Results tagged “2008election”

Considering the 2008 elections occurred, oh, nearly eight months ago, it's hard to believe that some outcomes still aren't determined. Decision 2008 came a little closer to the end today when the activist judges Minnesota Supreme Court, in a 5-0 ruling, ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of last fall's Senate race. Of course, current Senator/sore loserman Norm Coleman is threatening to keep fighting the not-so-good fight and taking an appeal to federal court, but we kindly suggest that Norm just pull an Uncle Ted and give up now. Or start his campaign for Governor in 3...2...1.... Update: Coleman has conceded.

Remember last fall when we checked in with FiveThirtyEight.com every day to make sure things were still all good after our nightly President Palin panic attack dreams? Then remember last November when he pretty much predicted the final Electoral College numbers? Well it’s no longer an election year so Silver has to return to his first love, baseball, and his 2009 projections show the Mariners in last place in what looks to be a very poor division.

Just in time for Inauguration Day, 826 Seattle is celebrating the publication of Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: Kids' Letters To President Obama (available January 20th). In the book, 826 students from all seven writing centers "reach out to the 44th president, speaking to the issues closest to their hearts, relating their life stories, and asking for help. Topics include the economy, education, war, global warming, race relations in America, and immigration. The book also includes letters about snow cones, puppies, microwavable burritos, dinosaur projects, multiplication, and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, reportedly haunting a White House bedroom." To celebrate the book's release, there's a party and reading at 826 Seattle next Saturday afternoon.

The first update today on Alaska's ballot count: Now it's Begich by 2,374 votes. That's a 0.77% difference between Begich and Stevens, which would not trigger an automatic recount. Keep checking for updates here.

Approximately 24,000 Alaska ballots from the 2008 election will be counted today, and then we should know if Uncle Tubes/convicted felon Ted Stevens has officially lost his Senate seat. (The only ballots remaining after today will be those votes received from overseas, which, if postmarked by midnight on November 4th, will be accepted until Wednesday.) As it currently stands, Dem challenger Mark Begich is up by 1,022 votes, a difference of 0.35%. If the votes are split by less than 0.5%, there will be a state-funded recount, but if Begich picks up a few more votes, this thing--and Sen. Stevens' and Sarah Palin's career--could be done for good. Keep checking Alaska's election results here.

          

For today's Prop 8 march and protest, the weather cooperated nicely. Obviously, God loves a civil rights parade.

Speaking of the gay, in case you haven't heard, tomorrow's the National Day of Protest Against Prop 8. Here in Seattle, the protesting festivities start early, with people gathering in Volunteer Park beginning at 10:30 a.m. and starting the march down to Westlake Center at noon. If you can't do that walk hungover, meet up at Westlake for the rally at 2 p.m. Please, make an effort to represent at some point tomorrow. For such an important issue, numbers matter.

Dan Savage, on CNN yesterday, debated the Prop 8 debacle with smug asshat Tony Perkins. We really think Savage did a good job arguing with this waste of space.

As we mentioned yesterday, for the first time in the Alaska Senate race, Democratic challenger Mark Begich took the lead over tubesy felon Ted Stevens by just three em-effing votes. Well, as of late last night, Begich's lead had grown to 814 votes, which is comparatively huge. And things just might get better; Sean Quinn of everybody's favorite number-crunching website notes, "As we've pointed out and has been pointed out elsewhere, the remaining votes come from Begich-friendly districts. Mark Begich is now an overwhelming favorite to win the Alaska Senate seat." We know Stevens ain't gonna go down without a fight, but Washington's "third Senator" might want to start looking at his retirement options.

A week after the election, Alaska's still hard at work counting their absentee ballots. Prior to today, incumbent US Senator/old coot/convicted felon Ted Stevens' lead over Dem challenger Mark Begich had been 3,257 votes. This morning, the state started to tally its approximately 90,000 votes that remain to be counted, and the gap whittled down to 971 votes--until just now, when, after elections officials had sorted through 43,000 of those ballots, it was announced that for the first time Begich was up. By three votes. As the Anchorage Daily News reports: "The elections division still has over 10,000 ballots left to count today and thousands more through next week, but the latest numbers show Mark Begich leading Sen. Ted Stevens 125,019 to 125,016."

The New Yorker is reporting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin began actively campaigning for the vice-presidential gig almost immediately after she took the governor's office in early 2007. A key component to her vice-presidential strategy was to schmooze high-falutin' conservatives who were passengers on two Seattle-based Holland America cruise ships in the summer and fall of that year.

There was a happy commotion on the real Capitol Hill last night at Broadway and Pike. Naturally it involved Journey. (Thanks to Todd for posting the great video above on YouTube. How about an aerial view, you ask?) Over on the other side of the country, DC got down, too. New York took pictures of itself, Chicago understandably took more, Los Angeles was ready for a close-up, Philly got it on video, San Francisco--well of course San Francisco partied, even Toronto celebrated, while London livebloggged.

This morning as we walked in to work, every person we passed had his or her head up high, made eye contact, and actually smiled at us. People on the street said hi cordially and greeted us with "Good morning." It all had us wondering if we woke in a wonderful alternate universe this morning, a universe where an inspiring Democrat will be calling the White House home and where Seattleites actually acknowledge each others' existences. And we gotta say, it made the blurry, hung-over, late trip into the office so much more enjoyable. Is this something Seattleites could keep up? We certainly hope the answer is "yes we can!"

That should push Gregoire's numbers up even more, as King County is Gregoire country, and while about 370,000 votes have been counted, King County elections estimates they have 380,000 more to go. If that's correct, then about 67 percent of the county's registered voters turned out in the 2008 election. Which is okay. But not great, King County. Not superlative. Here's the statewide voter turnout. Little Columbia County, down in the southeast corner of Washington state, looks to be the GOTV leader so far.

...on September 12, 2001, that the next President of the United States would be a guy named Barack Hussein Obama, you would have thought we were insane, even as you purchased another crate of duct tape.

This morning we woke to chilly air and dark clouds, and although we had signed up to volunteer at the Obama office later in the day we considered mailing it in. But then Sarah Palin came on the tube, telling us how she'd make a great VP, and we said "Hell No!" and a few minutes later, we were in our car headed for the Obama/Burner campaign office in Bellevue.

Thank you all for participating in our Seattlest Vote 2008 Polls over the last week! Though the polls were informal, they still give us a fairly good reading on how the Seattlest community will be voting today.

Our ceiling flooded all of a sudden this morning, after our last post. But what's a little fallen, drenched ceiling when there's a once-in-a-lifetime presidential election going on, eh? We left our friendly maintenance guy to talk to himself, sop things up with rags, dry things out with lamps, and headed back over to the Baltic Room for a little E-Day madness. There were at least as many people there as had been there when we left. Signs were everywhere. Food and drink was everywhere. Someone made Obama cookies, as you can see (delicious! probably all gone now).

While the country was busy blindly voting for whoever they fancied, Seattle Weekly writer Don Ward was hard at work being a true patriot and writing an important blog post for the Weekly. We only wish he'd opened our eyes sooner before we so ignorantly cast our ballot.

•The polls close at 8 p.m., and absentee ballots must be postmarked by today. You can find where you are registered here; you can find a place to watch the results in public here.

What a long, strange trip it's been. Look back on this Presidential campaign season via the video above, or go all the way back to the halcyon days of the primaries at this simple, foul-mouthed website.

Throughout the campaign we have been gathering the top political writers in the country, and asking them to discuss the presidential race. Today they reflect on the campaign and what they expect on Election Day.

Newsweek is reporting that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is planning a "Western swing later this week". Polls released today indicate that Obama is now within striking distance of winning in McCain's home state of Arizona and both candidates are now running ads there. Could that "Western" part include us? An Obama visit to Seattle would count for the whole Pacific Northwest (Alaska, Idaho, and Montana), and with Washington's gubernatorial and 8th CD races hotly contested, Obama could help the Democratic down-ticket with a last-minute visit.

Everybody's favorite dry-witted financial mag waited until the week before the election, but The Economist's Presidential endorsement is online today, and it's an unequivocal backing of Barack Obama:

Still undecided about transit measure Proposition 1 on the ballot this year? Not sure about the light rail? Here's some food for thought: A Denver real estate study has revealed property values of homes closer to a new light rail line have actually increased while the remainder of the market has declined markedly: "Homes near light rail stations along the southeast line, which opened in November 2006, have increased by an average of nearly 4 percent over the past two years, according to an analysis by Your Castle Real Estate. But the rest of the Denver market declined an average of 7.5 percent."

There are two weeks until Election Day, and two issues in our state's gubernatorial race (three if you count Eastern Washington's concerns). Each week we'll be taking an award-winning look at where the candidates stand.

Seattlest has a brilliant idea for your re-election bid in four years. Can you do us a favor and create a check box on your website, next to where we might provide our email address when we donate or sign up for an event? We would like that check box to read "I am an enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama who is also a dedicated voter. You have my vote. Definitely. Please spend your money on mail-bombing undecideds, rather than me." This would, of course, be accompanied by a check box reading, "I'm thinking about voting for Barack Obama, but I'm not sold. Please email me every ten minutes." We're just saying we'd like to have a choice there. Speaking of choices...have you guys voted yet, or what? What are you waiting for?

There are three weeks until Election Day, and three issues in our state's gubernatorial race (four if you count Eastern Washington's concerns). Each week we'll be taking an award-winning look at where the candidates stand.

As the Slog pointed out yesterday, giant baseball nerd (God bless those of us that are left) Nate Silver uses some sort of math (snore) to project what he claims is non-biased polling data.

Washington State voters have been polled up the wazoo by SurveyUSA after each debate this campaign season. And while they turned in a win (within the margin of error) for McCain in the first Presidential debate, and a split decision (later amended to a slight win for Biden) in the Vice Presidential debate, this time around, the Washington State sample polled clearly thought that Obama won the second presidential debate.