Passports

Only 30% of Americans have passports.  In this Tumblr article, Peter Vidani charts out the states with the highest (New Jersey) and lowest (Mississippi, West Virginia) rates of passport holders.

Interestingly, here’s a map of the 2008 election.

Malaise, Ain’t it a Bitch

What do you do if you really want to vote non-of-the-above.

First, the Democrats were in power and people voted for a Contract for America.  Then the Republicans were in power and the Democrats took Congress.  Now the Democrats are in power and here we go again.

Matt Bai in the NY Times this morning argues that the real issues people care about have nothing to do with jobs or healthcare.  People are generally going too fast, see too much rudeness, are surrounded by chatting heads and an endless see of technology that does little to improve basic lives.

Fuel that with a destructive media machine whose single goal is to sell talk and inject it with cash flying all over the place from everyone but the little guy and there you have the discontent that has been brewing for a while.  The policy neutral independent who just wants a better life for his or her child has a simple voting rubric: antiestablishment.

Nate Silver knows his numbers.  And in a blog this week he reinforces this independent malaise by suggesting 2012 may be the year of the third party.  Actually, he gives 15 reasons why a third party is a real contender this cycle. 

Heading into what will certainly be a disastrous election, as a Democrat I’m buoyed by the fact that the voting has little to do with the mountain of achievements Obama has made in the first two years.   And if the trend continues, the electorate will be ready to switch back by 2012.  So that’s good.  Even if we’re not really solving anything.

Libby Mitchell, meet Will Bailey

Who is Libby Mitchell’s campaign manager?  Whoever it is, this person needs to go away.  If you haven’t followed the Maine gubernatorial race, here are the two headlines from this week. 

First on Wednesday, a PPP poll shows that Waterville mayor and conservative Republican Paul LePage is destroying Mitchell 43-29 with Cutler, an independent whose base is growing quickly at Mitchell’s expense, at 11 percent.  The last trend is evident from Nate Silver’s section on the Maine race in the NYTimes (and below).

To counter, what does Libby do?  She backs out of several Maine speaking events complaining that not all 6 candidates are represented.  Are you serious?  So today’s Portland Press Herald has a nice article about LePage and Cutler discussing Maine’s tourism economy notably mocking Libby’s absense.  Awesome move dipshit CM.

Well anyways, what a depressing Friday for Maine politics.  I wish Will Bailey was here to make things right.

Although, this just in. 538 has House rankings for the midterms … finally.  http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/g-o-p-has-2-in-3-chance-of-taking-house-model-forecasts/ Ughhh, looking to be a gloomy November.

As of 11:43PM Central Time

Results.

Libby Mitchell wins.  Paul LePage wins.  This will be a huge showdown in November.  A quick MuGaz calculation shows 78,767 votes for Democrats and 82,144 votes for Republicans.  Libby’s and LePage’s percentage of the overall vote was about equal (35.1% and 38.1%).  Starting out the gate, these two have nearly equal support.  So…. bring on November.

Super Duper Tuesday

Another post from the convention center in New Orleans.  Today is, of course, super duper – almost – Tuesday.  There are votes in 12 states today.  There’s a nice rundown here.

As we vote, I wondered why the second Tuesday.  Couldn’t find much on why the second Tuesday in June but it seems likely that it followed the same second Tuesday in November model.  So why the second Tuesday in November? Here’s a neat little explanation.