Please Hold with the Victory Dance - GOTV!

Okay, I get that we are all very excited about the President's (and Democratic) bounce after a wonderful convention. Moreover, it's amazing that Mitt Romney and fellow Republicans continue to shoot themselves in the foot while attempting to stuff both feet into their mouth at the same time.

SO... it's not hard to imagine that people would be excited to get out and say - "Well we have this one, now let's go pile-on for the victory". I get that. To be honest, I like that feeling. I enjoy feeling like we are in a good place and that we will see not only a victory for President Obama but for a Democratic Hold on the Senate and a possible recapture of the House (though I personally think that's unlikely).

Now I realize there is some truth to the phrase "Everyone Likes a Winner". I get that too. But with that confidence comes a certain amount of complacency. The election is still a little less than two months away (a lifetime in Presidential politics). And while we are leading this thing at this point, we need to be mindful that we need to continue to understand that this is and will be a "dog fight" until the end.

Not to be a "downer" but... I decided to take a look at the last three elections to see where candidates were in September.

In 2000, Newsweek was predicting an Eight point blowout for Al Gore while CNN had Bush up by 1% and the WaPo had both candidates even. We all know what happened in 2000 where the election was stolen, however we also know that this shouldn't have even come down to this in the first place.

In 2004, RCP had then President Bush with a 6.3% lead on this date in 2004. The Final election results were Bush by 2.4% (with some questions about what went down in Ohio - but that is not for this diary).
In 2008, on this date, John McCain led by 2.1% in composite polling and of course we all know what happened following the crash in the economy.

As of today, composites show the President leading by 3.6 points (with Rasmussen being the one poll that has Mitt Romney ahead by One point).

Anyway, as we can see nothing is particularly reliable at this point, and if Mitt Romney could ever stop making mistakes (which may not be possible) he could have a chance to change the dynamics of the race. Further, he has a base which WILL turn out for him even if they thought a walnut would do a better job. One Right wing nutjob was quoted as saying that he would rather vote for a Pastrami and Cheese sandwich than vote for the President's re-election (I have heard variations on this theme from nutters throughout various in person and social media conversations).

This election is going to be about our turnout. WE need to get people out and registered and voting. A Republican victory for our country would be a disaster for everyone. This is no time to be crowing about what we have. This is a time to be pushing, and pushing hard for people to GOTV.

We cannot afford complacency. We cannot afford to be self-satisfied. What we need is a call to the electorate to reject the attempted Republican push to bring us back to 1845, and rather we need to keep moving forward.

I think it is too early to start crowing about what we see as a "cakewalk". It is. We can't win if we don't get people to the polls. We can't win if people don't vote. With all the attempts at voter suppression as well as other shenanigans the Republicans will try to pull, we cannot take anything for granted.

SO, please.... I ask that rather than congratulate ourselves for a race won, we push and push to make sure that we do win it. We will only push if we have a sense of urgency and we will only have a sense of urgency if we believe we need to have one. Please volunteer, donate, put up a lawn sign but do something... to help GOTV.

President Obama and PM Netanyahu... Much Ado about NOTHING

So, we had a day of diaries and articles decrying Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu for his supposed challenges to U.S. Electoral Procedures which elicited claims of dual-loyalty of Jewish Americans, bashing of Israel for trying to control the U.S. and other nonsense. We even had one anti-Semitic troll flip out over a movie that he thought was an Israeli/Jewish made film when it turns out that the apparent film-maker is neither Jewish nor Israeli.

Even a diarist here that has a ton of support from the community jumped in and completely messed up the story with a sensationalized headline and commentary to match. BUT... alas for those fired up about this issue. This is simply "Much ado about Nothing".
In brief we had this....

1. Reports yesterday which had President Obama "snubbing" Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu from a meeting in NY

2. The Americans saying there is no "snub", the leaders simply weren't in NY at the same time, however, that SoS Clinton would meet with the Prime Minister and they would discuss what was needed to be discussed.

Of course this prompted cries from the Wingnut Right (paraphrased) of; "SEE the President hates PM Netanyahu and he is friends with Iran"as well as the Paulista Rightist crowd with their babbling about how it was about time that the U.S. stood up to the Israelis.

It also prompted cries from the far-left saying: "HA! way to stand up to TEH EBILZ IZRAILEES" and how President Obama was really gonna show the Israelis "whatfor" in his second term.
Only problem... It was all just nothing.

As Haaretz reports:

Overnight, Netanyahu had held an hour-long telephone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama, calming things down following reports that Obama had rejected Netanyahu's request to meet when the prime minister visits the United States later this month...... 

.....The White House said both leaders were determined to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and had agreed to continue "close consultations going forward." White House spokesman Tommy Vietor denied reports that Obama had rejected Netanyahu's request to meet in Washington, since "no such request was made or rejected."

And at the same time Prime Minister Netanyahu played down this supposed rift by saying:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adopted a conciliatory tone one day after his attack on the United States' Iran policy, noting that Israel's "leaders are tested at times of differences with our allies, even our closest allies."

Now... Personally, I am not a supporter of Prime Minister Netanyahu. I support the Opposition Labor Party, but, I don't really see a need for everyone to get all worked up before the whole story came out. How about this... for the supposedly reality based community that we are... we actually base our stories in,.... you know... reality.

We still don't know what really happened though we have both the Israeli and American Administrations saying the same thing. Could this have been a failed attempt by Republicans and those sympathetic to them in Israel to "gin up" a story. Absolutely. It could have. BUT that story has been quickly discredited. So, I would ask could we please just get on with dealing with what actually has happened, particularly in this election season.

Thanks very much.