JayFublerHarvey.com

You know…I honestly don’t know which is worst…

That 10% of the population still thinks Obama is Muslim even after so much proof to the contrary….

(For those who think he’s the ‘Manchurian Candidate’, go ahead and ask him to play a little solitaire…I dare ya)

…or that so many people (certainly more than 10%) would consider him being a Muslim to be a problem at all.

Fear continues to win….Ignorance continues to win…Selfishness continues to win…

I’ll start this off by saying that while I didn’t vote for the winner of the Ohio primary, I was not at all surprised with the results. What did surprise me was how the rest of the country (and the news outlets for that matter) seemed surprised. Obama was down by a good 20% only a month ago. You know how difficult it is to make up 20%? The fact that he was able to get it down to 10% was impressive to me. (He made up even more in Texas and may actually end up with more delegates after their caucus is sorted out)

It also didn’t surprise me because Ohio has a secret that’s only seems to be known by those who have lived here. The secret? Southern Ohio is “The South”. Take away the three metropolitan areas (Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton) and you have ‘The South’ minus all the black people. For those that saw the 60 Minutes feature on Ohio, the city featured was smack dab in middle of GoodOleBoy Land. Is it any surprise why that guy still believed Obama was Muslim?

On a different note, I want all those non-Buckeyes reading this to know that Youngstown is NOT an important city in Ohio. It’s a freakin’ disgrace of an area. If you want an abandoned rust city, with mob ties and whose favorite son is a congressional convicted felon (Jim Traficant), you got it in spades in Youngstown. It makes for great press due to its continually depressed nature and both candidates fed it to the media who ate it up. I can safely say that no one outside of Youngstown gives two shits about the place and would prefer money be invested elsewhere in the state. Youngstown is the armpit of Ohio…in every possible way.

(I think I threw up a little when someone referred to this area as the “Akron-Youngstown” area….)

Don’t be fooled: Neither democrat will be able to deliver Ohio in November. You take “The South” and add in corrupt ass boards of elections ( *cough* Cuyahoga County – Cleveland *cough*), there’s no chance in hell. This is the state where “secure” voting machine company Diebold is based for crying out loud…ain’t gonna happens, folks.

…and that is debate moderator Tim Russert. I’m usually a fan of Tim and a frequent viewer of Meet The Press, but tonight he went over the top, asked some very uneven questions, and took his hypothetical queries to ridiculous extremes.

Instead of an intelligent debate, we were mostly served helpings of Tim doing his best Nelson from the Simpsons “Ha-Ha” impression.

Tim, remember to wipe the drool off your chin and unbug your eyes when you’re asking one of your Gotcha questions. Honestly…

Since I was still deciding on which candidate to support, I decide to check out “Barack Obama Comes Alive” (circa 2/23/08). I wanted to see in the flesh how much things have changed since I saw him last year at Cleveland State. And to just “enjoy” the group political experience once again.

The times listed below are approximated. The quotes are paraphrased. “I” and “We” become interchangeable depending upon how close I felt to the people around me at the time. My verb tenses switch with reckless abandon. You have been warned. :)

Location: John S. Knight convention center in downtown Akron, Ohio

Temperature: Supposedly in the teens…felt much worse as the waiting time increased.

1:30pm: Drove by the convention center 2 1/2 hours before the doors opened. Already 200+ people in line near the entrance.

4:00pm: Lucked out and got one of the last parking spots in the lot across from the center. Got in the back of the non-ticket (RSVP) line which was technically half a block from the entrance, but heading in the opposite direction. I had to go completely around the block to get into the nearby entrance. Those who went down to the local Obama headquarters to get tickets got to join the much shorter line (smart bastards).

4:30pm: I traveled halfway down the block and hadn’t even gotten to the corner. What the hell is going on?

4:45pm: Made it around the corner! No one is paying any mind to the Obama swag sellers…or at least most of them. If you’re going to pretend that you’re selling for the cause, and not your own pocket, I would suggest improvements in hygiene and dental care…

4:46pm: Ahh…someone started paying attention. I heard a number of “Do you have a vendor’s permit” from the patrol men…

4:50pm: A BarackObama.com filming duo showed up to pull people out of the crowd for interviews. They chose a Sam Elliott clone (and his family) as their first mark. Family makes fun of the duo after they leave.

5:00pm: “Buttons! T-Shirts!”….How about some Hot Chocolate? (Damn!) What vendor thought it was a good idea to stay home while thousands of cold Obama supporters cried out for anything warm?

5:15pm: I’d heard that today’s teens love wearing hoodies, but I never knew they’d replaced winter coats for some of them until today. Glad to see that they were bitching and moaning about being so cold. Maybe that’ll slap some common sense into them.

5:20pm: Recent City of Akron mayoral loser Joe Finley worked the crowd in his bid for County Executive. He seems to think giving the crowd updates on why things are moving so slow is enough to make people care about his candidacy. Considering how cold it was, I wonder if he’s not onto something…

5:21pm: Looks like the secret service is slowing up the process with their security. Understandable. Please…hurry up anyway!

5:25pm: Noticed a twenty something in a short sleeve shirt and *shorts*. Upon my WTF exclamation about him, a nearby purple haired sista said, “You don’t want to know my answer to that question. I don’t want to start nothing…”

5:30pm: People started to get doubly concerned. The show is supposed to start at 5:30, but we’re only half of the way there…

5:40pm: Previously mentioned purple haired sista exclaimes, “If Barack gets finished talking before I even get in there, we’re gonna have a serious problem…”

5:50pm: There’s light at the end of the tunnel! We see the police that are holding up the line. They’re letting only 25 people go at a time in an attempt (I’m assuming) to maintain a total count. I said assuming…perhaps they were limiting the number of people who could go by the entranceway that Obama would take when he arrived.

5:52pm: A sneaky, intelligent kid got in behind us after we got past the police. We had just waited two hours. He waited five minutes. Yet, I wasn’t mad at him. I was just happy that heat was close by.

6:00pm: Finally, finally, finally we entered the convention center. No visible security at the door. You can hear “Obama!” everywhere.

6:03pm: We enter the convention area where Obama will speak. I noticed the security people looked like they were packing up shop. The security gates weren’t being used; no one was being wanded anymore.

6:05pm: I get about a couple of hundred feet away from the podium. The crowd is wonderfully diverse in terms of race, age and gender. (Definitely more so than Kerry’s Akron rally in 2004). Looks like we missed the speeches from most of the local yahoos (Yes!)

6:06pm: I think to myself, “What happened to the security? Does the secret service truly believe that danger could only befall someone from close up? Or are plain clothes security mingled in among those of us father back?”

Right Before Speech: A local (non politician) gave the intro for Barack. She did an OK job relating her experience (insurance woes) to the future Barack has planned, but she got zero respect as the crowd was restless.

Very Beginning of Speech: Screams of “Put down the signs!” come from the back half of the crowd as Barack began to speak. Giant sized “Ohio 4 Obama” letters were blocking the view of about half of the back crowd. They eventually got the hint as the yelling got louder. (Yes, I admit it…I was one of the yellers ^^).

Speech itself: If you saw his Wisconsin post primary speech (or any post primary/caucus speech in the past few weeks), you saw 85% of what I saw here. Engaging. Inspirational. Hopeful. More specifics than usual, but no more than you’ve heard from any other candidate.

Contrast during speech: “Change”, “Hope” and future plans were much more appreciated by the crowd than Barack responding to Hillary’s attack du jour.

Great line from speech: “My cousin Dick Cheney won’t be on the ballot this fall. *crowdlaughs* You heard about that, right? It seems Cheney and I share an ancestor. When I found out we were related…that was just embarassing.”

Great line from speech 2: “Some people think I’m not tough enough. *dramaticpause* I’m from Chicago! The south side! *crowdlaughs* I’m skinny, but I’m tough!”

7:25pm: On the way out, I grabbed the worst cup of hot chocolate on the face of the known earth. Ever had piss flavored chocolate? I drank it all regardless….

Is You Mind Made Up?: Nah…just reaffirmed what I’d already seen and read. I still need to do more digging.

You spent two hours in the cold and you’re going to tell me you still haven’t made up your mind?: Yes. The overall experience was new…what I heard from the candidate wasn’t…(both were entertaining, tho…)

So you’d stand two hours in the cold for Hillary?: Errr…I didn’t say I wasn’t leaning…

Final Thought: For the love of god, I hope there’s tonnes of plain clothes secret service at these events. Thousands of people showed up after security packed up shop. Who knows what crack pot could have been in there…

Mid-year elections are usually pretty dull by most American’s standards. If it doesn’t include presidential possibilities or a scandal-ridden campaign, most of us don’t have the time to really care. More important to relax on our couch and watch a re-run of That’s 70’s Show. (Tangent Note: Laura Prepon looked better as a redhead)

It’s really a damn shame. If the average person only realized how much voteable local issues really effect their day-to-day lives. Guess you have to be closer to medicare than pedialyte in order to truly appreciate what’s right in front of you.

Enter today: the first time all the counties in Ohio have used a non-punchhole voting system. Some used electronic voting machines (Sieg Diebold!); my county used an optical scan system. You know the kind…fill out an oval as fully as possible…feed it into a machine…a laser records the results. (Yes, the same shiz you used in school…)

First and foremost, they STILL don’t ask you for any ID!!! Any yahoo who knows how to forge your signature can go in and vote for you. When will these idiots tighten this system up? Let fraud thrive!

When it came to the optical scan, the poll workers seemed a little intimidated by the new system. Even tho I was the 21st person to vote, they still moved in a very slow, overly deliberate manner to “not screw anything up”. I threw them for a loop when I told them I was an independent: “Carol, what are we supposed to do for independents?”. :)

After receiving the very first independent ballot of the day (I’ll leave the many choices between the worse of two pissants for November), I went over to a non-covered ballot area. Anyone who wanted to see whom or what I was voting for could easily peak their head in the right direction. Summit County…we need those curtains back!!!

BTW, these optical ballots are HUGE. Larger than a regular sheet of paper. This requires the covering envelope to be even larger. Both of which made it more than awkward to handle…especially when the poll taker tried to make sure none of the votes were visible.

However, there was a big plus: I could insert my own ballot! In the past, the poll workers would put the ballot in the box for you. (They’d let you do it yourself if you asked, but they’d get a bit of an attitude.) This time, you got to insert the ballot into the optical scanning machine yourself…and actually got to see that your ballot was processed. Very nice! (Would be even better if you got a receipt…something to work on…)

Overall, a step in the right direction. But many items need to be worked on…hopefully before 2008.

Side Note: Is there anyway to include political groups on the national no-call list? I received no less than 7 politicial calls each day over the past week…some of which weren’t even in my damn district! Massively trifling!

(Repeat Tangent Note: Laura Prepon looked better as a redhead)

I’d like to give a big congratulations to Senator John Edwards! It’s very rare (maybe even unheard of) for someone who didn’t actually get any popular votes for president to get electoral votes…

But that’s exactly what happened!

The final tally:

George Bush: 286
John Kerry: 251
John Edwards: 1

Since electors don’t actually have to follow the rules and can vote whomever they want, before the next election, I think certain like-minded individuals should push for a man who has long deserved to be in a position of true power. A man who could affect major change throughout the world. A man funny enough to give the electors another reason to skirt their civic duty….

Nipsey Russell in 2008!
(Circle gets the square!)

As we bask in the glow that is SorryEverybody.com…

We get a response from overseas: ApologiesAccepted.com ^_^

A little something from the 56,382,976 of us who were interested in change…
http://www.sorryeverybody.com/

I wondered when we’d hear the first of these:

A “machine error” in Columbus, Ohio gave Bush an extra 3,893 votes. Might not have been noticed initially, but when only 638 people casted ballots in that precinct, it couldn’t be washed over.

Anyone else interested in checking the other electronic voting machines used? Ah…that’s right. The vast majority have no way to be audited properly…

Here’s hoping the assorted city/state officials, who blindly accepted non-audtiable electronic voting machines, have lost or will lose their jobs in the near future…

I’m so glad I checked the news before I went to the polls today. To find out the challengers here in Ohio got a last second reprieve was irritating enough. To have gone to vote without that knowledge would have been massively irritating and possibly confrontational…

I consider myself lucky…it was only a 5 minute wait to get my ballot, but that’s 5 times as long as usual. The other precinct that was voting there was a different matter…there were 50-60 people in line at 9 a.m., which is rather unprecedented according to the local poll workers. But both pale in comparison to the hours and hours of waiting that some people are experiencing.

As for the challenger, the one at my table was intensely interested in watching me sign my name. Very irritating…I almost messed up my signature just as a dare. Had two forms of identification and my phone bill with me just in case…

I’d like to give megakudos to George Bush and his administration. Nothing brings out the populate in droves who are willing to stand in the rain for hours to vote…like the fear of getting four more years of incompetence, ineptitude, over-arrogance and unnecessarily enhanced danger. Bravo W, bravo!