MoveOn primary results

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I just got this in my e-mail box:

Dear MoveOn member,

The votes are counted, the exit polls are complete, and the results from the MoveOn primary are in. Over 300,000 MoveOn members have cast votes — a turnout bigger than the election turnout in many states — and news outlets from CBS to Reuters have covered the story as it unfolded this week.

The MoveOn primary has allowed hundreds of thousands of ordinary voters to speak at a time when usually only pundits, pollsters, and wealthy donors have influence. Now it’s time to put our money where our mouth is. The end of this month — June 30th — marks a key deadline for candidate fundraising: candidates will truly sink or swim based on whether they show that they can raise money.

Since no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, we’re encouraging everyone to support the candidate they voted for. That’s why we’ve attached a fundraising appeal from Howard Dean (the candidate who you voted for) below, and that’s why we strongly encourage you to give what you can — from \$20 to \$2,000 — TODAY.

You can give to Howard Dean’s campaign online right now at: http://www.deanforamerica.com/moveonfordean

So how did the candidates do? The statistics below are only a part of the picture: perhaps the most significant fact is that virtually all of the candidates would have the enthusiastic support of a majority of MoveOn members. Taking back the primary process for ordinary people is an important goal, but the vote made clear that we’re ready to defeat Bush no matter who the Democratic nominee is.

As a result of the primary, well over 100,000 people have joined a presidential campaign or contributed to one. We’re already building a movement to defeat Bush in 2004.

Here are the vote totals:

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BRAUN 7021 2.21%
DEAN 139360 43.87%
EDWARDS 10146 3.19%
GRAHAM 7113 2.24%
KERRY 49973 15.73%
KUCINICH 76000 23.93%
GEPHARDT 7755 2.44%
LIEBERMAN 6095 1.92%
SHARPTON 1677 0.53%
OTHER 6121 1.93%
UNDECIDED 6378 2.01%
  317647 100.00%

The complete results, along with some analysis, are available on our website at: http://moveon.org/pac/primary/report.html

It’s been an amazing week for MoveOn.org PAC. Every Democratic presidential campaign has invested time and energy into the primary. The national news media have covered the process with gravity. Together, we’ve begun to shift the balance in how these choices get made — from wealthy benefactors and snarky pundits to ordinary, active citizens. Thank you.

Sincerely, –Carrie, Eli, Joan, Peter, Wes, and Zack The MoveOn Team June 27th, 2003

P.S. For links to all of the candidates’ donation pages, go to: http://www.moveon.org/pac/cands/

Very interesting — and congrats to Dean! 43% of the vote is certainly nothing to look down upon!

Dean’s statment on the results can be found here.

Seattle Solstice

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Odd things about being a (fairly) recent Alaska transplant — this last weekend was summer solstice, and I didn’t even really notice. While I don’t think I’ll ever be moving back to Alaska, the summertimes really are some of what I miss. Seattle’s solstice (sunrise at 5:11am, sunset at 9:11pm) really pales in comparison to Anchorage’s (sunrise at 4:20am, sunset at 11:42pm)!

(Thanks to Lee LeFever for the link to the sunrise and sunset page!)

Butt Kicking ;)

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Note: This entry was originally a comment in response to a comment left on this post, but I liked it enough to make it a full post.

Ok I’m asking to get my butt kicked…but its just a book. I took the time to see the first Harry Potter movie on DVD just last week and quite frankly I didn’t think it was anything special. I don’t know…I didn’t get the Beatles and I didn’t get Elvis and I don’t get Harry Potter ? All were good, but greatness? I think not.

Commencing butt kicking. ;)

I get the impression from what you said that your sole experience with Harry Potter so far is watching the first movie. If that’s truly the case, than I’m not too surprised that you “don’t get it.” However, to use that one movie (which, as you said, really isn’t anything special) to write off the entire Harry Potter phenomenon as “just a book” seems silly, at the least.

If nothing else, whether or not I had any interest in the series, I’d hardly dismiss a phenomenon which, in the age of Nintendo, the Internet, cell phones, MTV, .mp3s, and all the other electronic instant gratification toys that surround us daily, actually has kids reading. Not just reading, but reading willingly. Enjoying reading. Kids barely into their double digits are lining up to buy an 870-page book, not because it’s on a reading list, or because a teacher or a parent assigned it, but because they want to! Then, once they get their hands on it, they devour the book within days and, once done, turn back to the beginning and start reading all over again to catch any fine details they may have missed the first time.

Other authors have been catching some of the overflow of all of this, too. During the time between Harry Potter novels, kids who have suddenly discovered the joys of reading, of being able to pick up a book and disappear into another world that in many ways is far beyond anything that the ‘net or television or video games can offer them — because so much of it is created within their own imaginations — are returning to the bookstores, and picking up other books. It’s not just Harry Potter that has these kids excited now (though he’s the one that gets all the press). The printed page is suddenly both fashionble and, even above that, fun.

To look at that, to see the effects that these books have had upon todays children, and then — without even picking up the book itself — shrug your shoulders, turn away, and say that it’s “just a book” is to do a great disservice to J.K. Rowling, to the world she’s created, and, most importantly, to the literally millions of people that she and her imagination have inspired to put down the game controller or the mouse, to unplug their headphones, to turn off their cell phone — and to pick up a book.

You may not ever choose to read any of the Harry Potter novels, and that’s fine. I didn’t actually read any until this past year. I’d heard about them, of course, and seen the movie (and walked away from it with about the same impression you have, from the sound of it), but the books were perpetually in my “I should read those someday” list. Then, after talking about the books some with Prairie, she lent me her copies of the first four. I sat down, started reading — and practically didn’t come up for air until I was done with all four. I found out that, for once, something lived up to the hype — I really enjoyed the books!

Whether or not you decide to give them a shot, or — if you do — whether or not you like them, is, of course, entirely up to you. Just don’t go tossing the “just a book” line around until you’ve actually read the book(s) and can judge on more than just the film!

1-800-ooooops

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Another reason cars and cell phones are a bad mix:

An adulterous Finn pressed all the wrong buttons as he made love in a car — unknowingly prompting his mobile phone to call home just in time for his wife to hear his mistress moan “I love you.”

The wife, doubly enraged after recognizing her own friend’s voice, has been convicted of assault after going to her rival’s flat and striking her in the face and later attacking her husband at home with an axe, though he fended off the blow.

(via Dad)

The Fear Thing and the Sex Thing

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I almost missed this post from Doc Searls musing over some of the ties between sex and politics.

I just noticed something.

…Doctors, at least professionally, aren’t afraid of sex. Thanks to professional training, good doctors are fearless around the whole damn thing. It ain’t no big deal. Fucking is fine. Blowjobs are fine.

…seems to me there’s a connection between the Fear Thing and the Sex Thing.

Not fearing sex is great training for not fearing anything else. Including how you look and sound on TV.

The democrats need to be The Fuckit Party this year. They need to be straight and honest and remind Americans of what they’re giving up to the droning fearmongers who run the country right now.

There’s more there, including references to other articles that started his train of thought. Most of what caught my eye was the Doctor/sex, fear/comfort bit. Worth thinking about, at least.

More on Lawrence v. Texas

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There’s more good commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision regarding consensual same-sex acts here — Daily Kos: Sodomy decision opens path to gay marriage

Any use of consistency and logic would force the court sanction same-sex marriages, and invalidate any attempt to limit the definition of “marriage” to unions between man and woman.

This is huge. Our nation took a huge step today toward eliminating one of the last standing impediments to true equality under the law. Just wait until the press picks this up (they don’t seem to have noticed yet).

It’ll be very interesting to see the ramifications of this in time to come.

Supreme Court Tries Sodomy…and likes it!

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Sorry, I couldn’t help the title — especially after Slate magazine’s unfortunate choice of headline (‘Supreme Court tries sodomy’) from the beginning of this trial.

The Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay sex Thursday, ruling that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.

The 6-3 ruling reverses course from a ruling 17 years ago that states could punish homosexuals for what such laws historically called deviant sex.

Laws forbidding homosexual sex, once universal, now are rare. Those on the books are rarely enforced but underpin other kinds of discrimination, lawyers for two Texas men had argued to the court.

The men “are entitled to respect for their private lives,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote.

“The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime,” he said.

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Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.

What a wonderful ruling heading into this year’s pride weekend!

(via ‘Michael Savage Weiner’, Daily Kos, and Mathew Gross)