TER has been an on and off concern - mostly off - during 2008.
Without doubt, this has been a momentous year all around.
The course of our country and the world has been changed by the global financial crisis, which is in fact a housing crisis. Fortunately, this country chose wisely [...]
Al-Qaeda, in the person of #2 man Ayman al-Zawahiri, has broken its silence on the United States Presidential election. In 2004, Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden made a notorious statement in advance of the voting between President George W. Bush and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. That statement is thought to [...]
As someone who started supporting Barack Obama's Presidential candidacy in 2007, I am naturally delighted with the results in the Presidential election.
The President-Elect may end up with 365 electoral votes out of 538 - all of the states won by John Kerry four years ago, plus Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, [...]
At 11:00 PM Eastern Time tonight, November 4, 2008, MSNBC projected that Barack Obama would win the states of California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii. With the 77 electoral votes from these states added to the 207 already projected to be won by Obama, [...]
At 10:00 Eastern, MSNBC called Iowa for Obama and Utah for McCain. Earlier, MSNBC called Texas for McCain. At this point, Obama has 207 electoral votes, 63 short of victory. With victories in California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii, Obama would have 77 additional electoral votes for a total of 284 [...]
MSNBC called Ohio for Barack Obama at 9:20 Eastern this evening. Assuming that Obama wins the remaining Kerry states plus Iowa and New Mexico, Barack Obama will have a minimum of 284 electoral votes - 14 more than needed for victory. Barack Obama will be the President-Elect of the United [...]
At 9:00, MSNBC called New York, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan for Obama, and Kansas, North Dakota, and Wyoming for McCain. With Alabama and Georgia going for McCain, the Electoral College stands at 175 for Obama and 70 for McCain.
Earlier, Kay Hagan was projected the winner of the Senate [...]
MSNBC called South Carolina shortly before the hour, but with the 8:00 poll closings, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania have been called for Obama, and Oklahoma and Tennessee have been called for McCain. We stand now at 103 electoral votes for Obama [...]
CNN and MSNBC have called Vermont for Obama and Kentucky for McCain. McCain leads 8 to 3 at the moment. Indiana is too close to call. MSNBC has also called Mark Warner the winner of the Senate in Virginia. No surprises so far.
[...]The Eisenthal Report is coming to you tonight from the residence of Blair and Mark Stephens, known in West Brookfield as the "hosts with the most."
Here, an election night crowd, mostly supporters of Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats down-ticket, awaits the first results with anticipation and no little nervousness.
If [...]
Total Popular Vote: 141,000,000
Obama: 75,000,000 (largest in U.S. History)
McCain: 65,000,000 (second largest)
Obama Electoral Votes: 338*
McCain Electoral Votes: 200*
New Senators - all Democrats - Merkley (OR), Begich (AK), Udall (CO), Udall (NM), Franken (MN), Hagan (NC), Warner (VA), and Shaheen (NH).
*When the Electoral College votes next month, [...]
With two days left before Election Day, it remains clear that barring an historic upset, Barack Obama will be elected President of the United States on Tuesday.
The scale of an upset that would put John McCain in the White House is apparent by a look at the state-by-state polling numbers. [...]
This is the amount of popular votes I believe Barack Obama will receive - within 500,000 - after all votes are cast. What do you think?
[...]The fact that the 2008 Presidential election looks like no other Presidential election in United States history is almost a commonplace.
Next Tuesday, the United States is likely to elect its first African-American President - and its first Roman Catholic Vice President. If this happens, it will be based in large [...]
This morning, I saw one reason why the Presidential campaign of Republican nominee John McCain may be headed for a spectacular defeat.
I was getting on the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) at Exit 7 in Ludlow. For those of you not intimately familiar with Massachusetts geography, Ludlow is in western Massachusetts next [...]
The campaign of Republican Presidential nominee John McCain has seized on remarks that Joseph Biden, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, made last week. At a Seattle fundraiser, Biden said that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama...we're going to have an international crisis to test the [...]
Electoral-vote.com observed today that Republican Presidential nominee John McCain and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin have been traveling to states like Maine, Minnesota, and New Hampshire - states that the Republican ticket is very unlikely to win at this point -and not traveling to Nevada and North Carolina [...]
A couple of years ago, when Gerald Ford became the longest-living former President, The Eisenthal Report tried to put President Ford's longevity into perspective. TER noted that if Abraham Lincoln lived as long as Ford, he would have lived into the 20th century, and if Theodore Roosevelt had lived as long [...]
A couple of years ago, when Gerald Ford became the longest-living former President, The Eisenthal Report tried to put President Ford's longevity into perspective.
TER noted that if Abraham Lincoln lived as long as Ford, he would have lived into the 20th century, and if Theodore Roosevelt had lived as long [...]
With the Dow Jones Industrial Average having dipped below 8,000 today (a little before 2:00 PM EDT), a question occurs to me.
What if the 1929 stock market crash had happened one year earlier - in October 1928? Would we have had President Alfred Smith instead of President Herbert Hoover?
[...]Tonight's Presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee, had great importance for both Sen. Barack Obama (endorsed by TER) and Sen. John McCain, but more was at stake for Sen. McCain, who has been falling steadily behind Sen. Obama in national and state-by-state polls over the past few weeks.
While McCain scored some [...]
In December 2007, The Eisenthal Report endorsed Barack Obama for President of the United States. TER reiterates that endorsement - emphatically.
During this campaign, Sen. Obama has continued to demonstrate those qualities of leadership, intellect, and eloquence that were so attractive in December 2007. As [...]
Tonight's Vice Presidential debate between the Republican nominee, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and the Democratic nominee, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, offered much spirit and drama, but did not change the dynamic of the Presidential campaign 33 days before Election Day.
Governor Palin offered spirit and spunk, if not much in the [...]
The Eisenthal Report urges a "no" vote on Question 1, which will appear on ballots statewide in Massachusetts on November 4.
Question 1 would eliminate the state income tax. The effect of this measure would be highly disruptive, at best, and conceivably catastrophic for this state. The state budget of the [...]
A few days ago, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com made a very interesting observation about how the Presidential election might unfold in a state that is sure to be carried by Republican nominee John McCain.
Nebraska is one of two states - Maine is the other - that allocate their [...]
CNN has just announced the death of Paul Newman, one of the greatest American actors of his generation. Newman, who had been reportedly fighting cancer for some time, succumbed to the disease at the age of 83.
It is sometimes difficult to see the historic passing of a generation. The passing [...]
If the first Presidential debate, held tonight at the University of Mississippi, changed the dynamic of the Presidential campaign at all, it was to stop the bleeding of the campaign of Republican nominee John McCain.
In the past two weeks, Sen. McCain has gone from strong positions in national and state-by-state [...]
Sen John S. McCain III (R - Arizona), the Republican nominee for President, announced today that he was suspending his Presidential campaign in order to "focus on the economy" and participate in the congressional debate on the financial bailout package proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman [...]
1. This post is an experiment - my first from my mobile phone - we'll see how this works. 2. The state-by-state presidential polls have been all over the place. A week ago, Barack Obama had a lead of 57 electoral votes with 67 tossup votes. A few days ago, John [...]
It seems obvious to all observers that the U.S. Presidential election could be very close.
Current state-by-state polling numbers indicate 264 electoral votes for Sen. Barack Obama, 207 electoral votes for Sen. John McCain, and 67 electoral votes in six states considered to be "tossups" - Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nevada, [...]
When the 44th President of the United States takes office this coming January, one of his first meetings with a foreign leader is likely to be with the Prime Minister of Canada; it is possible that the Prime Minister with whom President Obama or President McCain meets will not be [...]
In looking at state-by-state polling data - the only polling data that matter in a Presidential election - I continue to confirm a belief that is weeks, if not months, old - that this is Sen. Barack Obama's election to lose.
In looking at Dave Leip's Atlas of Presidential Elections, [...]
This has been quite a week - in this country's politics and for me, personally.
Sen. Barack Obama officially became the Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party - the first African-American to win this in history. The vote making Obama the nominee - and Obama's speech accepting the nomination - occurred [...]
I have created a new prediction market on the Inkling platform.
For those of you not familiar with prediction markets, these are Internet platforms that attempt to arrive at consensus predictions of future events. They function like stock or bond markets. An "investor" can "buy" stock in a given [...]
Friends,
It is well past July 1 and I am still contemplating the future of The Eisenthal Report. I announced a hiatus in May shortly after I was elected to the West Brookfield Board of Selectmen. I thought I would be able to make a decision about the future of [...]
With my election earlier this week to the West Brookfield Board of Selectmen, I am thinking carefully about my priorities. While I do that, I have decided to put The Eisenthal Report on hiatus. I have not decided how - or in what form - The Eisenthal Report will continue. [...]
I was elected yesterday to the West Brookfield Board of Selectmen.
On a beautiful spring day, 621 of West Brookfield's 2,159 registered voters, about 28 percent of the total, went to the polls - a very impressive turnout for a local election in which there was one race to be decided. [...]
With three days to go to West Brookfield's annual town election, two area newspapers have stories on the race for Board of Selectmen - in which I am one of the contestants.
The Quaboag Current ran profiles of the candidates for the West Brookfield race, as well as races [...]
This week's edition of the Spencer New Leader, a weekly newspaper that serves the Route 9 corridor west of Worcester, has responses that my opponent and I gave to a questionnaire that addresses our qualifications and our positions on issues that affect West Brookfield. The responses are on [...]
The Quaboag Current, a weekly newspaper that covers West Brookfield and other nearby communities, ran interviews with me and my opponent in the edition that came out on Friday. These interviews, which begin near the top of the front page, were fair and well-presented. There was one minor factual [...]
Welcome to those of you who came here because of the article in the Spencer New Leader about my campaign website, David for West Brookfield.
The focus of this blog generally is the whole world of politics, public policy, and culture, but recently my focus has been mostly on [...]
Readers of TER will have noticed that I have not posted in the past week.
There have been some interesting and important events that have been worthy of comment. The Massachusetts House passing new revenue measures this week is an example. However, my focus has been mostly on my own race [...]
MassInc, the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, is holding a high-profile panel discussion this coming Thursday on the politics of the budget difficulties facing Massachusetts.
The panelists include former Senate president Thomas Birmingham, former Senate Ways and Means chairwoman Patricia McGovern, former secretary of Administration and Finance and [...]
Today is an important anniversary for me.
Twenty-four years ago today - April 2, 1984 - I was elected to the School Committee in Sharon, Massachusetts. I had turned 22 the previous November - and so was the youngest elected official in the history of the Town of Sharon to that [...]
This week, two local newspapers included stories that mentioned local campaign-related activities.
The Spencer New Leader included an article (page 2) on the shape of the May 6th election. It confirmed that the only contest in West Brookfield will be the race for Selectman. The election for Regional School [...]
Former Sen. Mike Gravel, who has been a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination, announced yesterday that he is leaving the Democratic Party and joining the Libertarian Party.
Gravel, who was a Senator from Alaska from 1969 to 1981, had gotten some attention from Democratic voters, but not much support [...]
This week, my campaign for a seat on the West Brookfield Board of Selectmen launched a campaign website.
David for West Brookfield (http://www.david4westbrookfield.com) is not as fancy as the sites for some candidates for higher office, but it tries to convey some of the same kinds of information - [...]
Arthur C. Clarke, one of the great science fiction writers of all time, died this afternoon (U.S. time) at his home in Sri Lanka; he was 90.
His most famous work was the novel and film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, but he was known also as a futurist, who [...]
