Tag Archive: Yale on the Trail

  1. Kleeb: ‘Hipster’, ‘Fantastic’ or Just Anti-Comatose?

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    By Andrew Mangino

    OMAHA, Neb., 12:47 p.m. — Ryan the Angry Midget put it bluntly in his prediction post: “Democrat Scott Kleeb gets clubbed by Mike Johanns.”

    Just travel several miles west in the blogosphere and you’ll encounter Booman of the Booman Tribune. In his words, Kleeb is a “fantastic and attractive” candidate. “I don’t have any recent polling,” he writes, “but I can’t rule out a Kleeb stunner.”

    But another blog — “Leavenworth Street – The Talk of Nebraska Politics” — wasn’t as kind. In exploring who will succeed Chuck Hagel, “Street Sweeper” put Mike Johanns’ odds at 1:150 — and Kleeb’s at, well, 150:1. “The Kleeb camp is crowing right now that they have internal polling that shows them neck-and-neck with Johanns,” he writes, “Riiiiiiiight.”

    It’s the chorus of blogosphere predictions — a new staple of democracy in America. And this morning, I spent some time — frankly, I’m not sure why — finding the gems. Indeed, there are some. Some.

    (more…)

  2. Polls: Big turnout and machine malfunctions

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    By Zeke Miller

    NEW HAVEN, 12:00 p.m. — Polls don’t close in Connecticut for another eight hours, but already a substantial portion of people have cast their ballots. Secretary of the State Bysiewicz announced earlier today that by 10 a.m. over 30% of voters had gone to the polls, well on the way to the 90% turnout she predicted.

    In other news, there have been a few reported problems with the state’s new optical scanning machines. One machine malfunctioned in New Haven and was replaced by a backup, and one machine in both Simsbury and Bristol reported memory card malfunctions that prompted officials to use backup cards.

    — The Associated Press Contributed Reporting

  3. Obama returns home to cast his vote

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    By Isaac Arnsdorf

    CHICAGO, 11:38 a.m. — Here in Hyde Park, the leafy South Side neighborhood where Barack Obama made his home and launched his political career, his neighbors say they remember voting for him when he was their state senator. But, they said, they never would have predicted that they might some day vote for him for president.

    Obama himself returned to his polling place at Shoesmith Elementary to cast his own ballot around 7:30 this morning.

    John Hall, who lives across the street, said he had never seen his precint so crowded. In past elections, you could walk right in but today the line stretched around the block.

    But this is no ordinary election for the residents of Hyde Park, who have known Obama as a neighbor, a state senator, a U.S. Senator, and now a presidential candidate.

  4. “Take Arizona in a big way”

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    By Paul Needham

    PRESCOTT, Ariz., 1:08 a.m. — Senator John McCain is hoping to reverse what he calls one of Arizona’s “unhappy traditions.”

    Speaking in front of the same courthouse steps here where Barry Goldwater launched and ended his 1964 bid for the presidency, McCain said he would reverse the tradition of Arizonans losing presidential elections.

    “I’m confident because I’ve seen the momentum, my friends” he said in the earliest hours of Wednesday morning after completing a seven-state sprint across the country on Tuesday. “All we’ve got to do is get out the vote.”

    (more…)

  5. A Tune For Obama

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    By Martine Powers

    CHICAGO, 1:19 a.m. — As satellite uplink trucks from news stations worldwide

    thronged alongside the entrance to the site of Tuesday’s Obama rally

    in Grant Park, a leisurely ballad rang out into the night, accompanied

    by the velvety strumming of a guitar.

    “Oh, oh, oh…. Obama…

    The Declaration of Independence… The Bill of Rights…

    The U.S. Constitution…

    Martin Luther King, I Have a Dree-ee-eam…”

    The man singing his ode to Obama had a small American flag stuck in

    the back of his cap and another laced between the strings on his

    guitar. Sitting on a bench, a pair of headphones over his ears and

    another clinging to his left shoulder, the man waited expectantly for

    Obama to arrive at Grant Park so he would be able to sing his Obama

    song to the presidential candidate himself.

    (more…)

  6. Divided in McCain’s Home State

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    By Paul Needham

    PHOENIX, 9:15 p.m. — The Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport was something of a political battleground tonight.

    Passengers on my US Airways flight didn’t even have to exit the jetway before they heard the rumble of political debate in the terminal. CNN was blaring with the sound of a McCain stump speech from earlier today.

    As Senator John McCain roared on the television, “Mac is back,” passengers waiting in his home state’s largest airport drowned him out with boos and cheers, shouts of “Nobama” and screams of “Yes We Can.”

    One Philadelphia-bound woman, who would only identify herself as Nicki, said she was ashamed to be from McCain’s home state.

    “He’s not the same man we put in the Senate,” she said. “It’s time for change.”

    (more…)

  7. ‘This election has just been so exciting’

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     By Paul Needham

    NEW HAVEN, 2:45 p.m. — The trip from New Haven to Phoenix is a long one, and it was political from the start.

    My taxi driver from Phelps Gate at Yale to Tweed New Haven Regional Airport was Cisse, an immigrant from Senegal. When Cisse found out I was headed to Arizona to cover the McCain campaign, his eyes lit up.

    “This election has just been so exciting,” he said as he turned down the sports talk radio that was booming from the speakers in his cab.

    Cisse said he will take the day off tomorrow so he can watch the election results as they come in on his television. His vote will be for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, and it will be the first ballot he has ever cast.

    (more…)

  8. 90 percent turnout predicted in Connecticut

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    By Zeke Miller

    NEW HAVEN, 2:10 p.m. — In the month before Tuesday’s election, Connecticut registered an unprecedented number of new voters. Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz announced Monday that 134,502 residents registered to vote in the month of October, bringing the total of new voter registrations since January to over 300,000. Over one third of the newly registered voters are between the ages of 18 and 29, she said.

    “The incredible interest in this year’s election is reflected in the voter registration numbers,” Bysiewicz said in a statement. “It is truly inspiring to see so many 18 year olds and 80 year olds registering to vote for the first time.” (more…)

  9. Today’s round-up

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    Election ’08 coverage from the print edition of the Yale Daily News:

    • Eli a longshot in Nebraska.  Scott Kleeb GRD ’06 faces an uphill battle in his attempt to win election to the United States Senate from a historically red state.  Senior reporter Andrew Mangino reports from Nebraska.
    • A trip to Palin country. Staff reporter Nicolas Niarchos reports from Anchorage and Wasilla, Alaska, to find out how Gov. Sarah Palin’s constituents assess the Republican vice-presidential nominee.
    • Homework? No, there’s a state to be canvassed. On the ground with Eli volunteers as they get-out-the-vote for the Obama campaign in Keene, N.H.
    • Connecticut rallies for Obama. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of New Haven and other prominent Democrats rally members of their party as Election Day approaches.
    • Endorsement tilt Democratic. If the preferences of newspaper editors are any indication, Sen. Barack Obama is in good shape heading into Tuesday’s election.
    • ItsHaky fight for seat. Think Rep. Rosa DeLauro is running unopposed?  You’d be wrong.
    • Channeling Obama, teens embrace oratory. New Haven high school students conclude America is ready to elect its first African-American president.

  10. Reporting on Election Day, from Wasilla to West Haven

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    Dear YaleDailyNews.com readers,

    As the historic 2008 presidential election nears, the Yale Daily News will offer in-depth, student-focused reporting on a scale unprecedented for a college newspaper. Just as the News deployed reporters to cover the caucuses and primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and was one of only two Connecticut newspapers to report from the Democratic National Convention, News reporters have been posted all around the country as Tuesday’s election approaches.

    Look for reports from the headquarters of Sen. Barack Obama in Chicago and Sen. John McCain in Phoenix; from swing states like Virginia and New Hampshire; from America’s heartland, where a Yale alumnus is staging a long-shot bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Nebraska; and from a few more far-flung locales, including Wasilla, Alaska.

    Of course, we will also be on the ground around the Yale campus and in New Haven, monitoring the polls and chronicling the reactions of students as the returns come in on Tuesday night.

    Thank you for reading.

    Sincerely,

    Thomas Kaplan

    Editor in Chief, Yale Daily News

    editor@yaledailynews.com

  11. Obama vows to ‘change’ America

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    By Thomas Kaplan

    DENVER — Sen. Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday, vowing that “it’s time for us to change America” after what he called the failed presidency of George W. Bush ’68.

    Before countless Elis in front of their televisions and an energized crowd of tens of thousands at a football stadium here, the 47-year-old cast himself in sharp relief to the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, on policy matters foreign and domestic.

    Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, called on the American people to muster the courage to restore what he called an American promise fallen under siege by the Bush administration. [Read more →]