Well, here we go. Polls open at 6 AM here in the Empire State, and close at 9 PM. In between, there’s not a helluva lot to do (assuming you’re not driving people around or working at the polls). We’re “on-call” to go and document any voter problems (that reminds me, I’d better charge up the video camera battery) that might crop up, but, well, this aint Ohio or Florida, so it should be pretty smooth sailing. It’ll be interesting to see how turnout is here where I live. The top of the ticket in NY is a done deal, but we have an extremely close congressional race, and I would personally love to see the smug look wiped off our monkey-faced piece-o-shit Bush rubber stamp. It’s supposed to be warm today (by our standards), with a little bit of rain here and there, but nothing major.

Otherwise, I have shitload of stuff to do for class tomorrow that should occupy my mind for most of the day (until the leaked exit polls start coming in), but I really need to get everything done before the polls close, so I can watch the returns come in. I think I’ll put up a fresh thread at 9:00 EST so we can post our local results as they come in. I hope all goes well, but all the trouble spots are pretty much guaranteed to be trouble again this year. Are people ready to fill the streets this time? I hope so.

Anyhow, the fax just came in from the Streisand compound, and you marching orders are to get out there and vote. Now, let’s get this over with already.

So, tomorrow’s the big day. As much as I really can’t wait until this over, I’m also kind of dreading it, too. I mean, we’ve had quite a few shitty elections in a row here. No need to mention 2000, except that you have to admit it was a pretty interesting time to live through, with paid Republican staffers pretending to be “outraged” Florida voters, and an election being quite obviously stolen right there on the teevee in front of us. I had high hopes for the 2002 midterms, but damned if they didn’t steal those, too, and fully cement the Bush rubber stamp. Damed if they didn’t steal 2004, too. And why did John Kerry inexplicably just cave in and fail to fight? Skull and Bones? Did they threaten to kill his family? What?

And now we come to another election, where everybody knows who’s gonna win, if only the election is close to being fair. And that’s one thing we sure as hell can’t count on. So, that’s why I approach this thing with a certain amount of dread, ‘cuz I don’t think I can take looking at Smuggy the Chimp and the Pillsbury Rovesboy if they steal this one, too.

Marc and Jim will be guest-hosting Springer again today. Use this link in Windows Media Player to stream the show, or surf over to WSAI and follow the links there. Jene Galvin must be so psyched to hear the Seditionists are coming back.

Had some problems with my internets yesterday, but the dude from Time Warner hooked me up, and RoadRunner is even faster than it used be, so it looks like I’m all set to obsess on the election for the next few days (maybe even longer, depending on how things go). Speaking of obsessing on the election, whattya suppose the boobleheads have in store for us today?

It’s about a week late for Halloween, but that won’t stop Timmy Potatohead from  having one scary goodamn show, as he hosts an “exclusive” with all four campaign committee chairs.  Yes, it’s the return of Chuckie and Liddy, plus Lame Rahm Emmanuel and Terrible Tom Reynolds.  But hey, you New York City viewers are in luck, as WNBC will air coverage of the NYC Marathon instead.  If you actually wanna see these yo-yos, you’ll need to stay up until Midnight or so – until after football and local news.  Somehow, I don’t think this worth being tired on Monday morning.

Over at Faze the Nation, it’s more midterm elections, with Bill the catkiller Frist and Senator MBNA, Joe Biden.  Plus, Bush booby Bobby Scieffer also has Stuey Rothenberg, on to tell us who’s gonna win, and what excuses he’ll be using on Wednesday after he was wrong.

Speaking of hollow weenies, over at Fux News Sunday, Fuxface Chrils Wallace pulls a Boehner, and then he and empty suit Michael Steele will tag team Missouri Senate Candidate Claire McCaskill (I wonder if they’ll ask her why she and Michael J Fox hate unborn babies).

Over on the Goebbels network, it’s the disgusting cyborg himself, Darth Cheney, on to snarl and sneer and no doubt tell us that if the Democrats win, it’ll be the end of the world as we know it (which, come, to think of, might not be such a bad thing).  Then George Snufalufagus goes “one-on-one” with Howard :omg: Dean.  Plus, it’s a bunch of square pegs at the roundtable, with George :jerk: Will, Gore campaign mastermind, Donna Brazille, and Republican lackey (and major league hack) Mark Halperin.  Looks like I’ll be staying the course on my ABC boycott.

Over at Wolf Blitzer’s Late Emission, it’s – you guessed it – election talk, with little Petey Hoekstra, Maxine Waters, limp Lindsey Graham, Barbara Boxer, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih (maybe he can give us some advice on how to run an election), Max Cleland, Lucky Louie Dobbs, the Cook Report’s Amy Walter, Time schmuck, Joe Klein, Barney Frank, Candy Cow – oops I mean, Crowley, John King, Dana Bash, and Bob “call me Al” Franken.  Jeezus H. Khrist, Wolfie – you think if you have 500 guests on, nobody will notice you suck?

Later, on 60 Minutes, for some unknown reason, Steve “sealsen” Kroft interviews Russell freakin’ Crowe (why?), Bob Simon reports on Bangladeshis who risk their lives for a dollar a day, scrapping old ships, and Morley Safer talks to some Republican Flake from Arizona.

Of course, what’s really important today is the Simpson’s Tree House of Horror XVII (seventeen years?  when did that happen?  come to think of it, when did it get to be f*ckin’ November already?), plus all new (as they say) episodes of the Family Guy and American Dad.  Then you can go back to obsessing about the election.

Been feeling a little tense lately, so maybe I’ll go get a “massage” and do some crystal meth. Oh, wait, that’s right – I’m not a evangelical Christian pastor.  Well, maybe I’ll just take a nap then.

Friday, leading up to the last weekend before the election.  If you’re trying to figure out what to do besides go out and vote, you can find some ideas here, or of course you can sign up to call for change (OK, I think I’m done with that one now).  And of course be sure to vote for at least one candidate that has no chance of winning, so you can be all smug and like “don’t blame me, man, I voted for Howie.”  Just try not to do it in any close races, ‘cuz we need Republicans in office about as much as we need tax relief for billionaires (one exception is in CT, of course, where if you’re a Republican, you should go out and vote for Schlesinger).

If you’re out there in the LA area, you’ve got a couple of chances to see Marc tonight, both at the UCB theater.  At 8:00, it’s the God Sux Show, and at 11:00, it’s the Election Show (damn, just can’t away from this election, can we).  No mention from Sammy yesterday if Marc’ll be on his show this morning, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.  Or hear.

Otherwise, have a good Friday.  Now I guess I’d better go look out the window and see if we got any of that lake effect snow they were talking about.

Let’s see, it’s Thursday.  That means that if you’re out in the LA area, you have a chance to catch Marc at Big News at the Improv Olympic.  Otherwise, you might wanna catch “Hacking Democracy” on HBO tonight at 9:00 EST.  Apparently, it’s got Diebold all pissed off, so it must be good.  I hear there’s a lot of Bev Harris in it.  That ought piss Randi off.

Oh, and since I said I’d blog about it at least three times before the election (there’s one comin’ up next week, in case you haven’t heard), go and sign up for Call for Change, and then, you know, call for change.

I hope the Great Pumpkin was good to everybody last night.  This huge advertiser blackout against Air America sure is interesting, isn’t it.  Just to recap, they had terrible management, are blacklisted by over 100 of the top radio advertisers, and they’re still on the air.  Amazing, isn’t it?  I can see why the wingnuts are so terrified by the whole idea of left-leaning radio so much.  If they ever get a level playing field the Limbaughs and their ilk will be out of business.

Six days to go before the big election, so I’ll plug the Call for Change thing one more time.  Sign up, call, it’ll be great.

Hey, Happy Halloween and T-7 days and counting until the election.  Here in the NY-25, two polls came out yesterday.  One (a Dem poll, done by Berenson) had the good guy down by 2% (MOE +/- 4.9%).  The other, an indie poll (I think they use robo calls) has the good guy up by 9%!  So, things are tight here, and it’s gonna go down to the wire.  I’m sure lots of you out there are in a similar situation (and if you’re anything like me, you’d wish we could friggin’ vote already).

Anyhow, have a good one.  I hope your day is full of treats.

Not much to say this morning (except don’t forget to tune in to the return of Mike Malloy on Nova M radio at 9PM EST tonight), so I’ll just make a dutiful plug for MoveOn’s “Call for Change” campaign, which will allow you to use your home computer and telephone to make calls to Democratic-leaning voters (in other words, you don’t have to cold call any Republican meanies) in order to help stimulate the GOTV effort. According to Eli Pariser:

Basically, it allows people to log onto www.callforchange.org from their home computers and then phone target voters in the 30+ top House and Senate races around the nation. Our goal is to make 5 million phone calls to inconsistent voters who lean Democratic – we recently passed 1.5 million.Our members chipped in millions to allow MoveOn to buy the most up-to-date lists, acquire consumer data, and use micro-targeting to ensure that every call is maximized. We used the Busby and Lamont campaigns to test our program and make it a good user experience. After Busby, a Yale study compared our phone program to others and found that it boosted turnout the most.

Part of the reason we designed the program the way we did was to make it work for parents and others who’ve want to chip in but only have 20 or 30 minutes free to volunteer at the end of a long work day – not just the super-activists. Also, folks in areas without competitive races or who live in rural areas far from campaign offices no longer have to be excluded from GOTV.

So, if you happen to have some spare time to sit down and make a few phone calls, this could make a difference in the tight races come next Tuesday.

Are ya up? Well, go back to sleep – it’s an hour earlier than you think it is. If you’re having trouble getting back to sleep, you’re in luck; there’s another round of Sunday boobleheads to help ease you back into unconsciousness. I only hope I can make it through the next nine days or so with my sanity (such as it is) intact. Damnit, let’s just vote already.

On Press the Meat, Timmy KartoffelKopf hosts a debate between Ben Cardin and Michael Steele (who apparently equates stem cell research with Josef Mengele), the candidates for US Senate in Maryland, to see who will fill the seat being vacated by the retiring Paul Sarbanes.

Over on Faze the Nation, it’s, um, well, I guess they must’ve fired their web guy again or something, ‘cuz they don’t say who’s gonna be on today, and it’s really not worth putting in a whole lot of effort to find out. Watch the full Michael J. Fox interview instead. It’s about 24 minutes long. After you watch it, ask yourself how anybody could be so fucking stupid as attack this guy (and that goes for you, too, Matt Lauer, you ratfaced piece of shit). Anywho…

Speaking of ratfaced pieces of shit, on Fux News Sunday, Pissy Chrissy Wallace has Harold “where’re the white women at” Ford, Rick “here doggie, doggie” Sanatorium, and — oh, sweet jeezus, didn’t we just have to look at these two last week on Faze the Nation? — Chucky Schumer and Liddy “Cialis antidote” Dole. I mean, does ‘merica really wanna look at this on Sunday morning?

Now, I’ve said that the day might come when I’d have to abandon my boycott of the Goebbels Broadcasting Company, and this might just be the week. No, it isn’t because George Snufalufagus is gonna bull a Boehner over Mark Foley. And it sure isn’t to see This Weak’s roundtable of George :jerk: Will, Time’s Jay Carney, and his main squeeze, Claire Shipman, and the WaPost’s EJ Dionne. It’s not to see Sarah Jessica Parker trick-or-treat for Unicef, either. No, if I watch ABC tomorrow, it’ll be because they have Michael J Fox on the show. But probably I’ll just wait for it to show up on Crooks & Liars.

Over at Wolf Blitzer’s Late Emission, it’s big Dick Lugar, Senator MBNA, Charlie Rangel, Ileana “Iraq is going just wonderfully, and I know ‘cuz my nephew told me so” Ros-Lehtinen, retired Major General Paul “Rummy must go” Eaton, Judy Miller accomplice Michael “aluminum tubes” Gordon of the NY Times, Stormin’ Norman Ornstein, Jeff Greenfield, and Amy Walter of the Cook Report.
Later, on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley does a story on battlefield medicine in Iraq, Steve Kroft talks to Notre Dame’s football coach, Charlie Weis :yawn:, and there’s another update on the “Duke Rape Case.”

The freakin’ World series is finally over, but the Simpsons is still a repeat. All-in-all, a good day to stay in bed, I think.