The Most Important Decision Ever

In the United States, today is officially Election Day 2012.

All the debates, all the commercials, all the campaign stops, the robocalls, the campaign visitors, and sadly the ugly voter suppression - all of that has led up to today. We can't vote for you, nor can we force you to vote one way or another, though we do have some recommendations, as always based on facts.

Our first recommendation is simple: Vote.

If you have to stand in line for hours? Stand in line - and vote. Bring a collapsable chair, if you want. Some voters in Florida waited until 2:30 AM on Monday to vote - and they began waiting on Sunday afternoon. Millions of Americans have fought, marched, and died for your right to vote, on battlefields around the world - and on the streets of American cities like Selma, Montgomery, and Seneca Falls. Don't make their sacrifices a waste.

Our second recommendation is not to vote for any candidate that supports making the exercise of your constitutional right to vote a task of herculean proportions. Frankly, we have no idea why anyone would vote for any candidate that has as the core of its modern philosophy, the idea that they do not want everyone to vote. That is - literally - the philosophy of the modern Republican Party, as voiced by the founder of the extremist wing of the GOP, Paul Weyrich. If a political party led by extremists like that will try to limit citizens' basic constitutional rights, history says there's likely no end to their crazy ambition.

Our candidate recommendations this year are simple - and no, we don't think you should just vote Democratic. Not all Republicans are like the crazy Mr. Weyrich. We simply want you to vote for the best candidates.

As President, Barack Obama has done an incredible job in the face of the intractable and disastrous Republicans in Congress - especially when we look at the economic and foreign policy disaster that was handed to him. President Obama is, in the opinion of our entire staff, the only HONEST and logical choice for President, a man who has proven he will always try to find common ground, and will do what is right - especially when doing so is hard.

Along the same lines, for U.S. Senate from Nebraska, we choose Bob Kerrey. Yes, he is a conservative Democrat, one of the last in existence in professional politics. He is also honest to a fault sometimes. It is the Kerrey standard that is so often referred to when Americans long for bipartisanship, the idea Mr. Kerrey became known for the first time he was in the U.S. Senate. His idea is often repeated in political circles, that if you're angering people on both sides of the aisle, you must be doing something right - but you're also probably getting something done.

Our other candidate recommendations follow directly from the idea of moving forward. From Bill Nelson and Patrick Murphy in Florida, to Wayne Powell and Tim Kaine in Virginia, to Bob Kerrey, John Ewing, and Jeff Fortenberry in Nebraska. While we do not love each of these candidates, one thread is common among all of them - they can work together and when pushed, they do not side with radicals. Even Republican Jeff Fortenberry, who told Grover Norquist to shove his "no tax pledge" is someone who we think can help drive our nation in the right direction.

We have one last recommendation, today.

While it's true that nearly all of the legitimate polls are strongly favoring most of our candidates and positions, in referendums and races across the nation, this isn't just another election. We are in firm disagreement with some of our colleagues in the greater media about what might happen, after today. If any candidate is allowed to take office through an illegitimate win, much as we had in 2000 when the Supreme Court picked the winner, we are not sure of either the future of U.S. elections, or possibly even the nation.

This is a big deal. So… don't let your opportunity go to waste today.

Make your voice count. Vote. Now.

No Time For Sitting Around

Today is the last day before the 2012 elections and, as we predicted on Friday, it was not a slow weekend.

No one who cares about the outcome of this election - or what happens to their fellow Americans still recovering from Sandy - was just sitting around this weekend, except for those few so-called "Independent" voters who are still hogging an oversized amount of attention from both the Democratic and Republican political players in most races.

This election is still being portrayed almost like a football game by many in the media, but make no mistake about it: the more accurate comparison for this election is warfare. Over the weekend, both sides engaged in heated battles - but only one side took the ethical high ground.

In Florida, Governor Rick Scott's unethical plan from 2011 to cut early voting days in half played out much as both local and national political and media figures thought it would. With less time for early voting, insanely long lines formed - reportedly up to nine hours in one Florida location, and more than six in at least one other.

The Florida Democratic Party had asked for an extension of early voting on Thursday on behalf of all Florida voters from any party, but they were effectively ignored by Gov. Rick Scott. After the insanely long lines, the Democratic Party decided they'd had enough and filed an emergency lawsuit late Saturday night seeking to extend early voting hours for all Florida voters - and they won, at least in Orange County.

In Miami-Dade County, the Elections Department was pushed by the Democrats' action and the large voter demand to open their doors Sunday and allow early voting. The Republican mayor of Miami effectively had a tantrum, because he hadn't directly been involved in the Elections Department decision - so, with several hundred voters waiting in line, the Republican mayor made a bad situation even worse and forced the doors closed again. After two hours of phone calls, legal threats, and hundreds of voters chanting and banging on the doors, not going away, the Elections Department in Miami-Dade opened the doors again - and all voters who were in line got to vote again. Not even potential bombs could stop Florida voters. In short, Republicans did not succeed in hijacking the fundamental right of Americans to vote - at least in Florida.

That may not be the case in Ohio.

A last-minute directive issued by Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted seeks to invalidate fully legal provisional ballots by shoving some of the state's information verification responsibilities onto the voter - then penalizing the voter by not counting their ballot if the information provided by the voter is incorrect or filled in on the form incorrectly. Husted's action is not only in violation of Ohio's own laws and in violation of a recent court decision - it's exactly the opposite of what Husted claimed he would do. Not surprisingly, Husted is already being sued over this latest attempt at voter suppression.

That's not the end of the problems, either. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the extremist right-wing group known as "True The Vote" appears to have gotten its members into poll worker positions in Ohio, not just poll observer positions. The dual training of these ethically illegitimate poll workers appears to have gone outside the rules of the Ohio State Elections Board, which could lead to any ballot they touch being invalidated, or having to be re-checked manually by contacting each voter - which could lead to Ohio's elections not being finalized until sometime in December.

If you thought the Republican Party was going to be honest and play fair in the 2012 elections, you haven't been paying attention.

We only hope that these desperate attempts by the extremist wing of the Republican Party to steal the 2012 election backfire, and ultimately result in the nuts being shoved off the GOP's proverbial bench permanently once the election is over. Otherwise, we fear greatly for the legitimate future of free, fair and honest elections in the United States.

As we said earlier, the election isn't just a game this year.

Friday Funday: Dance With The One That Brought Ya

While today is the start to the weekend for some we know, we highly doubt most people around the nation will have an empty dance card for the next few days.

For us, it's the weekend before the national general election - so don't expect us to be sitting around watching DVR episodes of 'Dancing With The Stars' or pre-recorded football games. Ethically, because of our staff members' positions within the media, we can't be involved with any specific political campaign in the traditional volunteer sense. That doesn't mean we'll be on the sidelines. There are still a huge pile of tasks for us to choreograph before the election next Tuesday.

We won't be the only ones dancing around this weekend. Both presidential candidates and their campaigns will also be dancing all over the country. President Obama will be leaping from battleground state to battleground state all weekend. He'll be stopping at events located near both our DC and Florida offices, as he reminds America of his many first-term successes and his second term plans, and enjoys his latest endorsement from Independent centrist Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City.

Mr. Romney will also be dancing this weekend, though for him it will be mostly around the issues and his explosive lies - what Greg Sargent has termed "Romney's Kamikaze strategy". The Romney campaign's continued lies about the auto bailout, and Mitt's severe rebuke from the CEOs of both GM and Chrysler make him look even more ridiculous in the face of both GM's robust earnings report and Chrysler's new sales record. That Mr. Romney's schedule also oddly includes a couple of stops in states like Pennsylvania that experienced political hands say are far beyond his reach is yet another fact Romney will be dancing around.

There will also likely be dancing today about the final jobs numbers being released prior to election day. Private firm ADP released their better than expected U.S. jobs report on Thursday, as jobless claims went down again. Gallup also released their U.S. jobs survey numbers that continue the trend  of the U.S. unemployment rate going lower - down to 7.4% in October.

In other words, the economy is steadily and certainly growing again, a fact the political right can't ignore.

There will also be plenty of dancing at the state level, as Bob Kerrey received the strong positive endorsement of his former colleague from across the aisle, former GOP Senator Chuck Hagel. When a candidate has the backing of both fiscal hawks behind the Erskine-Bowles Commission, as well as the long-proven record of Chuck Hagel, we'd say there really isn't any comparison between Bob Kerrey and his opponent, Deb Fischer, who has the support of people like Sarah Palin and Karl Rove.

Of course, a few of our readers will be dancing for joy that they can finally get back to their homes in New York City - or that they've finally got power back to their homes too.

Last but not least, if you've got the option to vote early where you live, we highly advise you to boogie on down to your local Elections office today or this weekend, and make your mark now, so you don't get tripped up next Tuesday.

However you choose to spend your weekend, we hope you can put a little fun in your steps.