Author: Kevin Lawver

Jen and I took the kids to our lovely voting location this morning (there’s something kind of cool about voting in a farming museum), and it was actually pretty crowded! We had to wait in line for about ten minutes, which is about what we had to do for the Presidential election in 2004. Our little precinct is pretty “blue” when compared to the rest of the Virginia (we’re the only precinct that went for both Kerry and Socas in 2004), so I hate to use my experience as indicative, but the Dems were handing out more sample ballots and we had a lot more poll workers there than the other side. We also had way more signs for Judy Feder and Jim Webb than Wolf or Allen, which is a good sign.\
The kids had a lot of fun and the old guy handing out “I Voted” stickers let Brian take several. The boy looks like he votes in Chicago or something. Then, because they’re going to hang out with my mom, we stopped by our table and picked up a couple Webb stickers.\
I’m trying not to think about the results too much because we won’t know anything until late anyway, and I have work to do. Plus, it’s hard to type with my fingers crossed.\
If you’d like to keep up with the doings all day, here are my faves:

• Talking Points Memo
• Daily Kos
• Salon’s War Room
• Atrios

I voted!\
Did you?

Waldo asked for predictions but apparently, my network is on some sort of blacklist and I can’t post a comment. So, here are my predictions for tomorrow, in no particular order:

• Jim Webb will beat George Allen, but it’ll be close enough that there will be a recount.
• Cardin will beat Steele easily, like 10-15 points easily up there in Maryland.
• Frank Wolf will trounce Judy Feder, if only because no one knows who she is. I’ve asked, and even some left-leaning folks I know have no idea who she is.
• I think ballot issue number one (the stupid “marriage defense” amendment) will pass because people didn’t take the time to read the damn thing. It’s just plain bad law. Gay marriage is already illegal in Virginia, people. You’re not making it any safer, because eventually, the Supreme Court (of the US, not VA) will rule on it, and you’ll have to live with it anyway. No vague threat of “liberal judges” will actually make a difference in the long run.
• The Democrats will take the house with a 25 seat gain.
• The Senate will end up 50-50 somehow. I’m not exactly sure which one of the races won’t go the Dems way, but something’s going to happent to make it 50-50. I hope for a 6 or 7 seat gain for our side, but I don’t think it’ll happen.\
  I’m sad about the last one, and I hope I’m wrong. I just don’t know if the Democrats have that much momentum, and after hearing about all the dirty tricks with robocalls and some really horrible flyers in the past couple days, I’m even less sure. We’ll see. Tomorrow’s the day, kids, so don’t forget to vote. Really.

A good editorial from Slate about the “unintended” consequences of the Virginia marriage amendment. Baking bigotry and small-mindedness in our state’s Constitution is a bad idea. It will put undue pressure on families, more of which fall outside the traditional definition of the nuclear family than fall within it.\
Creating great new chasms for people to fall into is not a way to strengthen marriage. Paying attention to your own marriage and keeping your nose out of everyone else’s would be a fine way to start. Us heteros have no right “defending” marriage when our divorce rate is already over 50%. Like Jesus says (paraphrasing here), “work on the beam in your own eye before pointing out the speck in your neighbor’s.” Codifying this nonsense is ridiculous.\
Vote no, people, vote no! The only thing that can “defend” marriage is good marriages. You can’t force that on people, and discrimination isn’t going to help anyone.

Remember, election day is next Tuesday. No matter what party you’re in, this election is important. Get out there and send a message to whoever it is you’re trying to send a message to. For me, it comes down to a couple issues that are important to me:

1. George Allen is President Bush’s lackey, voting with him 96% of the time.
2. President Bush is incompetent and his party has no spine to stand up to him. They’ve proven over the last six years that they’re more interested in power than doing what’s right.
3. The GOP is beholden to the Religious Right, and that’s wrong on so many levels. Most importantly, they’re standing in the way of stem cell research, which is unconscionable.
4. They refuse to admit that Iraq was a mistake when the evidence is overwhelming that the President and his Administration lied, and continue to lie, about their incompetence, the reasons for going in, and their plan for success. Saying you’ve got a plan and declaring your loyalty to Donald Rumsfeld is not a plan. It’s willfully ignorant and stubborn. If I wanted a child as President, I think Max would do a better job than Mr. Bush and his playground bullies.
5. What used to be the party of smaller government and less intrusion on our lives has become the party of Big Brother, and I don’t mean the TV show. They’ve wiped their asses on the Constitution, and it’s time they paid for it.\
   It’s pretty obvious who I’m voting for. Vote for whoever you think will do the best job of governing. See ya on Tuesday!

I am voting for Jim Webb for Senate, but more as a vote against Bush than anything else.\
“Hypothetically,” which is worst, a racist or a sexist?

Jim Webb is running against George Allen for the Senate. If you’ve ever read this blog before, you probably know who I’m voting for, but in case you haven’t, I’m voting for Mr. Webb. The only thing you need to know about George Allen is that he votes with the President and the Republican majority more than 96% of the time. He’s part of the problem, part of the same corrupt crew of suck ups that led us into Iraq, created record deficits and enabled the most corrupt Congress in our lifetimes.\
He doesn’t deserve to represent Virginia, and he doesn’t deserve our votes. He hasn’t introduced any meaningful legislation and actually stole legislation from another Senator and presented it as his own.\
So, George Allen: crappy senator. It really doesn’t matter who’s running against him, voting for Mr. Allen is a vote for more imcompetance, more graft, and more rubber stamping of the President’s lunacy.\
I think the choice is pretty easy.