a tree grows in brooklyn, no longer

they're cutting down the tree outside our apartment door. oddly, all i can hear is a chainsaw, angry spanish, and the screams of a small child.

Victory

I've been meaning to do a post-election wrap-up and comment on a lot of stuff but, as Nathan put it, "Time is a bitch."

So far we've won 29 seats in the House and lost none. Six races are still outstanding. We'll most likely lose all of those. There's so much backstory to all 35 of those seats that I can't blog about but hopefully I will see all of you over the next month and can give you the rundown on those and the other trife of the last few months. I just got confirmation that I can leave town so here's the plan for The Victory Tour:

Wednesday, November 22: Fly to Cleveland for Thanksgiving
Saturday, November 25: Fly back to DC to move out of my apartment
Saturday, December 2: Fly to Providence for my triumphant return to Brown
Wednesday, December 13: Fly from Providence to San Francisco

Adjust your plans accordingly.

In order to whet your appetite, here's a good account of what went down from the Chicago Tribune reporter at the DCCC on Election Night:

A large erasable board, divided into some 80 squares for various House districts, dominated one wall in the DCCC offices on election night. Interns rushed to update results, prompting cheers or moans from the assembled staffers.

When a winner was declared in a race, the interns outlined the square in red marker. As the number of red squares grew, the magnitude of the Democratic gains became clear and an unfamiliar mood of jubilation overtook the staffers.

For Emanuel--ensconced in an office with friends and family--the board represented the culmination of two years' work. Every number reported the fate of a candidate he had recruited, cultivated and come to know.

Televisions were scattered throughout the DCCC offices and common areas. At 11:08, CNN's Wolf Blitzer intoned, "We can now project that the Democrats will be in the majority in the House of Representatives." Emanuel seemed momentarily dazed, hugging his brother Zeke and kissing his wife. Six minutes later, Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, looking jittery and happy, walked from the room where she had been watching the returns into Emanuel's office.

Emanuel roared, "Fellas--Madame speaker!" Pelosi and Emanuel hugged, rocking gently together for a few seconds. Brian Wolff, a staffer who worked for both Emanuel and Pelosi, called out, "Mission accomplished!"

At that moment, Sen. Barack Obama, who had campaigned relentlessly for House candidates, called to offer congratulations. "Barack," Pelosi said. "Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you did." She walked back to her office muttering, "I gotta call my brother."

As Pelosi made her way through the DCCC staffers, some applauded, then more joined in and everyone rose in a whooping standing ovation. "This is so much better than losing," a staffer said to no one in particular.

Emanuel walked out of his office into the ecstatic throng and hopped on a desk.

In a few minutes, in front of the cameras, he would strike a conciliatory note about his opponents, and in the days that followed he would stress how both parties needed to work together for what was best for the country.

But at that moment, Emanuel would not, could not censor his glee, or restrain his distaste for the defeated Republicans.

For weeks they had been boasting that their program for turning out voters in the campaign's final 72 hours would swamp all his work. The voters had made those statements look ridiculous.

"I'll tell you this," Emanuel shouted out to his staff. "The Republicans may have the 72-hour program. But they have not seen the 22-month program!"

"Since my kids are gone, I can say it: They can go ---- themselves!"

On an unrelated note, a couple things I found blogworthy:

I saw this in the NY Times and thought of Adam:

Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, “Against the Day,” reads like the sort of imitation of a Thomas Pynchon novel that a dogged but ungainly fan of this author’s might have written on quaaludes. It is a humongous, bloated jigsaw puzzle of a story, pretentious without being provocative, elliptical without being illuminating, complicated without being rewardingly complex.

The novel plays with themes that have animated the whole of Mr. Pynchon’s oeuvre: order versus chaos, fate versus freedom, paranoia versus nihilism.

and from realityblurred.com:

Mo’Nique will host Charm School for former Flavor of Love women
Flavor of Love is getting yet another spin-off. VH1 will air Charm School, a competition between women from both seasons of Flavor Flav’s show. The winner will win the title of "Charm School Queen" and win a to-be-determined cash prize.

[...]

The show does not yet have a debut date, so it’s unclear whether it will air before or after Flavorette (which is apparently now called I Love New York) the spin-off that will follow New York as she chooses a suitor from a group of crazy men.

This reminds me of a classic headline from The Onion:

Mo’Nique Know She Look Good

the end of this post = "time is a bitch"

not many people post to this blog anymore and that is sad. but thankfully there is still liquor and beer to fuel an occasional post.

i've been thinking about matsuzaka, listening to sufjan stevens, watching the new episode of the oc (my room mate like that show. hey paul, thanks for reading, i know you love that thing) and (finally, after 3 months) finishing that book about nostalgia. an unfortunate four way intersection. kind of like the perfect storm. not the real thing, which i was in, mind you. no, like the movie where all the hell on earth converged on the north shore. we just called it "the october no-name storm" but since the book came out we've had no choice but to call it the "perfect storm." oh well. anyway, these things get me thinking about the past. my past. not yours.

will matsuzaka sign with the sox; will i regret that? why each of sufjan's albums remind me of a distinct period of time in the past 2-3 years when i don't really like him all that much? why did svetlana boym have to relate nostalgia to a post-communist immigrant experience? that is nothing i can relate to! this is about my nostalgia! not brodsky's!

this one song reminds me of two years ago today when i was likely sitting in a cinder block walled room at brown staring out my window at another wall - this one made of brick.

i feel like this year's been more continuous than the last few, but how the hell did is get to be almost thanksgiving again?

oh right, because time is a bitch.

so much to blog

but it is all unbloggable


a shame

11 Days To Go

I've been waiting to make my official election prediction until I felt sure. We've all been burned too many times before. This time, I'm sure.

I'm making predictions on the exact number of seats I think we'll pick up as well as a standard deviation estimate for those of you that want a more nuanced version. Remember math scholars, there's a 68% (~2/3) chance the actual results will fall within one S.D. and a 95% chance the results will fall within two S.D.'s.

SENATE
Needed For Democratic Takeover: +6

My Prediction: +5
(OH, PA, MT, RI, and MO)

Standard Deviation: +/-1

One Standard Deviation (4 to 6 seats)
-1: Lose Missouri or New Jersey
+1: Win Virginia or Tennessee

Two Standard Deviations (3 to 7 seats)
-2: Lose Missouri and New Jersey
+2: Win Virginia and Tennessee

Ohio (Brown (Dem) over DeWine), Pennsylvania (Casey (Dem) over Santorum), Montana (Tester (Dem) over Burns), and, of course, Rhode Island (Whitehouse (Dem) over Chafee) gives us 4 of the 6 seats we need.

Assuming we hold New Jersey (Menendez (Dem) over Kean, Jr), we would have to win 2 of the following 3 states to take the senate: Missouri (McCaskill (Dem) v. Talent), Tennessee (Ford (Dem) v. Corker), and Virginia (Webb (Dem) v. Allen). The Michael J. Fox/Rush Limbaugh feud should push McCaskill over the top in Missouri. That's five.

The Webb/Allen and Ford/Corker race won't be determined by Iraq, Katrina, Health Care, Bush, Foley or any other "major issue." These are referendums on race in America. Can Allen get away with "Macaca" and allegedly sticking a decapitated deer's head in a black family's mailbox? Can Ford survive the jungle music and "has sex with white women" ads run against him? I think the answers are yes to Allen and no to Ford.

Prove me wrong White America. Prove me wrong.

HOUSE
Needed For Democratic Takeover: +15

My Prediction: +21
Abbreviations are state and district number (i.e. Patrick Kennedy is RI-01)
(AZ-08, CO-07, CT-02, CT-04, FL-16, IN-02, IN-08, IN-09, KS-02, NC-11, NM-01, NY-24, NY-29, OH-15, OH-18, PA-06, PA-07, PA-10, TX-22, WA-08 and WI-08 are Dem pickups. No Republican pickups.)

Standard Deviation: +/-4

One Standard Deviation (17 to 25 seats)
-4: All of the above minus KS-02, OH-18, WA-08, and IN-09
+4: All of the above plus OH-01, OH-02, NY-26, FL-22

Two Standard Deviations (13 to 29 seats)
-8: All of the above minus KS-02, OH-18, WA-08, IN-09, CT-04, PA-10, FL-16, and PA-06
+8: All of the above plus OH-01, OH-02, NY-26, FL-22, KY-04, IL-06, VA-02, and NH-02

Alright this is where I make my money, here we go:
I won't go through all of these races but here are a few to watch.
Arizona-08: As I detailed previously, the crazy Republican won his primary so this one is essentially a freebie.

Colorado-07: This is the seat where Republican Radical Rick is running. He wants to mandate that high school kids control the border and called Social Security un-American.

Florida-16: This is Mark Foley's former seat. Though he's (obviously) not running again, his name must remain on the ballot. That means his Republican replacement (Joe Negron) has to get people to vote for Foley on the ballot to vote for him. Freebie #2.

Ohio-15: At a 17 Thayer St. party a girl came up to me and said her mom was running for Congress. Her mom is Mary Jo Kilroy, the Democratic challenger. Her mom's gonna get elected.

Penn-07: The FBI just raided the Republican incumbent (Curt Weldon)'s house. This is also the guy that wanted to take a secret trip to Iraq to find the weapons of mass destruction.

Penn-10: The Republican incumbent (Don Sherwood) actually had to run a campaign commercial apologizing for cheating on his wife but denying that he choked his mistress.

Texas-22: Tom DeLay's old seat. DeLay's name can't be replaced on the ballot so the Republicans will have to write in their candidate. If the name was Dan Smith, that would be hard. The name is Shelley Sekula Gibbs. Freebie #3.

So basically, we may not be the Harlem Globetrotters but we're running against the Washington Generals.

into the...printosphere?

a quick note: you should look at a copy of "fast company" - the one that's out now. then turn to the column called "best blogs" where another blog of mine is called "savvy - if occasionally academic."

i don't know how they've managed to miss the good ol' IG though.

20 Days Left

On November 7th, the Democrats will re-take the House of Representatives (thanks in large part to The Joy Padgett Page, The (Deborah) Pryce Is Not Right, The Truth About Charles Taylor, Radical Rick O'Donnell, and Rubber Stamps Jim Gerlach and Dave Reichert).

On November 15th, I get fired.

On November 19th (or so), the "Republicans Hate Me" tour begins with a stop-off in Cleveland for turkey and sweet potato pudding.

On November 30th (or so), the tour continues with my triumphant return to Brown University.

On December 12th (or so), I will depart Providence for a pilgrammage to the home of our new leader (Speaker-elect Pelosi), San Francisco.

Plan accordingly.