the first openly-gay person to be elected to Congress--ever (Baldwin and Frank came out while already in office). The article takes stock all around the country.

“Jared Polis is the first openly gay man to be elected to Congress as a non-incumbent, and he joins Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank as the three out members,” said Denis Dison, a Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund spokesperson."

“a bittersweet election for gay people.”

Vote. Because they never rest.

the AP pulls out their crystal balls--

If Elected ... How Would a President Obama Govern?

"For all Barack Obama's talk about change, there are signs that in style -- if not substance -- a new White House under Democrat Obama would operate much like the current one under President Bush. ..."

If Elected ... How Would a President McCain Govern?

"A rabble-rouser from his earliest days, John McCain has never been one who likes to be told ''no.'' There's no reason to think a President McCain would be any different. ..."

Here are the five parties with seats in the Canadian House of Commons. I'm including the Green Party because they technically got one shortly before the election due to "crossing the floor" (an MP declared his affiliation with them but was elected under another platform).

• Bloc Québecois


• Conservative Party --- incumbent minority government


• Green Party


• Liberal Party --- incumbent official opposition
  
• New Democratic Party

Today, when most of you get to work, the Canadian polls will open. Aux urnes! as they say in French. So, I've been in Canada for the past week or so, and I had grand plans of not only finishing off some posts which I owe some people, but writing a sort of last-days political travelogue of the Canadian election, as I've been wandering around southern and eastern Ontario. But not least due to the surprising spottiness of Internet access, I have failed. *hangs head*

US bloggers still bandy about the idea that they'll run away to Canada if things get worse in the USA. This week, it appears that this is less justified than ever.

Despite campaign gaffes, the Conservative Party is still on the train to a majority government in Canada. Thus saith Nik Nanos, who is apparently the most trusted Canadian pollster. They are at 40% in the polls with a 15% gap between them and the Liberal Party. Another couple of points, and assuming that the poll results would hold at the ballot box, and they would have more than half the seats in the Canadian House of Commons, and full control of the levers of government.

So why is the Liberal Party doing so badly?

Another video from the Canadian election whose overall lesson is quite applicable to the American situation. Rick Mercer is the host of the CBC comedy Monday Report, which is a weekly Daily Show-type thing. Mercer is a very popular comedian in Canada, but IMO he became less funny when he left the endlessly hilarious This Hour Has 22 Minutes team. This video is from several months ago:

My favorite political ad of the past ten years is actually this ad/campaign theme song music video of the sovereigntist Bloc Québecois in the 2004 Canadian election:  Read more…

So the first polls of the Canadian campaign are out, and despite a number of gaffes, the Harper neocons are gaining ground, apparently with some warm, fluffy advertising. They've been gaining ground among women, who have been a particularly difficult constituency to crack, gaining ground despite a known tendency of some of their members for...fetal rights activism, which is never popular in Canada.

So, I've been wracking my brains attempting to come up with a way to introduce what the issues are in this Canadian election, including calling up family currently living in Canada and asking them, but I still haven't found the right approach. I mean, not only am I writing for a USAmerican audience, which means a different national context, but I do believe that for a country so small in population compared to the USA, the politics are much harder to describe.

Perhaps this isn't fair, but I have an easier time discussing US politics with Canadians than Canadian politics with Canadians. Maybe it's just easier to paper over the real complexity in US politics, but I really do feel that Canadian politics are just more convoluted.

So now that, due to my loose fingers and Corrente's illiberal policy towards the back button, you will not see my post on Canadian vice-Queens and their electoral meaning, I will salvage my pride with a short post on what just happened on the Canadian electoral front. ie, an election was recently called.

...as we say in Canada.

So, in other words, us Canadians will have voted in a new government before you USians have voted in yours.

The stakes are high. Canadians have to decide whether they can get over Stéphane Dion's personality issues enough to stop Stephen Harper from dismantling the country, basically. So far, the most likely outcome in my opinion is that Canada will have another Conservative minority. But I'm terrified of the fact that they are in majority territory.

I'm posting a long quote from a New York Times book review here, because the quote says something important about the future of our nation.

There is no happy ending to this sordid and shameful story. Despite growing political pressure, despite Supreme Court decisions challenging the detainment policy, despite increasing revelations of the once-hidden program that have shocked the conscience of the world, there is little evidence that the secret camps and the torture programs have been abandoned or even much diminished. New heads of the Defense and Justice Departments have resisted addressing the torture issue, aware that dozens of their colleagues would face legal jeopardy should they do so. And the presidential candidates of both parties have so far shown little interest in confronting the use of torture or recommitting the country to the Geneva Conventions and to America’s own laws and traditions.

Now I wonder -- is that lack of interest in confronting the use of torture or recommitting the nation to abiding by international law really something we could have expected from a different Democratic nominee?

And is that why the Village destroyed them all?

Swing State Project has a MS-01: Results Thread. So far it looks very good. WillBardwell is live blogging the results. Oxford has had a very high turnout. Cotton Mouth is also following returns. It looks like a terrific night for Missippi Democrats.

[Welcome Sadly No readers. -- lambert]

I hate to intrude on the hate-fest, but just wanted to mention that there's another old, white, non-college-degreed, working class, oh did i mention white? vagina-American who's supporting Barak Obama in this primary.

Hi! (waves, big grin, track shoes firmly in place.)

If this is too shocking or offensive, somebody drop me an email when St. Hillary (sorry folks, I don't recognize the ineffable perfection being describe here) puffs up all full of satisfaction and pie and ascends bodily into Heaven, so we can get on with getting the candidate who, like, won the Democratic primary, into the White House.

Obama at a PA diner--the National Pool Report -- "... He batted away a Hamas question from a reporter, saying, “Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” ..."

How dare reporters actually ask questions at a photo-op? ; >

Here is how Kevin Drum disappeared from my blogroll and $10 more went to HRC's campaign:

"Yeah, I'm pretty much at the same place. There are already an awful lot of reasons for me not to bother defending Hillary even tepidly, and I hardly need another one. She's been voted off the island. It's time for her to go."

Frenchdoc
The Global Sociology Blog

Honestly, I don't know why it's so hard to walk and chew gum at the same time. I think the strategy should be "the economy sucks because the Republicans have spent all your money on a failed war at the expense of every domestic issue you can imagine," but what do I know.

Brad and JFK are buddies:

A damning and detailed feature article, written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for Rolling Stone and documenting evidence of the theft of the 2004 Presidential Election is set to hit newstands this Friday, The BRAD BLOG can now confirm. The online version of the article will be posted tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

 Read more…

We all make mistakes. We all have moments of cowardice, or when we fail to do what's right because it's harder. Sometimes, those acts (or inactions) have more serious consequences than we imagine at the time. When we fail, what's most important is that we learn from our mistakes, and that we're conscious and thoughful of them in the future. It's a hard, hard thing for a man in our society to admit that he was wrong:

Does he, like many Democrats, think the election was stolen?

Gore pauses a long time and stares into the middle distance. “There may come a time when I speak on that,” Gore says, “but it’s not now; I need more time to frame it carefully if I do.” Gore sighs. “In our system, there’s no intermediate step between a definitive Supreme Court decision and violent revolution.”