Posts by Steve Perry

Bloomberg News reports that the Federal Reserve Bank is “refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.” Reporters Mark Pittman, Bob Ivry and Alison Fitzgerald add that Bloomberg has tried to obtain the information through a Freedom [...]

Siobhan Gordon of the Wall Street Journal takes a look at Barack Obama’s intelligence team, and it’s a must-read whose headline says it all: “Intelligence policy to stay largely intact.” Gordon writes:
As a candidate, Mr. Obama said the CIA’s interrogation program should adhere to the same rules that apply to the military, which would prohibit [...]

For sizing reasons, the video’s below the jump.

In our first post-election installment of the Schultz Report, David Schultz talks about the mixed bag that last night brought for Minnesota Democrats–handing a 10-point margin to Barack Obama on one hand, but failing to net any congressional pickups and falling short of the five-seat increase needed to give the party a 2/3 majority in the Minnesota House.

“For all of those [down-ticket Minnesota] races,” notes Schultz, “you have Democrats coming in on average about 10 points behind where Obama was.” What gives?

The main question for the national Democratic party this morning may be what to take for all those post-victory hangovers, but at some point the chieftains of the Democratic congressional apparatus will get around to examining those few places where the party failed to make the most of a decisive Barack Obama win. And when they do, Minnesota — where Obama turned in the strongest Democratic presidential performance since 1976 — is likely to be at the top of the list.

Huge caveats apply, but Gawker has them.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com published a great piece this morning about why you shouldn’t waste your time trying to google up exit poll leaks: They’re always wrong.
Some of the reasons (there are 10 in all):
1. Exit polls have a much larger intrinsic margin for error than regular polls. This is because of what are known [...]

We’d like to hear about your voting experience today: not only how it went, but what you saw, heard, felt, thought.

Don’t know where to vote? Use the Minnesota secretary of state’s pollfinder.

MnIndy coverage of today’s voting:
Follow us, call us, talk to us on Election Day
Power outage at two St. Paul polling places
Early turnout in Minneapolis: “Wow”
Election Day morning, University of Minnesota campus: mobbed but orderly
Norm Coleman votes, expresses optimismLines everywhere: Minneapolis turning out huge numbers

At the north Minneapolis precinct where I’ve voted since 1996, 200-300 people were already in line by the time polls opened at 7:00. That’s about five times as many I’ve ever seen there bright and early.
The best commentary on the robust early turnout came from 15-month-old Peter (last pic below) — who, upon arriving with [...]

Very good for the most part, according to a report compiled at the Washington Post.
Bottom Line: If the theory holds that the incumbent party does
better when turnout is suppressed, the best chances for that tomorrow may be along the eastern seaboard, from southeastern Pennsylvania down to eastern North Carolina. On the other hand, excellent weather [...]