Jan 20th 2009 - The Inauguration As It Happens

As much as I can keep up with it! Please forgive typos. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Temperature in the low twenties
Wind chill in the teens
A flurry or two maybe

Millions of hats and twice the number of boots
Scarves and gloves
Fists wrapped around hand-warmers
Toe-warmers jammed into shoes

The wind is whipping up hair and scarves
Noses are red and cold, eyes are tearing
From the chill or from emotion
It's hard to tell

The Mall, usually empty
Grass as far as the eye can see
Not so today
Just people and flags
Jammed into every inch of space

Michelle delicious in a lemon-colored suit
Barack in a red tie
Have a gift for the Bushes
Wonder what it is
Red ribbon around a square white box

A journal and pen for Mrs. Bush
According to Charlie Gibson
So she can write her memoir
And what a memoir it will be!

Spike Lee in his white NY Yankees ear-muffed hat
Ted Kennedy in his blue scarf and and a black hat
Dustin Hoffman with a crown of grey hair
Magic Johnson, black cap over a shaved head
Annie Leibowitz clicking away

Jill Biden in a smashing red coat and knee-high boots
Dick Cheney in a wheel chair, walking stick in hand

Motorcade going down Pennsylvania Avenue
What a thrilling sight!
Car after car, black, foreboding, impenetrable
Down the street I've walked on a hundred times

The crowd is screaming their heads off
Diane Sawyer talking about a taxi that got itself into the motorcade one year
What a thing to happen!
Not this year though, not a chance
Security is tight, tight, tight

The motorcade arrives at the Capitol
The main players walking in
A shot of Arnold Schwazzenegger, gloved but not hatted
Rahm Emmanuel, John Kerry
The Justices walking down

John Roberts, Rick Warren, Colin Powell
Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor
The MC's voice booming over the microphone
All eyes on the red-draped arch through which Obama will walk in

The cabinet and agency designees walking in

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The older Bushes all color-coordinated in purple
Joe Biden's mom striding purposefully on the arms of a younger man
Jimmy and Rosalind Carter
Hillary and Bill Clinton

Clinton and the elder Bush in a warm hug (rivals earlier but pals now)
16 years have taken a toll over Bush 41

Rahn Emmanuel just thumbed his nose at someone!
Who, oh who??

Hillary walks out as Former First Lady
Not as Secretary of State designee

Bill Clinton looks grumpy
Perhaps he's mulling over what might have been

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The kids warm in pjs and housecoat
Sprawled on pillows on the carpet
Moving to the band music

Charlie Gibson, George Stephanapoulous and Diane Sawyer on the TV
Keeping it low, keeping it alive
I'm content to listen to their banter
Always appreciate George's POV

The Clintons and the Bushes (43) are catching up
The Obama kids come out with their grandma
Aretha Franklin! Oh My God!
Two shocking red hats and scarves in the crowd

Obama's family - a melting pot of its own
Black, white, Asian
A chanting, "Obama, Obama"
No time for a decorous silence waiting for the President and President-Elect

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden walking out
Michelle holding the bible that her husband will take the oath on
Encased in a red box, water-proof, fire-proof
A stray piece of ribbon hanging on Obama's lemon suit
Now finds its purpose - it's supposed to be tied just above her waist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Times Square, NY, overflowing with people

The President and Vice-President
The band strikes up Hail to the Chief!

Joe Biden and Barack Obama up next
Can't get over the sea of people on the Mall
Nancy Pelosi can't stop grinning
C is counting down the last few minutes of Bush's Presidency
Last 20 minutes!

The bare trees look like dust bunnies
The chanting begins again
Shots of the crowd
Their bodies may be freezing
Perhaps they're warm from the inside

Obama's view, never before afforded any other President
Two miles down the Mall, clear to the Lincoln Memorial
Two million people, two million flags
Barack H. Obama, says the MC
He's using the H!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Diane Feinstein does the welcoming address
Peaceful transfer of power is her theme
Rick Warren doing the invocation
A lot of controversy when he was picked
But no booing now
Everyone is silent

Aretha Franklin and My Country 'Tis of Thee
What a treat!
A great big sparkly bow on her head rising from a cap
The woman knows how to make a fashion statement out of necessity!
People are crying - who can blame them!

OMG, it's happening
It's the beginning of a new beginning
Justice Stevens swears in Biden
D is within two feet of the TV and has her hand up too! :)

The country has a new VP! Whoo hooo!
Lots of hugs going around

Yitzak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma and two others I can't recognize
Playing a John Williams composition
Yo Yo Ma left his regular Cello at home
(The 200-year old one he left behind in a NY taxicab once
and the good driver returned to him)
That cello can't stand the cold, apparently
Has a carbon cello for the occassion

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The violin and celllo are hard to bear
Emotions are already running high
Surely we did not need this heart-rending music too!

Everyone please stand!
John Roberts administers the oath
The man Obama voted against to confirm for the Supreme Court
The clock has struck noon
Gibson says the White House website has changed already

Obama has his hand on Lincoln's bible
He fumbles briefly, Michelle smiles

Congratulations Mr. President
And with those words,
Barack Hussein Obama is President of the United States!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obama's speech
Will need to go read it later
For now, content to let a Presidential address wash over
Gathering storms, real challenges, lost jobs, shuttered businesses
But they will be met

Will really need to read
Not paying attention at all
The images are gripping
"We are ready to lead once more," he says
What must the Bushes be thinking?
What a way to leave the White House!

To those in the Muslim world
"People will judge you by what you build
Not what you destroy."

Challenges, instruments with which to face the challenges are new
But the values with which to fight them are the old and true

Great line tying George Washington's invocation
to a nation being just born
Wow!
The expectations were high
Don't think anyone will say he did not meet them
Except may be Ann Coulter?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elizabeth Alexander delivers the inaugural poem
Obama's colleague at U of Chicago
Praise for the Day, the title
Robert Frost for Kennedy
Maya Angelou for Clinton

Oprah and Steadman looking serious
Rev. Joseph Lowery delivers a prayer
Diane Feinstein does a great job shepherding the inaugural committee
And with the national anthem
Smiles and cheers all around

http://www.whitehouse.gov/
The change has come!

Let the party begin!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, this is so nostalgic!
The Bushes prepare to leave the city
No longer their home
The helicopter is standing ready
The Bidens are saying goodbye to the Cheneys
Who'll drive to their home in McLean (?)
The Obamas are walking the Bushes to the helicopter
They wave goodbye
The paegentry is amazing - sad and exciting at the same time
The new guard seeing off the old guard



Image source: Washington Post (Getty Images)

The blades are whirring
That Pink Floyd song, from The Wall
The old guard now a speck in the sky.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's the text of Obama's Presidential inaugural address. Thanks Altoid!

Here's the part invoking George Washington's speech:

"Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK, Obama and John Roberts made nice just now at the luncheon. During the swearing in, Obama fumbled, asked Roberts to repeat the words, then it seemed like Roberts threw him off by switching the words around.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Washington, D.C. travel essay published last year, when the primaries were in full swing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obama speaking at the luncheon referring to Senator Ted Kennedy taking ill. There's an ambulance outside the Capitol and a stretcher at the ready.

The Presidential Inauguration: So Near, Yet So Far

In just over three days' time, Barack Obama, with his family beside him, will take the oath of office that will formally designate him the President of the United States. The Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court will administer the oath of office. As Obama recites the oath, his wife will hold, and Obama will place his left hand on, the bible that Abraham Lincoln is said to have used at his inauguration.

Although he has already taken residence in the city he will call home for at least the next four years, Obama will have arrived into Washington, D.C., again, just in time for the inauguration, on a train journey that echoes Abraham Lincoln's own journey into the city nearly a century and a half ago. And when Obama is sworn in, he will be the third President from the state of Illinois - the other two were Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant, formerly Lincoln's general in the Civil War, both men instrumental to the prolonged effort to abolish slavery.

Whatever symbolism all these little tid-bits might hold for anybody, the one that takes my breath away is this one: on January 20, 2009*, Obama, the son of an immigrant African father and a white American mother, and the husband of a woman who is the descendant of slaves, will become the first African-American President of a country with a long and gruesome history of enslavement, on the steps of the United States Capitol, a building that took shape in the hands of slaves.




A video tracing the history of the construction of the Capitol

And it's not just the Capitol. The entire city was built from scratch on land bordering the Potomac river that alternated between marshy bogs, heavily wooded wilderness and farmland, with a few hilly patches thrown in. Pierre's L'Enfant's blueprints would not have been transformed into the neatly organized city with broad, tree-lined avenues, parks and grand buildings and monuments befitting the ideals of a new nation he envisioned if not for the toil of these slave laborers. (Click here for an amazing slide show, with narration, on how the city came to be built.)

So far, I have had the opportunity to attend three presidential inaugurations. I did not have to do much - just get in the car or on the metro, ride into the city and find a comfortable place. But I never had the inclination to. Washington in January is not the best of places to be loitering in for hours on end. Inauguration days are, by law it almost seems, bitingly cold and more likely than not, wet - it's either raining or snowing. Even if I wanted to brave the weather, I was just not that interested.


But the sight of Obama and his family on those steps, with the dome of the US Capitol in the background, will be one for the ages. His writings are already among the best for US Presidents and no matter how high the expectations, his speech is bound to be stupendous (it had better be). Oratorical or writing skills apart, something about being anointed President tends to cloak a person's words with wisdom and give it rhetorical flair (links to past inaugural speeches are here). Of course, about 10 million other people had the same idea as me.

Three months ago, before the Presidential elections, I put in a request with our senator's office for three tickets to the inauguration. I wanted to be there at the swearing-in (insanely, with my son at my side), to see either Hillary Clinton or Obama being sworn in. I promptly received an e-mail acknowledging my request and telling me that I would have to go on a waiting list. It's now three days to the inauguration and I still haven't heard from them. The swearing-in was the only event I really wanted to go to, so I guess we're not going.

But if you are one of the millions of people who are (you're in good company), the Washington Post's Inauguration Central is a great place to start. It has insider tips on D.C. etiquette (helpful if you're new to D.C.), a calendar of events, where to eat, what to bring (more importantly what not to bring), etc. The weather is going to be a bracing 30 degrees (F) by mid-afternoon under cloudy skies, according to the weather service, so whatever else you bring or don't bring, warm clothing and plenty of wrap-arounds are a must. A healthy dose of humor wouldn't hurt either.

Meanwhile, I'll be home, in front of the television, wrapped in a blanket, with perhaps a drink in hand, toasting Ms. Beyonce as she belts out At Last for the Obamas' inaugural dance.



P.S. If I'm ever at a live performance of this song, it'll make my entire year.

* Earlier version said 2008. Sheesh!

Time's 2008 Person of the Year...

... is Obama. A foregone conclusion, but Time labors to explain its reasoning:

In the waning days of his extraordinary year and on the cusp of his presidency, what now seems most salient about Obama is the opposite of flashy, the antithesis of rhetoric: he gets things done. He is a man about his business — a Mr. Fix It going to Washington. That's why he's here and why he doesn't care about the furniture. We've heard fine speechmakers before and read compelling personal narratives. We've observed candidates who somehow latch on to just the right issue at just the right moment. Obama was all these when he started his campaign: a talented speaker who had opposed the Iraq war and lived a biography that was all things to all people. But while events undermined those pillars of his candidacy, making Iraq seem less urgent and biography less relevant, Obama has kept on rising. He possesses a rare ability to read the imperatives and possibilities of each new moment and organize himself and others to anticipate change and translate it into opportunity.

On another note, here's Obama in 2008.


In 2012, it'll be interesting to go back to this photograph or to any of his recent ones to see how much grayer he's gotten. If recent history is any indication (Bill Clinton, G.W.), Obama will be silver-haired by then.

Picture credit: Callie Shell/Aurora for Time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edited to add a link to the Time article (Dec 18, 08).

Palin Back on the Stump

This time for incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss who's in a run-off in Georgia.

It's Really Over, The Fat Lady Has Sung, etc.

It is well and truly over. Try as I might, there is no capturing the dizzying, mesmerizing, all-consuming last few weeks of the campaign. Camille Paglia might as well have been talking about me when she said:

A week after the election of Barack Obama, millions of American news junkies are in serious cold turkey, the big bump of withdrawal from two years of addiction to the dizzying ups and downs of a campaign that threatened never to end.

It's been days since I read every politics article on the front page of the NY Times. Days since I've had a permanent parking spot on The Atlantic Blogs and hopped obsessively from Andrew Sullivan to Ta-Nehisi Coates to Ross Douthat to Marc Armbinder to Jim Fallows to Salon to Slate to Politico to The Huffington Post to CNN to FoxNews, refreshed each page multiple times and followed the myriad links on each page (which took me to The National Review, Vanity Fair, The Guardian) before circling back to start all over again. Here's a shout out to whoever invented the refresh button.

I knew things I did not want to know. I could not get enough of the things I wanted to know about. It was surreal.

I've been witness to five US Presidential elections so far and I cannot remember one other that riveted my attention so (and by all accounts, the attention of a sizable chunk of the earth).

Back in 1992, I called my parents from my second-floor apartment on Federal Street in Philadelphia with the news that Bill Clinton had just defeated the incumbent president. It was a short call. I was a student (read: poor) and international rates to India were not as cheap as they are now. I don't remember much from the campaign, except for that interview of the Clinton couple on 60 Minutes when one of the spotlights behind their sofa keeled over and almost hit Hillary Clinton on the head; Clinton's appearance on Arsenio Hall where he played the trumpet; and James Baker's face, pinched and drawn, as he realized his boss was about to lose.

The '96 elections seemed like a formality. It was obvious from the get-to that Clinton wasn't going anywhere and Dole and Kemp seemed woefully inadequate. Even the debates were boring.

Four years later, in 2000, there was not much drama during the campaign. Of course, everyone was probably saving all the energy they had for what came after the election. That was the first election I was eligible to vote in. In a reliably red state, my vote did not count and I knew my vote did not count, but I went any way. I was not going to miss out on the experience. Thinking back about that year now, I have no memory of the primaries. I most definitely did not go vote in the primaries. Perhaps it was a foregone conclusion that Gore would win the Democratic nomination. Did anyone even challenge him? I do remember the debates though - Gore's sighing, Bush's snickering - Naomi's Wood's recommendation that Gore dress in "earth tones" and the ensuing obsessive media coverage. And Gore trying to distance himself from Clinton throughout the general election campaign. Not in the wholesale way that McCain tried to do eight years later from his own party's sitting president, but in a more selective manner - trying to attach himself to the economic successes of the Clinton years but trying to untangle himself from Clinton's personal failings. The result was that Clinton did not stump for him much at all. Would history have been different if he had?

Election day 2000 was memorable. Voting usually takes place at the numerous government buildings in the neighborhood - schools, county recreation centers, etc. I drove to the wrong polling location, to the middle school attached to our neighborhood instead of the elementary school. The officials there could not find me on the voting rolls. They set me straight and sent me packing. Slightly rattled, what with it being my first time voting 'n all, I headed out hoping I was riding to the correct location this time.

I was in line by 7 am at the elementary school. The line was not very long. When it was my turn, I walked up to a long table manned by two women. They asked for my driver's license, went down a long list of names in the printout and checked off my name. Phew! Then an elderly gentleman took me to a booth and showed me how the voting machine worked. I touched the screen a few times - there were a couple of ballot measures to vote on too, something about parks and bonds - and then touched the big red button that said VOTE. Feeling like I'd accomplished something, I walked out. Someone handed me a "I Voted" sticker which I proceeded to wear for the rest of the day. Then it was back to the mad scramble, taking C to his daycare, heading off to work and then back home much later in the day to a democratic process all gone haywire.

The TV hummed in the background the entire evening and well into the night. The pundits droned on and on and Tim Russert kept harping about Florida and how the election was going to turn on that state. Then came the decisive moment - if I remember right, NBC called Florida for Bush, followed by a concession speech. Well, almost. As the Gore motorcade was driving to his party gathering, he heard that Bush had not won after all. So he called Bush right back and retracted his concession.

Much of the next month is a blur. The circus played on, parallel to our lives. There must have been deep angst and frustration in many quarters but towards the end of it there was the feeling of just wanting a result, for the hanging chads and the pregnant chads and the beady-eyed vote counters to go off the TV screens.

Almost a year later, in 2001, Gore resurfaced in DC. The story goes that following the ban on air traffic over the US and the cancellation of all US-bound flights in the aftermath of 9/11 he was stuck in Austria. He somehow managed to get to NY on an army transport plane and flew into DC on Clinton's plane for a service at the National Cathedral that President Bush had organized. It was a shock to see the normally fit Gore with a large beard and not trim anymore. But what a difference a few years makes. In 2007 he made a visit to the White House. A deeply unpopular President occupied the Oval Office. Ten different presidential candidates vying for the same office were tearing him down in ten different ways. Shortly before a reception at the White House for Nobel winners, Gore walked into that office as the winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for a private audience with President.

In 2004, we were heading out to India right around election time, so we voted early. The voting room at the government center was way more crowded than we expected, but it felt good to have taken the time to vote. Again, our state was not in play at all, but with the spectre of Florida hanging over our heads, it was easy to drive out and spend whatever time it took. "Swiftboating" and "I voted no before I voted yes" entered our already vast political lexicon. And four hundred dollar haircuts entered our understanding of the realm of the possible, courtesy John Edwards. John Kerry's struggles during the campaign is a cautionary tale of why presidential candidates entrenched in the ways of the Senate make such poor campaigners. When juxtaposed against Bush's simple, declarative sentences, Kerry's thoughtful pronouncements managed to appear plodding and indecisive.

Come 2008 and it was a totally different story. I was voting in the primaries! I walked towards the school and there was an hour-long wait. It was unbelievable! Throughout the primary season and the general campaign, there were more events in our neighborhood and the ones close by that I can remember from the two previous elections put together. Obama seriously believed the state could be won and that had both parties scrambling to shake hands and hold babies and give shout outs to incarnations of Joe the Plumber (VA's version was Tito the Something, I forget) at rallies. Campaign signs went up early and stayed put. Some lawns had campaign signs every few feet. Signs showing up on common property were promptly taken down. Volunteers came a-knocking on our doors, early and often. There were young kids with tattoos and piercings, there was an old couple who had supported Clinton in the primaries but had moved on to Obama, there was a young Asian couple the weekend before the election.

The things that riveted voters and gawkers were as many and as varied as people with opinions - there was race, gender, age, experience, SNL, Palin, moose chili, abortion rights, right to life, pregnant teenagers, special-needs children, run-on sentences (one of Salon's writers actually diagrammed one of Palin's sentences), the Bush Doctrine, Katie Couric, McCain dissing Letterman (and regretting it, I'm sure), Maureen Dowd and Judith Warner's columns in the NYT, Chris Buckley and Kathleen Parker (two conservatives) both endorsing Obama and both being ostracized by the party faithful for it, Bill Kristol's wild suggestions for the McCain campaign, Campbell Brown's rantings on CNN...

I'm glad the election is over and, the biggest surprise of all, that the decision came quickly and painlessly and that McCain made a wonderful, graceful concession speech. But I'm not sure I'm glad the campaign is over.

A Radio Interview I'd Love to Hear

Terry Gross interviewing Sarah Palin.

I love radio interviews. They have the effect of distilling the interaction down to thoughts and how they are expressed. It doesn't matter what the participants are wearing, how they look, what they are doing, or how the lighting is placed.

I especially appreciate any opportunity to listen to Gross' interviews. She appears to be someone who has no agenda other than to let her genuinely curious mind plumb the depths of the issue at hand. These days I end up catching a portion of her program, Fresh Air, as I drive to and from C's school to pick him up.

William Ayers was on her show today. It was enlightening, to say the least. A far cry from the "palling around with terrorists" caricature he had been reduced to during the campaign.

Thanks to all the hoopla surrounding his connection to Obama, his 2001 book, Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist, is being reissued and Ayers has been on TV, in the newspapers and now on Fresh Air. He's underground no more.

Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin

Amanda Fortini articulates how the problem of plenty was not actually what it seemed at all.

[...] it is disappointing to watch what some have called the “year of the woman” come to such an embarrassing conclusion. This was an election cycle in which candidates pandered to female voters, newsweeklies tried to figure out “what women want,” and Hillary Clinton garnered 18 million votes toward winning the Democratic nomination. The assumption was that these “18 million cracks in the highest glass ceiling,” as Clinton put it, would advance the prospects of female achievement and gender equality. It hasn’t exactly worked out that way.

In the grand Passion play that was this election, both Clinton and Palin came to represent—and, at times, reinforce—two of the most pernicious stereotypes that are applied to women: the bitch and the ditz.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Joe the Plumber attempts a mutation ... into Joe the Magnate

Joe the Plumber’s latest small business? Apparently: himself. JTP’s deeply researched, carefully edited, thoughtful, and not at all hastily-put-together-to-capitalize-on-his-media-celebrity-before-it-expires treatise on The American Dream—written “with” spiritual novelist Thomas N. Tabback—is slated to be released December 1. Yes, of this year. Oh, and it will be titled, humbly and rather delightfully, Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream.

To celebrate—and to ensure that copies of the book are sold!—YOU THE PEOPLE can now obtain a Freedom Membership from Joe’s hastily-put-together-to-capitalize-on-his-media-celebrity-before-it-expires Web site, SecureOurDream.com. The Membership, like Freedom itself, ain’t free…but the $14.95 yearly fee practically pays for itself!

More. If not anything else, you gotta love the entrepreneurial spirit.

While you are it, please to check out this Shep Smith interview from those heady days when whatever Joe said or did or did not do merited reams of paper and miles of tape.

Echoes of Bobby Kennedy's 1968 Campaign

In its June 2008 issue, Vanity Fair magazine excerpted Thurston Clarke's book, The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and the 82 Days That Inspired America, about Bobby Kennedy's short-lived - but enlivening - campaign. I started reading the article many times, but could never find the time to finish it until a few days ago.

The excerpt chronicles Bobby Kennedy's internal dilemmas and his struggle to articulate why he should run for president and challenge his own party's sitting president. It brings into sharp relief the various private agonies stymying the potential candidate, his wife, his sister-in-law (Jackie Kennedy), his brother and the sundry friends close to the family. JFK's assassination is preying on their minds. They wonder aloud and privately if the same fate will befall Bobby Kennedy.

The part that resonated with me the most was the description of a nervous Kennedy starting his speech in front of a mixed crowd at KSU (some adoring, some hostile):

As Kennedy began, his voice cracked, and those near the stage noticed his hands trembling and his right leg shaking.

[...]

He told the K.S.U. students that their country was “deep in a malaise of the spirit” and suffering from “a deep crisis of confidence”—the kinds of phrases that no politician has dared utter since President Carter was pilloried for speaking of a national “crisis of confidence” during his notorious “malaise speech,” in which he never used the word “malaise.”

Kennedy opened his attack on President Johnson’s Vietnam policy with a confession and an apology. “Let me begin this discussion with a note both personal and public,” he said. “I was involved in many of the early decisions on Vietnam, decisions which helped set us on our present path.”

[...]

I am willing to bear my share of the responsibility, before history and before my fellow citizens. But past error is no excuse for its own perpetration.

Kennedy’s apology elicited the loudest cheers of the morning so far, perhaps because these students appreciated hearing an adult admit to a mistake, or because they too had once supported the war and Kennedy’s mea culpa made it easier for them to admit that they too had been wrong.

As I was reading about this campaign from 40 years ago while being fully obsessessed about the campaign this year, it was hard to escape the parallels - issues of race (much more raw in Kennedy's time, of course); the pall of a war gone bad hanging over the electorate; the inspirational campaigns run by two young, appealing senators; the reluctance of the party establishment to embrace their candidacies; the undercurrent of fear for their lives; the yearning for change that had gripped a tired population.

The photographs accompanying the article (from Bill Eppridge's A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties) are a wonderful bonus. A web-only slideshow of 17 photographs is here.

It's Midnight and It's Election Day 2008

November 4th has arrived in the East Coast and the first results have already come in!

Dixville Notch, a village in New Hampshire, has all of 21 registered voters. Around midnight they all congregate in one room in a local office and each one goes off into his booth and puts his vote down on a piece of paper, which then goes into a wooden ballot box. A few minutes later, the first official results roll in.

The village is staunchly Republican and has voted so in every presidential election but the one in 1968. Well, this year, it bucked the trend again. The votes went down this way - Obama, 15; McCain, 6; Nader, 0.

Plus, the Redskins lost their Monday night game on their home turf today. Electoral wisdom has it that if the Redskins lose their last home game before the elections, then the incumbent party is headed for a loss as well.

Will this maxim hold true in 2008 as well?