I would like to follow up on my Oct. 22 anti-voting column “Please don’t vote” and do my best to clarify my position:
By advocating not voting I don’t mean to say that voting doesn’t matter—it quite clearly does matter. The last eight years prove that elections affect everyone’s lives to some degree. By the same token, I have a very strong preference in this election—I am not apathetic. But I am not apathetic on the Duke/UNC rivalry either, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK for me to kidnap Tyler Hansbrough. I’m not equating politics and basketball, but the point holds—just because you would prefer one outcome doesn’t mean that doing everything you can to achieve that outcome is OK.
So why is voting so wrong that you should abstain from it when the stakes are so high?
1. It legitimizes the tyranny of the majority. By voting you are not only voicing your preference, but declaring your intention to abide by the outcome—you cannot participate in democracy on the condition that your side always wins. But why should the fact that many people disagree with me matter? Obviously Hitler and slavery are extreme examples, but there are plenty of others I could have invoked: abortion, civil rights, the Patriot Act, government-subsided health care, lowering the top marginal income tax rate…whether any of these issues are right or wrong has nothing to do with how many people support them, just as Hitler and slavery were not OK because they were supported by a majority. (more…)
There’s been no shortage of statistical activity surrounding this presidential election. Often it’s been mentioned along with the Bradley Effect and underperform-or-overperform arguments for both candidates, both of which add uncertainty to the situation.
But, after pressing all those calculator keys and supercomputing till the cows come home, Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight.com recently noticed something very simple emerge:
Also, there are some states that truly do appear to be “must-wins” for McCain. In each and every one of the 624 victory scenarios that the simulation found for him this afternoon, McCain won Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana and Montana. He also picked up Ohio in 621 out of the 624 simulations, and North Carolina in 622 out of 624. If McCain drops any of those states, it’s pretty much over.
McCain essentially needs to win either Ohio or North Carolina, or his chances of winning, according to this analysis, drop to near zero percent. With this in mind, we’ll be watching very closely as Ohio’s and North Carolina’s results pour in relatively early on Tuesday. If either state gets colored in Duke (or Tar Heel, I suppose) blue, and if we’re to trust Nate Silver, we’ll be able to start writing our headlines early that night.
- Sarah Palin – Maya Robinson/The Chronicle
Republican vice presidential nominee and conservative darling Sarah Palin spoke to a crowd of 5,000 enthused supporters at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh Saturday, the (Raleigh) News & Observer reported.
In what is most likely the last Republican political rally before Election Day, Palin entreated North Carolinian voters to keep the state red.
Although Palin has become the butt of many a late-night joke and single-handedly catapulted Tina Fey to super stardom, she remains a serious force to be reckoned with among the conservative base.
“She is more like the average person that’s in Middle America and the people that I associate with,” said Joan Reynolds, a volunteer at the GOP Victory office in Durham. ”She’s very well founded in her faith and very well-founded in her family. She’s tried to make a difference by working in the government but she’s hasn’t lost sight of where her real mission is and that is to be a mother and a wife and I just think she does a great job of balancing it all.”
Reynolds, a mother of three, flew down from Alabama two weeks ago to volunteer in North Carolina.
Despite the flak Palin’s selection as veep has received from many as evidence of John McCain’s erratic judgment, it is her populism and ability to connect with everyday people on a personal level that appears to be the key to her success.
We’ll just have to wait and see whether there are enough of such voters to put the self-professed hockey mom next in line for the presidency in t-minus 2 days.
Obama - Maya Robinson/The Chronicle
Sen. Obama is scheduled to speak at UNC-Charlotte Monday as part of a barnstorming tour the day before the election in which he plans to visit key battleground states. This is his eighth visit to North Carolina–he was here most recently last Wednesday in Raleigh. His speech is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Look out for full Chronicle coverage of the event in Tuesday’s issue.
