Politics on the Hudson

   State officials certified the results of the November elections this week, and 64 percent of voters turned out, or 7.7 million voters. Enrollment in the state is the highest it has ever been at 12 million people.

   The figures are subject to slight change because the Board of Elections couldn’t certify the paper ballots from the 11th Senate district in Queens, where Sen. Frank Padavan, a Republican, is embroiled in a tight race with Democrat James Gennaro, a member of the City Council. Padavan is ahead.

   This is how this year’s numbers compare with turnout in recent presidential election years:

  —In 2004, 63 percent, or 7.4 million out of 11.8 million voters, cast ballots.

  —In 2000, 62 percent, or 6.96 million out of 11.2 million voters, participated.

   President-elect Barack Obama got 62.1 percent of the vote statewide, compared with 35.7 percent for Sen. John McCain. Obama was on the Democratic and Working Families party lines, and McCain was on the GOP, Independence and Conservative party lines. 

   Outside New York City, 53.7 percent of voters went for the Obama/Biden ticket, and 43.4 percent chose McCain/Palin. In New York City, 78.6 percent of voters chose Obama and 19.8 percent voted for McCain.  

   As for other presidential and vice presidential candidates, this is the number of votes they received: (more…)

   Three guys from Iceland who launched a Web site called “If the World Could Vote” found that other parts of the world support President-elect Barack Obama more than the United States did this week. We’re talking landslide—not the 52.5 percent to 46.2 percent in the U.S. This is how the 868,144 people from 213 countries cast their “ballots”:

Barack Obama, 758,041 votes, or 87.3 percent

  (USA Today photo)
John McCain, 110,103 votes, or 12.7 percent.

The most votes came from the United States,—275,027, with 79.9 percent going for Obama. Canadians were even more pro-Obama. More than 89 percent of 118,650 people chose the Democrat.

McCain was the victor in a few spots. Albanians put 50.9 percent of their 55 votes to McCain.  More than 84 percent of the 372 people from the Republic of Macedonia chose McCain. One person from Niue went Republican.

For the uninitiated, Niue is an island in the South Pacific. Here’s a map from Lonely Planet.

Larchmont’s Kate Kelly is a contributor to the Huffington Post and the author of Election Day: An American Holiday, An American History.  She’s chock-full of interesting election facts and had plenty to say about the presidential election yesterday.

“I think an Election Day first this time around is the impact of the Internet,” Kelly said. “Citizen journalists and the blogosphere have helped information travel so quickly.”

Kelly added the speed at which information is available on the Internet has helped shape the election cycle. One of the reasons John Kerry lost in 2004, Kelly said, was his delayed responses to attacks against him such as the Swift Boat ads questioning his Vietnam service.

“Both campaigns this year were really good about grabbing something quickly and responding to it,” Kelly said.

What Kelly said she’s looking forward to seeing in the next few days will be voter turnout statistics.

“There has never been so much excitement among voters in decades,” Kelly said. “There used to be a lot of fun and spirit at rallies in the 1800s because candidates held political barbecues, but that spirit was more from being a participant at the event. There wasn’t that feeling of “I can make a difference,” that’s causing the excitement now.”

If you haven’t had a chance to take Kelly’s Election quiz, you can here. See if you can beat my score of 10/12.

Saturday Night Live skewered Tarrytown native Keith Olbermann over the weekend, prompting John McCain’s campaign to praise the sketch for its over the top portrayal of Olbermann.

Olbermann fired back to Time magazine saying “Honestly, everybody deserves a laugh but if on the weekend before the presidential election they spent more than seven seconds bothering with ME, the campaign staff has even less of a clue than I thought.”

Olbermann then went on to tease this tidbit on his Countdown show on MSNBC tonight:

“One last SNL thing: I’ll be reporting the details on this tonight. ask them why Governor Palin didn’t say her first line as scripted three shows ago. As they pulled back from the monitor shot of Tina doing the impression she was supposed to compliment Tina. Could’ve been a real rehab to her image – why’d she refuse?”

If you’ve never watched Olbermann’s show before, he’s known for his ranting commentaries, often comparing politicians to dictators and demanding their resignations. Check out actor Ben Affleck impersonating him on SNL below:

For the past week, passersby have been crowding around the Museum Art Inc. in Larchmont to get a glimpse of the giant paintings of Barack Obama and John McCain.

The oil paintings, almost 6 feet tall, were done by Paolo Corvino, a Larchmont resident who said he has artwork on display in the White House for every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Corvino, 75, said he was taken back by the amount of elementary-aged children that have taken interest in the paintings.

“I’m surprised by how they’re already excited about politics already,” Corvino said.

“The young kids seem to like the Obama painting more,” he added. “He’s like their superstar. The older people seem to not let you know who they like more.”

You can see the paintings and Corvino’s other work at his gallery at 1887 Palmer Ave. in Larchmont.

(Photos by Aman Ali / The Journal News)

John McCain took the gloves off in last night’s debate and had a “McXplosion,” but Barack Obama kept his cool and the focus remained largely on the economy.Tonight they’ll be together for presumably the last time before Election Day, at the Alfred E. Smith dinner in Manhattan.

This morning, McCain kept the pressure on, releasing the national ad “Fight” and again tried to distance himself from the Bush administration, saying “The last eight years haven’t worked very well, have they? I’ll make the next four better.”

And Joe The Plumber is all over the news, and below in an interview this morning with Diane Sawyer.

   Democrats are pulling out the heavy hitters for their pre-presidential debate rally. David Crosby and Graham Nash, formerly of the band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are headlining the event, state Democratic Party Chairwoman June O’Neill just announced. Other performers include Bruce Hornsby, Barefoot Truth, Push Play and Ryan Star. The rally and concert run from 3 to 7 p.m. in Eisenhower Park, East Meadow, Nassau County.

   Tonight’s 9 p.m. debate—three weeks before Election Day— is the third and final one between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. It is being hosted by Hofstra University in Hempstead, Nassau County. The debate will focus on economic policy and domestic issues. The moderator is Bob Schieffer, CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of “Face the Nation.” Only current Hofstra University students were able to apply for tickets.

   For more information about the debate, or to watch it online, visit http://www.hofstra.edu/Debate/index.html.

Members of Westchester’s Republican Party will be calling voters for Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin over the next three weekends. They’ll be working from the GOP headquarters, 214 Mamaroneck Avenue, in White Plains. 

The date and times are as follows: 

Date                              Time                                   Location 

Saturday, Oct. 18        11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.       214 Mamaroneck Ave, White Plains 

Sunday, Oct. 19           12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.       214 Mamaroneck Ave, White Plains 

Saturday, Oct. 25        11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.       214 Mamaroneck Ave, White Plains 

Sunday, Oct. 26        12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.       214 Mamaroneck Ave, White Plains 

Saturday, Nov. 1       11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.       214 Mamaroneck Ave, White Plains  

Sunday, Nov. 2          12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.       214 Mamaroneck Ave, White Plains 

To volunteer, contact Doug Colety at chairman@WestchesterGOP.com or call 914-949-3020. 

Who would have thought that in Westchester County, in blue-state New York, we would have a battle of Presidential surrogates? But that’s what’s going on in the state’ 35th Senate district race. Yonkers City Councilman John Murtagh, the Republican challenger for the Senate seat went on the attack against Barack Obama last week with the blessing of the John McCain campaign. Democratic incumbent Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins fought back against the criticism. What follows is the latest volley from Murtagh and what led up to it.

Warning: There is enough back and forth here to threaten a fan of the U.S. Tennis Open with whiplash.
In a press release issued yesterday, Murtagh accused Stewart-Cousins of making “insensitive and anti-Catholic” remarks. Stewart-Cousins’ press release didn’t mention the word Catholic, but criticized Murtagh for his pro-bono representation from 1999 through 2001 of a Catholic priest who led pray-vigils at a Garden City facility in protest of abortions conducted there. Murtagh describes his involvement as “representing an elderly priest who was being sued for praying on a sidewalk,” and that he was protecting the priest’s First Amendment rights.

There had been problems at Long Island Gynecological Services. A Wall Street Journal report said Nassau County police had been called to that facility “17 times in 1994 and 1995 to investigate reports of physical assault, harassment, bomb threats and in four cases, the firing of bullets into windows.” Stewart-Cousins questioned Murtagh’s judgement in criticizing Obama for a connection to a 1960s’ radical, though he, Murtagh, had represented “an individual who had led a protracted effort to terrorize women and their health-care providers.”

Stewart-Cousins’ salvo was prompted by Murtagh’s criticism of Obama for close ties William Ayers, a founder of the violence-prone Weather Undergound in the late 1960s. That criticism, disputed by Obama, was picked up by the McCain campaign last week. In it, Murtagh recounted the story of the 1970 bombing of his home which has been credited to the Weather Underground. At the time, Murtagh’s father was a state Supreme Court justice presiding over a trial of the Black Panther 21, who were accused of plotting to bomb a series of New York department stores. Murtagh acknowledges that Obama was just a child at the time of the bombing but pointedly said: “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family.”

And that, Stewart-Cousins insisted this week, amounted to “swiftboat politics.”

Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, a Westchester native, will take part in a discussion Thursday on the records and policy differences between John McCain and Barack Obama and how they could affect the Jewish community and the country. The event, sponsored by The Republican Jewish Coalition, will take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Sunningdale Country Club, 300 Underhill Road in Scarsdale. Attendees must RSVP to Greg Menken at 212-922-0839.