feel personally gratifying to vote for them.
But this election isn't about abstract stands. It's about Bush's threat to democracy. Not just Bush, but a larger Republican machine that purges African Americans from the Florida voting rolls, throws away voter registrations in Nevada, jams New Hampshire Democratic phone banks with hired telemarketers, shouts down Palm Beach vote counters, and shuts Congressional Democrats out of the legislative drafting process entirely, replacing their voices with those of industry lobbyists. That doesn't count waging preemptive wars and lying about their justification, passing over a hundred billion dollars a year of regressive tax cuts, smashing unions, plundering the environment, and branding everyone who disagrees with you an ally of terrorism.
Either we stop these trends or we don't. And what we do this with is the ballot. If we place all our hopes in awaiting some nebulous citizens' revolt, we throw away a concrete opportunity to stop this assault in its tracks by voting Bush out. And that gives away an aspect of power that citizen movements have fought and died for. That's what we do by replacing a real vote against Bush with a symbolic vote for Ralph Nader.
Think of the court appointments. Four years ago, the issue seemed abstract. After the gang of five justices installed Bush in office, it's urgent. William Rehnquist is 80 years old sick, with thyroid cancer. John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have had cancer as well, and Stevens is 84. Do we really want another Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas to replace them? Or another Rehnquist? These justices didn't just anoint Bush as president. The same 5-4 majority recently validated Tom DeLay's mid-census reapportionment of key congressional districts in Texas, Michigan and Pennsylvania, to give the Republicans a near unbreakable short-term lock on the House of Representatives. Maybe O'Connor will have a change of heart, but if they appoint one more ultraright justice, all three branches will be controlled by a party that seeks not just victory, but the total annihilation of all opposition, as if we were the rats and insects that DeLay used to exterminate. Stopping this trend means stopping Bush.
There's a reason Republicans have put so much money, time and organizational effort into getting Nader on the ballot in key states: it's a chance to consolidate power. And there's a reason every major progressive organization in this country begged Ralph not to run. And that three quarters of participants in Nader's "Committee of 100" from four years ago are now mobilizing for Kerry in efforts like the Unity Campaign (www.theunitycampaign.org). As Chomsky says, "...Anyone who says 'I don't care if Bush gets elected' is basically telling poor and working people in the country, 'I don't care if your lives are destroyed... I don't care about you'... Apart from [this] being wrong, it's a recipe for disaster if you're hoping to ever develop a popular movement and a political alternative."
In fact, there's an odd parallel between Bush's total lack of accountability and belief in his divinely anointed infallibility, and Nader's. Nader insists that no matter how many how many long-time allies ask him to pull back, he has a direct line to the truth, and knows he's right. It's tragic that someone who has spent most of his life fighting to expand democracy is doing his best to make the worst of Florida's plantation politics our national political model.
I've heard Nader supporters say their vote won't matter. Or that Nader will actually take votes away from Bush. As a recent Nation Institute survey showed, Nader actually draws three to one or more from those who'd otherwise support Kerry, but if you'd otherwise support Bush, please do vote for Ralph. If you want to get Bush out, however, and your state is remotely close, then you need to act as if every vote matters, including your own, and those of everyone you turn out. You need to assume that the 366-vote margin in New Mexico (where Nader got 21,000 votes) or the 537 votes that Katherine Harris certified in Florida will be the outcome in your state this round, and that your actions will make the key difference. You don't want to become one more Republican tool.
Think about the 2002 French election. Progressives split their vote in the initial balloting, allowing neo-fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen to edge Socialist Lionel Jospin to make it onto the final ballot. In response, French progressives and moderates rallied around Conservative Jacques Chirac, because Le Pen was too great a threat to ignore. And Chirac surprised us all by refusing to go to war in Iraq. Bush's politics aren't as rightist as Le Pen, but their global impact is infinitely greater. Bush's Euro-bashing aside, this is one time to learn from the French.
I'm all in favor of acts of conscience. But we also have to be strategic. We can find ample ways to express our direct voice after November 2. If Kerry wins, I expect to be marching soon afterward to get America out of Iraq, because it's going to take persistent citizen action no matter which way the elections go. But symbolic statements and symbolic actions will not stop the Republican assaults on democracy. At some point we'll need to vote them out. That point is now.
Which One Will Win?
A Cherokee elder sitting with his grandchildren told them, In every life there is a terrible fight “ a fight between two wolves.
One is evil: he is fear, anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and deceit.
The other is good: joy, serenity, humility, confidence, generosity, truth, gentleness, and compassion.
A child asked, Grandfather, which wolf will win? The elder looked him in the eye. The one you feed.
peace, love &
joy,
~ Carol
(Mom)
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