Senate rejects importation of prescription drugs

Sad, but true.. and how much are you paying for medication today? (If you're unfortunate enough to have to buy it, of course.)

The proposal had threatened to derail the Democrats' landmark healthcare bill. Meanwhile, Obama and many liberals back the decision to drop the 'public option.'

By Noam N. Levey and Janet Hook

5:01 PM PST, December 15, 2009

Reporting from Washington

In a victory for President Obama and his allies in the pharmaceutical industry, the Senate today turned aside a bid by a bipartisan group of lawmakers to make it easier to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and Western Europe -- a proposal that threatened to derail the Democrats' landmark healthcare bill.

The vote on the amendment -- cosponsored by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- was 51-48, nine short of the 60 needed to pass.

The politically charged amendment held up the Senate for a week as drug companies, the White House and lawmakers from states that are home to drug makers fought to derail the proposal. Critics, including the Food and Drug Administration, said it would be difficult to implement and hard to guarantee that imported drugs would be safe.

Further adding to the momentum for final Senate approval of the massive healthcare bill, Obama and many liberal Democrats rallied behind the decision to put aside a goal liberals had long held as an article of faith -- a new government health insurance plan to compete with the private sector.

Obama summoned Senate Democrats to the White House today to urge them not to let disagreements over details of the legislation derail or delay the landmark effort.

"This reform has to pass on our watch," the president said. "We are on the precipice of an achievement that has eluded Congresses and presidents for decades."

While some liberals mourned the capitulation that has long seemed inevitable, leaders of several progressive groups signaled that they would support the strategy for now rather than risk stalling their drive.

"The final bill won't include everything that everybody wants," Obama said.

The president weighed in at a critical moment, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was working to unite their party in advance of key votes on the compromise that did not include the so-called "public option" -- a new government-run health insurance plan -- or an alternative plan to expand Medicare, which was popular with liberals.

A vast array of details have yet to be pinned down, but the framework of the Senate bill came into view as Reid pushed the Senate to finish work before Christmas. The sense of gathering momentum was fueled as disputes on other issues were resolved: Behind-the-scenes negotiations continued to resolve differences among Democrats over restrictions on federal funding for abortion.

The drug amendment had in the past enjoyed broad support from Democrats -- including Obama -- but the White House and Senate leaders bowed to the pharmaceutical industry and joined their effort to derail it. The administration feared that if the amendment had passed, pharmaceutical companies, which earlier this year struck a deal with the White House to limit the economic impact of a healthcare overhaul on their industry, would turn against the broader health legislation.

To appease critics, Reid pledged this week to work with House leaders to ensure that a final bill would close the so-called Medicare doughnut hole, a gap in prescription drug coverage that forces millions of seniors to pay for thousands of dollars of drugs out of their own pockets.

On the broader questions, Reid plans to unveil the details of his final compromise Wednesday after receiving an official report on its costs and impact. After that, Reid is expected to begin the complex procedural steps required to cut off Republicans' filibuster, with the first of a series of crucial votes coming as early as Friday.

Without any GOP support, all 60 lawmakers in the Democratic caucus, including two independents, will have to vote for the procedural motions in order for the bill to advance. It will then have to be reconciled with a version passed last month by the House, a stronger bulwark of liberalism than the Senate.

House Democrats welcomed the apparent end of the Senate's stalemate on the legislation, but were not happy about the drift of its compromises.

"We in the House have made a beautiful souffle, but the Senate has scrambled an egg," said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), noting that Reid already had said he expected to go along with the House in closing the Medicare doughnut hole. "Let's hope they will find more they like in the House bill."

Some liberals pledged to vote against the bill if it is in the Senate mold, but Democratic leaders steered clear of such ultimatums. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters that the House could pass the health bill without a public option, contrary to earlier warnings. That was in keeping with advice Democrats say they received long ago from Obama lieutenants like Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who argued that passing any bill would be better than failing to act.

"Rahm told us months ago: Everything can be compromised except our ultimate goal of getting something done," said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.). "Everything else is negotiable."

And liberals acknowledged they were in a weak bargaining position because conservatives were willing to kill the bill over their disagreements -- and Democrats were not.

"We progressives are negotiating with a gun to our heads," said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). "Our opponents are saying, 'Go ahead and shoot.' If you're a public option fan, you haven't had a good week."

The final push for Senate action picked up important support today from several leading consumer groups, including AARP, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, Consumers Union and Families USA. The groups plan to join the Service Employees International Union, which has been a leading advocate for a new government insurance plan, at the Capitol on Wednesday to urge senators to quash a Republican-led filibuster next week.

And Health Care for America Now, the influential coalition of liberal activist groups, today decided to send a letter to Reid calling for passage of the legislation, the group's campaign manager Richard Kirsch said.

"There are major problems with the Senate bill," Kirsch said in an interview today. "But if the Senate doesn't act, there will be no healthcare reform. . . . The place to fix [the Senate bill] is in a conference committee" with House and Senate leaders at the table.

The White House meeting came one day after Senate Democrats moved to back down from the idea of expanding Medicare in lieu of the public option, bowing to opposition from conservative Democrats and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Democrats were infuriated at Lieberman because he had supported the expansion of Medicare in the past, but the White House tried to defuse that anger.

"If we held flip-flops against everybody in the Congress, we'd probably not have many people there," Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.

Lieberman joined Obama and Democrats at the White House and signaled that he planned to vote for the bill, according to sources briefed on the meeting. Obama urged others to see the glass as half full, emphasizing that the legislation, like the landmark 1965 law that created Medicare, is a foundation for further improvements in the future.

"Be joyful; be grateful," Obama said, according to Senate Finance Committee Max Baucus (D-Mont.). "We'll build upon it in the future."

In his public comments after the meeting, he said that the emerging Senate bill meets the major criteria he set out in a healthcare speech before a joint session of Congress: It would expand coverage, does not add to the deficit, and slows the rate of growth of healthcare costs.

Beyond that, Obama said, "We simply cannot allow differences over individual elements of this plan to prevent us from meeting our responsibility to solve a long-standing and urgent problem for the American people," Obama said. "They are waiting for us to act. They are counting on us to show leadership. And I don't intend to let them down."

Neither does as staunch a liberal as Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who has steadfastly refused to compromise on including a public option. He said after meeting with Obama that he would vote for the bill despite his reservations.

"There is too much at stake," he said. "And it's about me. It's not about any senator. It's not about Lieberman."

noam.levey@latimes.com

janet.hook@latimes.com

John McCain Says the Town Hall Meetings Should be More Civil

This just in from DownWithTyranny! Blog... and very nice to hear some common sense from at least one Republican.

McCain vs GOP tactics.RT: @SenJohnMcCain Town hall mtngs are Am. tradition- we should allow everyone to express their views w/out disruption

Palinpalooza - How Can We Miss You If You Won't Go Away?

From Salon.com, Joan Walsh
How can we miss her if she won't go away? The Sarah Palin rehabilitation tour began as soon as the election ended, but so far, I'm not being won over by her attempted charm offensive. I expected Fox's Greta van Susteren to pander to her, given her employer, but I was a little surprised at Matt Lauer's friendly, supportive probing as he ate dinner with the Palin family in the kitchen in Wasilla, and tried to help the former Veepzilla tell her side of the story.

Let me say first: I agree with Palin on one thing: the anonymous McCain advisors who've savaged her since she became a drag on their ticket are cowards and jerks. Whatever her flaws, McCain is to blame for all of them, because he's the one who "went rogue" and picked her with inadequate vetting. I've said that before. But Palin isn't particularly helping her case with these interviews. If you like her, you'll like what she has to say. If you don't like her, or more relevant, don't think she ever had what it takes to be vice-president: Well, nothing in either interview will reassure you.

Hands down her worst performance came in a "Web-only" video where Lauer asks Palin about the infamous Katie Couric interview, and whether it took a toll on her confidence. She tells Lauer no, but adds: "I think it also showed, though, that certainly as a Washington outsider and not one to just I guess play even the campaigning media game that is played, in just repeating, perhaps, memorized lines in a, in a interview, that's not me." Read that again. Trademark Palin grammar, and totally unconvincing. Answering questions about foreign policy and Supreme Court decisions isn't a matter of rote memorization, it's a matter of knowledge, depth, intellectual curiosity and experience that she clearly doesn't have.

She was also borderline dishonest about the issue of whether she looked into banning books while she was Wasilla mayor, using as "proof" the fact that some people claimed she wanted to ban the "Harry Potter" series, even though it was written after she was mayor. In fact, Salon interviewed a Wasilla minister who said his book, "Pastor, I Am Gay," was on Palin's hit list. Palin can say Howard Bess is lying, but she's choosing to address only the most ludicrous claims against her. Not convincing.

She was also unconvincing when she downplayed talk of campaign infighting and dysfunction -- and then gave Lauer a great example of it. She told the story of working with two speechwriters on a version of a concession speech to give in Phoenix. But she admits she didn't know until she was walking up to the stage that she wouldn't be allowed to give it. That's dysfunction. And even though I'm sympathetic to Palin's complaints about McCain advisors' anonymous claims that she sent aides out shopping for her, her defense won't rise beyond "he said, she said" sniping until she's willing to name some names, herself. Who bought the clothes? Who does she think is behind the leaks? I'm sure she knows.

But the saddest part for me was the interview with little Piper, who tells Matt Lauer she didn't like campaign rallies, missed her friends and fell behind in school. But when Mommy asks if she'd like to do it again in 2012, Piper says sure. I found myself asking: Why wasn't Piper home attending school, like the Obama daughters did most of the time? Was Todd Palin enjoying the campaign trail too much to stay home with the family?

I'm hoping I can put Sarah Palin behind me, although she's got a big star turn Wednesday at the Republican Governor's Association meeting, including a press conference. Clearly she thinks she's ready for prime time, and that the McCain campaign hid her light under a bushel. So we'll be seeing more of her in the weeks to come. Given her plummeting poll numbers at the end of the campaign, it's just more good news for Democrats that she's fighting to emerge as a party leader in the wake of McCain's shellacking.

-- Joan Walsh

Beyond Election Day

By BOB HERBERT

Conservative commentators had a lot of fun mocking Barack Obama’s use of the phrase, “the fierce urgency of now.”

Noting that it had originated with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Senator Obama made it a cornerstone of his early campaign speeches.

Conservatives kicked the phrase around like a soccer ball. “The fierce urgency of now,” they would say, giggling. What does it mean?

Well, if your house is on fire and your family is still inside, that’s an example of the fierce urgency of now.

Something like that is the case in the United States right now as Americans go to the polls in what is probably the most important presidential election since World War II. A mind-boggling series of crises is threatening not just the short-term future but the very viability of the nation.

The economy is sinking into quicksand. The financial sector, guardian of the nation’s wealth, is leaning on the crutch of a trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout. The giant auto companies — for decades the high-powered, gas-guzzling, exhaust-spewing pride of American industry — are on life support.

As the holiday shopping season approaches, the nation is hemorrhaging jobs, the value of the family home has plunged, retirement plans are shrinking like ice cubes on a hot stove and economists are telling us the recession has only just begun.

It’s in that atmosphere that voters today will be choosing between the crisis-management skills of Senator Obama, who has enlisted Joe Biden as aide-de-camp, and those of Senator John McCain, who is riding to the rescue with Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber in tow.

As important as this choice has become, the election is just a small first step. What Americans really have to decide is what kind of country they want.

Right now the United States is a country in which wealth is funneled, absurdly, from the bottom to the top. The richest 1 percent of Americans now holds close to 40 percent of all the wealth in the nation and maintains an iron grip on the levers of government power.

This is not only unfair, but self-defeating. The U.S. cannot thrive with its fabulous wealth concentrated at the top and the middle class on its knees. (No one even bothers to talk about the poor anymore.) How to correct this imbalance is one of the biggest questions facing the country.

The U.S. is also a country in which blissful ignorance is celebrated, and intellectual excellence (the key to 21st century advancement) is not just given short shrift, but is ridiculed. Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are cultural icons. The average American watches television a mind-numbing 4 1/2 hours a day.

At the same time, our public school system is plagued with some of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world. Math and science? Forget about it. Too tough for these TV watchers, or too boring, or whatever.

“When I compare our high schools with what I see when I’m traveling abroad,” said Bill Gates, “I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.”

The point here is that as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the United States is in deep, deep trouble. Yet instead of looking for creative, 21st-century solutions to these enormous problems, too many of our so-called leaders are behaving like clowns, or worse — spouting garbage in the public sphere that hearkens back to the 1940s and ’50s.

Thoughtful, well-educated men and women are denounced as elites, and thus the enemies of ordinary Americans. Attempts to restore a semblance of fiscal sanity to a government that has been looted with an efficiency that would have been envied by the mob, are derided as subversive — the work of socialists, Marxists, Communists.

In 2008!

In North Carolina, Senator Elizabeth Dole, a conservative Republican, is in a tough fight for re-election against a Democratic state senator, Kay Hagan. So Ms. Dole ran a television ad that showed a close-up of Ms. Hagan’s face while the voice of a different woman asserts, “There is no God!”

Americans have to decide if they want a country that tolerates this kind of debased, backward behavior. Or if they want a country that aspires to true greatness — a country that stands for more than the mere rhetoric of equality, freedom, opportunity and justice.

That decision will require more than casting a vote in one presidential election. It will require a great deal of reflective thought and hard work by a committed citizenry. The great promise of America hinges on a government that works, openly and honestly, for the broad interests of the American people, as opposed to the narrow benefit of the favored, wealthy few.

By all means, vote today. But that is just the first step toward meaningful change.

Bush and Cheney's Last Shot

Note from Greetings: This is amazing, last-minute, secret undermining of most Americans' rights to a clean environment, healthy and safe working environments, and the health of ourselves and our children. And yes, they wholeheartedly endorsed John McCain this weekend, albeit in secret, just as they did with the passing of laws to restrict the protection of the health and welfare of all Amercians. If you like losing your job, a dirtier environment, and a President who won't investigate previous digressions such as these, nor remedy them.. then you should vote for McCain. If you want more transparency in government, a cleaner environment, and protection of your jobs, your health and your childrens' well-being, the choice is simple. Barack Obama.

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, October 31, 2008; 12:12 PM

Did we really expect President Bush and Vice President Cheney to go quietly?

R. Jeffrey Smith writes: "The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

"The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

"Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

"Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis. . . .

"The burst of activity has made this a busy period for lobbyists who fear that industry views will hold less sway after the elections. The doors at the New Executive Office Building have been whirling with corporate officials and advisers pleading for relief or, in many cases, for hastened decision making."

Emma Schwartz reports for ABC News: "Every administration tries to pass last minute rules in hopes of leaving a lasting mark. But experts say the Bush administration is expected to approve a greater number more quickly than previous administrations -- something they said could lead to bad and costly policy.

"'The administration wants to leave a legacy,' said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, which has been critical of these proposals. 'But across the board it means less protection for the public.' . . .

"It wasn't supposed to be this way. In May, Josh Bolten, then-head of the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees regulatory approval, issued a memo barring new proposals after June. It also required that all new regulations be completed by Nov. 1.

"That hasn't been the case. Many proposed regulations have yet to be finalized and new ones have already come out since the June deadline.

"A spokesperson for OMB said in an email response that the Bolten memo 'wasn't intended to wholesale shut down work on important regulatory matters after November 1st, but to emphasize due diligence.'

"She added: 'Ensuring the integrity of the process is important to the Administration.'"

Among the examples cited by Smith is a proposed rule put forward by the National Marine Fisheries Service that would lift a requirement that environmental impact statements be prepared for certain fisheries-management decisions and would give review authority to regional councils dominated by commercial and recreational fishing interests.

Watchdogs are up in arms. The Pew Environment Group says the rule "threatens to completely undermine application of the law that protects ocean ecosystems." OMB Watch reports: "In addition to the hundreds of thousands of public comments opposing the proposed rule, 80 members of Congress have also expressed their opposition, including a letter joined by 72 members of the House of Representatives. The letter states that the proposed rule fails to meet congressional intent made clear during the reauthorization of the [fisheries act]. Hundreds of scientists and environmental organizations have also signed on to oppose the rule."

Another example is something Siobhan Hughes wrote about in the Wall Street Journal on Monday: "The Bush administration is moving to adopt rules that would loosen pollution controls on power plants, by judging the plants on their hourly rate of emissions rather than their total annual output, people familiar with the matter said. . . .

"As long as a power plant's hourly emissions stay at or below the plant's historical maximum, the plant would be treated as if it were running more cleanly, even if its total annual emissions increased as plant operators stepped up operations."

From the Archives

I've been calling attention to yet more examples of the Bush administration's midnight rule-making for the past several months. For instance, back in May, Juliet Eilperin wrote in The Washington Post: "The Bush administration is on the verge of implementing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas."

Carol D. Leonnig wrote in The Washington Post in July: "Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins."

Alicia Mundy wrote in the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago: "Bush administration officials, in their last weeks in office, are pushing to rewrite a wide array of federal rules with changes or additions that could block product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states."

And of course there's the push for a last-minute regulatory overhaul that would effectively gut the Endangered Species Act.

Juliet Eilperin wrote in The Washington Post in August that the new rules would "allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades."

Dina Cappiello wrote for the Associated Press just 10 days ago that Interior Department officials were rushing so hard to ease the endangered species rules before Bush leaves office that they were "attempting to review 200,000 comments from the public in just 32 hours."

And on Monday, Cappiello reported that -- surprise! -- the administration had concluded "that changes it wants to make to endangered species rules before President Bush leaves office will have no significant environmental consequences."

And yet another one to add to the list. In today's Post, Juliet Eilperin writes: "The federal Bureau of Land Management is reviving plans to sell oil and gas leases in pristine wilderness areas in eastern Utah that have long been protected from development, according to a notice posted this week on the agency's Web site.

"The proposed sale, which includes famous areas in the Nine Mile Canyon region, would take place Dec. 19, a month before President Bush leaves office."

Tip of the Iceberg?

Keep in mind that rule-making is by definition a public process. So what else is going on, beneath the surface? I raised a slew of questions in that vein for NiemanWatchdog.org back in June. Among them:

* Are major contracts being let out that have long-term ramifications? And are any of those related to outsourcing?

* Are appointees in federal agencies trying to cover their tracks? Are documents being properly retained?

* Are Bush political appointees working on last-minute reorganizations within the federal government?

* Are Bush loyalists burrowing into the civil service? Will political appointees engage in a last-minute flurry of hiring and promoting Bush loyalists into key civil service jobs? Will political appointees try to make the jump into the civil service?

CBS News Report on Voter Purging and Supression

Brennan Center Report on Voter Purges and Suppression

Introduction

Voter registration lists, also called voter rolls, are the gateway to voting. A citizen typically cannot cast a vote that will count unless her name appears on the voter registration rolls. Yet state and local officials regularly remove—or “purge”—citizens from voter rolls. In fact, thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia reported purging more than 13 million voters from registration rolls between 2004 and 2006. Purges, if done properly, are an important way to ensure that voter rolls are dependable, accurate, and up-to-date. Precise and carefully conducted purges can remove duplicate names, and people who have moved, died, or are otherwise ineligible.

Far too frequently, however, eligible, registered citizens show up to vote and discover their names have been removed from the voter lists. States maintain voter rolls in an inconsistent and unaccountable manner. Officials strike voters from the rolls through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation.

While the lack of transparency in purge practices precludes a precise figure of the number of those erroneously purged, we do know that purges have been conducted improperly before. In 2004, for example, Florida planned to remove 48,000 “suspected felons” from its voter rolls. Many of those identified were in fact eligible to vote. The flawed process generated a list of 22,000 African Americans to be purged, but only 61 voters with Hispanic surnames, notwithstanding Florida’s sizable Hispanic population. Under pressure from voting rights groups, Florida ordered officials to stop using the purge list. Although this purge was uncovered and mostly stopped before it was completed, other improper purges may go undetected and unremedied.

The secret and inconsistent manner in which purges are conducted make it difficult, if not impossible, to know exactly how many voters are stricken from voting lists erroneously. And when purges are made public, they often reveal serious problems. Here are a few examples from this year:

• In Mississippi earlier this year, a local election official discovered that another official had wrongly purged 10,000 voters from her home computer just a week before the presidential primary.
• In Muscogee, Georgia this year, a county official purged 700 people from the voter lists, supposedly because they were ineligible to vote due to criminal convictions. The list included people who had never even received a parking ticket.
• In Louisiana, including areas hit hard by hurricanes, officials purged approximately 21,000 voters, ostensibly for registering to vote in another state, without sufficient voter protections.

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Findings

This report provides one of the first systematic examinations of the chaotic and largely unseen world of voter purges. In a detailed study focusing on twelve states, we identified three problematic practices with voter purges across the country:

Purges rely on error-ridden lists. States regularly attempt to purge voter lists of ineligible voters or duplicate registration records, but the lists that states use as the basis for purging are often riddled with errors. For example, some states purge their voter lists based on the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, a database that even the Social Security Administration admits includes people who are still alive. Even though Hilde Stafford, a Wappingers Falls, NY resident, was still alive and voted, the master death index lists her date of death as June 15, 1997. As another example, when a member of a household files a change of address for herself in the United States Postal Service’s National Change of Address database, it sometimes has the effect of changing the addresses of all members of that household. Voters who are eligible to vote are wrongly stricken from the rolls because of problems with underlying source lists.

Voters are purged secretly and without notice. None of the states investigated in this report statutorily require election officials to provide advance public notice of a systematic purge. Additionally, with the exception of registrants believed to have changed addresses, many states do not notify individual voters before purging them. In large part, states that do provide individualized notice do not provide such notice for all classes of purge candidates. For example, our research revealed that it is rare for states to provide notice when a registrant is believed to be deceased. Without proper notice to affected individuals, an erroneously purged voter will likely not be able to correct the error before Election Day. Without public notice of an impending purge, the public will not be able to detect improper purges or to hold their election officials accountable for more accurate voter list maintenance.

Bad “matching” criteria leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges. Many voter purges are conducted with problematic techniques that leave ample room for abuse and manipulation. State statutes rely on the discretion of election officials to identify registrants for removal. Far too often, election officials believe they have “matched” two voters, when they are actually looking at the records of two distinct individuals with similar identifying information. These cases of mistaken identity cause eligible voters to be wrongly removed from the rolls. The infamous Florida purge of 2000—conservative estimates place the number of wrongfully purged voters close to 12,000—was generated in part by bad matching criteria. Florida registrants were purged from the rolls if 80 percent of the letters of their last names were the same as those of persons with criminal convictions. Those wrongly purged included Reverend Willie D. Whiting Jr., who, under the match ing criteria, was considered the same person as Willie J. Whiting. Without specific guidelines for or limitations on the authority of election officials conducting purges, eligible voters are regularly made unnecessarily vulnerable.

Insufficient oversight leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges. Insufficient oversight permeates the purge process beyond just the issue of matching. For example, state statutes often rely on the discretion of election officials to identify registrants for removal and to initiate removal procedures. In Washington, the failure to deliver a number of delineated mailings, including precinct reassignment notices, ballot applications, and registration acknowledgment notices, triggers the mailing of address confirmation notices, which then sets in motion the process for removal on account of change of address. Two Washington counties and the Secretary of State, however, reported that address confirmation notices were sent when any mail was returned as undeliverable, not just those delineated in state statute. Since these statutes rarely tend to specify limitations on the authority of election officials to purge registrants, insufficient oversight leaves room for election officials to deviate from what the state law provides and may make voters vulnerable to poor, lax, or irresponsible decision-making.

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Policy Recommendations

No effective national standard governs voter purges; in fact, methods vary from state to state and even from county to county. A voter’s risk of being purged depends in part on where in the state he or she lives. The lack of consistent rules and procedures means that this risk is unpredictable and difficult to guard against. While some variation is inevitable, every American should benefit from basic protections against erroneous purges.

Based on our review of purge practices and statutes in a number of jurisdictions, we make the following policy recommendations to reduce the occurrence of erroneous purges and protect eligible voters from erroneous purges.

A. Transparency and Accountability for Purges

States should:

• Develop and publish uniform, non-discriminatory rules for purges.
• Provide public notice of an impending purge. Two weeks before any county-wide or state-wide purge, states should announce the purge and explain how it is to be conducted. Individual voters must be notified and given the opportunity to correct any errors or omissions, or demonstrate eligibility before they are stricken from the rolls.
• Develop and publish rules for an individual to prevent or remedy her erroneous inclusion in an impending purge. Eligible citizens should have a clear way to restore their names to voter rolls.
• Stop using failure to vote as a trigger for a purge. States should send address confirmation notices only when they believe a voter has moved.
• Develop directives and criteria with respect to the authority to purge voters. The removal of any record should require authorization by at least two officials.
• Preserve purged voter registration records.
• Make purge lists publicly available.

B. Strict Criteria for the Development of Purge Lists

States should:

• Ensure a high degree of certainty that names on a purge list belong there. Purge lists should be reviewed multiple times to ensure that only ineligible voters are included.
• Establish strict criteria for matching voter lists with other sources.
• Audit purge source lists. If purge lists are developed by matching names on the voter registration list to names from other sources like criminal conviction lists, the quality and accuracy of the information in these lists should be routinely “audited” or checked.
• Monitor duplicate removal procedures. States should implement uniform rules and procedures for eliminating duplicate registrations.

C. “Fail-Safe” Provisions to Protect Voters

States should ensure that:

• No voter is turned away from the polls because her name is not found on the voter rolls. Instead, would-be voters should be given provisional ballots, to which they are entitled under the law.
• Election workers are given clear instructions and adequate training as to HAVA’s provisional balloting requirements.

D. Universal Voter Registration

States should:

• Take the affirmative responsibility to build clean voter rolls consisting of all eligible citizens. Building on other government lists or using other innovative methods, states can make sure that all eligible citizens, and only eligible citizens, are on the voter rolls.
• Ensure that voters stay on the voter rolls when they move within the state.
• Provide a fail-safe mechanism of Election Day registration for those individuals who are missed or whose names are erroneously purged from the voter rolls.

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About the Author

Myrna Pérez is counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, focusing on a variety of voting rights and election administration issues including the Brennan Center’s efforts to restore the vote to people with felony convictions. Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Pérez was the Civil Rights Fellow at Relman & Dane, a civil rights law firm in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Columbia Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Ms. Pérez clerked for the Honorable Anita B. Brody of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and for the Honorable Julio M. Fuentes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

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About the Voting Rights & Elections Project

The Voting Rights and Elections Project works to expand the franchise, to ensure that every eligible American can vote, and to ensure that every vote cast is accurately recorded and counted. The Center's staff provides top-flight legal and policy assistance on a broad range of election administration issues, including voter registration systems, voting technology, voter identification, statewide voter registration list maintenance, and provisional ballots

Arizona Paper Endorses Barack Obama for president

Arizona Daily Star Opinion, Tucson, AZ

We see America the way Barack Obama sees America.

Our future requires a steady, intelligent and, as former Secretary of State Colin Powell said, a "transformational" leader to guide us into a new era. Obama brings deep intellectual curiosity, equanimity and discipline.

The ground under America is moving. A generational change is under way with or without Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., or Barack Obama, D-Ill.

The core concerns are more about the future than the past, be it eight years ago or one day ago. They are about the moment and the movement to engage Americans in ways not seen before, especially against a backdrop of economic strife unmatched since the Great Depression.

McCain is correct that it's time to stand up. "Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history," he said at the Republican National Convention.

However, the ways of the past, which we believe McCain understands, will not work in this new America. The future requires new tools and new expertise. A premium must be placed on more than just love of country. We must re-embrace American ideals and lead the world on a stronger path to prosperity and peace.

The time is now and the leader is Barack Obama. The Star endorses Obama for president of the United States.

Like a race car driver going into a turn, a leader must see not only what confronts our nation today but envision where we come out on the other side. Obama sees how the United States is connected to other nations through our economic, immigration, national security and energy policies. No one can thrive alone.

Obama sees a foreign policy where force is but one tool. He envisions countries collaborating to confront bad actors and shared challenges such as global warming, poverty, terrorism, disease and religious extremism.

Obama sees a health-care system in which children can go to the doctor and families aren't forced into bankruptcy by medical bills. He experienced the same hardships many American families face. While his mother was dying of cancer, she battled her insurance company for care.

He embraces the strength of the free market, but sees that, in the United States today, the market doesn't meet people's health-care needs. He knows the heavy toll that inequitable public policies take on people's lives. We agree with Obama that health care should be as affordable and accessible to as many people as possible.

Obama sees an economy creating jobs through innovation, helping families stay in their homes and lifting the middle class and small businesses. He would reduce taxes for the majority of Americans and not raise taxes on those making less than $250,000.

Obama sees education as an investment in America's prosperity, political system and national security. He would expand early childhood education and protect funding for public schools. A college education is out of reach for many Americans. He would help make it more affordable through tuition tax credits.

He's proved himself with his nuanced understanding of complicated issues. His vision is not built on rhetoric. He offers substantive, detailed policies and the acumen to make these changes a reality.

He demonstrates leadership by surrounding himself with smart people who will strengthen his administration. For vice president Obama chose Joseph Biden, a U.S. senator with 35 years of experience, a foreign policy expert qualified to be president.

Obama made a responsible, pragmatic and intelligent choice that shows us he puts the nation above party politics.

This moment in history requires courage to change. Our nation must find a way to restore the confidence that our government is of the people, by the people, for the people -- all of our people.

We share Obama's vision of America. And we share his urgency.

Voting Machines in Six West Virginia Counties Report Vote Flipping on ES&S Machines

Also from Black Box Voting Forums:

SUMMARY: Jackson, Putnam, Berkeley, Ohio, Monongalia and Greenbrier, all using ES&S iVotronic voting machines, now have voters reporting that when they voted for one candididate the machine lit up a different one. (Don't be too quick to accept the calibration excuse. A Tennessee machine flipped voter choice to a candidate five lines down, ruling out calibration as the real reason.)

Voting machine complaints continue
Voters encouraged to review ballots before confirming

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A few voters from different counties continue to experience problems with electronic machines during early voting.

Eleven early voters from three counties - Jackson, Putnam and Berkeley - previously reported having problems with voting machines to the Charleston Gazette. At least five more voters in three other counties - Ohio, Monongalia and Greenbrier - recently reported similar problems.

A Wheeling Intelligencer editorial noted, "A few people who have cast ballots last week at the Ohio County early voting station in the City-County Building have reported difficulties.

"When they tried to select specific candidates on the touch-screen machine, votes instead were reported for their choices' opponents."

The Ohio County newspaper's Wednesday editorial added, "Voting machines taken to every polling place in every county should be recalibrated after they are moved - then tested to ensure they are functioning properly."

The Morgantown Dominion Post reported Melissa Turner, an early voter in Morgantown, was trying to vote for Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, when the machine switched her vote.

Monongalia County Clerk Carye L. Blaney told The Charleston Gazette, "I don't think it is serious. I don't think it is a problem with the machine.

"Everyone touches the machine differently. The machine, by design, is sensitive. If you touch it with a finger, you may put pressure above the line where the candidate is, or below.

"But the machines clearly show you who you voted for. It puts a large green check mark next to the candidate.

"Melissa Turner was trying to press the machine with her thumb. We have purchased a stylus-pointed device that has a narrow tip that you can use to make your selection.

"Some counties use the eraser end of a pencil. They are both narrow, easier to touch and easier for the screen [on voting machines] to identify," Blaney said on Thursday.

S.E. Dalton, an early voter in Greenbrier County, stated, "I too had my presidential vote changed from Obama to McCain when I cast my vote in Greenbrier County. As soon as it happened, I stated to the attendant, 'I didn't vote for him.' She handed me a pencil and instructed me to use the eraser to touch the screen as, 'It is very sensitive.'"

In an e-mail, Dalton wrote he uses a wide variety of computer technology and programs every day.

"I can tell you that in no way was the unauthorized vote change a result of user error," Dalton wrote. "Voters must use great caution when casting their votes if the election results are to truly reflect the decisions of the voters of West Virginia."

West Virginia's electronic voting machines are all made by Election Systems & Software, or ES&S, based in Omaha, Neb.

Wood County Clerk Jamie Six believes problems are caused when county officials do not calibrate and align voting machines properly.

Charleston Gazette - Oct. 27, 2008 By Paul J. Nyden

http://wvgazette.com/News/200810270020

Voting Irregularities: ES&S Machines in West Virginia Registering Obama Votes Incorrectly For Green Party Candidate

Vote Flipping From Obama to McKinney (Green Party Candidate)

Some voting irregularities being registered through Black Box Voting. Notably, so far the incorrect vote registrations appear to be depriving Obama of votes.

Black Box Voting Forums; Posted on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 - 7:28 pm:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary: This was the ES&S iVotronic, same voting machine caught flipping votes in two West Virginia counties. Votes peeled off to the other major party candidate, or to any smaller party candidate have the same effect: Disenfranchisement for the voter and political disadvantage for the candidate the voter was trying to vote for. You can find all counties with iVotronics by skimming through the state sections at Black Box Voting. If you will vote on a DRE, bring a cell phone camera and start capturing the screen, discreetly, BEFORE you see any votes flip. Prove it, this is important.

Sent by e-mail to Black Box Voting, from David Earnhardt, producer of the film UNCOUNTED - Oct. 20 2008

Vote Flipping in Davidson County, Tennessee

" My wife, Patricia Earnhardt, had an early voting experience here in Nashville, Tennessee, where she saw her vote momentarily flip from Barack Obama to Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney. She voted on a ouch-screen paperless machine. Here is her story:

"A poll worker directed me to a touch screen voting machine & instructedme how t o use it. I touched "Obama" for president & nothing lit up. I
touched 2 or 3 more times & still nothing lit up. I called the poll worker back over to tell him I was having a problem. He said I just needed to touch it more lightly. I tried it 2 or 3 more times more lightly with the poll worker watching & still nothing lit up. The poll worker then touched it for me twice — nothing lit up. The third time he touched the Obama button, the Cynthia McKinney space lit up! The McKinney button was located five rows below the Obama button. The poll worker just kind of laughed and cancelled the vote. He hit the Obama button again & it finally lit up. I continued on to cast the rest of my votes. After completing the process & reviewing my votes, I went to the VOTE page, hit the VOTE button & nothing happened. Again after several tries, I called the poll worker over & he finally got the machine to register my votes. Hurray — I voted! — or did I? I left the polling place feeling uncertain." Patricia Earnhardt -
Friday, Oct. 17 - Howard School Building - Nashville, Tennessee

David Earnhardt: I also had similar problems with the machine I was voting on that same day, although no vote flipping. I would touch the screen numerous times before I could get my various candidate choices to light up. It was strange and very frustrating. When I finally got through my slate of candidate choices, I could not get the VOTE button to light up when I touched it. I finally called over a poll worker and he told me that I needed to touch lightly. I touched the VOTE button more lightly, but was only able to get it to work after several more failed attempts.

From Another Black Box Voting forum Poster: For anyone who must vote on a touch screen, bring a new pencil with an unused eraser to the polling place. Tap the screen with the eraser, not your finger. If you tap the screen with the head of the eraser, you will avoid many of the problems associated with touch screens. First, the eraser head is much smaller than your finger tip. A large (or, may I say "fat?) finger might inadertently touch the area assigned to more than one candidate. A close relative of mine has huge fingers. There is no way he would be able to touch a voting area smaller than his massive fingertip. Next, the eraser avoids the problems that may be caused by a long fingernail that could drag into the next candidate space. By lifting the pencil in a deliberate motion rather than dragging it, this problem is avoided altogether. Finally, moving the eraser straight down and back up away from the screen helps reduce the problem of parallax, where the voter doesn't realize the effect of looking at a screen from an angle.

Reagan's Chief of Staff on Palin's lack of qualifications

Reagan's Former Chief of Staff Endorses Obama

Fact Check: Palin's Alaska spreads its wealth

Note from Greetings: So.. again by their own definition (McCain and Palin), are McCain and Palin the real socialists? McCain with his interest in corporate welfare for the wealthy in their tax breaks and the bailing out of Wall Street with government funds? And Palin, who did, indeed, spread the wealth around when she was in charge in Alaska.

By RITA BEAMISH – AP

Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin summon antidemocratic images of a communist state to attack Democrat Barack Obama's tax plan and his comment about spreading the wealth around. But in her home state, Palin embraces Alaska's own version of doing just that.

Palin and McCain seized on a comment Obama made to Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher, who asked about his tax plans.

Obama wants to raise taxes on families earning $250,000 to pay for cutting taxes for the 95 percent of workers and their families making less than $200,000. "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," he told Wurzelbacher.

McCain said that sounds "a lot like socialism" to many Americans. Palin has derided the Illinois senator as "Barack the Wealth Spreader."

But in Alaska, Palin is the envy of governors nationwide for the annual checks the state doles out to nearly every resident, representing their share of the revenues from the state's oil riches. She boosted those checks this year by raising taxes on oil.

McCain campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin said Thursday that spreading wealth through Obama's tax plan and doing it through Alaska's oil-profit distribution are not comparable because Alaska requires the state's resource wealth to be shared with residents, but it's not taxing personal income.

"It's how the revenue is shared between the oil companies and the state."

A look at Palin's and McCain's comments and the record in Alaska:

THE SPIN:

"Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth. Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic," Palin told a crowd in Roswell, N.M., and elsewhere. "But Joe the Plumber and Ed the Dairyman, I believe they think it sounds more like socialism.

"Friends, now is no time to experiment with socialism."

In Ohio, she asked, "Are there any Joe the Plumbers in the house?" To cheers, she said, "It doesn't sound like you're supporting Barack the Wealth Spreader."

McCain told a radio audience that Obama's plan "would convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth at the direction of politicians in Washington."

"Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it's just another government giveaway."

THE FACTS:

In Alaska, residents pay no income tax or state sales tax. They receive a yearly dividend check from a $30 billion state investment account built largely from royalties on its oil. When home fuel and gas costs soared last year, Palin raised taxes on big oil and used some of the money to boost residents' checks by $1,200. Thus every eligible man, woman and child got a record $3,269 this fall.

She also suspended the 8-cent tax on gas.

"We can afford to share resource wealth with Alaskans and to temporarily suspend the state fuel tax," she said at the time.

Much as Obama explains his tax hike on the rich as a way to help people who are struggling, Palin's statement talked about the energy costs burdening Alaskans:

"While the unique fiscal circumstances the state finds itself in at the end of this fiscal year warrant a special one-time payment to share some of the state's wealth, the payment comes at a time when Alaskans are facing rising energy prices. High prices for oil are a double-edged sword for Alaskans. While public coffers fill, prices for heating fuel and gasoline have skyrocketed over the last six months and are now running into the $5- to $9-a-gallon range for heating fuel and gasoline across several areas of the state."

In an interview with The New Yorker last summer Palin explained that she would make demands of a new gas pipeline "to maximize benefits for Alaskans":

"And Alaska we're set up, unlike other states in the union, where it's collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs."

An 'Idiot Wind'

Note from Greetings: Has John McCain disavowed and condemned the acts of G. Gordon Liddy, his "friend" (in McCain's words), who suggested shooting government agents and bombing the Brookings Institute and who was sent to jail for subverting the Democratic Process in the 1960's? Has Sarah Palin condemned the Alaska Independent Party who want to secede from the U.S., and whose conference Palin addressed as recently as June of this year, saying "Keep up your good work"? (And to which her husband belonged.)

And has John McCain talked about the large sums of money he helped to give the same below-mentioned Rashid Kalidi? ????

And what about Governor Palin's church in Alaska, where she had hands "laid on her" to "drive away witches" by Pastor Muthee who persecuted women in Africa for being withches, much like our days in the Salem witch trials. Let's hope we do not return 4oo years in our history.

What IS a terrorist? If we go by McCain and Palin's own words (which I don't), then McCain and Palin fit the bill as well. By their own definition.

John McCain's latest attempt to link Barack Obama to extremism

Friday, October 31, 2008; A18, Washingtonpost.com Editorial

WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him "a PLO spokesman"; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers -- a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance -- was at the dinner.

For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s, he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don't agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn't, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis -- or even to Mr. Ayers -- is a vile smear.

Perhaps unsurprising for a member of academia, Mr. Khalidi holds complex views. In an article published this year in the Nation magazine, he scathingly denounced Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and U.S. Middle East policy but also condemned Palestinians for failing to embrace a nonviolent strategy. He said that the two-state solution favored by the Bush administration (and Mr. Obama) was "deeply flawed" but conceded there were also "flaws in the alternatives." Listening to Mr. Khalidi can be challenging -- as Mr. Obama put it in the dinner toast recorded on the 2003 tape and reported by the Times in a detailed account of the event last April, he "offers constant reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."

It's fair to question why Mr. Obama felt as comfortable as he apparently did during his Chicago days in the company of men whose views diverge sharply from what the presidential candidate espouses. Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position. To suggest, as Mr. McCain has, that there is something reprehensible about associating with Mr. Khalidi is itself condemnable -- especially during a campaign in which Arab ancestry has been the subject of insults. To further argue that the Times, which obtained the tape from a source in exchange for a promise not to publicly release it, is trying to hide something is simply ludicrous, as Mr. McCain surely knows.

Which reminds us: We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over." That's good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign's increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.

Referendum on Trickle-Down

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 31, 2008; A19

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. -- Emily Daywalt decided to go to the first political rally of her life because she wanted to cheer Sarah Palin, who was here a few days ago to inspire the faithful. Daywalt said she likes that Palin "hunts and that she believes in God and that she is a strong, independent woman."

But ask the 19-year-old from South Mountain, Pa., why she is voting against Barack Obama, and she homes right in on John McCain's closing argument. Obama, Daywalt said, "wants to spread the wealth," which she interprets as meaning that he'd "give it to people who don't do anything."

For all of the McCain campaign's relentless use of guilt-by-association techniques, the 2008 campaign is concluding on a remarkably substantive argument. It is a debate about what constitutes social fairness and whether a top-down or a bottom-up approach to economic growth will define the country's future.

Obama is often described as cautious, but he has been bold and unrelenting in his criticism of trickle-down economics and tax cuts concentrated on the wealthy. He used yesterday's negative numbers on economic growth to press his case against theories that conservatives have been touting for decades.

"The decline in our GDP didn't happen by accident," Obama said. "It is a direct result of the Bush administration's trickle-down, Wall Street-first, Main Street-last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years."

Yes, economic populism is thriving right now, and if Obama wins, his election would not simply be a non-ideological verdict against the status quo. It would be a clear repudiation of conservative economic ideas and McCain's claim that a more egalitarian approach to growth constitutes "socialism." McCain's attacks on Obama's thinking have been so forceful and direct that they require this election to be seen as a referendum that will settle a long-running philosophical argument.

Obama has presented McCain with a problem. By endorsing tax cuts for Americans earning less than $200,000 a year -- i.e., the vast majority of taxpayers -- Obama has complicated the typical Republican claim that Democrats always support raising taxes.

Obama is candid in saying that he thinks the wealthy should pay more so that most Americans can pay less. He also thinks government can help vulnerable members of the middle class and the poor secure health care and go to college.

This has complicated McCain's effort to root his argument on taxes in middle-class self-interest, since Obama already has that covered. So McCain has actually had to defend giving large tax benefits to the wealthy and to business, and engage in a wholesale argument against any sort of redistribution.

McCain regularly charges that Obama wants to be the "redistributor in chief." Speaking at the rally here at Shippensburg University, Palin was forced to say this about Obama's support for a variety of tax credits aimed at helping the poor and middle class: "He says that he is for a tax credit, which is when government takes your money in order to give it away to someone else."

That is, of course, a mighty peculiar definition of tax credits. It is also an odd argument from a ticket that itself is committed to a research-and-development tax credit for corporations.

It's true that Obama favors "refundable" tax credits to help low-income workers, including some who may pay no income taxes but do pay many other taxes. McCain has argued that Obama's refundable tax credits amount to "welfare." That, too, is a strange claim, since McCain favors refundable credits as part of his health plan. But the whole idea is to convince voters such as Emily Daywalt that Obama really is just out to help those "who don't do anything."

And that is why Obama's 30-minute advertisement on Wednesday night was targeted directly to voters such as Daywalt, or at least to those like her who are still persuadable. It was Obama's tribute to the country's working people who seek nothing more than decent incomes, health care and a chance to see their children succeed. It was less a political ad than a documentary about the value of work and the responsibilities of family life.

For years, Republicans have argued that the way to help struggling working people is to give more money to the wealthy. Obama is saying that we should cut out the middleman and help working people directly. My hunch is that Obama's argument will prevail, and that conservatives will then work overtime to try to deny the judgment that the people have rendered.

postchat@aol.com

Will Mr. Burly vote for Obama?

The thought of replacing the Current Occupant with the Angry Old Man of the Desert and Whoopee the Ice Queen is miserable in the extreme.

By Garrison Keillor

Oct. 29, 2008 I was messing around in Tulsa, Okla., last week and got talking with a big burly man with a McCain-Palin pin on his blue blazer who told me he was descended from yellow-dog Democrats who thought the sun rose and set over FDR and Republicans were people who wore spats and top hats and sailed off Newport. So I told him that my Republican ancestors believed that only lazy people were unemployed in the '30s. He said, "So each of us is heading back to where the other one is coming from." He found that rather amusing. I said, "If that's so, I hope you're ready to be good and poor and endure some hard Minnesota winters."

"Poor, yes. Good, I'm not so sure about. Winter, no. No way."

He's proud of Tulsa, which survived the exodus of Big Oil and got into telecommunications and aeronautics, proud of its Art Deco buildings from the '20s, its art museums and ballet. "Outsiders hear Tulsa and they think Dust Bowl and Oral Roberts," he says, "but that's not who we are. This town is all about change."

I did not bother to tell him that change is exactly what the country is bursting to achieve in less than a week. Of course he knows all about it. Oklahoma seems safely red, but these days who knows? Obama looks more and more steadfast as the moment nears. The country longs for a president who can talk and think at the same time. We've been locked up with the Current Occupant for way too long and the thought of replacing him with the Angry Old Man of the Desert and Whoopee the Ice Queen is miserable in the extreme.

Most of my Republican friends are people who are not ashamed of having worked hard and done well in school, and their party's frantic appeal to anti-intellectualism is nothing they care to sign up for. Time to nip that sucker in the bud. The party needs to reform itself around some coherent philosophy of governance and vision of the future and for that, it must take a trip to the wilderness. They are quietly supporting the skinny guy this time around. They might tell a pollster otherwise but that's what they will do. Call it the Palin Effect.

Even Mr. Burly of Tulsa expressed sorrow over McCain's campaign, the jerkiness and desperation of it, and admiration for Barack's steadiness, his cool, his straightforward articulation and the old-fashioned story of his rise in the world. I thought about that the next day, flying to Philly and walking over to Independence Hall and riding the train to Lancaster through the little towns of old brick row houses, the red and golden trees, the trim farmyards and the fields of tan stubble, a state McCain has scrapped hard for even as he sank in the polls. I suppose he looks at that classic Rockwell landscape and those hardy German Lutheran faces and thinks those are his people and how can they possibly go for a Harvard Law graduate from the South Side of Chicago whose last name is Obama, for crying out loud?

They can and they will. Colin Powell was right when he called the guy a transformational candidate. We walk through the door and we close it behind us and the simplicity of it is dazzling. That's how it happens. You walk aboard a plane and glance into the cockpit and there's a woman in the left-hand seat, and who these days would even think this worthy of comment? You see Latino men and women moving up whose grandparents picked row crops for a living. In Tulsa, in 1921, there was a big race riot following the arrest of a young black man who was alleged to have touched a white woman on the arm. Fighting in the streets, neighborhoods torched, the National Guard called in -- and this story seems medieval to us, a dark age almost beyond our ken. That culture is gone, gone, gone, and on Tuesday we bury it by the simple democratic process of voting for the best man even though his father was African.

In America, a man is not held responsible for choosing his parents, only for his own life and conduct. This man promises to take us into a new era where we aren't defined by our differences, Short vs. Tall, Pale vs. Freckled, and can take a deep breath and do what's best for the country.

(Garrison Keillor is the author of a new Lake Wobegon novel, "Liberty," published by Viking.)

© 2008 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Measure Those Drapes: Our Presidential Candidates SHOULD Have Their Cabinets Selected

By now, both candidates should be deep into preparations for the responsibilities one of them is about to take on.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008; A16, Washington Post editorial

WE WRITE today in praise of drape-measuring. Early preparation for a presidential transition is essential to a successful launch of any presidency, and this transition will be more challenging -- more perilous -- than any in decades. It will be the first transfer of government since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, presenting America's enemies with a tempting moment of potential vulnerability. It arrives in the midst of a financial crisis and two wars. Any new president must scramble to produce a budget shortly after taking office; this president also will have to assume management of the $700 billion (and counting) financial bailout.

The candidates are understandably reluctant to discuss the transition for fear of appearing presumptuous. Indeed, Sen. John McCain has been deriding Sen. Barack Obama for "measuring the drapes" in the Oval Office. The fact of the matter, however, is that both candidates have engaged in transition planning, Mr. Obama in what appears to be a more systematic and detailed way than Mr. McCain. This is grounds for praise, not carping. As Clay Johnson, who launched George W. Bush's transition planning in spring 2000, wrote in a recent article for Public Administration Review, "It is irresponsible for anybody who could be president not to prepare to govern effectively from day one." Exhibit A in how not to handle the transition is Bill Clinton, whose dawdling on filling his Cabinet and naming his White House staff contributed to the early stumbles of his presidency.

Mr. Johnson and other transition experts believe the new president should announce his chief of staff within a few days of the election and, by Thanksgiving, name his key White House, economic, national security and foreign policy officials. That will be a daunting task; no recent president-elect has followed so ambitious a timetable. As Patricia McGinnis of the Council for Excellence in Government testified last month, of the 400 Cabinet and sub-Cabinet positions that require Senate confirmation, "No more than 25 . . . have ever been confirmed within three months of any new Administration and only half within six months." Having Cabinet secretaries in place does not help much if they are home alone at their departments without confirmed deputies to assist them.

There are grounds for hope that the process will be speedier this time. A 2004 law gives candidates the opportunity to submit the names of transition planners for quick security clearances, "completed by the day after the election, to the extent practicable." In addition, the president-elect may submit, the day after the election, "the names of prospective nominees for high-level security positions for the cabinet and sub-cabinet." The Bush administration appears committed to assisting in a smooth transition at a difficult time; President Bush recently signed an executive order creating a Presidential Transition Coordinating Council to oversee the handoff.

The Senate has a responsibility to act swiftly and without partisan considerations. The Sept. 11 commission recommended that it change its rules to require a vote to confirm or reject national security nominees within 30 days of their nomination at the start of a new administration; lawmakers chose not to adopt that recommendation, but they should live up to its spirit in dealing with economic as well as national security positions. A report by the Congressional Research Service found that the longest lag, however, has involved getting nominations to the Senate in the first place; of 31 positions in the Bush administration that would have been subject to the 30-day deadline, 22 were confirmed within that span, four were holdovers from the Clinton administration and just five took longer than the allotted time. Yet it took an average of 65 days for Mr. Bush to submit his nominations, and even longer, 90 days, for Mr. Clinton. Getting background checks done quickly is critical. But the country will be better off if the winner of next week's election has a firm idea now of whom he would like in key positions.

In Defense of White Americans

by Frank Rich, NY Times

IT seems like a century ago now, but it was only in 2005 that a National Journal poll of Beltway insiders predicted that George Allen, then a popular Virginia senator, would be the next G.O.P. nominee for president. George who? Allen is now remembered, if at all, as a punch line. But any post-mortem of the Great Republican Collapse of 2008 must circle back to the not-so-funny thing that happened on his way to the White House.

That would be in 2006, when he capsized his own shoo-in re-election race by calling a 20-year-old Indian-American “macaca” before a white audience (and a video camera). “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,” Allen told the young Democratic campaign worker for good measure, in a precise preview of the playbook that has led John McCain and Sarah Palin to their tawdry nadir two years later.

It wasn’t just Allen’s lame racial joke or his cluelessness about 21st-century media like YouTube that made him a harbinger of the current G.O.P. fiasco. It was most of all the national vision he set forth: There are Real Americans, and there are the Others.

The Real are the small-town white folks Allen was addressing in southwestern Virginia. The Others — and their subversive fellow travelers, the Elites — are Americans like the young man who Allen maligned: a high-achieving son of immigrant parents who was born and raised in Washington’s Northern Virginia suburbs during its technology boom. (Allen, the self-appointed keeper of real Virginia, grew up in California.)

Cut to 2008. You’d think that this incident would be a cautionary tale, but the McCain campaign instead embraced Allen as a role model, with Palin’s odes to “real” and “pro-America” America leading the charge. The farcical apotheosis of this strategy arrived last weekend, again on camera and again in Virginia, when a McCain adviser, Nancy Pfotenhauer, revived Allen’s original script, literally, during an interview on MSNBC.

After dismissing the Northern Virginia suburbs, she asserted that the “real Virginia” — the part of the state “more Southern in nature” — will prove “very responsive” to the McCain message. All Pfotenhauer left out was “macaca,” but with McCain calling Barack Obama’s tax plan “welfare” and campaign surrogates (including the robo-calling Rudy Giuliani) linking the Democrat to violent, Willie Horton-like criminality, that would have been redundant.

We don’t know yet if McCain will go the way of Allen in a state that hasn’t voted for a Democratic president since 1964, when L.B.J. vanquished another Arizona Republican in a landslide. But we do know that Obama swept like a conquering hero through Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, last week and that he leads in every recent Virginia poll.

There are at least two larger national lessons to be learned from what is likely to be the last gasp of Allen-McCain-Palin politics in 2008. The first, and easy one, is that Republican leaders have no idea what “real America” is. In the eight years since the first Bush-Cheney convention pledged inclusiveness and showcased Colin Powell as its opening-night speaker, the G.O.P. has terminally alienated black Americans (Powell himself now included), immigrant Americans (including the Hispanics who once gave Bush-Cheney as much as 44 percent of their votes) and the extended families of gay Americans (Palin has now revived a constitutional crusade against same-sex marriage). Subtract all those players from the actual America, and you don’t have enough of a bench to field a junior varsity volleyball team, let alone a serious campaign for the Electoral College.

But the other, less noticed lesson of the year has to do with the white people the McCain campaign has been pandering to. As we saw first in the Democratic primary results and see now in the widespread revulsion at the McCain-Palin tactics, white Americans are not remotely the bigots the G.O.P. would have us believe. Just because a campaign trades in racism doesn’t mean that the country is racist. It’s past time to come to the unfairly maligned white America’s defense.

That includes acknowledging that the so-called liberal media, among their other failures this year, have helped ratchet up this election cycle’s prevailing antiwhite bias. Ever since Obama declared his candidacy, the press’s default setting has been to ominously intone that “in the privacy of the voting booth” ignorant, backward whites will never vote for a black man.

A leading vehicle for this journalistic mind-set has been the unending obsession with “the Bradley effect” — as if nothing has changed in America since 1982, when some polls (possibly for reasons having nothing to do with race) predicted erroneously that a black candidate, Tom Bradley, would win the California governorship. In 2008, there is, if anything, more evidence of a reverse Bradley effect — Obama’s primary vote totals more often exceeded those in the final polls than not — but poor old Bradley keeps being flogged anyway.

So do all those deer hunters in western Pennsylvania. Once Hillary Clinton whipped Obama in the Rust Belt, it’s been a bloviation staple (echoing the Clinton camp’s line) that a black guy is doomed among Reagan Democrats, Joe Sixpacks, rednecks, Joe the Plumbers or whichever condescending term you want to choose. (Clinton at one low point settled on “hard-working Americans, white Americans.”) Michigan in particular was repeatedly said to be slipping out of the Democrats’ reach because of incorrigible racism — until McCain abandoned it as hopeless this month in the face of a double-digit Obama lead.

The constant tide of anthropological articles and television reports set in blue-collar diners, bars and bowling alleys have hyped this racial theory of the race. So did the rampant misreading of primary-season exit polls. On cable TV and the Sunday network shows, there was endless chewing over the internal numbers in the Clinton victories. It was doomsday news for Obama, for instance, that some 12 percent of white Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania said race was a factor in their choice and three-quarters of them voted for Clinton. Ipso facto — and despite the absence of any credible empirical evidence — these Clinton voters would either stay home or flock to McCain in November.

The McCain campaign is so dumb that it bought into the press’s confirmation of its own prejudices. Even though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 1.2 million in Pennsylvania (more than double the 2004 gap), even though Obama leads by double digits in almost every recent Pennsylvania poll and even though no national Republican ticket has won there since 1988, McCain started pouring his dwindling resources into the state this month. When the Democratic Representative John Murtha described his own western Pennsylvania district as a “racist area,” McCain feigned outrage and put down even more chips on the race card, calling the region the “most patriotic, most God-loving” part of America.

Well, there are racists in western Pennsylvania, as there are in most pockets of our country. But despite the months-long drumbeat of punditry to the contrary, there are not and have never been enough racists in 2008 to flip this election. In the latest New York Times/CBS News and Pew national polls, Obama is now pulling even with McCain among white men, a feat accomplished by no Democratic presidential candidate in three decades, Bill Clinton included. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey finds age doing more damage to McCain than race to Obama.

Nor is America’s remaining racism all that it once was, or that the McCain camp has been hoping for it to be. There are even “racists for Obama,” as Politico labels the phenomenon: White Americans whose distrust of black people in general crumbles when they actually get to know specific black people, including a presidential candidate who extends a genuine helping hand in a time of national crisis.

The original “racist for Obama,” after all, was none other than Obama’s own white, Kansas-raised grandmother, the gravely ill Madelyn Dunham, whom he visited in Hawaii on Friday. In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama wrote of how shaken he was when he learned of her overwhelming fear of black men on the street. But he weighed that reality against his unshakeable love for her and hers for him, and he got past it.

When Obama cited her in his speech on race last spring, the right immediately accused him of “throwing his grandmother under the bus.” But Obama’s critics were merely projecting their own racial hang-ups. He still loves his grandmother. He was merely speaking candidly and generously — like an adult — about the strange, complex and ever-changing racial dynamics of America. He hit a chord because many of us have had white relatives of our own like his, and we, too, see them in full and often love them anyway.

Such human nuances are lost on conservative warriors of the Allen-McCain-Palin ilk. They see all Americans as only white or black, as either us or them. The dirty little secret of such divisive politicians has always been that their rage toward the Others is exceeded only by their cynical conviction that Real Americans are a benighted bunch of easily manipulated bigots. This seems to be the election year when voters in most of our myriad Americas are figuring that out.