The latest early vote and absentee ballot numbers are absolutely stunning, and great news for the good guys:
Democrats are ahead in terms of turnout by 205,205 voters out of the nearly 3 million votes cast. For the first time that I can recall, Republicans are below 50 percent in absentee ballot returns. Taht has never happened, in my memory. And the advantage that Dems have in early vote is nearly two to one.
Total Ballots Cast
Thursday, October 30
Voted Early
Dem
%
Ind
%
Rep
%
Total
894049
53.22%
276494
16.46%
509371
30.32%
1,679,914
Returned Absentee Ballots
dem
%
ind
%
rep
%
Total
464325
35.64%
194859
14.95%
643798
49.41%
1,302,982
Total Ballots Cast
dem
%
ind
%
rep
%
Total
1,358,374
45.54%
471,353
15.80%
1,153,169
38.66%
2,982,896
2006 Comparative
Voted Early (2006)
Dem
%
Ind
%
Rep
%
Total
244688
45.48%
76044
14.14%
217246
40.38%
537,978
Returned Absentee Ballots (2006)
dem
%
ind
%
rep
%
Total
177049
30.90%
81406
14.21%
314582
54.90%
573,037
Total Ballots Cast (2006)
dem
%
ind
%
rep
%
Total
421,737
37.96%
157,450
14.17%
531,828
47.87%
1,111,015
The electrifying Democratic turnout is being driven in large part by black voters, although it does appear that so far, younger voters are underperforming according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis:
A Sentinel analysis of the record 1.4 million ballots cast during the first nine days of early voting compared the age, race and party affiliation of those who voted early against a list of Florida's 11.2 million registered voters. It showed:
*More than one in five early voters -- 22 percent -- was black, though blacks account for just over 13 percent of the electorate. Obama is the first black person running for president as a major-party nominee, and his campaign has made an effort to turn out the black vote early.
*More than half of all the early voters were 55 or older, with a bit more than 29 percent of them 65 or older and 22 percent ages 55 to 64. Combined, those in this group comprise about 40 percent of the total electorate and are considered the most reliable voters.
*Nearly 54 percent were Democrats, a group that makes up 42 percent of the electorate. And just 30 percent were Republicans, whose registrants total 36 percent of registered voters.
*Young people are turning out in disproportionately low numbers. Though major registration efforts this year boosted their totals to nearly 25 percent of the total electorate, voters younger than 35 represent only 15 percent of early voters, making them the worst-performing demographic group in the analysis.
Quipped University of South Florida political scientist Susan MacManus, an expert in Florida voting demographics: "It could be that college students will do like they do everything else: cramming for a test, or whatever, and procrastinate."
20% of state electorate has voted
The challenge for Team Obama will be to get those younger voters out. Pronto.
The Barack Obama-Bill Clinton convergence in Kissimmee is airing live now on MSNBC. It's something else. These two men have given about the strongest cross-endorsement by formerly bitter rivals that I've seen in politics (with the exception, of course, of Hillary.) Nice work on both men's parts.
Barack Obama began his closing argument tonight with a one-two-three-four punch. First, he appeared with Bill Clinton this afternoon in Orlando ... second, he traveled down to Broward County to speak to a packed BankAtlantic Center arena (I went to drop off tickets for some media guests at around noon today and there was already a line, including people who clearly looked like they had camped out...) third, he debuted his much-anticipated 30 minuted infomercial, which brilliantly laid out not only his vision, but Obama's most important quality given the metrics of this election: his regular guyness. Obama in the video, and indeed, in real life, was measured, calm, friendly, approachable and even. He was fatherly, intelligent, youthful but not too young, and above all, totally, completely, unswervingly normal. Kind of a black Mr. Rogers (with amber waves of grain and regular people instead of puppets...)
And fourth, the campaign released this hilarious online ad, which reminds us all that the race, though it seems destined to fall into Obama's hands, is not over. Not for six more days. Here's the ad:
Chris Shays, co-chair of John McCain's Connecticut campaign and the last remaining New England Republican Senator, damns the "maverick's" campaign, without the faint praise:
Locked in a tight congressional race, Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut’s 4th district is the latest in a slew of Republican incumbents, including Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, to concede a near-certain victory to the Obama camp.
“I just don’t see how [McCain] can win,” Shays said in an interview here on Sunday.
Shays, the Connecticut co-chair of McCain’s campaign, said he was disappointed by the standards of McCain’s race, which has increasingly relied on mudslinging.
“He has lost his brand as a maverick; he did not live up to his pledge to fight a clean campaign,” Shays said.
But Shays — who is famous for never running a negative campaign ad, even when behind — said the negativity in the presidential race has nevertheless been flowing both ways. He said that though they have been diluted by positive ads, Sen. Obama’s campaign has empirically run a greater number of negative ones.
“Obama has four times the amount of money McCain has, so for every negative ad he runs he can balance it with an upbeat one,” Shays said. “McCain, on the other hand, has been nearly 100 percent negative.”
Shays laid much of the blame on the far right, which, he said, has “hijacked” the Republican Party, threatening to walk out if its demand are not met — despite being in the minority.
"He's taken the thing that is most valuable, his (maverick) brand, and he's not staying true to it," Shays said. "I admire John McCain more than you can imagine. He would make a great president."
But, Shays added, "I don't see how he wins if he isn't true to who he is ... a straight shooter talking about the issues."
And the heart of Shays' problem:
An Oct. 20 UConn-Hearst Newspapers poll shows Himes and Shays each supported by 44 percent of likely voters. The same poll showed voters in the district prefering Obama over McCain, 54 percent to 34 percent.
Democrats outnumber Republicans in the district 146,000 to 103,000, while nearly 157,000 more voters are unaffiliated.
Uh-oh... So, what about McCain's other Connecticut co-chair, Joe Lieberman?
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, one of John McCain’s closest political allies, said Friday he does not believe that Barack Obama is unprepared to be president.
“I’m saying he is less prepared than McCain,” Lieberman said.
But what about Sarah Palin?
Is she ready?
“If, God forbid, an accident occurs or something of that kind?” Lieberman said. “Um, she’ll be ready. You know, she’s had executive experience. She’s smart and she will have had on-the-job training.”…
“[McCain] is ready to be our president at this very difficult time,” Lieberman said. “And Sen. Obama is not as ready. It’s as direct as that.”
By the way, the writer of the New Yorker post including that "modification," Hendrick Hertzberg, goes on to lay into Holy Hypocritical Joe:
That little word—“as”—is supposed to be Lieberman’s life jacket, I guess, now that the SS McCain looks like it’s going glug glug glug and may not, after all, be seaworthy enough to deliver its chaplain to that big corner office in the Pentagon. Google “lieberman obama ‘not ready’” if you need a few thousand samples of the unqualified way Joe talked about Barack’s readiness before the ship hit the iceberg.
Admittedly, I have strongly disliked Lieberman ever since he cemented his bogus reputation for “integrity” by denouncing Bill Clinton’s supposed lack of family values during the Lewinsky fiasco. I thought the denunciation was—what’s the word?—inappropriate, coming from a man who not only divorced his first wife while their children were at highly vulnerable ages (just past puberty) but also had the gall to attribute the divorce to the insufficient piety of his wife. In other words, he was too good for her.
Oh, Joe... By the way, the old "hey, maybe he's just not AS ready is kind of an official campaign tactic...
The idea, of course, is to court undecided voters who actually like Barack Obama, by telling them that maybe after four years of McCain's stewardship of the country, he'll be (less of a terrorist communist socialst America hater...) and more ready! Warm, and fuzzy!
With a hat tip to FiveThirtyEight.com, Michael McDonald of George Mason University has compiled early voting numbers across the country, and they are crushing 2004 totals, with the black vote doing blockbuster numbers. In Florida, for instance, more than 35% of the early voting total is black voters. And that's with blacks making up just 14 percent of the state population. Nearly a third of Florida's votes had already been cast as of yesterday -- astounding in any election year. In Georgia, 36% have already been cast and 35% of the voters are black. In North Carolina and New Mexico, more than 39% of the vote is already in. Extraordinary.
I've seen it for myself here in South Florida, where the lines at polling sites in black neighborhoods are literally spilling onto the sidewalk. True, lines are long everywhere, but for majority black areas to have the longest lines is a change from recent elections, in which the black vote has steadily declined.
... there are three states in which early voting has already exceeded its totals from 2004. These are Georgia, where early voting is already at 180 percent of its 2004 total, Louisiana (169 percent), and North Carolina (129 percent).
Hmm ... can anybody think of something that those three states have in common?
The African-American population share is the key determinant of early voting behavior. In states where there are a lot of black voters, early voting is way, way up. In states with fewer African-Americans, the rates of early voting are relatively normal.
Sarah Palin aide Nicole Wallace apparently taking friendly fire over divagate
According to ABC's Jake Tapper, Palin handler Nicolle Wallace, is getting hosed over that $150,000 Sarah Palin wardrobe malfunction:
Palin has taken to blaming the entire incident – as well as her introduction to the nation – on her “handlers,” presumably meaning Wallace, who was a key part of the team that handled Palin's successful announcement speech, her successful convention speech, and her interviews with Charlie Gibson, Sean Hannity and Katie Couric.
McCain allies say that Palin allies talked to Fox News commentator Fred Barnes to further throw Wallace under the bus. Barnes yesterday said, “the person who went and bought the clothes and, as I understand it put the clothes on her credit card, went to Saks and Neiman Marcus...the staffer who did that has been a coward” for not coming forward and accepting the blame for the $150,000 shopping spree. Barnes clarified that he was talking about Wallace.
... some Republicans are starting to now say they should have seen this coming, since Palin has a reputation for making friends who can help her and then screwing them over.
The list is long:
* Former Wasilla Mayor John Stein says he mentored Palin during her 1994 run for City Council. Then she decided to challenge him and run for Mayor. “Things got very ugly,’ Naomi Tigner, a friend of the Steins, told Salon.com. “Sarah became very mean-spirited.” Palin allies suggested she would he “Wasilla's first Christian mayor,” even though Stein is Protestant. Palin allies also whispered that Stein and his wife – who hadn’t taken his name - were not legally wed. “We actually had to produce our marriage certificate,’ Stein said. His wife died in 2005 without ever reconciling with Palin. “I had a hand in creating Sarah, but in the end she blew me out of the water,” Stein told Salon. “Sarah's on a mission, she's an opportunist.”
Tapper's conclusion:
... all I can tell you is that some McCain allies are now quite suspect of Palin and worried that Sen. McCain is going to become just the latest Palin ally whom she uses – and then discards -- in her rapid ascendance to power.
Contrast the praise for Palin with the back of the hand given to the lamentable Harriet Miers. Nominated to the Supreme Court by George W. Bush, she encountered fierce resistance from, of all people, conservatives. They questioned her ideological fervor and wondered about her legal acumen. "There is a gaping disproportion between the stakes associated with this vacancy and the stature of the person nominated to fill it," wrote a certain Kristol in the Weekly Standard. As luck would have it, he was right.
But why such keen objectivity regarding Miers and not Palin, for whom the phrase "gaping disproportion" would seem to have been coined? The answer is obvious. It is not "the stature of the person nominated" that matters, it is the person's ideology. Miers not only had questionable credentials but questionable ideological purity as well -- what the National Review called "the substance and the muddle of her views." Palin is a down-the-line rightie, so her inexperience, her lack of interest in foreign affairs, her numbing provincialism and her gifts for fabrication (Can we go over that "bridge to nowhere" routine again?) do not trouble her ideological handlers. Let her get into office. They will govern.
Aha. There's the rub.
Like George W. Bush: Sarah Palin is seen by the neoconservative coterie as the simple-Simon (or is that Simone...) faux populist rube whom they hope to set up as the popular vessel through which they will govern. She mollifies the "crazies" (the religious right, the rural right, and the more self-determined fiscal right,) and they get to keep foisting their Middle East think-tankery on a hapless public. The payoff to the fiscons is that they get to loot the Treasury and hoard the money through obscene tax cuts for the rich. Sadly, the religious right and the rural "real American" Limbaugh listeners get nothing but jingoistic cheerleading, empty promises (I'm sure the GOP is gonna get right on that federal banning of gay marriage and abortion thing... any minute now...) and frightening tales of shotgun confiscation and scary brown people lurking at the Mall of the Americas! to keep them in line...) As for Sarah, in the neocons' estimation, like George, they need only flatter her and promote her and suppress opposition to her within the Republican Party, and it's a go. In that sense, it is she, and not John McCain (the neocons' original candidate in 2000 and again this year) who truly is Bush II.
He really is better than the network he finds himself on ...
The Fox News anchor forced to live through yet another strange Joe the Plumber interview as the Average Superstar bungles more precious moments of his 15 minutes of fame with Palinite babbling. Here's a bit of Joe's eternal wisdom. Asked if he really meant it when he "went ahead and agreed with" a McCain supporter who suggested a vote for Barack Obama would mean the death of Israel...
PLUMBER: No, that is just my personal opinion that I've come up with by looking into different facts and what I think. That is what my message has been about. I haven't been telling people to go out and vote. Listen, you don't want my opinion on foreign policy. I know just enough about foreign policy to probably be dangerous.
SMITH: That is what I was wondering. I wonder if you think it is dangerous at all for people to say that a vote for Barack Obama is the same as a vote for Israel, if you think that is dangerous for people to start believing. What happens if the polls are right and he becomes President of the United States and people start thinking that this means the death of Israel. Are you worried about what people might do if they actually believe something like that?
PLUMBER: That goes back to what I just got done saying. Some people believe it wholeheartedly. This gentleman I spoke to is Middle America. Therefore...it is very important to him -- important to me, but especially important to this gentleman. He is Middle America and he was able to get on there and make his point, and I agreed with him. I have no idea where John McCain's position is on that. John McCain is his own person, just like I am.
JTP is all McCain's now -- he's campaigning for him, dontcha know! Which should work really well with swing voters ... did I mention that he doesn't want his Social Security checks when he retires? Maybe he could sit next to "Jomama" on the bus and keep her company, since apparently, John McCain has fallen for Joe, and out of love with her.
Apparently, Charlie Crist's decision to extend early voting came after he got a letter from the nine Democrats in the Florida Congressional delegation, though I'm told the state party and statewide elected officials also put pressure on him. Jeb Bush used a similar order to keep polls open after voting problems broke out in 2002 when the second or third iteration of new voting machines was being implemented in the state.
Not everybody is happy about the decision. Take this guy:
"He just blew Florida for John McCain," one plugged in Florida Republican just told me.
The "me" in this case is not me, of course, it's Politico's Ben Smith. So, why so glum, Mr. Republican? (who is apparently the former state party chairman...) The polls, for one thing:
Barack Obama is leading Republican presidential rival John McCain in two battleground states, Florida and Ohio, where voters have more confidence in his ability to handle the troubled economy, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.
... In Florida, a state that was considered a likely win for Republicans not long ago, McCain is trailing, 50% to 43%.
In both states, Obama, a Democrat, has opened commanding leads over McCain among women, young people, first-time voters and blacks and other minorities.
(CNN Analysis) ... Some 74% of companies said that eliminating the tax exclusion would have a "strong negative impact on their workforce," according to a September survey by the American Benefits Council.
Estimates vary, but the Tax Policy Center estimates that 20 million people would lose their employer-based coverage by 2018. Roughly the same number would gain insurance through other means. But, overall, McCain's plan would do little to reduce the number of uninsured.
Also of concern, experts say, is the fact that the $5,000 tax credit would be indexed to inflation. As a result, it would not keep up with the swiftly rising cost of health care, which was soaring as much as 13% a year in the middle of this decade.
McCain advisers counter these concerns. Changing the tax treatment wouldn't hurt the employer-sponsored system and would allow more of the uninsured to buy their own coverage, they say. Also, his advisers say a McCain administration would keep an eye on the credit to make sure it didn't lag behind the cost of coverage, while also working to lower the rate of medical inflation.
Younger, healthier workers likely wouldn't abandon their company-sponsored plans, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior economic policy adviser.
"Why would they leave?" said Holtz-Eakin. "What they are getting from their employer is way better than what they could get with the credit."
Was that in the talking points???
Well, at least he's being honest, because if McCain healthcare were to ever become law, most Americans would be screwed.
The wheels continue to fly off the McCain-Palin straight talk express... Politico's Mike Allen reports:
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, on a “demoralized” McCain campaign: “Palin is going to be the most vivid chapter of the McCain campaign's post-mortem. … Those loyal to McCain believe they have been unfairly blamed for over-handling Palin. They say they did the best they could with what they got.”
***In convo with Playbook, a top McCain adviser one-ups the priceless “diva” description, calling her “a whack job.”
No, not that one (yet) ... the Florida Democratic Party, and Democratic members of Congress and the state legislature push Charlie Crist to do the right thing:
Long lines at the polls prompted Gov. Charlie Crist to sign an executive order on Tuesday, extending voting times to 12 hours a day.
Effective immediately, early voting sites statewide will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Oct. 31. Sat., Nov. 1 and Sun., Nov. 2, polls will be open a total of 12 hours, to be determined by the supervisors of elections in the individual counties.
“I have a responsibility to the voters of our state to ensure that the maximum number of citizens can participate in the electoral process, and that every person can exercise the right to vote,” Crist said.
The Obama-Biden campaign in Florida released the following statement:
TAMPA – Obama-Biden State Director Steven Schale issued the following statement regarding the extension of early voting:
“We applaud Gov. Crist for responding to the overwhelming enthusiasm shown by Florida voters during this election season. To this point, an estimated 2 million Floridians have already cast a ballot over the last eight days.
“It is critical that everyone who is eligible and eager to vote be able to participate and have their voice heard. And now with the extended hours, thousands more will have that opportunity.
“We encourage Floridians to continue casting their votes before Election Day, either at an early voting location or by mail, and to participate in this election – because voting is democracy in action.”
And state Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman added this:
"With a record number of voters across the Sunshine State turning out to early vote, Governor Charlie Crist did the right thing today by extending early voting hours. I want to thank the members of our Congressional Delegation, who after witnessing long lines throughout Florida, worked with the Governor to make it easier for Floridians to cast their ballots by expanding early voting. This action will help ensure that a record number of Floridians can participate in this historic election and should ease the lines that have been seen across Florida at polling places. We will continue to work with election officials throughout Florida to make it easier for every eligible voter to cast their votes. It is now incumbent on our Legislature to permanently ease the restrictions on early voting moving forward."
Dems are already winning the early vote, so this is GREAT news. In case you forgot, first four days of voting:
Having pushed her television station into right wing news exile (and probably boosted her chances of becoming the next Fox News babe ... blonde ... check ... former beauty queen ... check ... right wing talking points ... check, check and double check... at 60, she's a bit long in the tooth for the folks at Fox, but I'm sure with enough hair dye she can work that out...) during her now infamous Joe Biden interview, WFTV's (or as the Guardian UK calls them, WTF??? TV's) Barbara West explains herself to the Orlando Sentinel's TV News guy:
Many readers are wondering if Barbara West was hoping to snag a national job with her oft-seen interview with Sen. Joe Biden.
"This is the most insane thought of all," West told me Monday. "If I were intending to do that, wouldn't I have done that years ago? I love Orlando. I love Channel 9. It's not my goal to land a network job."
West, who is 60, said that she was stunned that the Biden interview had become about her. But it has, in a big way. She was a guest on Monday's "O'Reilly Factor." Bill O'Reilly wondered if she had gone into the interview with the mindset to go after Biden.
West said no. She said she had "some serious questions" that "need to be answered and we're running out of time."
... [MSNBC's Keith] Olbermann wondered where she got the questions and added, "Surely, it's just a coincidence that her husband is GOP media consultant."
Not true, she told me. "Let me clear this up," she said.
West said her husband, Wade West, used to do media coaching for Republicans during the Clinton administration. But he's out of that line of work and running America Fundraising Auctions, which stages charity auctions.
Oh, and she's doing the full FNC circuit today. Go figure...
West also appeared on CNN this morning, and called the Obama campaign reaction "silly":
Really? Let's have a look at Ms. West interviewing ... oh, I don't know ... John McCain:
Chummy! And here's a split screen of Barbara, for the prosecution with Joe Biden, and for the defense with John McCain:
Best of luck to Ms. West in her future as an FNC star. On the up-side, Biden, as Monsters and Critics puts it, gave as good as he got. And he proved that he's as good on the parry as anybody in the business.
Last, but not least, watch Barbara's interview with Bill O'Reilly, in which she actually admits that the toughest question she asks of McCain was why his campaign is so disorganized. Seriously. She asked Biden if he's embarrassed by ACORN, which has nothing to do with the Obama-Biden campaign, and if Obama is a Marxist, and she asks McCain why he's disorganized. ... um ... okay... here it is:
Unfortunately, this is some of what has come out of the woodwork during this campaign. Big up to the feds for catching these guys before they bungled their way into something awful.
Good coverage at Hot Air. The Smoking Gun has the criminal complaint against the two men, Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman. Their apparent plan:
Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesselman, 18, began discussing the murder plot after meeting online about a month ago. In the ATF affidavit, a copy of which you'll find below, Cowart and Schlesselman "discussed the killing spree to include targeting a predominately African-American school, going state to state while robbing individuals and continuing to kill people." The pair's "final act of violence" would be an attempt to kill Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee. In separate interviews with investigators, the men said that they planned to speed their vehicle toward Obama while "shooting at him from the windows." Apparently befitting the historic assault, Cowart and Schlesselman "stated they would dress in all white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt." Cowart and Schlesselman were arrested last Wednesday night by Tennessee sheriff's deputies soon after the pair used chalk to write "numerous racially motivated words and symbols," including a swastika, on the exterior of Cowart's automobile.
Luckily, they'll be wearing their tails behind bars.
Singer/actress Jennifer Hudson had to identify her nephew's body, which a neighbor discovered in the once-missing white SUV yesterday.
Officers questioned William Balfour, 27, the estranged husband of Julian's mother, on Friday night, but he stopped talking when police suggested he take a polygraph test, law-enforcement sources said. Balfour has not been charged in the slayings.
Although the sources say Balfour remains the focus of the investigation, the motive remains murky. Police say there have been ongoing disputes between him and his estranged wife, Julia Hudson, and her family.
Hudson's mother and brother had thrown him out of their Englewood house in the past, sources said. Julia Hudson also told police that Balfour had threatened the family. A source said Balfour told Julia Hudson he would kill her if he found out she had a boyfriend, despite the fact that he had other girlfriends.
In another incident, sources said, Julia Hudson arrived Friday morning at Sunrise Bus Co. on payday and discovered her wages had been garnished because of unpaid car payments. Sources said Balfour had taken her car months earlier but promised to make the payments on the vehicle. After seeing her pay stub, Julia Hudson called Balfour to complain about the unpaid bills, sources said.
Police believe that Balfour went to the Hudson family home Friday and shot through the front door, striking Hudson's brother, Jason. Hudson's mother, Darnell Donerson, came into the living room, screaming, and Balfour shot her as well, sources said. Shell casings were also found in the child's room, but there were no bullet holes or other signs of violence there. Much of the account of what police believe happened that day came from an interview with a girlfriend of Balfour's, sources said.
The sources also said Balfour's girlfriend contradicted his alibi and told police that he was involved in the slayings.
Police have not ruled out the possibility that more than one person was involved, though Supt. Jody Weis said Monday that Balfour was currently their only "person of interest."
DL Hughley's new CNN show isn't funny ... and that's just half the problem
See, this is what happens when the suits try to figure out what "the young folks" are into -- you know, like when your parents try to dress like you...?
DL Hughley got a show on CNN and Roland Martin didn't. Go figure. And not surprisingly, white critics love it, black critics don't. Why? One word: buffoonery. It's the last thing black people want to see at a time when we are about to elect our first black president. It's "Amos and Andy" at a time when we want "Hardball":
The fight to be taken seriously -- not just cast in slapstick crap comedies or as crack addicts, is as real as rain for black actors; just as the fight to make and release music that isn't about guns, money and hoes is real for black musicians (not to mention those of us trying to convince program directors that black people can do talk radio for non-black audiences...) The corporate execs still don't get it -- maybe because ... wait for it ... there's not enough diversity up there.
CNN, over the weekend debuted "DL Hughley: Breaks The News", the only African American hosted cable news program. Hughley, reverted back to his early BET "Comic View"days, lacking the intellectual clarity he often displays on Bill Maher or even recent CNN appearances. DL's material was immensely stereo typical, but calculated programming that continues to stifle mainstream media perceptions. CNN's attempt of a Flava Flav style of African American entertainment is an alarming step backward for a respected news organization.
It's easy to point the not funny finger at DL Hughley but the real story is who's behind the camera. While this election cycle has shown a diverse collection of analyst and pundits, media ownership and equity of power in television and radio are far from equitable.
While people of color make up 33% of the American population, less than 7% are owners and even fewer are in decision making positions.Yes, there are plenty of Black anchors and reporters on cable and network news but the content they report continually falls short. Perception has replaced reality, millions of Americans are yearning for more, while receiving less.
One McCain aide describes Sarah Palin as "going rogue," and going off script, perhaps on purpuse, on everything from her $150,000 wardrobe to whether the campaign should have pulled out of Michigan. Meanwhile...
A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.
And this anonymous tipster goes further:
"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," this McCain adviser said. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.
"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."
Not ever her own family??? Oh, those small town values!
