A budding theocracy is growing in Virginia at the hands of new governor Bob McDonnell and his attorney general Ken “Mafioso” Cuccinelli.

Notes: Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was a five-term Republican United States Senator from North Carolina.

Helms called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 :the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress,” and sponsored legislation to either extend it to the entire country or scrap it altogether. Helms reminded voters that he tried, with a 16-day filibuster, to stop the Senate from approving a federal holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Segregationist Helms was the torch bearer of white supremacy until his death in 2008. [ READ MORE ]

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By MICHAEL B. FARRELL
Nov. 29, 2008

When President Bush says so long to Washington on Jan. 20, he’ll return to a much different Lone Star State from the one he left eight years ago.

Pickup trucks, Big Oil, and barbecue brisket still reign supreme, but this red state that helped deliver the presidency to Mr. Bush twice and his father once, and that catapulted GOP strategist Karl Rove to the national stage, is suddenly spotted with big pockets of blue.

Dallas is controlled by Democrats; Houston is in their hands, too. It’s all largely because of the state’s growing Hispanic population, which overwhelmingly sided with Democrats this year.

“The tide of demography in Texas is moving against the Republicans,” says Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “All the major cities are Democratic and are likely to become more so over time.”

The Pew Hispanic Center reports that Latino voters sided with President-elect Obama over Sen. John McCain by a margin of more than 2 to 1, helping Democrats win crucial states such as Florida, Virginia, Nevada, and Colorado. While the overall Hispanic turnout did not rise much, it accounted for 9 percent of the vote this year and 8 percent in 2004 — Latino support for the GOP dropped nine percentage points, according to Pew.

That has left Republicans panicking and Democrats drooling. Duncan Currie writes in last week’s conservative Weekly Standard that Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R) of Florida says the GOP has a “very, very serious problem” because of diminishing Hispanic support.

Political scientists, sociologists, and activists say that concern reflects a keen awareness of what a growing and increasingly political Latino community could mean in big, traditionally red states like Texas: Those voters could tip Democratic in future national contests.

“We are in the process of watching this remarkable shift,” says Stephen Klineberg, a sociologist at Rice University here, referring to the overall demographic transformation of America. “You can be absolutely certain that every election [to come] in Texas will have a larger percentage of Latino voters.”

In 2005, Texas joined California, New Mexico, and Hawaii as states where minority populations collectively outnumber whites, according to the US Census Bureau. In Texas and California, the second-largest group behind whites, and the fastest-growing population, is Hispanics. Nationwide, Hispanics number about 45.5 million, or 15 percent of the population. In Texas, Latinos make up about 36 percent of the population and about 20 percent of participating voters this year.

“It’s the biggest pool of Hispanic voters left in a state that didn’t vote Democratic in 2008,” not counting Arizona, because it’s Senator McCain’s home state, says Richard Murray, a political scientist at the University of Houston.

For the Democratic Party nationally, the overwhelming Hispanic support presents an inviting opportunity, especially to develop party loyalty among younger Latinos, who backed Mr. Obama 76 percent to 19 percent for McCain, according the Pew analysis.

In Harris Country, which includes Houston, 70 percent of people older than 60 are Anglo, while more than 75 percent of people younger than 30 are non-Anglo, notes Professor Klineberg.

While Bush didn’t carry the Hispanic vote here in 2004, he came close. He captured 49 percent of that bloc, with 50 percent going to Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry. Republicans also lost ground among Hispanics this year in Florida.

Since the advent of his political career, though, Bush found ways to appeal to the Latino community, which saw him favorably for his close relationships with Latin American leaders, his faith-based initiatives, and his ability to speak Spanish.

While Hispanics are not a monolithic bloc, many began turning away from the Republicans in Texas, and elsewhere in the US, amid the harsh rhetoric about immigration reform in 2007, says Professor Murray.

| Read: Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News |

“Even in Texas you can’t just be a party of white folks,” he says. “Nationally and locally, the party is going to have to do some retooling.”

Though the Lone Star State’s spots of blue darkened on Election Day, the state remains solidly Republican (55 percent McCain, 44 percent Obama). McCain scored huge victories in rural Texas, taking as much as 93 percent of the vote in some counties in the Panhandle, helping deliver the state’s 34 electoral votes to the Republicans. The statehouse in Austin also remains in Republican hands.

Associated Press exit polls showed that whites, seniors, Christians, and the affluent largely stayed with the GOP ticket and that McCain took two-thirds of the state’s white vote and about three-fifths of families making more than $50,000 annually.

While rural, suburban, and small-town Texans stick with traditional Republican values, Klineberg says, a new cosmopolitan and high-tech Texas is emerging in cities such as Houston, which is the country’s fourth-largest city, with a population of about 2 million.

Houstonian Judy Craft, a longtime Democratic activist and an environmentalist, is used to swimming against the red tide in Texas. “I was hoping we’d do better, but that’s because I’m really good at suspending my disbelief during the middle of a campaign,” says Ms. Craft, who signed off her e-mails during the campaign with the hopeful wish that Texas would turn blue. “Oh well, at least I got a bluer shade of purple.”

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Witch doctor sees Obama win — A Kenyan witch doctor says his divining bones tell him Barack Obama will be the next U.S. president.

Kenya wants Obama — Barack Obama’s extended family in Kenya prays for a win. CNN’s David McKenzie reports from Kogelo.

Barack Obama’s Last Rally – Virginia | Obama reflects on his time campaigning around the country and thanks his supporters.

Obama’s stepmother proud — Barack Obama’s stepmother tells ITN’s Reshma Rumsey how proud she is of him.

Snake-Oil salesmen John McCain and Sarah Palin are in “Hyena Mode” — desperate and discombobulated, the McCain-Palin team are chewing at anything in their path, including each other.

The empty headed DIVA — Sarah Palin, is squabbling with her handlers, and every “Cockroach” in the McCain camp is scampering to save “dear hide,” in the face of imminent defeat, as THE ONE — Barack Obama takes the fight to them in Republican red-state turf.

The Huffington Post reports: Even two Republicans once on McCain’s short list for vice president sound skeptical. In a fundraising e-mail on behalf of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Mitt Romney referred to “the very real possibility of an Obama presidency.” In the Midwest, Gov. Tim Pawlenty gave a dour assessment of McCain’s chances in his state, saying Barack Obama “has a pretty good advantage in Minnesota right now.”

Even tax cheat “Joe The Plumber” a.k.a “Joe Wurzelbacher The IDIOT,” now a McCain surrogate, has inserted himself into the pathetic scare mongering mix — boldly insinuating that an Obama presidency would mean the “death of Israel” and the “end of democracy in America. ”

Joe oozes GODLY stupidity like the Republican he is, alright.

Meanwhile a Republican attempt at electronic vote theft was caught on tape in Virginia:

…and some of McCain’s robo-calls have degenerated into “Phone-Sex.”

The negative and racist McCain campaign has driven almost ALL African American voters to Obama. In most polls, McCain is losing these black voters by margins like 97% to 1%.

You can bet the Latino vote is not far behind. John McCain the former champion of Comprehensive Immigration Reform recently did a one hundred and eighty degree turn, and is now in bed with the extremist “Tom Tancredo-Lou Dobbs Wing” of the Republican Party — Vicious xenophobic Mongrels, who I am sure, with sufficient provocation would KILL EVERY IMMIGRANT ON SIGHT.

Bob Herbert sums it up eloquently: “The heyday of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove is over. Yet Senator John McCain handed the reins of his campaign to Mr. Rove’s worshipful acolytes.” “The classic fear card that the Republicans have played to such brilliant effect for years — will not work anymore!” — [MORE]

Olbermann on Palin: Socialist, fraud

In a Special Campaign Comment last night, Keith Olbermann cited yet another example of the McCain campaign accusing Barack Obama of something of which they themselves are guilty. In this case, Sarah Palin is accusing Barack Obama of advocating socialism when she literally used that word to describe the collective wealth sharing in her home state of Alaska.

Guilt By Association?

The McCain campaign has devoted considerable attention and resources to making the point that Barack Obama’s associations are a reflection on his judgment and character. With that in mind, Keith Olbermann takes a look at the staggering volume of questionable associations by the McCain/Palin ticket from disgraced lobbyists to Alaskan secessionists.

Voter Suppression Tactics

Major Confusion in McCain Team

American politics is tribal.

Not in the sense of Kikuyu and Luo and Kalenjin and Kamba and all our competing ethnic groups, but racial and ethnic components do account for the differences in this richly diverse country.

At the most basic level in the nation of 305.3 million people, it is Black and White. Obama Versus McCain.

Then there are the Hispanics, a sizebable group with about 14 per cent of the population compared to about 13.3 per cent that is black.

There are the Asians, who are a distinct minority at five per cent, and the largely forgotten and ignored Native Americans, who make up about 1.5 per cent of the population.

Among the whites, things get very complicated, depending on how people chose to classify themselves in the census.

There are the majority White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. There are Catholics. There are Hispanic whites.

There are religious or ethnic groups like the Jews; and there are the various white ethnicities — Italian, Greek, German, Dutch, Irish and many more that went into the original melting pot.

Within the white community, for instance, political pollsters look not just at the above distinctions but also at sub-genres like education, sexual orientation, region, occupation, rural or urban, farming or industrial, new industry (IT) or old industry (mining, motorplants) and so on.

These are the Tribes of America for whose votes Barack Obama and John McCain are competing to win one of the most compelling presidential campaigns in US history.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, the latest stop on a whirlwind tour between last Tuesday’s second presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee and the final debate set for New York on Wednesday.

Before Philadelphia, Mr Obama made several stops in Ohio while his running mate Senator Joe Biden campaigned in Florida, another key state whose electoral vote could determine the outcome of the election.

Republican candidate John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have been equally busy in the week or so between the two debates, covering, sometimes together and sometimes separately, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Winsconsin.

National opinion polls show Mr Obama increasing his lead over Mr McCain, reaching double-digit 11 percentage points — 52 percent to 41 per cent — according to the latest Gallup daily tracking poll at the end of the week.

The margin was mirrored in the latest Newsweek poll. But outside the major national events like the presidential debates, the campaign is being fought at the grassroots level, block by block, town by town and state by state.

   A pro-Obama campaign march in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this month

What matters in the American political system is not the national popular vote, but the state-by-state popular vote which determines the number of electoral votes through which the electoral college elects the president.

The outcome in some states can already be predicted — New York generally votes Democratic — so the candidates are concentrating their efforts on the so-called battleground states where the outcome is still uncertain.

There is no need, for instance, for Mr Obama to spend too much in California where he already commands nearly 54 per cent of the popular vote to Mr McCain’s 39 per cent.

The Republican candidate would not bother too much about the state’s 55 electoral votes because he has little chance of overturning Mr Obama’s majority.

The reverse holds true in another large state like Texas with its 34 electoral votes where Mr McCain holds an unassailable 51 per cent advantage over Mr Obama’s 38 per cent.

So the campaigns are almost over in California and Texas and in a large number of other states where solid red indicates support for the Republican candidate while solid blue shows support for the Democrat.

But then there are the states where the outcome is still too close to call; they are coloured light blue or pink depending which way they lean.

And there are some states where the candidates are virtually tied; they are marked with blue and red checks.

Almost all the polls now indicate that if the certain states for either candidate are counted, Mr Obama has a clear lead.

If he also captures the states leaning strongly towards him — those where he has more than a five per cent margin — then all the key pollsters including Reuters, Newsweek, Zogby, Gallup, give him an unassailable victory over Mr McCain in electoral votes.

Some estimates already give Mr Obama just over the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory; most give him a clear margin of between 330 and 350 electoral votes compared to Mr McCain’s 190 to 210.

Mr Obama’s tremendous surge is being attributed to the way in which he has steadily eaten into the regional and demographic groups that have been supportive of McCain or of the Republican party in general.

States like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri and quite a few others were just weeks ago solidly for McCain. Now they are seen as leaning towards Mr Obama or are too close to call.

According to the conventional wisdom of electoral demographics, Mr Obama’s key support comes from non-white groups including blacks and Hispanics; the youthful 18-29 age group; those with postgraduate educations; women; the urban poor, mostly black; and groups that are ambivalent towards religion.

Mr McCain’s strengths have been among whites, other than Hispanic; senior citizens over 65 years; the traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPS) and whites who attend church frequently or for whom religion is important.

On the demographic map, therefore, Mr McCain’s support base has been in the traditional Republican strongholds, the middle and central United States that are largely agricultural bastions of conservatism; while Mr Obama’s support has been in the big cities on the densely populated East and West coasts.

His support among whites has been limited, as described above, to young, modern, well-educated urbanites.

That is what has changed. I was at an Obama campaign march in Nashville, Tennessee, last Tuesday on the same day the two presidential candidates had their second debate.

Nashville is the home of country music.

Tennessee as a whole is a very white and conservative state; guns, church and ranching are the defining characteristics. It is a solid red state where the 11 electoral votes are all but assured for Mr McCain.

But observing the Obama march around Belmont University, one could hardly have believed it.

The participants were mostly white, as would be expected of Nashville. But they were not just the young, educated and modern white generation generally seen to side with Mr Obama.

The chanting crowd included middle-aged to elderly white men and women of the type that instinctively would be fearful of and hostile to the prospects of an Obama presidency.

That is the demographic that Obama is stealing from McCain in states around the country and the one that might secure him victory.

Article — Originally posted in The Daily Nation on 10/11/08