T H E . B O X C L O C K E R Y

Electoral Map Predictions

2008-06-24T15:34:00.004-05:00

With 133 days to go until the General Election in November, I thought it might be fun to try to take a stab at how I think the electoral vote will break on November 8. The LA Times has this neat little gadget where you can create your own map, and supposedly save and embed them to post on blogs. Unfortunately, the embed feature doesn't seem to be working, so for now I'll just link to my maps, and I'll update with the maps later, if they get it working. Anyway here are my three different scenarios for November.

Worst Case Scenario Prediction: Obama 264 McCain 261 Too-Close: VA (13)

This scenario is a repeat of 2004's electoral college, with the exception of a Democratic pickup in only two states: IA and NM. Media darlings OH and FL are, in this model, red, and it all comes down to Virginia.

Iowa is basically a lock for Obama, though its results in the fall will largely depend on how the candidates deal with the issue of flood response. In spite of all the silly race-baiting "Latino-voters-are-afraid-of-black-people" pseudo-reporting the MSM did back during the primary there, the electorate in New Mexico is coalescing around the Democratic candidate. If Gov. Richardson manages to convince his constituents that Obama is the man for the job (and if the Obama people publicly offer him a cabinet seat), NM should be a lock too.

In Virginia, the hugely popular Mark Warner is on the ballot for Senate for the Dems and since Obama's campaign is specifically targeting Virginia for pickup, I feel confident, as does the Obama campaign, that VA can be turned blue.

However, if Obama makes no other pickups over 2004 elsewhere in the country, VA becomes a must-win. I can't conceive of any way right now in which a 2004 blue state would turn red in 2008, so the only model in which I see a McCain win would be if Obama fails to "change the map" with VA and we get a basic repeat of 2004. Predicting that the race comes down to a late night nail-biter in Virginia assumes some pretty serious shifting of the polling tides which currently show Obama starting to open a wide gap over McCain. Perhaps the Obama campaign gets completely battered from now to November with stupid gaffes, or he blows it in the debates, or the MSM continues to ignore McCain's constant double-speak. It's not likely, but it's not impossible either.

Of note about this model: if Obama wins VA, he wins the presidency without FL and OH. So maybe we can finally move on.

Actual Reality-Based Prediction: Obama 337 McCain 201

This one is the one that I actually think will pan out in November. In it, I have Obama not only pick up VA, but also turn OH blue, as well as a big bunch of states across the latitudinal middle of the country: NV, CO, MO, NC.

CO currently has Obama consistently leading and pulling ahead in the polls, and having the Convention in Denver this year will probably help Obama secure that state's 9 EV's. NV has similar demographics to other mountain-west pickup prospects for Obama, and he out-raised McCain there by 4:1, but the state has recently had some of the lowest voter turnout of any state in the country. That can be bad for Obama, or it can be good: if his netroots machine can bring new voters into the game the way he did in the primaries, he could not only take the 5 EV's, but also help down-ballot Dem candidates across the state.

In MO, Rasmussen has Obama pulling off a huge swing in the last three months, with the state going from 38-53 McCain in March to a statistical tie, 43-42 Obama in June. It'll be a fight in Missouri, but I think he can turn it. The May 6 primary upset in NC for Obama showed his power to beat the polls in that state, and the polls for the general currently have him in behind McCain but within the MOE. If Obama can get the African American population to turn out for him in NC, he can turn this long-time red state blue.

IN is close right now, but I don't see it going for Obama just now. It's a close one, but for safety's sake, I'm keeping it red. As for OH, everyone has something to say about Ohio, but I'll keep mine brief. The statistical gods at FiveThirtyEight say that Obama has a 78% chance of winning the state and its 20 EV's. They're really good at what they do.

Happy Magical Fantasy Projection: Obama 396 McCain 142

This is the map that has Republicans losing sleep at night. In this one, Obama picks up not just CO, IA, MO, NC, NM, NV, and VA from my "real" prediction, but also manages to pull in AK, FL, GA, IN and ND, taking a grand total of 12 2004 Bush states, and beating McCain in the electoral college by over 2:1. Like my worst-case scenario, this one is not especially likely, but certainly not impossible -- FiveThirtyEight currently puts the chance of an Obama 375+ EV landslide at over 40%.

FL, right now, is a toss-up, and so is IN. But if the McCain campaign can't keep competitive. AK has an incredibly tight Senate race right now, and if this is the year for incumbents to be afraid, Alaskan Democrats may show up in droves to oust unpopular Republican Ted Stevens in favor of Mark Begich and, in so doing, turn the state blue. There hasn't been much polling lately in ND, but they have two Dems in the Senate and may about to buck their long-time Republican presidential voting pattern.

GA is where it gets interesting. Current polls show McCain leading by low-double digits, with the exception of one. This may be the deep south, but it is a state that went for Clinton in 1992. GA has a huge African-American population, and you know the Obama campaign is going to have a major voter-registration push in the state in order to secure their votes. But that's not what makes the state interesting. Here's what does: Bob Barr.

Now, I'm personally no fan of Bob Barr as a politician. During his time as a Republican congressman from GA-7, he led the impeachment push against Clinton and authored the Defense of Marriage Act (both of which I think chafe with his libertarian bona fides). But following the election of Bush, he became a vocal critic of the president's abuse of power, and left the Republican party. And he did later renounce the whole DoMA thing. Not that it makes it okay. Anyway, now he's the Libertarian Party's candidate for president. He's well-enough liked in his home state, and many true conservatives and Ron Paul types are looking to the Libertarian Party as a tonic for the false conservatism of Bush Republicanism.

Earlier I said one poll in the state didn't have McCain with a big lead. That poll came from Insider Advantage, who put Barr's name on the poll. In that poll, McCain led Obama by only 1%. Keep an eye on GA and its 15 EV's. It could be the surprise of the year.

And now, I think I'm gonna go outside. This is incredibly nerdy and I need some fresh air.

Review: The Happening

2008-06-17T17:53:00.005-05:00

I'm a fan of the films of M. Night Shyamalan. I loved The Sixth Sense when it first came out; I dug Unbreakable when I first saw it, and have only come to appreciate it more as my tastes have matured; I still think Signs is great, simple, effective popcorn fun with lots of heart; I think that The Village, while uneven, is beautiful to look at and never boring. I didn't hate Lady in the Water the way some people did, but I didn't much care for it. I dismissed it as a vanity exercise that went wildly out of hand. Shyamalan's track record, while decreasingly impressive with each outing, was strong enough that I was able to believe he could still make great movies.

When I first heard the premise of The Happening -- that something in the air was causing groups of people to spontaneously commit suicide -- I had the same reaction that I think most people had: sounds creepy, but potentially lame. But the more I heard about it, the more I considered it in the context of other superficially-misanthropic but ultimately heartfelt and cautionary sci-fi films like Soylent Green or Children of Men. This could actually be pretty cool.

Then came the early reviews, which were at best disappointed and at worst outright vicious. Knowing that the infamously narcissistic Shyamalan is something of a polarizing figure in internet geek culture, I was able to dismiss the more venomous criticisms, but it certainly didn't raise my hopes any. Then as the release approached, I checked the movie's rating on Rottentomatoes and saw it fluctuating between the low 20's and low teens. Then every person I know who had seen the movie warned me against seeing it. I had to see what could possibly be so bad.

The Happening may well be the worst movie I have ever paid money to go see.

You have got to see The Happening.

It's bad. It's bad like a disease. It's congenitally, pathologically bad. It's a train wreck, but not a normal one. It's the wreckage of a train rocketed off the rails onto a desert of jagged rocks by a jet engine that just. won't. stop.

It starts off promisingly enough. Right out of the gate, we get a series of violent public mass suicides that are chilling in their suddenness, disturbing in their grisly detail, and ultimately rather silly but nonetheless entertaining. Unfortunately -- and especially disappointingly from a director with an established history of knowing a thing or two about suspense -- all the good stuff is in this very first scene. Things grind pretty quickly to a halt afterwards as we plunge into long stretches of Phantom Menace-esque dialogue so stilted that only a circus acrobat could successfully walk them.

Unfortunately, nobody here seems quite up to the task, or even completely sure what that would entail. Mark Wahlberg, who Shyamalan says he wrote the lead character for, spends the whole movie seeming clearly out of his element as the film's high school science teacher protagonist. Perhaps Shyamalan intended to exploit the actor's obvious disorientation in order to convey a sense of panic and confusion. Maybe that's why the camera spends so much time tight on his face. The infinitely watchable Zooey Deschanel is given absolutely nothing to do as the why-are-we-supposed-to-care-about-this-exactly love interest. Her best moments are her unscripted face takes between being forced to speak brain-meltingly lines like "I'm uncomfortable expressing my feelings, too." Then there's John Leguizamo who is wasted in a short role which gives him the dubious honor of having to snap the line that made my audience finally turn on the movie thirty minutes in; "don't you take my daughter's hand unless you mean it!" One of the critiques of Lady in the Water was that it the dialogue lacked any subtext. For The Happening, Shyamalan has invented dialogue with supertext.

Beyond the film's flawed premise, awkward dialogue, pedestrian visual vocabulary, even the more fluffy superficial stuff doesn't work. "Quirky" minor characters, like the goofy greenhouse owning family that really likes hotdogs, a couple of wise-cracking kids whose only purpose in the film seems to be getting killed in front of Wahlberg, and a Forrest Gumpian army private who runs around and stammers, all strain for some kind of folksy humor and consistently fall flat on their faces. The attempts at humor often come in the middle of moments of peril, leaving the audience not laughing, but rather suddenly ripped out of whatever sense of peril they may have felt. The deaths, on the other hand, become increasingly hilarious, my personal favorite being the zookeeper getting his CG arms ripped off by lions in a greenscreen zoo pen. Then there's this incredibly dumb scare near the end involving a doll that I'm still scratching my head over. I'm serious: nothing in this movie works.

At the end of the movie, you're left feeling as if you've just watched a film adaptation of the kind of irredeemably, senselessly violent thing that a seventh-grader would write and get sent to the counselor's office. Like Cole's drawing of a man "hurting another man in the neck with a screwdriver" in The Sixth Sense, it makes you worry. I was hoping that I would leave The Happening with a restored faith in a filmmaker who has made some brilliant and thrilling pop work in his relatively short career. I left with something better: a drinking game.

Take a drink:
- Every time we go in for a close-up of Wahlberg looking confused.
- Every time there's a "scary" shot of "scary" wind blowing through "scary" plants.
- Every time somebody says the word "happening."
- Every time a minor character says something "quaint."
- Every time there's a bit of voice-over dialogue in a scene transition obviously recorded in post to try to tie things together.
- Every time Zooey Deschanel outclasses the movie.
- Every time one of the suicides makes you laugh instead of flinch.

"The Audacity of Hope": The Speech in Retrospect

2008-06-05T00:53:00.003-05:00

After his speech last night, I went and looked up Obama's 2004 DNCC Keynote Address, "The Audacity of Hope" on YouTube. I wanted to revisit the auspicious and serendipitous moment which ultimately altered American history. Because, again, cool like that.

I remember catching the end of him speaking on TV at my friend Travis' house while we were editing our first feature film, The Congregation. I, like the rest of the country, found myself surprised by this guy, this charming curiosity, and found myself part of that national murmur about that one guy running for Senate in Indiana or whatever, y'know, with the weird name. This guy was something to keep an eye on. Hell, maybe when he's a little older, he oughta run for president.

Watching it again now, in the context of what has happened since, that speech is an odd little artifact. The whole presentation has a certain humble charm, and the then-state Senator for Illinois' 13th District, played onto the stage by suitably patronizing shrill black spiritual music ("he's black, everyone!"), looks like a kid. When he starts speaking, its rhetorically an oddly underwhelming experience when compared to the soaring verse of the Obama we know now. But hearing him say these things and remembering the reaction they drew four years ago reminded me just what a bitter, acrimonious, irrational world American politics was in 2004.

After the requisite thank-yous and the brief autobiographical stuff (that may ultimately find itself snuggled between Lincoln's log cabin and Washington's cherry tree as part of America's cultural heritage), Obama starts into the meat of his speech:

"Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago:

"'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'

"That is the true genius of America." (Applause)

Nice. The talk of skyscrapers and military, of course, instantly makes you think of 9/11 and Iraq, the two things which Bush/Rove's campaign hinged on/jammed down our throats. He undercuts that throat-jamming by quoting the founding documents and being interrupted, for neither the first nor the last time, by spontaneous applause. You can almost sense the room thinking "holy crap, he's right, this country is about more than 9/11."

He follows that up with a long stretch about John Kerry. But he speaks about John Kerry in relation to the real people of the United States, not as the John Kerry, candidate who windsurfs, candidate who smiles, candidate who isn't George Bush, as presented by his own campaign. That Obama was able to do something as simple as cogently give us an idea of who John Kerry was without once having to overtly contrast him to Bush may be part of the reason this speech stood out so much to observers four years ago, when the party and its candidate were so critically unfocused and identity-less.

He then starts to bring it into the home stretch, as he begins to talk about the common things that bind us all as Americans. He delivers this passage which has come to be remembered as one of the most significant parts of the speech.

"Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us -- the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of "anything goes." Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America.

"The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

Naturally, I appreciate that "gay friends" got mentioned in a convention keynote, and in the years since, Obama has proven that his references to the struggles of gay Americans in speeches in front of non-exclusively-gay audiences are more than just lip-service (at least more so than Clinton, who will speak in circuitous sentences just to avoid saying the word "gay"). I've even gotten to thank Senator Obama personally for mentioning gay Americans in his speeches.

But that's beside the larger point, which is that stating what should be the obvious -- that despite our political differences we are all Americans, and we share common values -- was such a shock to the political atmosphere of 2004, that it is remembered as one of the highlights of the speech. Then, of course, he talks about that word which has become his calling card: Hope.

"I’m not talking about blind optimism here -- the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t think about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too."

A little self-deprecation with the crowd already overwhelmingly with you, always a nice touch.

Finally, after a big more issue-specific speechifying, he brings it home:

"I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us!

"America, tonight, if you feel the same energy that I do, if you feel the same urgency that I do, if you feel the same passion that I do, if you feel the same hopefulness that I do -- if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the country, from Florida to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as President, and John Edwards will be sworn in as Vice President, and this country will reclaim its promise, and out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come!"

And with that, and a few "thank you's" he left the stage. And everybody was cheering. And I, leaning over the back of a couch in the living room of my friend's Republican parents, grinning, let out a surprised "huh." I like this guy, I thought. It had been awhile since I found myself spontaneously thinking I liked someone in the national political spotlight.

Then later, of course, John Kerry took the stage and talked about...

... er.

What did John Kerry talk about?

... Man were we ever hopelessly lost in 2004. The national dialogue had been reduced to the Republicans screaming "Democrats bad, weak, stupid, flip-flop, war, weak, bad, terrorism, 9/11, 9/11, war, weak, flip-flop, 9/11!" under the direction of conductor Karl Rove, while most of the Democrats tried to perform their own rendition of the same tune, but were too polite to scream or say the word "stupid." While the Republicans were taking petty cynical politics to titanic new heights, the Democrats were trying to play petty cynical politics back at them, only with too much temerity (or rather, dignity) to actually be petty or cynical.

Obama's 2004 keynote speech, in its magnificent simplicity, cut through this acrid cloud of a dialogue derailed by providing a Democratic voice that simply refused to play the Republicans' game of 50-percent-plus-one. It reminded us, without being haughty or preachy, that America -- that Americans -- are better than this.

Barack Obama won his Senate seat in 2004 by 70% to 27%, the largest win in a statewide race in Illinois history.

John Kerry lost the presidency in 2004 by 50.7% to 48.3%.

In a time of Swiftboating and near-universal Democratic defeat, Barack Obama said some novel things about our country that got some people's attention. Lots of people, most of them outside of his home state. And as we as a nation slogged through the months of the second Bush term, we couldn't stop thinking about this whole "hope" thing. There was a growing momentum, a nagging need. By October of 2006, after Plamegate and Katrina and a spiraling Iraq had reminded us just how bad things had gotten, it began to be hard for Obama to ignore our inability to ignore him. He was on Oprah, and Meet the Press, and in the cover story of an article of Time. His face filled the front of the magazine, next to the sentence "Why Barack Obama Could Be the Next President."

Three months after that, he acknowedged what he had started and formally announced his candidacy.

Sixteen months after that, he defeated the Clinton machine within their own party and became the nominee.

Many (Senator Clinton comes immediately to mind) have criticized Senator Obama for his relative newness to the national political scene. They say he has one thing to run on: a speech he made in 2004. But if you really take a critical, historical look at what that speech was, at how because of it and because of the excitement it created and the campaign it spawned the debate in this country has become substantive again, it becomes clear "The Audacity of Hope" is more than just a fluke case of a rookie getting lucky his first time on the national stage. It tapped into a critical need within the American public to reassess and redefine our politics. The speech is a simple thesis for a new kind of progressive politics. Actually, an old kind. E pluribus unum. It marked a point of departure from which a tidal wave of American voters have broken off from the partisan shouting matches in an effort to effect what has become the word personified by Obama's campaign: change.

As we move into the post-Bush era of American politics (thank you, God!), we are faced as a nation with an opportunity to enact that change. Nearly three quarter of Americans see the country as being off on the wrong track, a number higher than at any time in as long as pollsters have been asking them that question. "The Audacity of Hope" may very well come to be viewed as a touchstone for turning that around. This campaign is not going to be a cakewalk, but if we win this thing, Senator Obama will be proven right in every way except for one: the names on the ticket. Substitute "John Kerry" with "Barack Obama" and "John Edwards" with "Not Hillary Clinton."

This country will reclaim its promise, and out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come.

Barack Obama: Democratic Presidential Nominee 2008

2008-06-04T18:36:00.006-05:00

Holy crap, America!

Barack Obama is the Presidential Nominee for the Democratic Party! This is a huge, landmark moment in history. One of the two major political parties in this country has nominated a black man to be their candidate for President of the United States.

I say again, holy crap, America!

Of course, I'm not just excited about this because Barack Obama is black. Despite my initial questions, I've been a supporter of Barack Obama since very early on in the primary campaign. I even volunteered for his campaign when he came through Texas. So part of what excites me is just the fact that the guy I supported got the gig. But the enormity of this moment in our national timeline is, right now, immeasurable. I think some of the discussion of the incredible magnitude of this victory was undercut in the press last night by the talking heads trying to wrap their heads around Sen. Clinton's bizarre (and characteristically narcissistic) non-concession concession speech and McCain's equally bizarre (and characteristically unexciting) "please look at me" forced-smile-a-thon (who in the McCain campaign decided it was a good idea to have him speak the night that the Dems wrap things up, a few minutes before the delegate count pushed over 2118?). But in the weeks, months, and years to come, June 3, 2008 will be remembered as the day that the Democratic Party made history. And I will be able to say that I was a part of it.

The speech Senator Obama gave last night was incredible. If you haven't seen it, click on that link. Or at the very least, read this excerpt from the end of the speech.

In our country, I have found that this cooperation happens not because we agree on everything, but because behind all the labels and false divisions and categories that define us; beyond all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington, Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again.

[...]
America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.
The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.

Watching this speech last night with my friends (we ordered a pizza and sat around the TV. Because we're cool like that), we believed it. You can tell Obama did, too. As he delivers that final passage, the tone of his voice changes; it becomes higher, like his throat is tightened by the sudden onset of emotion. He literally, though almost imperceptibly, chokes up. He realizes that this truly is that moment, and, realizes with humility and grace, that he has the honor to be the focal point of this pivotal moment in American political and cultural history.

I love Michelle giving him the rock right before he speaks. I love that on so many levels. It was obviously spur-of-the-moment, and it totally humanizes these two. They obviously didn't expect the applause that met the Senator to last as long as it did, and as the gravity of the moment began to sink in, they revealed themselves to be everything John and Cindy McCain aren't as a would-be-first-couple: youthful, hip, humble, and obviously very much in love.

And also black.

Did you know that Barack Obama is black? Because he is. Yeah, the guy that the Democrats just nominated for the presidency is a black guy. Holy crap, America.

I don't know about you, but I'm fired up, and I'm ready to go.

UPDATE:
The fact that the Senator gave his acceptance speech in the very same building where the Republicans are going to have their convention elicited this from a DailyKos user:

The (New) Boxclockery

2008-06-04T17:40:00.000-05:00

I'm back.

I haven't been writing for a while now, mostly because for a few months I didn't have access to a computer of my own after my laptop died during a move into a new apartment last June. Later, The Workingchair died and a link farm sprouted up in its place. So between not having a place to blog, and not having a place to put the blog, it kind of fell a few rungs on my priority list.

After a year of alternating between barely blogging and completely not blogging, I've decided to start again. A lot has happened in that year. I graduated from UT, I shook Barack Obama's hand (again), and am now getting ready to move. Again.

Things are going to be kinda weird format-wise for awhile as I try to settle into something I like. And it may take me awhile to have a steady stream of posts going, because, again, moving. For the few of you who were fans of the old blog, I've archived it and uploaded it to the Blogspot server here, but some of the old pictures which were on The Workingchair's server didn't carry over, so some of the posts may not make a lot of sense. For those of you who are new: welcome. This is going to be fun.