Yonatan Zunger’s Blog

[Cross-posted to novadem]

At this site you can find maps of the United States at single-county resolution showing the votes in 2000 and 2004. The results are fascinating and well worth a look, especially if you take both images and flip between them a few times.
Some features of note:

A quick reminder: If you can’t remember where your local polling place is, or need its hours, or a list of local ballot measures, or the like, SmartVoter is a non-partisan site that has all of this available.

DO NOT FORGET – polls will be open until 8pm in most places, but lines may be longer than usual, especially if you live in a contested area.

I probably don’t need to say this to anyone who’s reading this journal, but this is the most important election we’ve had in many decades, and every vote counts. You simply can’t justify not voting tomorrow – if you’re eligible to vote in your area, you need to be at those polls. This is what they mean by “civic duty;” everyone’s contribution really is that important tomorrow.

President Bush has two new endorsements for his campaign: From Russia and Iran.

No word yet from North Korea.

I missed the debate tonight. Blame it on work, blame it on already having seen the first two (as well as the veep debate) and noticing that they were already repeating themselves pretty thoroughly by the second.

It makes sense; Kerry knew damned well that he won the first, so he kept doing what he was doing. Bush knew that he lost the first, so he corrected and tried to do as well as possible in the second, and in fact improved.

But one week of study can’t really make up for being, as they say in Yiddish (forgive my horrible attempt at transliteration) nicht ein grosse chuchen, nicht ein kleiner narr — neither a great sage nor a small fool. So the second debate was pretty much as expected. From what I’ve heard, the third debate was much of the same.

Oh well. If it wasn’t clear from this post, my mind is pretty much made up, and it has been for a couple of years.

Was interesting. I highly recommend that everyone who didn’t see it watch it on tape – the mannerisms and tones of voice spoke volumes, and the transcripts won’t show that.

One thing I’m curious to see how other people reacted to was the body language. From what I saw, it looked almost embarassing; if I had no idea who these two people were, I would have noticed a difference. Kerry was focused, relaxed, and, well, presidential. He answered questions, he took the offensive and kept it. Bush was highly defensive throughout; physically, he almost looked like he was crouching in the corner. He sounded whiny, to be honest.

From reading the news services, the phrase that stuck the most seems to have been Kerry’s description of the war in Iraq as “a colossal error in judgement.” I’m a bit surprised that another line wasn’t noticed more – Kerry said, at some point in the past, that this was “the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time,” and Bush quoted it. Repeatedly. Throughout the debate.

Anyway, I’m quite curious to know what other people thought – especially people who aren’t quite as partisan as I am, or at least partisans of the other side. What things stuck out in your mind? What were the moments that your favored candidate looked the strongest, and the weakest? Did you get anything from this?

And a reminder again – if you haven’t seen this debate, find a recorded copy and go watch it. It was very informative about both the platforms and the people.