Jude Seymour has updated numbers that basically end the race (again) for Hoffman–Owens leads by 3,105 votes with only 3,072 absentee ballots outstanding. And that’s with no absentee ballots from Essex, Franklin and St. Lawrence Counties, which went for Owens on election day.

On the local level, you find candidates who are willing to wear out a lot of shoe leather and knock on doors until their knuckles bleed. People in Delaware vote for candidates they have met. It doesn’t always work but most of the time it does.

At the national level you keep whipping up the grassroots, because word of mouth from a friend or family member trumps all the lies and schenanigans the other side can dish out.

It just takes work, there’s no other way. So start gearing up for next Thursday’s dinner table debate. You can make a difference — Howard Dean said so. ;o)

But we were talking about how Republicans get Sarah Palin to bring out voters.

Then, there is also the phenomenom that V and xstryker describe above. The wannabe’s. I live in an area where the R’s prevail, all the time, and the district tends to be college educated and moderately well-off. These people obviously fall to the right of the bell curve but vote R because someday they just might be rich or they think they are rich already. Believe me they aren’t. Ya gotta go up to Chateau County to find rich people. These folks have delusions of grandeur.

So carve out the minority groups on the left, but carve out the wannabes on the right. And factor in that the wannabes vote — 73% turn-out in my district, consistently.

I had a point with this. Oh yeah! We can’t just rely on shifting demographics to win.

The Working Families Party in NY almost always runs a candidate on its line from one of the two major parties. It’s not a “far left” party (as evidenced by the fact that is has hosted Scozzofava, a Republican, on its line). It has a narrow list of interests and whatever major party candidate gets sufficient points gets the nod.

It is, of course, not a consequential vote getter. It is not the only alternative-party regularly on the ballot in NY, either.

And it has nothing to do with ACORN.

But let’s not have facts get in the way — I noticed that RepublicanDavid hijacked this thread nicely and never came back.

Tiring, isn’t it?

1. It is HUGE
2. His hair is like the same color as his face, giving this creepy aryan nation vibe
3. The huge (weepy) eyes, the big pudgy cheeks and the little rosy pink mouth. It’s like one of those awful CGI tricks where they superimpose a toddler head onto a man’s body.

I literally changed my gym schedule because the YMCA started showing Beck right in front of the elipticals during the time i usually went (even though it was nowhere on the tv watching poll, but that’s another story). I was completely unable to concentrate, totally unnerved by his awkward melonball noggin.

/rant

My wingnut friend has a high school education and works at Home Depot. He also works two other jobs to pay his bills.

also, Glen Beck has a creepy oversized baby-head.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/18/805704/-Dont-Get-Palins-Appeal-Try-a-Little-Harder

Then stop and think. One half of the population falls to the left of the bellcurve on intelligence. 50%. You only need to convince them plus one more to win.

The Republicans have always cynically manipulated these folks, it is part of their party creed. Because, without these folks there aren’t enough rich people to win elections. This is their only hope of prevailing. It’s an AH HAH moment. It isn’t going to change, whatever they call themselves. The guys pulling the real strings (not the RNC strings) are having a wonderful time with this.