AddieStan

Noting your blogstress's fixation on electoral vote-counting (and no doubt her recent linkage to that novel site, ElectoralVote.com , your cybertrix's partner in musical crimes, the fabulous Frankie G., sends along this soothing visual , instructing us all to relax. Om... *Readers who can cite the title and composer of the song from whence this lyric comes will receive an autographed picture of your blogstress in her bustier.

One of your blogstress's favorite cyberscribes takes issue with her dire warnings about Bush make a play for the Garden State. Josh Rhoderick of Turnspit makes this fascinating observation : In 2000, Karl Rove pumped funds and advertising into an almost hopeless California to give the impression that the campaign was confident. The idea was to generate good headlines throughout the media: "Bush Confident," "Bush Strong," etc. Well... it didn't work, but now he's trying it again with a minor shift in strategy. This time, Rove isn't wasting any valuable assets on New Jersey. Point taken, but your Webwench is still less sanguine on account of that dark hole of undecided voters in her beloved Garden State--all 12 percent of them. And the president's despicable speech delivered today in Burlington County was, alas, very effective.

A recent Farleigh Dickenson poll puts New Jersey back in the Kerry column , but by a mere two points--which is really a tie if you factor in the margin of error. The outcome of the toss-up rests with an unusually wide swath of undecided voters, calculated at some 12 percent of likely voters. As noted in yesterday's post, President Bush will grace New Jersey with his presence tomorrow, to deliver what is billed as a major homeland security address. One can only hope that the voters have the good sense to see beyond the posturing to take note of the austerity budgets on which the enforcers of border protection and immigration law have been placed for nearly a year. One also hopes that the Dems and the unions get off the denial train about what's going on west of the Hudson River, and stop sending Jersey's foot soldiers to Pennsylvania. We're talkin' 15 electoral votes, folks, that are virtually up for grabs east of the Delaware River. And yeah, Pennsylvania...

Much to your blogstress's dismay, she finds that the denizens of her beloved homeland have thrown the typically Democratic Garden State into play as a battleground. It appears to be a homeland security thing. The largest number of undecided voters live in North Jersey which, in many ways, is a sort of the sixth boro of New York City. There many people saw the World Trade Center fall with their own eyes, and some 700 New Jerseyans lost their lives that day in the attacks. Somehow that trauma has drawn ordinarily Democratic voters to President Bush, on the premise that he is somehow better able to protect them and the homeland from the schemes of the terrorists. And this perception could cost Sen. John Kerry the election, since it's hard to imagine how he can win without Jersey's 15 electoral votes. On Monday, the president will make a rare visit to New Jersey to deliver what is being billed as a major address on homeland security. At this stage in the campaign, ...

Blue suits, red ties, white shirts and those cute little flag pins The final debate in Tempe

Kerry's on a roll; it's too bad there are no more debates--clearly an arena in which the Democrat excels. Bush was, once again, twitchy, and got himself in trouble by denying his 2002 comments about Osama bin Laden, about whom he claimed to have no worries. (Note, dear reader, that AddieStan had aptly rebutted this claim within minutes of its utterance with a link to the transcript of the March 13, 2002, press conference at which Bush made that assertion. Scroll to item, "Exaggeration? You decide".) Torn between tracking down links and making original analysis or commenting on every question and answer, your Webwench chose the former path. Consequently, a number of consequential issues--Social Security, the minimum wage, abortion rights--escaped the wisdom of her pen. So she will do her best to follow up on those matters tomorrow, with special attention the women whose votes the candidates were wooing. Your cybertrix also received insightful commentary and...

How awful of that John Kerry to mention Vice President Dick Cheney's out lesbian daughter in a discussion of sexual orientation and gay marriage! Just ask MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, or Ben Ginsburg, legal adviser to the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush and late of the Bush Cheney campaign (not that the two have anything to do with each other). According to these two, it was just despicable and depraved for the Democratic presidential candidate to note the vice president's top campaign adviser and beloved daughter as an example of a queer person who apparently knows who she is. Your blogstress concurs with those pundits who suggest, as did MSNBC's Ron Reagan, Jr., that Kerry's mention of Mary Cheney in this context wasn't exactly a smooth move. Indeed, this sort of thing always makes your Webwench squirm. However, a Google search of Scarborough's response to GOP senatorial candidate Alan Keyes' assertion that Ms. Cheney was, by definition, as "a s...

Whoa! Out of the dog house? Schrum sighting on MSNBC for spin. As the Internationalist said, "Who took the sock out of your mouth, Bob?" For those outside the Beltway, Bob Schrum was the the big wheel on the Kerry campaign before he got kicked aside by the Clinton crew when Kerry was lookin' like toast.

The the question that led to the candidates' stating their personal theologies escaped your Webwench's ears, overridden as they were by the Internationalist's exclamations of joy as the Yankees extended their lead over the Red Sox. The answers were, nonetheless, fascinating. Here's the president at his most eloquent: "I received calmness in the storms of the presidency [from prayer]." But then he went on to say that he had "unleashed the armies of compassion," heedless of the hackles once raised elsewhere in the world when he delcared a "crusade" against America's enemies. (Onward Christian soldiers...) "That's part of my foreign policy," the president said of his faith. "I believe that the freedom [in Afghanistan] is a gift from the Almighty." From the peanut gallery came an alarming cry of, "Yes!" The Yankees had just scored. In a poignant rejoinder, Kerry replied,"I believe ...

When asked about the unconscionable cadre of Roman Catholic bishops who are all but instructing their flocks not to vote for Kerry, the Massachusetts took no bait but brooked no bitterness, with the simple response that he did not agree with the bishops' position. What a change in perception from even the last presidential election. It seems that someone seems to have gotten the message--unlike much of the media--that there is no "Catholic vote ," nor has there been one for some time. For at least 15 years, Catholic voters have split about the same as the general population on the subject of abortion, and most other subjects, for that matter. It's all about class and geography--not the ethno-religio thang.

The Internationalist got all excited--alas, not by your blogstress's fetching attire, but by the president's mention of unmanned vehicles tracking illegal immigrants. So that's where the blimp (item: "Big Peep") went, he said. On a more serious note, the administration is starving the Border Patrol for human resources (the entire Department of Homeland Security is under a hiring freeze) while spending big bucks on unmanned surveillance drones. But, as one sage told your blogstress, "A drone never made an arrest."

Our dear friend, the Internationalist, who is wandering between your your blogstress's oppo factory and another television (torn 'twixt the Yankees' contest against the reviled Red Sox and the Arizona presidential slugfest) ambles to his laptop, wine glass in hand, to e-mail your blogstress from the next room: What's so damn great about marriage? Being a single, straight man, he appears flummoxed by Shieffer's question about gay marriage. To this, your ambisexual cybertrix knows not the answer. But she does know the correct answer to Shieffer's main question: Do you think homosexuality is a choice? It doesn't matter, Bob, whether or not it is. What consenting adults do in their own bedrooms matters not to me. As Thomas Jefferson said about those whose religious practice differed from his, "It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Must be a Skull 'n' Bones thing...

From the President's press conference of March 13, 2002 President Bush: So I don't know where [Osama bin Laden] is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly [Kelly Wallace, Cable News Network], to be honest with you... Q: But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive? The President: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And again, I don't know where he is. I--I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban...

Will our children live in as safe a world as we did? The opening gambit, that. (Your blogstress, who admires Mr. Shieffer, regrets to remind him that people in, say, Cambodia or Angola or Bangladesh weren't living in a very safe world when your cybertrix was but a young Selectric-vixen.) Kerry's answer was good: question is not whether we're safer than we were, but "Are we as safe as we ought to be?" He then reminded viewers that Bush once said he wasn't terribly worried about Osama bin Laden; that he didn't think about him much. To which the president, replied, "That's one of those ex-ag-ger-a-tions." Oh, you mean like Saddam's awesome weapons of mass destruction?

While watching tonight's big finale in the presidential debate, be sure to keep AddieStan.com up on your screen for drole and pithy real-time analysis of the candidates' on-screen antics. As usual, your bustiered blogstress will be cranking out the commentary from her Capitol Hill oppo factory. In the meantime, contemplate this: If the Bush family has its way, it won't matter who won tonight's debate, or anything else, for that matter. Check out this Washington Post report on brother Jeb tossing out the voter registration forms of African-Americans.

With the Afghanistan presidential election having taking place without a burst of violence on Election Day, fortune has smiled upon the Bush administration--not to mention the Afghan people. Your blogstress has little doubt that fraud occurred through both nefarious intent and simple confusion, but it's important for critics to understand that A VOTE TOOK PLACE in a nation long controlled by demi-Napoleons claiming crowns for themselves. Western commentators would be wise, thinks your cybertrix, to drop that line about the Afghans having no tradition of voting to which to refer: the Loya Jirga, a sort of tribal council, has been the traditional instrument of rule in villages and provinces for hundreds of years. Reminiscent of native American Indian councils, the Loya Jirga is a body of elders who determine courses of action by votes among themselves. Hardly a perfect form of government in a nation where women are locked out of governance structures, but nonetheless it doe...

This piece was originally posted on Friday, October 8, 2004. It was moved for indexing purposes. It's a perfect caress of an evening here in the nation's capital, with a breeze stirring just enough to make its presence known, the air neither too cool for short sleeves nor too warm for long. Behind the Capitol dome, a sky recently vacated by the sun forms an indigo backdrop streaked with teal-tinted clouds. In the day-to-day leading up to the Most Important Election in a Generation (or a Lifetime, or the Century, depending on whom is speaking), it's become all too easy to forget what a truly lovely place this can be. The denizens, including your blogstress, can hardly be blamed as they navigate checkpoints and endure surveillence and warnings of impending doom. To the nation, Capitol Hill is the place where the laws, the kielbasi, whatever you want to call them, get made. But it is also a neighborhood lined with trees and quaint row houses that take on a twinkly glo...

The town hall (Oh, come on!) presidential smack-down Mea culpa Watching Kerry perform tonight, your blogstress is nearly poised to take back every mean thing she ever said about the senator from Massachusetts. (Note the adverb, "nearly.") What she has most to answer for is her premature prediction that he couldn't win the election, and for that she is indeed beating her comely breast. In order to facilitate her self-flagellation, your cybertrix is closing up the blog shop for the evening. Bon nuit, mes amis.

Counselor to the president Karen Hughes turned up on MSNBC as Bush's heavy artillery, looking ebullient, no doubt ecstatic not to have witnessed a second meltdown of her candidate. In assessing the president's purported success in this evening's forum, the former counselor to the president (now counselor to the candidate) asserted: "He's a people person." To her credit, MSNBC's Chris Jansing challenged this perception: "He looked angry, he looked mean," she said, "[and] he nearly charged Charlie Gibson at one point." "He looked friendly," countered the grinning Ms. Hughes. "He had that twinkle in his eye." Apparently what your blogstress saw as a twitch turned out to be a twinkle. Naughty to be haughty Watch word of the night: haughty. The Bush spinners--most recently, Karen Hughes--are all using it. They say that's how Kerry looked. And they're a bit right. He's a haughty guy. But y...