5-year-old VIDEO shows Romanian president hitting boy

By GottaLaff



See for yourself (above):

Romania's government "has collapsed and its economy is in shambles but its presidential campaign has been dominated in recent days by a video that appears to show the president striking a 10-year-old boy in the face," the AP reports.

The five year old footage "appeared just over a week ahead of a Dec. 6 runoff vote and has been top news ever since. [...]

Traian Basescu's campaign says the film is a dirty trick and the footage was "seriously altered."

What do you think?

Not looking good for Martin, Chambliss way ahead

By GottaLaff

Bleh:
Georgia Election Results
Unofficial And Incomplete Results of the Tuesday,
December 02, 2008
General Election Runoff

63% of precincts reporting :

Chambliss (R) 778,004	Martin (D) 505,484	Totals 1,283,488
60.6%	39.4%	100.0%

Poll-itics: It's not over 'til it's over/Chambliss leading edition

By GottaLaff

There is a major caveat, as you'll see in paragraph two:

The final Public Policy Polling survey in Georgia's U.S. Senate runoff finds "overwhelming support from white voters" likely to result in the reelection of Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) over challenger Jim Martin (D), 53% to 46%.

A big caveat: "Polling a special election is hard. You usually don't have a lot of precedent to base turnout projections on, and that makes it difficult to figure out ahead of time what the electorate is going to look like. Polling a special election over a holiday weekend is even harder. People are out of town, at the mall, and generally just harder to reach than usual."

The run off election is tomorrow.

Georgia Obama organizers have "a wistful, gravitational pull" to keep working

By GottaLaff

The Obama Georgia campaign organizers are at it again:

If Barack Obama isn't coming to rain-soaked Georgia, his ground organization is very much here. In addition to the existing Georgia organizing infrastructure that has stayed on board, at least fifty outside organizers showed up in Georgia within a few days of November 4. The mission: to help Democrat Jim Martin in his U.S. Senate runoff against incumbent Saxby Chambliss. More organizers arrive each day. They're young -- but they're veterans -- and they've jumped right in.

In other parts of the country, including northern and southern California, Obama organizers run phone banks into Georgia on Martin's behalf.

This is what we wanted to hear. Thank you, Sean Quinn of 538.

At the human level, there is almost a wistful, gravitational pull for many of these organizers in returning to a race. To work on the Obama campaign, these folks had to disconnect from their previous lives. [...]

While the pride is evident, conversations with many of these organizers reveals a strange sense of feeling lost, untethered from an all-consuming routine. So when organizers hear other organizers are coming to Georgia, it's a form of therapeutic reunion for many, much like a reunion of military veterans. Unless you've been through it, it's hard to explain.

I love these people. I want to marry them. All of them.

The Martin campaign has 25 field offices in the state, which is the same number of offices Chambliss has. We visited the Savannah offices Friday night and yesterday, and the organizing edge goes to Martin. On Friday night, the Chambliss office was open but empty, and a couple of dialers worked on Saturday around noon.

So what's the latest on the early voting?

Whatever turns out to be the case, at the close of early voting Wednesday, according to the Secretary of State's office 345,564 had voted, and 22.5% of those votes were African-American, an ominous dropoff from the 34.5% of black early voters for the general election.

Still, according to Georgia Democratic Party spokesman Martin Matheny, thousands of volunteers were hard at work across the state knocking doors in the rain and making phone calls on Jim Martin's behalf. The lines on Election Day will be much shorter than during the general election, given the much shorter ballot, and Democrats here think that most of its voters are going to turn out on Runoff Day itself.

Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease.

Palin's hometown paper slams her for supporting Chambliss

By GottaLaff

The Anchorage Daily News isn't thrilled with Pitiful Palin's pallin' around with draft-evadin', Cleland-bashin' Saxby the Smearer. The piece rips into Chambliss, detailing his Rovian despicableness, and ends with this:

So there you have the fine American that Palin is trying to re-elect to the U.S. Senate.

Gov. Palin’s eldest joined the Army and has been deployed to Iraq. As a justifiably proud military mom, she might ask herself why she is using her conservative star power to support such a reprehensible Republican chicken hawk.

She has the judgment of a drunk toddler.

Poll-itics-- Research 2000: Chambliss Leads By Six in Georgia

By GottaLaff

From the Department of Things You Don't Want to Hear:

The latest Research 2000 poll in the Georgia U.S. Senate run off shows Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) with a six point lead over Jim Martin (D), 52% to 46%.

Key finding: "Research 2000 is speculating that the likely-voter model for the runoff election will be substantially different from the turnout model for the November election...if poll respondents mirrored those who voted on Election Day, the race would be a lot closer. However, the pollster is figuring that a lot of voters -- African-Americans in particular -- who voted for Obama in the general election will stay at home for the runoff."

What happened to GOTV? This is not good news.

Doonesbury: Pitiful Palin action doll edition, with bonus campaign update

By GottaLaff

(click on image to enlarge)

Palin Heads Back to Campaign Trail

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin "will come to Georgia next week to campaign for incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss on the eve of the runoff election," the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

She is scheduled to appear at four Chambliss rallies.

I hope Palin's staff remembers to check her surroundings before they give her the go-ahead to resume her run-on sentences again.

Republicans Botch Absentee Ballot Operation in Georgia

By GottaLaff

You botcha:

A Republican-generated effort to get out the vote for Georgia's December 2 Senate runoff election "has hit a snag as thousands of requests for absentee ballots have been denied because the applications were not signed," the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

Blame it on the Obama recession. If that doesn't work, there's always Bill Clinton. Or Hillary.

Or ACORN.

But whatever they do, they shouldn't take it out on Saxby Chambliss. He's been known to retaliate.

VIDEOS: Saxby Chambliss Turns Election Frustration on Cameraman

By GottaLaff

(This is a really short video, about 25 seconds)

Oh that Saxby, always causing a ruckus. He's probably just upset about his name.

Facing a runoff election in a few weeks — and recently hit with a subpoena to testify about his ties to the sugar company whose refinery exploded in February, killing 14 — the Georgia Republican has turned his frustration on the media, giving a light shove to a cameraman yesterday who appears to get to close to the embattled senator.

The Democrats are hoping to make the subpoena (not to mention the shove) an issue in Chambliss’s Dec. 2 runoff against Democratic challenger Jim Martin — which, by the way, can’t come quickly enough.

Here's another, slightly longer video (h/t: Jon Lester) to give you some background:

Can he just lose already? Please?

Georgia Senate Race Not Settled!

By GottaLaff

This morning, I was listening as Greg Palast told Stephanie Miller that a few seats were stolen in this election. Chambliss's was one of them. There was election fraud this time around, he said. Maybe we can remedy this one:

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) "refused to concede that he'd been thrown into a U.S. Senate runoff -- but acknowledged he was now 'in full campaign mode' while final votes trickle in," the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

"Currently, Chambliss has 49.9 percent of the vote, according to Secretary of State Karen Handel. He needs 50 percent plus one to escape a runoff."

Fingers firmly crossed.