Today I saw this lone protester outside the Mormon temple in Los Angeles:

Click to big-ify

On my TV today:

The NYTimes mentioned that if voter turnout were to hit 64% this election, it would be the highest voter turnout since the 65.7% we had in the election of 1908 (go Taft!). This got me curious about historical voter turnout levels and led me to this handy data repository, which I turned into an even handier bar graph:

click to big-ify

Apparently I’m very interested in voter turnout numbers, as this is not the first such chart that I have posted.

Why are photos of politicians often so good? Is it just that they’re photographed so often? For whatever reason, I really like this picture:

One of McCain’s strongest blocks of supporters is in the Vietnamese community (at least compared to other Asian immigrant communities) — do we have a Manchurian Candidate on our hands?

AP: “‘I don’t find anything funny about Adolf Hitler,’ said Jonathan Swain, Indiana campaign spokesman for Obama.”

It’s been widely reported that Sarah Palin spent over $150,000 of campaign money on clothes, but my question is, what did she buy for $133 at the Gap? Do you think she has the same socks that I do?

Dear everyone,

Can we non-law enforcement types please be less concerned about voter fraud? I don’t care much about out-of-town kids registering to vote, and I don’t care much about a few people who don’t know how to use touchscreen voting machines. If there’s any actual, significant voting fraud going on, it can be dealt with outside of the electoral process. We have the police, we have the FBI, I’m content to let them handle it rather than griping about it endlessly in a ploy to influence the election or explain potential defeat.

Thank you.

Third party candidate debate: Sunday, 8pm, CSPAN. But Bob Barr might not show up… yegads, why?

Hey, look at me, I know someone running for the North Dakota state Senate:

Do I know anybody else who lives in North Dakota?

The LA Times railed against the stupidity of undecided voters (as well as discussing their perceived central role in American politics) in a recent opinion piece. As a potentially undecided voter, it’s videos like the ones below that make me want to vote for nobody. The first, from Drudge, is a McCain supporters’ march through Manhattan being heckled by Obama supporters. The second, from Cynical-C, is a line of ignorant McCain supporters waiting to get into a rally in Pennsylvania. Both sides display an extreme lack of decency and have turned politics into demagoguery. It’s sad.

Maybe I’ll vote for Bob Barr.

This graph show’s how McCain’s polling correlates with the health of the stock market as measured by the S&P 500:

Is it possible that nothing in the campaign has had any impact on the polls other than the economy? That’s sort of a sad thought.

Via State of the Union and Electoral Vote.

CNN presents this well conceived objection to Obama’s campaign:

Definition of muslin.

Since I’m flying out of the country tomorrow, I figured I might as well just decide that I’m finished with this and throw it online:

If you’re exceedingly nerdy AND have very little taste in stickers, pins or magnets, you can pick up one of these at Cafepress for the next five minutes. Based on my past experiences with CafePress, I’m certain they’ll decide this violates one of their many, many restrictive and killjoy-based policies.

Past iterations of this idea can be seen here and here.

Sources for Creative Commons pictures: Wil Wheaton and Joss Whedon.

Political Arthimetik posted a nice chart showing the percent of people supporting the Democratic candidate minus the percent supporting the Republican candidate in 2000, 2004 and 2008. Obama is fairing better than both Gore and Kerry at this point in the campaign:

I like graphs.

A new swing at the Whedon/Wheaton bumper sticker idea (this one without typos):

4th Swing:

5th Swing:

I’m not actually sure what to do with this. The idea seems funnier in my head than on paper.

UPDATE: A new version is now on sale.

2008 is both a real, and a fictional, election year. In 1955 Isaac Asimov wrote a short story titled Franchise about a fictional election in 2008:

In the future, the United States has converted to an “electronic democracy” where the computer Multivac selects a single person to answer a number of questions. Multivac will then use the answers and other data to determine what the results of an election would be, avoiding the need for an actual election to be held.

The story centers around Norman Muller, the man chosen as “Voter of the Year” in 2008. At first he is not sure he wants the responsibility of representing the entire electorate, worrying that the result will be unfavorable and he will be blamed. However, after voting he is very proud that the citizens of the United States had, through him, “exercised once again their free, untrammeled franchise” – a statement that is somewhat ironic as the citizens didn’t actually get to vote.

I might actually endorse this electoral system.

Phew! Ok, so it’s not Obama. Glad we cleared that up. My friends will be disappointed, though.

I like that Glen Beck is getting crazy email about this too.

NYTimes has the most misleading headline of this political season: “Cast of 300 Advises Obama on Foreign Policy.”

A fantastic story: A fashion designer who dislikes Obama because he think’s Obama is a Muslim sells a t-shirt that reads “Obama is my slave” to a grad student who thinks it’s a good idea to wear this t-shirt out and about in New York City.  The grad student is, unsurprisingly, assaulted by a group of angry New York denizens, then sues the fashion designer.

I can’t figure out who I like least in this story, the xenophobic fashion designer, the foolishly short-sighted and litigious grad student, or the violent street people?

I had to stop studying when a screaming fight broke out outside my apartment, so instead, as I threatened earlier, I made a goofy bumper sticker:

I think this one ultimately needs more work (my creative process is long, boring and seldom does much to improve my original work). Maybe it needs a spaceship or two…

Sources for Creative Commons pictures: Wil Wheaton and Joss Whedon.

UPDATE: I’ve posted a new version, without typos, here.

UPDATE UPDATE: A new version is now on sale.

Rasmussen reports that:

Libertarian voters make up 4% of the nation’s likely voters and they favor Barack Obama over John McCain by a 53% to 38% margin. Three percent (3%) would vote for some other candidate and 5% are not sure.

Only 3% of libertarians said they would vote for a third party candidate?  That’s a pretty sad performance for Bob Barr. Maybe he’s the one who should to be firing his campaign manager. Maybe Ron Paul wants the gig…

It just occurred to me that, after the success of Hypnobama ‘08, I should make an election bumper stick for the surprising candidacy of Joss Whedon and Wil Wheaton. I haven’t yet decided who will be at the top of the Wheaton/Whedon ‘08 ticket.

Things More Muslim than Obama is like Things Younger Than McCain, but funnier.

Through a combination of garbage picking, oddly colored food and unfulfillable requirements, the Democrats plan to have the least fun convention ever!