My reaction to the very slight tightening of the polls:
The Blogosphere's reaction to the very slight tightening of the polls:
Chill.
The.
Fuck.
Out.
We got this.
I expected that there would be a tightening of the polls. Yeah, it was fun when the 538 nowcast had us crushing Romney with a 96 to 3 likelihood of winning the election, and I guess we'll have to settle for a measly 88 to 11, oh woe is us, we're so behind.
Chill out. Calm down. Take a deep breath. If you're not registered to vote, do it now.
I understand why some people are freaking out. Yeah, we all know that Democrats are good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But when that happens, it's because we just don't come out and vote. If that's your concern, then click here and volunteer to help Barack Obama get out the vote.
This is the most important election of my lifetime, and this isn't my first rodeo, though I'm definitely a youngin' compared to some of the folks around here who remember hearing William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech to the DNC.
I hear rising levels of concern, especially now that a few assholes in the occupy movement are telling people not to vote because DRONE STRIKES OMFG!!!111one
Let me be the first to say "fuck those guys." I'm done with Anarchists at this point, because those motherfuckers don't believe in Solidarity. I supported their actions in the streets and I defended them for a good while, until I just couldn't anymore. But when it comes down to it, Solidarity means to Anarchists that everyone else is required to compromise to support them, but that they are not required to compromise to support anyone else. Solidarity in the streets, but never the ballot box, is not Solidarity at all. So fuck them. I'm done with them and their masturbatory politics.
(To the few decent and good Anarchists I know personally, some of them Kossacks, I'm really sorry, but I can't deal with the bullshit anymore, and I don't know how in the hell you can put up with it either.)
Having said that, I'm not an "Obama bot." I'm a critic of Barack Obama on a number of issues, drones being one of them. While we're thinking about our drone program and Obama, let's also think about our drone program and Romney. Romney believes that the Russians are our "greatest geopolitical foe," a statement that was denounced internationally. He thinks that we should bomb Syria now even though the Turks themselves are reluctant to step in even after the Syrians have killed a number of Turkish soldiers and civilians. He thinks that we should probably start a war with Iran, that not continuing the war in Iraq was "unthinkable," and that bringing our troops home was a "tragedy." Do you have any idea what neocon-but-harder Mitt Romney is going to do with those drones if he gets his grubby little hands on them?
I wanted a single payer system, medicare for all, and I think some of the ACA's provisions are a conservative corporatist option that puts the very insurance companies we should be dismantling on life support. But I also recognize that it was a vitally important step in the right direction that is already saving lives. Barack Obama is absolutely right when he says that the New Deal didn't happen overnight. I'm going to keep fighting for Single Payer, and I'm convinced that if we were able to get a Single Payer bill through congress, Barack Obama would sign it. In contrast, Mitt Romney wants to take us back to the days of pre-existing conditions, where even when you pay for insurance you're still not guaranteed treatment. He wants to go back to a dysfunctional healthcare system that lets Americans die if they're not quite rich enough.
Barack Obama has been fighting for the middle class. I may want the pace of progress to move faster, but I have a clear choice between a decent man who wants to work with the other side and is thus much more likely to get things through an obstructionist congress, and a narcissistic ignoramus that wants to take us back to the days of hoover, and cut those damned 47 percenters off because he thinks they're lazy moochers, but don't touch that corporate welfare! The people on corporate welfare living in the American tax shelter deserve all of those government goodies! Silly poors, socialism is for rich people!
Finally, Barack Obama supports Marriage Equality, and Mitt Romney does not. Mitt Romney has really creepy authority issues, like how he has a problem with people drinking on the beach, used to dress up like a state trooper for shits and giggles, and how he thinks it was terribly wayward of him to try a beer that one time. This seems to put him in the class of the pearl-clutching moral-guardians of the right who want the government to be able to decide what kind of sex you have, who you have it with, and what equipment should be legally available. The president clearly thinks that's nobody's business. (Well, it's somebody's business, I hear that most of that equipment is pretty expensive.)
This is not a choice between the lesser of the two evils. This is a choice between a principled man who believes that a country divided against itself will fail, and a man who cares only about the advancement of his own political career and his pocketbook. This is one of the clearest choices ever presented to the American people, and I say that as someone who likes both of the Democratic presidents who've been in office while I've been alive.
So to those of you who are freaking out about poll numbers: chill out and pull yourselves together.
To those of you who are freaking out about drone strikes, chill out, and pull yourselves together.
Now volunteer to GOTV.
5:17 PM PT: The Pew Poll is ONE poll. You need to look at ALL of the polls together. Nate silver does that, and while his poll projections are tightening, Romney is certainly not in the lead. There will be outliers. Chill out. We still got this.