Not Governor Palin, silly; Mrs. Palin.

Apparently, Sarah's parents were also around, but I think they were in our "annex" or somewhere, keeping up morale among the reinforcements that have recently arrived from Utah, Idaho, and California.

I sort of winked at Todd's mom and dad as I went to the phone bank, having cleverly placed my snack in front of a phone. Someone tried to take my phone away while I was off scoring a script and some call sheets, but I scuttled back and announced in the petulant tone of a seven-year-old that this particular space was mine.

"I spit on it," I told the would-be purloiner-of-call-center space.

Later on, Todd's mom gave me a hug. "I saw you fighting for a spot at the phones," she told me.

"You guys are sweet," I responded. "And someday Todd is going to be First Dude in a different place, under a different set of circumstances."

Several days ago, when I showed up wearing no makeup, threw my hair back in an elastic band, and forgot that when I smile too broadly I show off the crowns in the back of my mouth. I could have gotten a better picture tonight, but one gets exhausted after a while.

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1) Move to Nevada—preferably just outside Clark County, which has the virtue of a "shall issue" approach to carry permits, but the vice of handgun registration. (Why does the state want to know how many sidearms I have? What if I need several, because it takes me a while to get around to cleaning one after I've shot it? Or because it's important to me that my "defensive device" match my outfit? Do they make me register every scarf I own? No—they do not.)

2) Do not wear your MBT sandals for shooting. Just because you can adapt and drive in the "rocking shoes" does not mean that they will provide the optimal shooting platform.

And remember those times you went to the indoor range wearing high heels, so you could make sure you were able to defend yourself in business attire? The same philosophy does not extend to a long-stocked 12-gauge over/under, a .454 Casull, an Uzi, or a .50-caliber anti-vehicle rifle.

3) When the stock is too long on the 12-gauge, resist the temptation to forego placing it snugly against your shoulder, putting the stock slightly behind your underarm, unless you want that increased accuracy on a single shell at the cost of cutting your thumb. (And not in that spot in the web of your hand where you still sport very faint "gun nut" callouses.)

4) Before inviting yourself and your spouse to live in your new friends' future desert compound in Utah or wherever (in exchange for helping them to build a road to the property in question), remember to call your husband and check in with him first. Husbands prefer to know about this before you've sealed the deal and started drawing up plans for how far apart the different households' structures will be, how the solar panels will be set up, where the well will be dug, how the defensive perimeter be maintained, and what the patrol rotation will consist of within the various households in the village.

5) Next time, tell your brothers/sisters and arms that, yes—they should go ahead and bring the explosives. It is, after all, the only way to be sure.

6) Shorts are never ideal when you plan on lying prone in the dust to shoot a .50 with a tripod, and never mind that you forgot your jeans on this trip.

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Stole this from Ace; it's the vid from Schwarzenegger's speech yesterday, to which I already alluded:

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After the usual terms of endearment, his confession that I'm his very favorite "nobody" manning the phones "out in the wilds of the desert," he shared the following information with me, under the condition that I keep it in strictest confidence, and not blab it:

The State of the Campaign

If your television is tuned to cable news as frequently as ours are here at campaign headquarters, you have seen the pundits say John McCain and his campaign are done. And, if you've followed this race since the beginning, this is clearly a song you've heard before. I wanted to take some time today to give you some insight on the state of the race as we see it.

An AP poll released this morning revealed a very telling fact: ONE out of every SEVEN voters is undecided. That means, if 130 million voters turn out on Tuesday, 18.5 million of them have yet to make up their mind. With that many votes on the table and the tremendous movement we've seen in this race, I believe we are in a very competitive campaign.

Here's why:

All the major polls have shown a tightening in the race and a significant narrowing of the numbers. In John McCain's typical pattern, he is closing strong and surprising the pundits. We believe this race is winnable, and if the trajectory continues, we will surpass the 270 Electoral votes needed on Election Night.
National Polls: Major polls last week showed John McCain trailing by double-digit margins - but by the middle of this week, we were within the margin of error on four national tracking surveys. In fact, the Gallup national tracking survey showed the race in a virtual tie 2 days this week.

State Polls:

Iowa— Our numbers in Iowa have seen a tremendous surge in the past 10 days. We took Obama's lead from the double digits to a very close race. That is why you see Barack Obama visiting the state in the final days, trying to stem his losses. It is too little, too late. Like many other Midwestern states, Iowa is moving swiftly into McCain's column.

The Southwest—It is no secret that Republican candidates in the Southwest have to focus on winning over enough Latino and Hispanic voters in Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado to carry them to victory. John McCain has overcome challenges Republicans face, and has made up tremendous ground in these states with these voters. For these voters, the choice has become clear, and you have seen a big change in the numbers. John McCain is now winning enough voters to perform within the margin of error—putting these states within reach.

Colorado—Barack Obama tried to outspend our campaign in Colorado during the early weeks of October and finish off our candidate in Colorado. However, after our visit early this week, we saw a tremendous rebound in our poll position, and Colorado is back on the map.

Ohio and Pennsylvania—Everyone knows that vote-rich Ohio and Pennsylvania will be key battlegrounds for this election. Between the two: 41 electoral votes and no candidate has gotten to the White House without Ohio. Senator McCain and Governor Palin have been campaigning non-stop in these key battleground states and tonight Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has pumped up our campaign at a rally in Columbus. Our position in these states is strong and undecided voters continue to have a very favorable impression of our candidate.

Obama campaign faces tremendous structural challenges
In the final days of this campaign

Obama has a challenge hitting 50%: Barack Obama has not reached the 50% threshold in almost any battleground state. He consistently is performing in the 45-48% range. When we look closely at the primary votes, we see a history of a candidate whose Election Day performance is often at or behind his final polling numbers. If this is true, our surge will leave Obama with even or under 50% of the vote on Election Day.

Early Vote—The Obama campaign has promised that their early vote and absentee efforts will change the composition of the electorate. They have sold the press on a story that first-time voters will turn out in droves this election cycle. Again, the facts undermine their argument. In our analysis of early voting and absentee votes to date: The composition of the electorate has not changed significantly and most folks who have voted early are high-propensity voters who would have voted regardless of the high interest in this campaign.

Expanding the Field—Obama is running out of states if you follow a traditional model. Today, he expanded his buy into North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona in an attempt to widen the playing field and find his 270 Electoral Votes. This is a very tall order, and trying to expand into new states in the final hours shows he doesn't have the votes to win.

The Final Barnstorm

On Monday, we will have a 14-state rally, with our candidates crisscrossing the country trying to turn out our voters and sway the final undecided voters. Governor Palin will hit Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada and Alaska in the final day of campaigning, while Senator McCain will travel from Tampa, Florida, to Virginia, then Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico, and Nevada, finishing the night in Prescott, Arizona. The enthusiasm and excitement we generate on Monday will be the electricity that powers our "Get Out the Vote" efforts on Tuesday.

On the Ground

Our field organization has tremendous energy and is out-performing the Bush campaign at the same time in 2004. This week our field organization crossed a huge threshold and began reaching more than one million voters per day, and by week's end will have contacted more than five million voters. Our phone centers are full, and our rate of voter contact is significantly out-pacing the Bush campaign in 2004. We have the resources to do the voter contact necessary to support the surge we are seeing in our polling with old-fashioned grassroots outreach.

On the Airwaves

In the final days of the campaign, our television presence will be bigger and broader than the Obama campaign's presence. The full Republican effort—the RNC's Independent Expenditure and the McCain campaign—will out-buy Barack Obama and the Democrats by just about ten million dollars.

In short: the McCain campaign is surging in the final 72 hours. Our grassroots campaign is vibrant, and communicating to voters in a very powerful way. Our television presence is strong. And, we have a secret ingredient: A candidate who will never quit, and who will never stop fighting for you and for your families.

In these final hours, Senator McCain and Governor Palin are counting on you —they are counting on you to knock on doors, to make turnout calls, to contact your friends and neighbors. Get our voters to the polls, and help John McCain fight for you and for our country. This is our last mission on behalf of John McCain, and I have no doubt I can count on your effort and energy to carry us across the line to victory.

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By John Hawkins, who has finally come around.

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Just because I'm blogging less does not mean you should visit less. It means you should visiit more. And send me more money. And buy ads.

I mean, if there's going to be any wealth-spreading going on, it should be via my tip jar. [Suddenly I'm smacking my forehead, realizing that if I'd only pretended to support Obama over the last two years I could have been in a great position to apply for some sort of NEA grant:

"Blogging as Art for Art's Sake."

"The Blog: Performance Art for the Unattractive?"

"Anais Nin vs. Ben Stein: Who Was History's First Blogger?"

"The Diaries of Virginia Woolf, Translated into Today's. Blogging. Patois."

"The Housewife as Insurrectionist: Erica Jong's 'Blood in the Streets' as a Metaphor for the Ancient Struggle Between Woman and Uterus."

"Blogging Families Such as the Reynolds-Smiths versus the Brontes: Who Is, Ultimately, More Fly?"

"Why Would We Want to Televise the Revolution, When We Can Probably Find It on You Tube and Embed Our Favorite Footage Into Our Web Sites?"

"The Madwoman in Cyberspace: How Patriarchy Deprived Women of Rooms of Their Own, Leading to the Weblog as a Creative Imperative."]

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I mean, I left L.A. last Tuesday. And tomorrow all these Bear-Flag-Come-Latelies will arrive in the Las Vegas/Henderson area. They'll take my favorite spot at the phone-bank table. They'll drink the coffee, and eat the nicest of the sandwiches and sugary snacks before I get to them. They'll take the choiciest areas for knocking door-to-door.

They'll hog the water. They'll take up my favorite corners for doing yoga and T'ai Chi during breaks, and they'll do the wrong kinds of yoga and T'ai Chi.

They will steal my yogurt out of the fridge.

I hate them already, and they aren't even here yet.

Stupid Californians; who invited them?

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My father insisted today that I take a break from "getting old white men to vote" today, and return his phone call.

Before I leave the table I tell my cohorts about my father's line. The one person at the table who is white, male, and past the conventional retirement age says, "tell him you're sitting across from an Air Force Veteran his own age who thinks he should vote for McCain."

I smile. "I'm not sure you know what makes the old man tick," I remark.

Out in the parking lot I find myself a nice place on a curb and punch in Dad's code on the cell phone. "I'd sure like to see you this weekend, if you'll be back," he tells me.

"Ah. But I'm not going back until after the election, like I told you. That's why I went over the night before I left," I remind him. (I refrain from telling him that this is one of the reasons I left a several hours later than I really wanted to, and ended up spending the night in Primm, Nevada, on the way out here; I had to pack that morning, alongside my traditional try-to-clean-up-the-house-on-the-day-I-leave idiocy.)

"So, you're getting people to vote for Sarah Palin," he remarks. "She's just so . . . pretty."

"You know, Dad," I tell him, "if you vote for McCain, you'll be seeing a lot more of her on the news and in various magazines and newspapers. Not that I'd want you to make such a serious decision for such a superficial reason. But I'd hate to see you stuck looking at pictures of Barack Obama and Joe Biden for the next four years."

"Furthermore," I continue, "the Governor wears skirts more than she does pantsuits, so the average consumer of news would see a lot more leg with her than they would have with Senator Clinton."

He seems to be wavering. "Her legs are nice," he tells me.

"There's also the fact that if she and McCain win this one, the contest will be between Palin and Mrs. Clinton in 2012. Wouldn't that make the debates more fun?" I ask.

"Maybe. Will they be held in hot oil?"

I move in for the kill: "Not in real life. But with computer graphics, there will still be video of it happening in hot oil, and it should look perfectly realistic."

The only thing that could go wrong now is if my stepmother accompanies my dad to the voting booth in order to "help" him. Of course, it's just the Golden State, so what he does won't matter on the Big Battleground.

But still . . . . I would like to have made the sale.

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Economics and theology from one of the most talented Classical Liberals out there, Alfonzo—the proprietor of Macho Sauce Productions. (Who is starting to be referred to simply as Macho Sauce himself. Why not? Alice Cooper was originally the name of a band.)

I know, I know: everyone complains about the hat. I like the hat. (Of course I like the hat; I've got one a bit like it.)

But the tile and the echo still bug me: I want to see Zo in a real studio, with better acoustics. That way, everyone can accuse him of "selling out." And there will be yet another golden goose out there, laying eggs that enrichen all our lives.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:36 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Schwarzenegger mocks the Obama-bod.

It may hurt worse if Sarah takes off one of her borrowed jackets and offers to arm-wrestle Big Zero. (Or, worse, decide the contest by shooting hoops against him: Palin is shorter than I am, and we all know who would win that contest.)

Via Insty.

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The Seattle Stranger
1535 11th Ave., Third Floor
Seattle, Washington, 98122

Please do not plaster their offices with McCain stickers, or hang Joe Biden in effigy outside the building.

Via Moonbattery, via Ace.

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But it's okay; he did it in an upper-crust fashion.

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Apparently, he knows some of my husband's family out in Chicago. What a brave young man.

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Last night, the Heaths (Sarah Palin's parents) and the Palins (Todd's parents) stopped by the Clark County Republican Headquarters. It was quite the distraction. I'd make a few calls, and then get up to get my picture taken with them, then make more calls, etc.

As I write this, Governor Mitt Romney is stopping by to help with precinct walking.

Saturday, Mayor Giuliani will be there in the evening; I'll probably miss it, due to a social engagement.

And on Monday, Governor Palin will be appearing in Reno (and another Northern Nevada town I don't recall the name of), while McCain holds a rally here.

I know people are sick to death of getting nagged. But my job is to nag them; there's no other way to make sure that people vote, other than to remind them that it has to be done.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 09:47 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Well, best of luck. Missouri might be a better bet, though.

Posted by: Christophe at October 31, 2008 03:38 PM (2rBIo)

2 Don't count your Messiahs before they're hatched.

Posted by: Attila Girl at October 31, 2008 11:25 PM (ayS6b)

3 "Fool me once, shame on you." Familiar with that expression, Azmat? The shame is on the pranksters, not the person that is skeptical, but non-offensive friendly, and engaging. Maybe the Sûreté should interview those Montreal clowns about that hack into his personal bank account.

Posted by: Darrell at November 02, 2008 08:17 AM (WLXEf)

4 Are you saying that their bank accounts were hacked by the likes of you? non-offensive? more like clueless, you would think that one would get a clue when your biography is called _______ Palin.

Posted by: azmat Hussain at November 02, 2008 02:36 PM (9mcr7)

5 I have no rebuttal, Darrell you win, I don't know exactly what but you win! Care to make a side bet on the election tomorrow, tell you what, I will take McCain and Palin for the right price. Any amount you win will be donated through LMA. Cheers, Az

Posted by: azmat hussain at November 03, 2008 04:03 PM (ZVMDn)

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. . . right here.

Via Hackbarth, who probably already has his on order.

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It might be fake, but it strikes me as perfectly accurate.

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According to D.C. Thornton, they wouldn't have been nearly as funny: just depressing.

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I agree with Insty: this would have been the best counterpoint.

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I'm snugged up in the home of a prominent Nevada blogger, who may or may not want to own up to having one of the black sheep of the b-sphere in his guest digs. (I think my husband had a full FBI-level background check done on The Gentleman Blogger before permitting me to stay here; A the H was deeply reassured that a mutual friend of all three of ours with a military intel background gave my host the thumbs up.)

So far, Gentleman Blogger has fed me bitchin' lasagne and given me the most essential information about politicking in Clark County:

a) It is not a taboo to refer to Las Vegas as "Vegas." (Not at all analogous to referring to San Francisco as "Frisco," which is a fun parlor trick for Californians who want to see their Bay Area relatives flip out. Try it some time.) Some locals say "Vegas," and some do not. Personal preference.

b) It is unacceptable to refer to the state as "NevAHda," as GB and I both did, instinctively. (That could be an "educators-in-the-family" thing, or a California native thing.) The locals taught him, and he taught me, that the first "a" should sound like the "a" in "dad."

Nice to get to talk to GB a bit tonight, since they'll keep me busy at McCain HQ all week. There are several of us volunteering from California, and even a few who travelled up from Arizona. ("An army of us from nearby states, who want to help you turn Ne-vatta red.")

This state is so important; this election is so important. If it weren't for the unions' stranglehold on Las Vegas, it would be a slam-dunk for McCain . . . but Las Vegas is, they tell me, considered an integral part of the state. One citizen I spoke with today said the whole thing would be a cinch if it weren't for the city of Vegas. "Well, yes," I replied. "And California's electoral votes would go elsewhere if we could surgically remove Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland from it. Not that that would be fiscally prudent."

"Yup. The day I moved here from SF was the happiest day of my life," he affirmed.

"Well, we may be right behind you, once my husband retires," I told him.

Of course, no one seems to be asking what a carbon-correct version of The Strip would look like. I understand that Al Gore has been fantasizing about a "sublte," "toned-down" version of Las Vegas Blvd. that offers the tourist more of a "starry evening sky" effect . . . he's been consulting with Sarah Palin about whether a "Northern Lights" vibe would be classier and ultimately more compelling than all these tacky incandescent bulbs. Good luck with that, Al.

As to the work at hand, I've discovered that:

• I'm decent on the phones, except unable to properly cut short conversations with the uber-patriotic and the elderly; I tend to burn up "too much company time" telling them that if they are disabled and cannot travel to Henderson to help, the national phone banks may have campaign work that they can do from home, or, finally (with the very elderly, and very chatty) to explain that we're all praying very hard, too, and the race is neck-and-neck, if one accounts for crazy poll methodologies. "So keep the television off, and keep praying. Talk to your friends, relatives, and neighbors whom you might be able to persuade."

Of course, since I'm a volunteer no one has said a critical word, but I feel like I should be able to get through my calling lists more quickly, and entice more people to commit to some "get out the vote" time. I'm considering the "Jewish mother" approach: "I drove out from L.A. to spend nearly a week doing this, and you can't commit to three hours of precinct-walking this Friday? For people like you, I'm pouring my heart and soul into a campaign for a guy who isn't even quite libertarian enough for my taste?"

Then I'd tell them they need to eat more, and that they are breaking my heart.

• I'm fine on the door-to-door stuff. One has to balance the fact that I tend to get lost a lot (especially since my sunglasses aren't prescription-level, due to my cheap streak) against the fact that I'm learning (ever-so-slowly) to sweet-talk my way into the "guarded communities" (even tougher to get into than the "gated communities").

If all goes well I'll take off a little time to visit Attila the Hub's cousins on Saturday afternoon. It's a delicate matter, since a few of his relatives have defected to the Other Side lately, and we don't know if they have. (I doubt it; he's retired LAPD. Also, A the H's relatives trend as conservative as mine do liberal. Even in voting . . . I know there are California propositions that A the H and I voted on differently, and that's not even counting the gay marriage thing. Shockingly, we disagree as to when public monies might legitimately go to certain types of infrastructure.)

And if I can sneak away briefly on Sunday, there's a shootin' event I'd like to attend with some of the locals. I haven't clung bitterly to a firearm in a long time; my former editor at the gun journals tells me I just have to go to the SHOT Show one of these years, preferably when it's happening here. (The availability of ranges where full-auto weaponry is available is, of course, a draw.) I actually wonder whether that might be a justifiable expenditure, since they know I'm a decent gunwriter, and a damned good editor (if I do say so myself). It probably wouldn't hurt to re-introduce myself, although until I go on one hunt (even if it's a guided one) I'll always feel like a second-class citizen within the firearms community. (Though I do know a few prominent gunwriters who are not hunters; I choose not to "out" them.)

As Gary Sitton would say: "Be safe; and shoot straight."

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