MyDD :: At the polling place

At the polling place

by cos, Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 12:38:43 PM EST

I spent 8am-noon this morning at a polling place in eastern Connecticut, where turnout was steady through the morning. It felt more like general election level turnout than a primary. My job: hand Ned Lamont palm cards to voters approaching the polling place.

"Why are you doing this today?" asked one voter, "everybody's already decided!" A half hour later, another voter glanced at the card and answered, "I ain't makin' up my mind 'til I get into the poll." Another voter at first declined to look at a card, remarking, "I'll do my own thinking." I pointed to the bold text and replied, "this is to let people know what Lamont is about, then you can make up your mind what you think of it." The bold rext on the card reads:

Vote for a Democratic Senator who will finally stand up to Bush!

One man declined my card on the grounds that he's a Republican, but on the way back, he remarked to me, "I was a Democrat for 25 years, and I think Joe's got a problem today."

There were no Joe Lieberman signs or volunteers at this polling place, or at another one I passed on the way. In fact, I only saw one Lieberman sign driving in this morning, randomly placed by the side of the road. Luis, a poll worker who came out for some fresh air, said "lots of Democrats today!" - the polling place had separate doors for the Republican and Democratic primaries, and I could see fewer than 1 out of 10 voters were going in the Republican door. Luis said he's seen a lot of new voters and young voters today. "They want change."

Tags: Ned Lamont, Connecticut, GOTV (all tags)

Permalink :: 25 Comments :: Post a Comment

Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

This is off subject a little but MSNBC just reported the stupid Sean Smith hacking rubbish. They didn't even mention the fact that they just didn't pay for it. I hopr Lamont beats him so badly. Somebody respond and set MSNBC straight.

by burroughs on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 12:54:34 PM EST

Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

MSNBC? Those Bastards! I am so mad I am gonna get together with my leftwing nutjob friends and hack their website. That will teach 'em!

by Winston Smith on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 12:59:45 PM EST
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Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

lol, i'll be one of the nutjob leftwing friends...i'm in!!!

McCain is defining Obama, and Obama is neither defining himself, nor McCain. This is awful.

by jgarcia on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 02:17:45 PM EST
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Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

Check out TPM Muckraker, for more on the web site hacking issue. Supposedly they have a letter from the web host confirming the DOS attack, but TPM hadn't yet been able to confirm the authenticity of the letter.

by jnfr on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:01:23 PM EST

Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

They are still going those idiots. Do they not even know how to talk to the Lamont campaign?? What has "journalism" come to? This is seriously pathetic.

by burroughs on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:02:35 PM EST

DOS attack="Not enough bandwidth." (none / 0)

by Hesiod Theogeny on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:12:33 PM EST

Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

According to the latest AP article, Joe's email list is not working and they have called the FBI.

It is amazing to me! How did you get a copy of his email if, as they claim, it's not working?

by vmckimmey on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:14:54 PM EST

Re: At the polling place (3.00 / 1)

Here's that TPM muckraker article.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001 292.php

Here's that e-mail:

From: "Dan Geary"
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 06:05:17
To:xxxxxxxx@deweysquare.com
Subject: account status - www.joe2006.com

Hi Marion,

This note is to confirm that the suspension of displaying the website www.joe2006.com: was not due to to an overdue account. Friends of Joe Lieberman is completely paid in full. The screen that showed yesterday is a default image from the server. In order to isolate where the denial of service attack was coming into the site, we disabled it as rapidly as possible. Once we were able to isolate all the site files for study we were able to add an appropriate one-page maintenance message.

Your campaign has in fact paid every invoice submitted to it within a week and a half.

Regards,

Dan Geary

So how do they know it was a denial of service attack vs simply not having enough bandwidth to accommodate the massive interest in the campaign?

by Hesiod Theogeny on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:18:29 PM EST

DoS or Rovian tactic? (none / 0)

I hope I'm wrong, but this DoS attack story really has the flavor of a Rovian tactic -- as in when Rove 'found' a surveillance bug in his office just before an election, got all the newspapers to report it casting suspicion on the opposing campaign, and only after Rove's candidate had won the election did people realize that all indications were that Rove had planted the bug himself.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've seen DoS attacks can be cleared up in a matter of hours these days, and this thing seems to be going on for a full day now...

by miholo on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:22:24 PM EST

ON CNN NOW! (none / 0)

Lieberman asks Lamont to call off his "cyberallies" and files a protest with the state party chairman. What desperate bullshit.

by Winston Smith on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:23:46 PM EST

Re: ON CNN NOW! (none / 0)

maybe desperate, but probably effective.

Also, what does it say about how out of touch Lieberman is that he doesn't HAVE any cyberallies?

by Lucas O'Connor on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:26:36 PM EST
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Re: ON CNN NOW! (none / 0)

CNN is now promising an update on this "developing story."

by Winston Smith on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:47:08 PM EST
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Re: ON CNN NOW! (none / 0)

They just mentioned Kos.

by Winston Smith on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:51:18 PM EST
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Re: ON CNN NOW! (none / 0)

imagine if they covered wars like this.

by Lucas O'Connor on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:55:20 PM EST
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Re: ON CNN NOW! (none / 0)

Lamont should just say:

"Joe Lieberman's going to lose. I don't want anybody out there giving Joe and excuse to be a Sore Loserman. So, whoever may be going after Joe's stupid website, stop it right now."

by Hesiod Theogeny on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:27:35 PM EST
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Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

They should have saved this stuff for November, frankly.

by Hesiod Theogeny on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:24:34 PM EST

Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

PS -- This analysis claims Joe's campaign is faking this:

http://journals.democraticunderground.co m/Skinner/115

by Hesiod Theogeny on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:28:36 PM EST

Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

I also saw the screen that DU mentions, and immediately smelled b.s. as well.

As far as I understand, to shutdown a DoS attack you may have to temporarily deny service to some blocks of IPs -- but, by doing that, everybody else seems to be able to fix these attacks in a matter of at most a few hours these days.

That the Lieberman campaign replaced (even if only for a while) their web-site with a page attacking and smearing Ned Lamont is more than highly suspicicious.

Miraculously, it seems they could in fact serve this smear-attack page to anyone who pointed their browser to the URL supposedly under attack.

by miholo on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:42:39 PM EST
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Turnout (none / 0)

Isn't high turnout bad for Lamont, under the theory that it brings in more voters who have better things to do than watch CNN all day, and who will go with Lieberman on name recognition?

by niq on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 02:05:11 PM EST

Re: Turnout (none / 0)

probably not-peo vote when they think they have a stake in change- but who knows

by bruh21 on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 02:06:55 PM EST
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Re: Turnout (none / 0)

In this instance, I think the conventional wisdom will be turned upside down. I think high turnout bodes well for Lamont. It's been my experience that when there's a "change" election going on whereby the voters do indeed opt for change, the turnout is high.

New voters and young voters going to the polls will inherently push the turnout higher. I'll bet these voters go with Lamont probably at least three or four to one.

McCain is defining Obama, and Obama is neither defining himself, nor McCain. This is awful.

by jgarcia on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 02:16:36 PM EST
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Re: Turnout (none / 0)

With the SecState talking about turnout at 40% -- that was astonishing. Talking about it going to 50-55%? That's mind-blowing.

That's like a good turnout for a general election. It's at least twice what was generally projected for a primary election.

by ogre on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 05:52:58 PM EST
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Re: Turnout (none / 0)

I have not seen any of the campaign's internal data on this, but my guess is that the more reliable primary voters are also more likely to support Lieberman. Lamont supporters are more likely to be people who don't always vote in primaries. High turnout, I think, means more of them are voting, so I think it's a good sign for us.

The theory you're describing is one that tends to apply to downballot challengers. When you're contesting a downballot race, high turnout means more people turned out to vote in the race at the top of the ticket, people who are much less likely to have paid attention to your contest, and they will break for the incumbent. In this case, though, Lieberman-Lamont is the top of the ticket, which means it's the race that's driving the turnout one way or the other.

by cos on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 03:07:54 PM EST
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Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

Wow. If a poll worker here even talked to you they'd be fired. We are sworn not to even say anything about turnout. Nor would you get within 100 feet of the polls to hand out literature.

by majkia on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 02:21:16 PM EST

Re: At the polling place (none / 0)

The rule in Connecticut is 75 feet - the limit was marked by chairs with signs. I doubt they have any rules against chatting with people outside the 75 foot limit (which is where we were).

by cos on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 03:04:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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