So, I'm sitting around in the middle of the night, waiting for a phone call.  Click, click, click through "Breaking Blue" to see what's juicy.  Here's  some article which purportedly has something to do with Danny Glover's butt.  I scan.  I totally fail to get it.  I scan again.  Then I trip over something really cool: the Wayback Machine.

One of the real downsides of being a techie is when you find out something exists that you really should have known about years ago.  You kind of look around to make sure nobody saw you and then play it off.  Well, I'm sharing that particular pain with you for two reasons: a very, very early incarnation of MyDD from Dec 19 2001 and a neat 2002 presidential poll.

The first link is there because it made me giggle.  No, wait, that's not the important part.  The first link is there because it really brings home how much this place has grown in the past four years and two months.  Hat's off to Jerome and the crew on that.

The second link is there because it made me say "Gah!" very loudly.  In November 2002, I was on a warship in the northern Arabian Gulf with no access to Zogby polls, or any non-filtered news for that matter.  I suppose tonight is the first time I've looked at Democratic Primary Polls from 2002.

Here are the poll results (I've changed the order a little for clarity) with Jerome's annotations:

Please tell me which one of the following candidates you would vote for President in 2004 if he was running in the Democratic primary?

Al Gore at 38.5% is still falling, measuring 39% against Bush.
John Kerry at 15.7% is getting close to becoming an alternative.
John Edwards at 6.6% is about to be overtaken by Dean.
Tom Daschle at 6.6% before he pulled Johnson through the fire.
Howard Dean at 6.5% is incredible!
Ralph Nader at 6.4% is insane!
Joseph Lieberman at 3.2% before Gore decides not to run.
Dick Gephardt at 3.0% before he got the boot.

Other at 4.2% is Hillary really at 40% against Bush?

Wow.  Nader within 0.1% of Dean?  Daschle more or less tied with Edwards and Dean?  Lieberschmuck at 3.2%?  This poll went some way in ameliorating the sense of gloom and doom I feel about 2008.

Well, I don't wanna beat a dead horse, but before I sign off I do want to leave a wayback pointer to that orange, or should I say sepia site.  It's full of fun little nuggets: look for a post entitled "Democrats getting feisty" and a peculiar countdown to a Gephardt speakership.

Once upon a time, there was a Mayor named Irv.  He presided over a town of 20 happy people for a long and prosperous time.  Irv was elected, every four years from time immemorial, using a voting method named in his honor: IRV.

But Irv grew old and wished more than anything to retire to Boca.  Upon hearing this news, the townspeople fretted mightily.  Who would replace the beneficient Irv as mayor?

A hobo moved to town and registered to vote.  There were now 21 happy people in town, and unbeknownst to all the town, a beast known as Nonmonotonicity reared its ugly head and cackled with insane glee towards the town.

But back to the story: Irv had three stout and hearty sons: Gunter, Dieter, and Reinholt, and the townspeople separated into three factions.  

One faction of 8 townspeople, wearing Green shirts, liked Gunter the best, but would be happy if Dieter won.

One faction of 7 townspeople, wearing Blue shirts, liked Dieter the best, but would be happy if Reinhold won.

And the last faction of 6 townspeople, wearing Red shirts, liked Reinhold the best, but would be happy if Gunter won.

The town mathemagician counted the votes using one of the many magical formulae for IRV.  The red shirts were the smallest faction, and so he awarded their votes to their second choice candidate, Gunter.  Gunter then had 14 votes, over Dieter's 7.  Gunter was elected as Mayor.

It was a happy, prosperous four years.  The town thrived and 2 of the townspeople, Buffy and Faith, changed in their Blue shirts for Green, since they loved Gunter's policies so well.  Everyone else in town kept their same shirt as they approached the polls for the next election between the three sons.

Gunter's team was thrilled.  They had even more support, with Buffy and Faith, in this election than in the previous one!  They were assured victory!  The votes were counted, and they were thus:

One faction of 10 townspeople, wearing Green shirts, liked Gunter the best, but would be happy if Dieter won.

One faction of 5 townspeople, wearing Blue shirts, liked Dieter the best, but would be happy if Reinhold won.

And the last faction of 6 townspeople, wearing Red shirts, liked Reinhold the best, but would be happy if Gunter won.

The town's mathemagician, sure that with this new support for Gunter that Gunter would win, almost decided not to apply his aldritch formulae -- to simply name Gunter the victor.  But then,  the beast Nonmonotonicity burst into the hall and cried out "I am Nonmonotonicity!  See what confusion I have wrought!"

The mathemagician counted his count, and was indeed confused.  Since the Blue shirts were the minority, he awarded their votes to their second choice, which was Reinhold.  Reinhold then had 11 votes to Gunter's 10, won the election, and in his glee sent the town's army to invade Iraq.

The mathemagician still reeled.  "But, if Buffy and Faith had only voted for Dieter, then their real choice, Gunter, would have been re-elected!  It makes no sense!"

The beast Nonmonotonicity refered him to WikiPedia and before vanishing into the night said "Just because I'm quiet and hard to see, do not ignore me!  I lurk in any IRV election with more than 20 electors and at least three candidates."

The mathemagician, frustrated and full of despair, set fire to his aldritch tomes on IRV and started looking at a new formula called Range Voting.  He wasn't sure it would work, but then again he wasn't sure yet that it wouldn't.

I've been focusing on a Feingold campaign for over a year, and, like many others, find myself a bit stunned this morning.

I could get behind Clark, and, in a pinch, I could get behind Edwards. But they both present some ideological problems.  I was developing a list of people who don't present ideological problems: John Conyers, Tammy Baldwin...  and then Ralph Nader came to mind.

There are a number of metrics that couple Ralph and Russ very closely on an ideological basis.  Also, they have similar styles.

So, take me to school folks.  What piece of the puzzle am I missing that would disqualify Nader as a good '08 Democratic candidate.  Has he made a categorical statement that he wouldn't run as a Democrat?

There have been a lot of posts in a lot of places mentioning vague developments for the "Draft Russ Feingold" movement in the near future. Well, it's November 9th, we own the Congress, and "Daffy" Donald Rumsfeld is an unpleasant memory. In other words the future is here.

Click here to beat the crowd and sign up at RunRussRun.com.

We're very pleased to announce the launch of RunRussRun.com, which replaces RussForPresident.com as the national headquarters of the Draft Feingold for President movement.

Click here to sign up at RunRussRun.com.

The new site was developed by Internet activists from 16 states and 5 national constituency groups. We looked very carefully at what worked and what didn't in our state-level organizations, our former national site, and previous presidential draft movements. Emerging technology helped us solve most of the problems we saw, emphasize what worked best, and open up what we think is a new kind of site for on-line activism.

Click here to sign up at RunRussRun.com.

RunRussRun.com gives members access to a wide array of services including: a customized activism road map, interaction with other members across the country, and direct access to free tools for building local and state-level groups and activities. It also features up-to-the-minute news from the Feingold for President state and community blogs, discussion forums, and an option to pledge donations to a future Feingold presidential campaign.

The effort to convince Senator Feingold to make a presidential run traces back to December, 2004 when the first Russ Feingold for President blog was started by current Washington University law student Daniel Kuehnert. Since then, the effort has grown to include 16 state blogs and numerous nationwide sites, including RussForPresident.com, which was founded in February 2005 by University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point student Matthew Wallock. Steering Committee member, Minnesota resident and political activist Joel Clemmer, says "The movement has grown tremendously and needs a new face for the final push. Our goal over the next few months is to double our membership and bring at least five more states on line."

Add your voice to the movement: sign up at RunRussRun.com today.

This extension to the FireFox browser contains links to approximately 70 web resources of interest to supporters of Russ Feingold for President.  These resources include the National "Russ Cafe" discussion board, the chat room at russforpresident.com, prepackaged searches through many of the leading search engines, all the blogs in the "50 Blogs for Feingold" program, as well as Feingold's official Senate, Senate Campaign, and PAC sites.

This extension only works with the Mozilla FireFox browser.  That is to say that it won't work with Microsoft Internet Explorer or any other Netscape browser.  You can get the FireFox browser for free by clicking here.

The extension is available for download at addons.mozilla.org

This is one of several projects in development at RussForge. RussForge is an independent group of techies who support Russ Feingold for President. RussForge is not affiliated with any candidate or committee.

I like the idea of MoveOn's ActionForum. I try to be active there, but over the years it's become more and more frustrating. The site has suffered from growing pains that can be solved by easy technological changes. There's some evidence that they might address some technological issues in the new year, but in the meantime, a lot of energy is being wasted.

The fundamental problem is this: there are 33,400 posts arranged on 6,680 pages (here's a workaround). There is no way to search for posts on a given subject. There is no way to link to a post. Thus the vast majority of posts get lost in a digital swamp.

It's not uncommon for 50 people to write nearly identical posts and for thousands of people to take the time to vote on them (example). There are two side effects: user frustration with the spam, and dilution of the message we're sending to MoveOn.

Say, for the sake of argument, there was a search function on the site from the beginning. Say (wild guess) the average post is essentially identical to 10 others. Say the search function eliminated all repetition. About 2 person-years of writing would have been freed up to use more effectively. I can't even come up with a way to estimate how many person-years of browsing would have been saved.

Using data from ontheissues.org, Headstrong America has created a nifty graph rating 2008 presidential hopefuls on their adherence to liberal, progressive values.

With 158,892 responses, 86% of the respondants to this MSNBC poll support impeaching George W. Bush. That's around 137,000 people. Take the poll yourself at MSNBC. Here are the current results:

Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?

Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial. 86%

No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors." 5%

No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching. 8%
I don't know. 2%