Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Understand that I have no intention of dying anytime soon, but I do have every intention of leaving TPM better than I found it, just as I want to leave the world better than I found it. This will, in fact, be my final post here at TPM. Yes, I've said that before, but this really is my farewell. You'll understand why by the end of this post.

I want to be "busy being born," as Dylan said. And so I must be getting on with what is left of my life. You will find these words are my final gift to you. To my dear friends, like-minded acquaintances and detractors alike.

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I am a freer man this morning. Freer than my ancestors, freer than yours, freer than I was only yesterday morning.

Barack Obama reminded us last night that his victory is a win for all of us. I agree wholeheartedly. It's not the last win we all need, but it's progress sufficient for carving a new face on Mt. Rushmore.

My home state, Missouri, was among the narrow losses in the electoral college for Obama. I had predicted a narrow win, so it saddens me to recognize I still live in a state that subscribes to racism in some quarters. Far from being a harsh observation, avowed racism was documented by exit polling here and actually discussed on St. Louis's local FOX affiliate last night. I don't know to what degree other states suffer from racism, but I suspect the map of red and blue states tells a deeper tale of color.

Still, I am freer today. Because, on the whole, my country overcame its original sin in a divinely inspired moment of public will. That courageous act of faith was, as Obama said, "a long time coming."

But it came.

It validated my hope, certified the faith that I felt might blind me if I held it up and tried to examine it too long against the face of the sun. Before last night, the idea that most voters in my country would grant the highest office in the land to an African-Amercan was mist and gossamer, something only potentially substantial. After last night, it became more than an oppressed people's long-held dream. It became real.

I am free today because more of my fellow Americans are free. I know the spirit that moved John McCain to stay in the Hanoi Hilton until others were released. I understand why my aunt Michelle marched in Selma alongside so many blacks. I understand why multitudes of African-Americans have sacrificed and fought for the equal rights to which our country has so far paid only lip-service.

Today, I am not a white American. I am by no stretch of empathy a black American. Today I am simply an American.

The election of Barack Obama does not eliminate racism and discrimination in this country. But it has disintegrated a mighty barrier that we rarely thought about unless we stood all our lives on the wrong side of it.

People of color are freer today. My country is freer. So am I.

This is the text of my letter-to-the-editor printed Feb. 2, 2008, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the very day I attended Obama's first rally here. I was a mere 30 feet from Obama amid a sea of 20,000 souls and lucky enough to have him autograph a copy with the word "Thanks!" and his signature. My letter still says what I feel today. I hope it speaks to you, too.

On the surface, I don't have much in common with Sen. Barack Obama. As a white, Midwestern Baby Boomer, I have never worked among the disenfranchised or been poised to take on the burdens of leading the free world.

But I have dreamed. And I have hoped.

In one of the debates, Sen. Obama was chided as a man with nothing to offer but hollow words. He replied that neither he nor his words should be discounted, for words, too, are important. Not merely to transmit information, but to transfer inspiration and transform the heart of the listener.

Indeed, words still have power to summon the faithful to the mountain top. Despite the efforts of his critics to dismiss Sen. Obama's words as naive slogans, those of us in the back pews can hear the wisdom of the ages in his voice and intellect.

I, for one, am grateful that he has called us to once again scale the summit of our nation's great promise. To leave the politics of fear and division behind, and to settle for nothing short of the peace, prosperity and justice that we, as Americans, may rightfully claim for ourselves and for our children.

We are thirsty for a new American rhetoric, a call to be better than we are, to strive for a higher state of grace even knowing that the reach of our tired, human hands may exceed our grasp.

We have not reached for heaven in a long time, but don't let that stop you, Sen. Obama. Keep talking. Tell us about your father's dreams. About the audacity of hope. And how you plan to lead us -- at long last, all of us -- to the frontier of the promised land.

Chris Powers
St. Louis

Perhaps out of statistical conservativism, Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight,com predicts Missouri will no longer be the Bellwether State after tonight. I disagree. Obama will take MIssouri by two points or better, and I'll tell you why in a moment. Here's the nut of Nate's take:

Our model projects that Obama will win all states won by John Kerry in 2004, in addition to Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Florida and North Carolina, while narrowly losing Missouri and Indiana.

If you look at the recent polls in the Show Me State, all but two call it a tie between Obama and McCain. And those two polls, giving McCain an advantage of about 2 points, are not the most recent anyway. So let's begin with the idea of a tie.

I was canvassing today to get out the vote and I saw something remarkable in the neighborhoods I visited. It wasn't my first time knocking on those very same doors for the Obama campaign.

Nearly everyone in these mixed low- and middle-class neighborhoods said they would be voting for Obama or already had before I stopped by. That was a lot more support than I saw a month earlier.

Now this is St. Louis we're talking about, but it's south St. Louis, not the historically Democratic urban core or the largely African-American neighborhoods of the city's north side. And if Obama can win here, he has the strength to overcome any advantage McCain has in the conservative bastions of southern Missouri and the state's rural areas. Even there, Obama has shown surprising strength.

I heard 40,000 people turned out in Springfield, Mo., this weekend. By comparison, George W. Bush attracted only 8,000 there on his best visit of the 2004 campaign. And Palin? She drew only half the Obama rally's attendance just a week earlier. I think the normally fired-up Missouri GOP is reeling in shock and the rank-and-file demoralized.

Turnout is so high that the wait is as long as six hours across the state. And most people are foregoing touchscreen machines in favor of using paper ballots fed into a tabulator.

When I knock on a door and a first-time voter tells me she voted for Obama, I'm heartened. When I knock on the next door and a 67-year-old woman who's wobbly from a newly adjusted medication tells me she stood in line an hour anyway just to vote for Obama--and endured the ordeal long enough to submit her ballot and collapse into a wheelchair--I am amazed.

These are just a couple of the stories I heard today. I believe this election will seal Missouri's status as the Bellwether State. And help boost Obama's landslide to epic proportions.

What will we do when the election is over and the crusade to elect Obama has ended?

(Please feel free to add your own ideas)

■ I will open a clinic to rehabilitate Republicans addicted to simplistic ideas. Therapy will consist of a revolutionary 1-step program costing only $50,000 or a first-born child.

■ Josh Marshall will build a media empire to counter the influence of the media mega-monster created by the sale of News Corp. to the Republican National Committee.

■ CT will spend the remainder of his day constantly redialing the White House to complain that the vice-president failed to mention that his father's instruction to "Get up, Champ!" was actually a veiled reference to cheap energy.

■ Dick Cheney will return to exile in Argentina, opening a small dental clinic for patients requiring "special measures."

■ Readytoblowagasket finally will.

■ Stillidealistic will change her user name to Increasinglypragmatic.

■ George Bush will become fabulously wealthy as the creator and spokesperson for W's Pork Sausage, a surprisingly tasty brand with the slogan: "Now that's flavor Saddam will never know."

■ Karl Rove will never find work in this town again.

■ Raider99 will join forces with PiratePete to open the boutique apparel chain Marauding Outfitters.

■ Sarah Palin will invent a better moosetrap.

■ John McCain will be committed to a mental hospital for the elderly, where he will routinely remind other patients "I know how to eat Jello, my friends. I am not afraid to eat Jello! I look forward to eating Jello. I will follow Jello to the gates of Hell!"

By every measure, the 2008 election has riveted the interest of American voters more than any in recent memory. In the short run, greater participation has to be a good thing for the democratic process. But in the long run, a better functioning democracy depends at least as much on the wisdom of the electorate as on the wisdom of the elected. On the eve of choosing a new government, it seems relevant to ask what lessons voters will have memorized from this and previous election cycles.

This campaign has been as polarizing as any. Despite the potential for a landslide that could turn some blue states red and extend Democratic dominance from an Obama presidency to a veto-proof Senate majority, the electorate remains deeply divided along fault lines of party affiliation, culture, war and national security, social and economic principles, race and gender. To some extent, these divides are inevitable, as inherent in our politics as issues and interest groups. Yet there is also little doubt that our divides have reached canyon-like proportions this year, due in no small part to media repetition of some extraordinarily divisive accusations--even by the standards of a presidential race.

American politics has always been rough and unruly. Yet even stalwart Republicans such as Colin Powell and Christopher Buckley have endorsed Barack Obama in part because of the McCain campaign's increasingly overheated rhetoric. The open wounds in American politics now throb with the McCain campaign's disingenuous charges that Obama is anti-American, a closet terrorist sympathizer and a Socialist. It must be said that Obama has levelled some charges against McCain that are equally inaccurate, but none that are of equal repugnance and destructiveness to our politics.

Our news media has too seldom countered the lies of our politicians with exposure to the truth. Much of the public, for instance, still wrongly believes--perhaps willfully--that Obama is a Muslim or that McCain is pro-choice. No wonder recent polls paint a portrait of a schizoid electorate. On the one hand, the vast majority of voters want a change from the Bush policies that have left the country mired in two long wars, horrific deficits and deepening economic woes. On the other hand, the race has been tightening in the final stretch as undecided voters move by slightly higher margins to support McCain, who many regard as the "safe" choice.

Whichever candidate takes the oath of office, he will face a multitude of wrenching problems, including a public desperate for solutions and impatient with partisanship. But the ongoing economic turmoil forecast into late next year could also produce a resurgence of the "bitter" and "betrayed" electorate that Obama once described. If voters are too willing to assign blame when intractable problems don't yield to quick solutions, the national healing that normally follows the inauguration and "honeymoon" could rapidly dissolve in the leftover acids of the campaign.

Call it our final exam. After the election, we will have to decide whether to support the glib rhetoric of easy solutions or the difficult changes our nation requires. To pass that test, we will have to remember--again--what we've learned in spite of stump speeches, political ads and complacent news reporting.

If we've paid very close attention to our own recent political history, the multiple choices after the election will be easier, even if the solutions are not. 

Cross-posted from Postscript in MediaTalk at SCAAMD.org

... giving me back Hope in many forms:

• Hope that this country might finally live out its principles
• Hope that we can soon bring our troops home and close a misbegotten war
• Hope that we will ride out the economic storm and rise from the ashes of greed
• Hope that the president of the last eight years will be succeeded by one of intelligence, goodness, audacious dreams and innate competency

...elevating our national politics by:

• Refusing to attack your opponents through character assassination and smears
• Showing us the meaning of character
• Engaging us in a nuanced understanding of the issues
• Reminding us of our founding ideals
• Restoring respect for appeals to reason over appeals to emotion and prejudice
• Becoming the first black nominee to stand at the threshold of the White House

...for making me proud once again to be an American.

Please visit SCAAMD.org and have a look at our site, still developing. Please tell us what you think by clicking the Contact Us link at top right of the site.

SCAAMD operates solely on the basis of volunteers. We are taking applications to fill the following volunteer slots as we gear up. If you wish to apply, send us your qualifications, phone number and availability at the same Contact Us link. Here's what we need for starters:

Volunteer Coordinator - A "people person" to match volunteers and members with specific tasks, schedule their work in cooperation with other staffers, etc.

Website Administration - Tech-savvy individuals with zero propensity for "flaking out."

Data Entry - Detail-oriented people who can work with spreadsheets and our back-end databases.

Contact Scouts - People who can ferret out media contacts, verify the information (like phone and email accuracy) and pass the raw data to our data entry people.

Submissions Editor - Experienced journalists, ex-journalists or the like to verify the information in reader submissions to our Local Bull Section, edit the reader submissions and enter (publish) the submissions on our site.

Marketing - Establish cooperative agreements with other web site operators for fair use of content, gets our links on other sites, and so forth.

Content Manager - Someone who really "gets" what we do and has nuanced judgment and the ability to find additional sources for "SCAAMD Alerts" content and develop a stable of talented, well-known columnists for our MediaTalk section.

I can't be sure, but the Obama campaign's recent half-hour ad may have drawn something from the videotape I sent them this spring. It was an original 1992 Clinton campaign video "The Man from Hope," one of the few copies remaining in existence after 16 years.

They were so excited when I contacted them that they paid for the shipping to Axelrod and Associates on their own Fed-Ex account.

The Obama "infomercial" had the same flavor as the half-hour bio produced by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason (creators of CBS series "Designing Women" and "Evening Shade") for the Clinton campaign.

Can't be sure, like I said. I just like to think it helped.

The BBC reports this morning that Syria is claiming four U.S. helicopter gunships struck a construction area in a village within its territory just across the border from Iraq, killing eight, including a boy and a woman. Apparently, the U.S. government has not responded to the Syrian claim.

It's here. The day we strongly suspected would come.

If the BBC report is true (and even if it isn't), the buzz now, on the eve of our general election, will be: "Why did American forces strike a village in Syria?"

The U.S. answer--whether forthcoming or not--will swerve the campaign focus back to foreign policy and away from the subject of economics, which has brought Barack Obama rapid and widespread gains in the past month and a half.

In particular, the topic of American news will shift to a Muslim region that spawned our current wars and the overall "war on terror." It is not a good day to be named Hussein. It is a better day if your name is McCain.

The reason for the strike is yet to be claimed by the White House. The eventual public explanation may  be trumped up, true, or both. It may be purely political. Certainly the timing is curious.

SCAAMD's web site will be open Tuesday at 8 a.m. Central Time. If you think patrolling the press isn't necessary this late in the game, you underestimate the news value of military engagement with a terrorist state that could widen the Iraq war.

Dirty tricks are par for Halloween and presidential elections.

If John McCain were any kind of man, he wouldn't hide his depraved campaign conduct behind debates and talk-show appearances that display a kinder, gentler politician than the one smearing Barack Obama.

While he has often pleaded ignorance of the ads that carry his explicit approval, McCain is ultimately accountable for the conduct of his campaign, just as a Navy captain is accountable for the conduct of the crew under his command or a president is responsible for the conduct of his administration.

While some bloggers here want to give McCain a pass for being no worse than Nixon when it comes to the angry pursuit of power, this makes as much sense as letting a serial killer off the hook just because his body count has not yet exceeded Bundy's or Dahmer's. Besides, deceased politicians can''t be held accountable in any meaningful way. The living ones can and should be.

Others argue from the lofty gingerbread-world of moral equivalency in an attempt to equate the conduct of a few emotional Obama supporters with throngs of red-faced McCain supporters, when this is not the issue at all.

What is at issue is the official campaign of innuendo against Obama's patriotism, unmatched by any corresponding accusation officially leveled at McCain. And let's be clear: By "official," I mean coming from the mouths of the candidates themselves or their campaign spokespeople.

The willingness of McCain, Palin, Bachmann and their ilk to personally inflame the GOP base with race-based animosity and veiled charges of un-Americanism is the the very difference that sets the Obama and McCain campaigns light-years apart. And it is the source of the unsettlingly casual and commonplace instances of hate speech that have been captured over and over on camera at McCain and Palin rallies. Not with the provocation of leftists, but with the sole provocateur being McCain or Palin.

Yes, Lt. Cmdr. McCain is responsible for every "off with his head," "kill him," "terrorist" and racial slur shouted at his events against Obama. He is responsible because those are very nearly the terms he uses in his stump speeches, robocalls and advertisements.

* "Terrorist" is used verbatim--with remarkable frequency--in McCain/Palin/GOP rhetoric and outreach.

"Off with his head" and "kill him" is exactly the punishment under Sharia law for Muslim traitors (isn't traitor Obama a secret, terrorist Muslim?) And even under U.S. law, "anti-American" efforts are punishable by dishonor and death.

So to those who say the Democrats are doing the same as the Republicans, I say: "You lie." Obama has never used any words against his rivals even remotely implying suspect criminality or betrayal of country. Indeed, he has often been criticized for his dismaying habit of praising McCain as a genuine American hero.

And the evidence that McCain is a coward? All around us. Anecdotal? As is history itself. Equivalent? In a lipsticked pig's eye. 

If you haven't yet read the TPM frontpage items in the left-hand column titled "McCain's Legions" and "A Doozy" and watched the videos they headline, you will be stunned by the time you have.

Here it is 3:45 in the morning and I have just now finished watching the Republican Party complete its transformation into the Nazi Party of the United States. I despair for our nation.

When did it become acceptable for a leader in a major American political party to light an unquenchable wildfire of hatred in the hearts of followers? Apparently about the time that John McCain became the presumptive nominee for the Republicans.

I would seethe with anger at the profoundly heavy wedge that McCain, Palin and their party are driving into the soul of this country, but that emotion has been usurped completely now and is the sole province of the Right.

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On CBS's webcast after TV debate coverage, Joe Wurzelbacher (the Plumber) told Katie Couris that he wanted to ask Obama tough questions, but "Unfortunately, that's all I got. A tap dance. Almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr."

Is it just me, or would Joe have described McCain as a dead, tap-dancing, black celebrity?

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I said "Good-bye" but couldn't stay away long. The breather helped and the new tools are too tempting. Much better than the old "tools" (if you know what I mean).

So cheers to everyone who wished me well and wished I'd come back. I missed my virtual family.

SCAAMD is nearly ready to launch its new website and could use some admin and data-entry help. If you're good for a couple hours a week, email eddiestinkypants AT att DOT net. We'll be up in a few days with our initial design, rushed into service just in time for the election.

Well, I'm back.

I wish I could say it's been fun lately, but it hasn't been.

Many of the gentler, more insightful people here have departed for the Gray Havens.

What's left are a few good people (yeah, you know who you are) and a ton of trolls and idiots (yeah, you know who you are, too).

Thanks, Josh, for a memorable season of news and analysis.

Thanks, CarolBG, hrebendorf, Aunt Sam, Fran, Ben Hocking, quinn esq, Nathan, Orlando, MarquisdeSeatoShiningSea, Dijamo, LisB, hillarym99, kgb999, liam, raider99, Donal Fagan, Melissa (Sox, too) and many others I can't recall at the moment.

Hate to go go, but the assholes are crowding out the good ones.