Cracks in the Facade

How It Ends... Begin the Begin

2008-11-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

This blog started in 2004 with my motivation to inform friends and family about news of the election in an effort to bring down the reign of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Didn't work out so well. With help from my Mother-in-Law (blogger code name Old Fogey), Cracks continued to stay vigilant for a couple of years after that defeat. But soon, the various and sundry twists and turns of life took our attentions to other focuses (namely, for me, the birth of my son and becoming the sole breadwinner of the family). And thusly, Cracks publishing came to a halt (though occasional bouts of anger at the latest antics of the Bush/Cheney administration would elicit a post from time to time).

So, in the aftermath of this week's historic election outcome, I'm now making it official: Cracks in the Facade is retired.

No doubt there will be shenanigans from the Right Wing Noise Machine that will need to be beat down, and President Obama (god, I love saying that) and Vice President Biden (that too!) and their administration will make mistakes from time to time that will need progressive voices to help remind them of their course. But the hardcore political blogging life is behind me now, and I will find other avenues to add my voice when and where it is needed.

If you're a Facebook user, you can be my friend and follow me there. (I haven't totally gotten the blogging bug out of my system, and I occasionally add links to interesting and relevant news bits.) I'm also an occasional Twitter user, and you can follow my tweets here.

Now, time to begin the begin...

Amen, Brother Cafferty

2008-08-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

CNN's Jack Cafferty on John McCain (via AmericaBlog):

John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His father and grandfather were four star admirals in the Navy. Some have suggested that might have played a role in McCain being admitted. His academic record was awful. And it shows over and over again whenever McCain is called upon to think on his feet.

He no longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the "Straight Talk Express" for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless he's reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer, John McCain is lost. He can drop bon mots at a bowling alley or diner -- short glib responses that get a chuckle, but beyond that McCain gets in over his head very quickly.

I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin's eyes and see into his soul.

George Bush's record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself.

He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.

I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.

The Visual Highlight of My Week

2008-07-25T09:24:00.001-07:00

Sure, Obama had the world at his feet this week and there are loads of pictures you can choose from that to treasure, but I love the fact that John McCain had to make an impromptu stop at a grocery store in Pennsylvania to hold a press briefing in front of the cheese aisle to quell the questions about his view of the surge.

Obama Boyz

2008-07-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

Lil' F and I are modeling Mrs. F's Obama t-shirt, which is available in lots of colors.

Screw the Bowling

2008-07-23T09:14:00.001-07:00

Barack's got game where it counts -- on the court!

Mrs. F's Obama Shirt

2008-07-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

Mrs. F got inspired recently to upload a T-shirt design to Zazzle based on the iconographic imagery created by Shepard Fairey earlier this year, and she presented it to me as a Father's Day gift. I dig it a lot in part because of the Fairey image, but also the way that Mrs. F was able to distill it down into a simple woodblock-like image in black against a white shirt (or, in my case, an orange shirt -- Zazzle gives you loads of options, and it's a pretty sweet site).

Initially, she was just going to keep the design private, but I exhorted her to spread it to the masses (with a little help from me). She gets some green back from Zazzle for every shirt purchased, and if you follow this link I'll also get some money via an associates account. Everything that we make (I'm sure it will be a pittance) will be donated to the Obama campaign.

Consider this an open thread till late October... (or until I feel like getting bloggy again)

The Truth About Barack Obama

2008-05-28T12:35:00.001-07:00

After reading this from Steve Benen over at Crooks & Liars, which found that 11 percent of respondents in a poll still think Barack Obama is a Muslim (which, it should be said, is nothing to be ashamed of, but it's wrong), I was a little disheartened that our Idiocracy is still misundereducated (Benen also points to a Ben Smith post over at Politico that notes this is actually a smaller percentage than the 18 percent who believe that the earth revolves around the sun). Sigh.

But there's a new video over at YouTube that breaks down the falsehoods that have been swirling around Senator Obama into very easily digestible, lowest common denominator rebuttals (with a few sassy anti-Clinstone jibes to boot) that should be understood by most viewers (I don't have much hope for the Earth Revolvers):

Amen, Brother Leonard

2008-05-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

Commenting on news that former Senator Phil Gramm has continued working as a lobbyist for the Swiss bank UBS up until mid-April while at the same time advising John McCain on economic matters, Andrew Leonard at Salon's How the World Works blog writes:

Maybe I've just been paying attention to this particular thread of the American narrative of politics and the economy for too long, but it still strikes me as shocking that the same man who spearheaded legislation deregulating energy futures trading (which facilitated Enron's misdeeds), and the repeal of e Glass-Steagal's separation of investment and commercial banking, is a major influence on John McCain's economic agenda, and has simultaneously been working for the banking industry to prevent Congress from passing legislation that would give ordinary Americans a leg up in dealing with the mess that Wall Street has caused.

In a campaign where we have been endlessly obsessed by such trivia as what John Hagee or Jeremiah Wright might think about Jews or AIDS when neither man is going to have any influence at all on how McCain or Obama would govern, Phil Gramm's opposition to allowing judges to rewrite mortgage terms for Americans facing foreclosure seems far more relevant to the real lives of Americans than just about anything else the candidates are saying or doing. I don't care whether Obama's grand-uncle really helped to liberate Buchenwald instead of Auschwitz or whether Hillary Clinton's reference to Bobby Kennedy's assassination was pure evil or just dumb. But I do care about evidence that demolishes the fantasy that John McCain is some kind of maverick independent who might represent a change in direction from the economic policies pursued by Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes. In an election year where everyone is putting "the economy" at the top of the priority list, the employment priorities of McCain's longtime buddy and top advisor could hardly be more relevant.

More of Hillary's Base

2008-05-22T14:30:00.001-07:00

From Kentucky, via Al Jazeera:

There's been a fantasy out in the Pacific Northwest of Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia seceding from their respective unions and creating a nation called Cascadia. I'm wondering if creating a nation of Appalachia and appointing Hillary as its leader might not be such a bad idea -- she'd be able to spend all her time shooting shotguns, downing shots whiskey, and pacifying the folks who really care for her.

Hillary's Base

2008-05-20T21:17:00.000-07:00

(hat tip to John Cole at Balloon Juice)

But it doesn't matter any more. Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for all intents and purposes.

And the Winner Is...

2008-05-09T10:06:00.001-07:00

The Bitter End

2008-05-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

From a USA Today article with the dogged but deluded also-ran (those are the AP's words), Hillary Clinton:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

As Kos says:

How is that not race-baiting?

Are African Americans not hard working? Are Americans with college degrees not hard working? And this obsession with race!

Kos also has two posts that dispute that notion quite well, here and here.

Mrs. F just stated for the record that she's lost all respect for Senator Clinton. It's sad for me to say it, but she and her husband, a man who I vociferously defended for the larger part of a decade, are now dead to me.

[ADDENDUM] Even Joe Conason, another staunch defender of the Clintons, has had enough in his weekly Salon column:

Citing an Associated Press analysis "that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me," she went on to say: "There's a pattern emerging here."

There is indeed a pattern emerging -- and it is a pattern that must dismay everyone who admires the Clintons and has defended them against the charge that they are exploiting racial divisions.

As Sean Wilentz and others have argued, there was no ugly subtext to her innocuous remark about the different roles of Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Baines Johnson in the civil rights crusade, although several prominent Obama supporters promoted that smear. And if Bill Clinton's comparison of Obama and Jesse Jackson was badly timed and clumsy, that too fell within the bounds of acceptable commentary. Indeed, the discussion of ethnic and racial voting preferences is not only fair but unavoidable and utterly mundane in American politics.

But this time she violated the rhetorical rules, no doubt by mistake. It was her offhand reference to "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans" that raises the specter of old Dixie demagogues like Wallace and Lester Maddox. Was she dog-whistling to the voters of Kentucky and West Virginia?

While I still cannot believe she actually intended any such nefarious meaning, she seemed to be equating "hard-working Americans" with "white Americans." Which is precisely what Wallace and his cohort used to do with their drawling refrain about welfare and affirmative action. This is the grating sound of Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, even though Tricky Dick would never quite stoop to saying such things in public.

Amen, Brother Schieffer

2008-04-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

Finally, today, I watched the ABC debate the other night when that question came up again about why Senator Obama doesn’t wear a flag pin in his lapel. Since no one asked me, here is my thought on all that. I think it’s a nice thing if people want to wear a flag on their lapel. But I believe it more important to keep the flag behind our lapel in our hearts. I feel the same way about wearing my religion on my sleeve. It just fits me better on the inside. When I go to see our local baseball team, I do wear my Washington Nationals baseball cap. But am I less a fan if don’t wear it to work? The truth is I have been known to wear a red, white and blue stars and stripes tie on the Fourth of July. But am I less patriotic when I trade it for my Santa Claus tie at Christmas? Patriotism is no more about signs or pins than religion is about reminding others how pious we think we are. No, the proof in these puddings is not the signs that we wear, but how we act. Wouldn’t that also be a better way to judge our presidential candidates than by the jewelry they wear?

How 'Bout Them Apples?

2008-04-20T20:41:00.001-07:00

What's Missing?

2008-04-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

Images from George Snuffleupagus' interview with John McCain on ABC's This Week:

Via Crooks and Liars. Here's a clue if you're scratching your head.

Here's one thing that isn't missing: hypocrisy.

[PS] Oh, by the by, it seems Hillary wasn't showing her patriotism the other night during the debate.

Our Idiocracy

2008-04-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

From Dan Froomkin:

The latest data points include a poll that shows the public is profoundly unhappy about the economy and continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, a study from the Pentagon's premier military educational institute that describes the Iraq war as "a major debacle" whose outcome "is in doubt," and a government audit disclosing that the Bush administration lacks a comprehensive plan to combat terrorism in the parts of Pakistan where al-Qaeda is regenerating its ability to attack the United States.

As usual, of course, none of this permeates the Bush Bubble. When asked yesterday whether he saw any end in sight in Iraq, he responded: "So long as I'm the president, my measure of success is victory -- and success."

How True

2008-04-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

And from a recent ABC/WaPo poll:

Nine in 10 Americans now give the economy a negative rating, with a majority saying it is in "poor" shape, the most to say so in more than 15 years. And the sense that things are bad has spread swiftly. The percentage who hold a negative view of the economy is up 33 points over the past year, and the percentage who rate the economy "poor" has increased 13 points in the past two months. That is the quickest 60-day decline since The Post and ABC started asking the question, in 1985.
[...]
Two-thirds of Democrats call the economy downright "poor," as do a majority of independents. But while a wide majority of Republicans rate the economy negatively, only about three in 10 describe conditions as that dire, and most have a positive take on the future. Most Democrats and independents, however, hold pessimistic views about the next 12 months.

Economic ratings are flagging across partisan lines, and overall optimism is at a new low among all Americans: Nearly six in 10 said they feel pessimistic about the economy for the coming year, a seven-point increase since early February. And those who think the situation is already in poor shape do not have high hopes for recovery anytime soon; nearly three-quarters of them have a negative view about the next 12 months.

How to Get Elected: Make Shit Up

2008-04-14T16:28:00.000-07:00

Hey, it worked for George W., it might just work for Hillary. From a campaign stop in Indiana today, as covered by ABC News:

President Clinton, Hillary's number one surrogate, then used O'Bannon's remarks as a springboard to share his own experiences of reactions to Obama's comments at a recent San Francisco fundraiser where he said small town voters were "bitter" and "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Over seven stops in North Carolina, Clinton said "Everywhere I go there are all these people with signs, saying I'm not bitter - I'm not bitter."

[...]

The strong sentiments were appreciated by the crowd, but were not entirely accurate. During Clinton's seven stops in North Carolina on Saturday there were no "I'm not bitter" signs. There was a small assortment of people at his later events wearing stickers with the slogan, but many of those sporting the stickers weren't even sure what they meant. Clinton also was a bit confused about his encounter in Pennsylvania. The conversation actually took place at an earlier event in Bloomsburg, PA - or so Clinton told the crowd in Bloomsburg.

Despite the evolving anecdotes, the fact that the Clinton campaign needs this story to stay alive in Indiana and other rural states was crystal clear.

I Misspoke, But Wait... Isn't That a Scary Black Preacher Over There?!?!

2008-03-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton has been taking some deserved lumps for misspeaking (aka, lying) about her national security cred the last couple of days. Rather than ducking sniper fire on the airport tarmac in Bosnia, video evidence suggests that she was welcomed instead by an 8-year-old bearing a poem (which can sometimes be just as dangerous). Here's Olbermann on the charade:

She says she only misspoke the one time, but AmericaBlog has found that she's been using this sniper-fire line for several months. And in explaining her misstatement, she noted this:

I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but there was this 8 year old girl and I can't rush by her, I have to at least greet her, so I took her stuff and then I left.

The First Lady took this 8-year-old's stuff and then ran for safety, leaving the girl helpless out on the tarmac?

So, with all the rather damning video evidence to the contrary floating about the YouTube-osphere, there's only one way for the Clinton campaignhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif to respond: remind everyone how the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is an awful, unpatriotic, angry black man who preached to Barrack Obama. The TPM omnibus has a couple of examples--one from a surrogate and another from Clinton herself in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

I'm sure we'll be dredging this back up again and again this week.

As an aside, I was listening to , where Steve Scher invites several local columnists to chat about the week that was, as well as take a few calls. One call came in from a United Church of Christ (UCC) pastor (the same denomination as Obama's church, as well as the church that I not-so-regularly attend of late), and he had a very interesting take on why Obama was "hanging around with this guy:"

What Obama is really doing is expressing what is the heart of who we are as the United Church of Christ. We're based on a covenantal policy, which means you hang in there with one another because you may possibly not have all the truth yet, that God is bigger than all of us. And I can illustrate that by saying that in Washington, most of the UCC church members belong to churches who are open and affirming to the gay and lesbian community, and we have ordained clergy and so forth. About 75 percent of our members belong to congregations which do that. In the rest of the country, it's about 12 percent. The difference is, the good news is, we don't split over that. We have sharp disagreements, but for about 40 years we've been getting along even though we disagree on a subject where people have very, very strong feelings. Obama's doing exactly the same thing. He belongs to a United Church of Christ (church) and he will stay in covenant with that pastor even though he sharply disagrees. It's a little like a marriage.

Numbers

2008-03-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

Round numbers make news, there's no getting around it. But just because we've now reached the newest magic round number of 4,000 American military casualties in Iraq should not take away from the daily tragedies that have brought us to this point. And today's commemoration of this number shouldn't be the last time we revisit the subject of death and mayhem in Iraq for months to come. There are a lot of pressing worries on the American public's mind these days, foremost the economy (but don't forget angry African American preachers, too), but in order to address our down-spiraling economy we're going to need to extricate ourselves from Iraq sooner than later. Which will also, thankfully, bring an end to the numbers game.

As a reminder of the toll of 4,000 (as well as a reminder of who got us here and who will continue the carnage), here's a photo mosaic created by Nico Pitney over at the HuffPo (click through for a much larger canvas):

John McCain: The Fogey of War

2008-03-22T10:13:00.000-07:00

From Bill Maher's New Rules:

This. Is. Awwwwwwesssssome!

2008-03-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

I've been chatting with several folks the last couple of days about how Barack Obama can counter-punch the Clinton Kitchen Sink attack of the last couple of weeks (with its mix of racial overtones, hubristic yet nonsensical claims, and flat-out falsehoods). Well, here's one way to do it: Snarked Up! Ready to Go!

In a response to a press release by the Clinton team, the Obama communications team took the missive verbatim and added its own commentary to pierce the gently floating balloon of Clinton's last hopes for the nomination (via Ben Smith at Politico):

From: Bill Burton
Sent: Wed 3/12/2008 6:36 PM
To: Bill Burton
Subject: FW: The Clinton Memo... as annotated by the Obama communicationsdepartment

To: Interested Parties
From: Clinton Campaign
Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Re: Keystone Test: Obama Losing Ground [Get ready for a good one.]

The path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue goes through Pennsylvania so if Barack Obama can't win there, how will he win the general election?

[Answer: I suppose by holding obviously Democratic states like California and New York, and beating McCain in swing states like Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia and Wisconsin where Clinton lost to Obama by mostly crushing margins. But good question.]

After setbacks in Ohio and Texas, Barack Obama needs to demonstrate that he can win the state of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the last state with more than 15 electoral votes on the primary calendar and Barack Obama has lost six of the seven other largest states so far - every state except his home state of Illinois.

[If you define "setback" as netting enough delegates out of our 20-plus-point wins in Mississippi and Wyoming to completely erase any delegate advantage the Clinton campaign earned out of March 4th, then yeah, we feel pretty setback.]

Pennsylvania is of particular importance, along with Ohio, Florida and Michigan, because it is dominated by the swing voters who are critical to a Democratic victory in November. No Democrat has won the presidency without winning Pennsylvania since 1948. And no candidate has won the Democratic nomination without winning Pennsylvania since 1972.

[What the Clinton campaign secretly means: PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT WE'VE LOST 14 OF THE LAST 17 CONTESTS AND SAID THAT MICHIGAN AND FLORIDA WOULDN'T COUNT FOR ANYTHING. Also, we're still trying to wrap our minds around the amazing coincidence that the only "important" states in the nominating process are the ones that Clinton won.]

But the Obama campaign has just announced that it is turning its attention away from Pennsylvania.

[Huh?]

This is not a strategy that can beat John McCain in November.

[I don't think Clinton's strategy of losing in state after state after promising more of the same politics is working all that well either.]

In the last two weeks, Barack Obama has lost ground among men, women, Democrats, independents and Republicans - all of which point to a candidacy past its prime.

["A candidacy past its prime." These guys kill me.]

For example, just a few weeks ago, Barack Obama won 68% of men in Virginia, 67% in Wisconsin and 62% in Maryland. He won 60% of Virginia women and 55% of Maryland women. He won 62% of independents in Maryland, 64% in Wisconsin and 69% in Virginia. Obama won 59% of Democrats in Maryland, 53% in Wisconsin and 62% in Virginia. And among Republicans, Obama won 72% in both Virginia and Wisconsin.

But now Obama's support has dropped among all these groups.

[That's true, if you don't count all the winning we've been up to. As it turns out, it's difficult to maintain 40-point demographic advantages, even over Clinton]

In Mississippi, he won only 25% of Republicans and barely half of independents. In Ohio, he won only 48% of men, 41% of women and 42% of Democrats. In Texas, he won only 49% of independents and 46% of Democrats. And in Rhode Island, Obama won just 33% of women and 37% of Democrats.

[I'm sympathetic to their attempt to parse crushing defeats. And I'm sure Rush Limbaugh's full-throated endorsement of Clinton didn't make any difference. Right]

Why are so many voters turning away from Barack Obama in state after state?

[You mean besides the fact that we're ahead in votes, states won and delegates?]

In the last few weeks, questions have arisen about Obama's readiness to be president. In Virginia, 56% of Democratic primary voters said Obama was most qualified to be commander-in-chief. That number fell to 37% in Ohio, 35% in Rhode Island and 39% in Texas.

[Only the Clinton campaign could cherry pick states like this. But in contrast to their logic, in the most recent contest of Mississippi, voters said that Obama was more qualified to be commander in chief than Clinton by a margin of 55-42.]

So the late deciders - those making up their minds in the last days before the election - have been shifting to Hillary Clinton. Among those who made their decision in the last three days, Obama won 55% in Virginia and 53% in Wisconsin, but only 43% in Mississippi, 40% in Ohio, 39% in Texas and 37% in Rhode Island.

[If only there were enough late deciders for the Clinton campaign to actually be ahead, they would really be on to something.]

If Barack Obama cannot reverse his downward spiral with a big win in Pennsylvania, he cannot possibly be competitive against John McCain in November.

[If they are defining downward spiral as a series of events in which the Clinton campaign has lost more votes, lost more contests and lost more delegates to us - I guess we will have to suffer this horribly painful slide all the way to the nomination and then on to the White House.]

[Thanks for the laughs guys. This was great.]

Amen, Sister Collins

2008-03-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

Mrs. F and I subscribe to both the Saturday and Sunday editions of the NYTimes, and I've been enjoying the return of columnist Gail Collins to the Saturday edition (as well as a revitalized-of-late Bob Herbert). In this weekend's column, Collins provides a snarky take on where we're at with the process for selecting our Democratic nominee, and I love her final line of the column:

So what about the voters? In Florida, although none of the candidates campaigned and there were no delegates at stake, 1.7 million Democrats still turned out for the primary, which Clinton won. We will refrain from making obvious references to Florida, disenfranchisement, presidential elections, etc. In Michigan, where Obama wasn’t even on the ballot, Clinton beat her only major opposition, the fearsome Uncommitted, by an underwhelming 55-40 percent.

Michigan and Florida say they’ll only accept a do-over if somebody else pays for it — to the tune of around $28 million. We will refrain from making the obvious references to Iraq, purple fingers, several trillion dollars, etc., etc.

Some people are proposing a compromise in the form of cost-cutting caucuses. Do not let them have any caucuses! Retirees will topple off the cafeteria chairs if you have caucuses in Florida.

Clinton says the party should just forgive and forget, and hand over her delegates.

The good news is: While Barack may understand the audacity of hope, only Hillary really gets the audacity of audacity.

Stumping for Obama

2008-03-01T16:49:00.000-08:00

A fave of mine, Kal Penn (aka, Kumar from the dopey road movies and now Kutner on House); from an NYTimes article about the importance of Rhode Island in next Tuesday's primaries.

A Pox Upon Your Caucus

2008-02-10T15:19:00.000-08:00

The Seattle Times' Danny Westneat on Washington's caucus system:

In the media coverage of the caucuses, it will be said there was "record turnout" and "lines around the block." Someone will say they've never seen such robust civic participation.

All that is true — for a caucus. But the reality is the percentage of voters who weighed in Saturday to pick a president was far lower than is typical even for off-year votes for things like school levies.

An estimated 10 percent of registered voters took part — obliterating the old record for a caucus. Still, that is about a million fewer voters than cast ballots in the 2000 presidential primary (which was a normal election, not a gathering in school gyms and churches).

[...]

Clinton backer and first-time caucuser Ivan Vulovic, 22, said the entire caucus system should be scrapped.

"This is horrible," he said. "It's not democratic. I think we should hold a regular election instead of this."

Well, we tried. But the parties — especially the Democratic Party — didn't like it. When choosing their nominees, they want to limit who participates — no independents or crossover voters — as well as get your names and addresses so they can telemarket you and grow their organizations.

While my chest swelled to see this outpouring of democracy from my neighbors, it's definitely not convenient and thus shuts out many who either couldn't make it because of scheduling or just didn't have the time to spend 2 to 3 hours devoted to the process due to things like physical ailments, child care, etc.