Obama Picks Out Gay Black Male As Federal Judge

William L. Thomas

President Obama is continuing to make history with his judicial nominations. On Wednesday the White House announced that the President has selected Florida Circuit Court judge William L. Thomas to become a United States district court judge for the Southern District of Florida, the first openly gay, black male to receive such a prestigious nomination.

The first openly gay, Black female judge was nominated by President Bill Clinton way back in 1992. Her name is Deborah Batts and for decades she was the only openly LGBT members of the federal judiciary.

Here's his official biography from the White House announcement:

Judge William L. Thomas:  Nominee for the United States District Court for the Southern District of FloridaJudge William L. Thomas has served as a Circuit Judge in Florida’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit since 2005, where he has presided over both civil and criminal matters.  For seven years, from 1997 to 2005, he served as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Southern District of Florida, where he represented indigent clients in federal criminal cases.  Judge Thomas began his legal career as an Assistant Public Defender at the Miami-Dade County Public Defender’s Office in 1994.  He received his J.D. in 1994 from the Temple University School of Law and his B.A. in 1991 from Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania.

From his graduation in 1991 one could estimate the judge's age to be about 43 or 42 years old. Congratulations to Judge Thomas! (May his confirmation be quick and unanimous!)

Hat/tip to Chris Geidner.

Godless Wednesday: Lone Atheist Loses House Seat

Congressman Pete Stark has long been identified as the lone member of Congress to openly associate himself with the label "atheist." Stark had represented a district in Northern California in the U.S. House since 1973(!) but in last week's congressional election he lost an all-Democrat match-up (courtesy California's new top 2 general election format) to Eric Salwell by almost 10,000 votes.

Interestingly, Kyrsten Sinema, the first openly bisexual person elected to Congress (that we have been following on this blog since she won her primary earlier this year) has reportedly flirted with being an openly atheist member as well. She won her race (over a Black male Republican!) by a mere 6,000 votes and for several days after the election it was too close to call.

During her race Sinema described herself as a "notnheist" but now her campaign spokesperson is claiming the Congressperson-elect is rejecting that label.

While Sinema's campaign was initially unavailable for comment after Tuesday's election, spokesman Justin Unga said Friday that Sinema does not consider herself a nonbeliever, adding that she prefers a "secular approach.'' 

"Kyrsten believes the terms non-theist, atheist or nonbeliever are not befitting of her life's work or personal character,'' Unga said in email. "She does not identify as any of the above."

And doesn't that just speak volumes? After making headlines all over the country (and world) as the first openly bisexual person elected to the United States lower legislative body, Sinema apparently feels like it would be a "bridge too far" to also be known as someone who is also godless.

Hat/tip to Friendly Atheist

LOOK: The Partisan Racial Divide in the 2012 Vote

The Washington Post's The Fix summarizes the Republican Party's current and future problems in winning elections at the national level by demonstrating the partisan racial divide in the 2012 exit polls of the presidential vote.

That only 11 percent of Republicans’ total vote came from non-whites tells you everything you need to know about the large-scale demographic challenges that Republicans must confront. (The fact that 44 percent of all Democratic votes came from non-whites paints the Republican challenge in even starker terms.) That the white vote as a total of the overall votes has declined in every election since 1992 and dropped to just 72 percent in 2012 just adds to Republicans’ problems.

Hat/tip to The Fix

The New U.S. Map Of Marriage Equality

The New York Times reports on the current map for marriage equality and analyzes what is in store in the near future for marriage equality in the United States:

Nine states and Washington, D.C., have now legalized same-sex marriage. Though it remains unpopular in the South, rights campaigners see the potential for legislative gains in Delaware; Hawaii; Illinois; Rhode Island; Minnesota, where they beat back a restrictive amendment last Tuesday; and New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in February.
[...]
Beyond seeking repeal of Oregon’s marriage amendment, rights activists feel they can win in a repeat ballot in California if the courts do not first invalidate Proposition 8, the 2008 referendum that banned same-sex marriage, but faces a legal challenge.

It is true that the next bridge to cross will be the repeal of a previously passed constitutional ban on marriage equality. It is likely that will either happen in Oregon or California.

If the courts don't eliminate Proposition 8 for us first I would support going forward with a ballot measure to repeal it in 2014, as long as my three previous pre-conditions are met (polling showing support for marriage equality at 50% above the margin of error, significant cash on hand for the campaign at the beginning and a comprehensive, inclusive plan for how the organization running the campaign would be structured and managed).

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

2012 ATP TOUR FINALS: Djokovic Wins 2nd Crown

Defying my prediction and their previous career head-to-head record World #1 Novak Djokovic defeated World #2 Roger Federer 7-6(6) 7-5 to win  the 2012 ATP World Tour Finals in London. Djokovic came back from being down an early break in both sets and even saved 2 set points in the second set to win the set and thus the match.

Djokovic's 75th match win of the year (4 more than Federer) cemented his hold on the #1 spot and could propel him to a third consecutive year-end #1. It was his 6th ATP Tour title of the year, matching Federer's total, and 34th career title.  It was Djokovic's 2nd year-end championship, a title he had won before in 2008.

The Federer-Djokovic rivalry was ever present in 2012, where they played 5 times, with 3 being won by Djokovic. They split the finals 1-1 as well as the grand slam meetings. Djokovic's win raised his career head to head to 13 wins and 16 losses in the 29 times they have met so far, including 25 consecutive times in either finals or semifinals. It will be interesting to see if the 31-year-old Federer will still remain competitive with his 25-year-old rivals (Djokovic and Andy Murray) in 2013 and beyond.

7 Days After Election: Geography of the Vote

The presidential election is over (although votes are still being counted) and President Obama has won with 332 electoral votes to Romney-Ryan's 206. Florida was finally called for the Bue team sometime on the weekend.

The graphics above show the geographic distribution of the electoral college votes (which decide the election) by state and the popular vote for President by county. It just goes to show you that there are lots of very large counties (in rural areas) which are overwhelmingly Republican while overwhelmingly Democratic counties tend to be compact (in urban areas).

Obama's Vote % of White People and Uneducated

There are some interesting analyses of the presidential vote which illustrate the contours of President Obama's re-election victory and the characteristics of the coalition he brought together to carry him to 332 electoral votes and nearly 51% of the popular vote.

Previously I had blogged about the crucial role of the LGB population (5% of the electorate) voting 76% to 22% for Obama-Biden 2012 but today I want to talk about the people who did NOT vote for the President.

The graphic at the top of this post indicates that all of the top 10 states that have the highest percentages of people with college degrees (MA, MD, CO, CT, VT, NJ, VA, NY, MN) voted for Obama, while 9 of the bottom 10 (WV, MS, AR, KY, LA, AL, IN, TN, OK) voted for Romney-Ryan 2012.

Additionally, Charles Blow in The New York Times noted some other interesting features of the election results:

 This year was the first presidential election in which there were more Asian-American voters (11 percent) in California than African-American ones (8 percent). In 2008, 6 percent were Asian-American and 10 percent were African-American. In fact, there were more Asian-American voters than African-American voters in Washington and Oregon, the other two Pacific Coast states, this year, too. 

[...] 

In fact, Obama won the white vote only in states with small minority voting populations. The others Obama won were Iowa (93 percent white), New Hampshire (93 percent white), Oregon (88 percent white), Connecticut (79 percent white) and Washington State (76 percent white). 

[...] 

 Obama won all four states that begin with “New” (New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York), but he lost all five that begin with a direction (North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia).

It's interesting that conservatives have been focussing on how how people of color voted for the first Black president but they haven't noticed how places (in)famous for unapologetic racial prejudice voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney. For example, Obama won a mere 10% of the white vote in Mississippi.

Hat/tip to Wonder Man and Sentient Meat.

Eye Candy: Denham Ravi (reprise)

Denham Ravi is a 28-year-old fitness model of Sri Lankan descent who lives in Australia. He's appeared briefly as Eye Candy here before (on March 23, 2009). He lists himself as 5'10" and 172 pounds on a bodybuilding website, and he does have an amazing physique. However, to me his best asset is his stunning coloring: the jet black hair with very white teeth and a honeyed skin tone that glows with health.

As we say around here, "Hawt is hawt!"

ATP TOUR FINALS 2012: Federer-Djokovic Final

The semifinals of the ATP World Tour Finals featured Novak Djokovic versus Juan Martin del Potro and Roger Federer versus Andy Murray. I had predicted that whomever faced Djokovic would be unable to prevent the new World #1 to reach the final. The first semifinal was a reprise of the Bronze Medal match from the London 2012 Olympics. Del Potro stunned Djokovic that day to claim a rare Olympic medal for Argentina, but no one expected him to be able to repeat that performance. However, del Potro put up a much bigger fight than I expected, going up a set and a break before succumbing to yet another Djokovic comeback 4-6 6-3 6-2.

The other semifinal was a reprise of the 2012 Wimbledon final and the 2012 Gold Medal match at the London Olympics. Murray had won the last two meetings he had with Federer and had lead their overall head-to-head 10-8. I had predicted that he would win this showdown as well and he started the match being very aggressive and broke the Swiss Great's serve in the very first game. Murray maintained his advantage through the 8th game when he was broken and the match remained even until the first set tiebreak which was won by Federer. Murray lost his serve in the very first game of the second set and then went down a second break in the 7th game. Thanks to excellent serving by Federer, he lost a sum total of 2 points on his serve during the entire set and ended up winning the match 7-6(5) 6-2.

So the last tour match of the year will be played between World #1 and World #2. Federer leads Djokovic head-to-head 16-12 and has won the last two meetings, at the 2012 Wimbledon semifinals and the 2012 Cincinnati Masters final, after losing the other 2 times they played this year (2012 French Open semifinals and 2012 Rome Masters semifinals).

Djokovic is undefeated so far this year at the tour-ending championships while Federer has won this tournament for the last two years in a row and a record 6 times in his career. However, Federer lost a tough 3-set match to Del Potro in the round-robin round and has not been playing his sharpest tennis this year.

I still believe that if Federer plays his best tennis and Djokovic plays his best tennis that Federer will win. Spaces where he is very comfortable (like Wimbledon's Centre Court and London's O2 Arena) can bring out some of his best tennis. Federer should also be on a high after again proving his ability to thwart Murray and almost certainly wants to repeat the result with Djokovic.

MadProfessah's prediction: Federer.

Queer Quote: Legalizing Gay Marriage & Marijuana

This funny comment is going viral on the interwebs:

It all makes sense now: Gay marriage legalized on the same day as marijuana makes perfect biblical sense. Leviticus 20:13 "A man who lays with another man should be stoned". Our interpretation has just been wrong for all these years.

The quote is attributed to Katie Stephens and appeared on George Takei's Facebook stream.

ATP TOUR FINALS 2012: Nole, Raja, Andy in Semis

Novak Djokovic qualified for the semifinals by  going 3-0 in the round-robin section of the 2012 ATP World Tour Finals in London, beating his rival Andy Murray for the 4th time in 7 meetings this year as well as Tomas Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Murray also qualified for the semifinals, by beating Berdych and Tsonga. Berdych beat Tsonga for the 3rd consecutive time in an important match, leaving last year's World Tour finalist winless in the tournament this year.

Roger Federer is already through to the semifinals by winning his first two matches without dropping a set and today will face Juan Martin del Potro. David Ferrer faces Janko Tipsarevich in the other round-robin match.

If Federer wins a set off of del Potro he will be at the top of his group and thus play Murray in the semis while Djokovic will play either Del Potro or Ferrer (whichever wins by losing the fewest number of sets or games).

So, the most likely semifinal match-ups are Djokovic vs Ferrer and Murray vs Federer with a Djokovic-Murray final match for the title of player of the year on the line.

ANALYSIS: LGB Vote Crucial To Obama Victory

A quick analysis of the exit poll data from the 2012 presidential election by Gary Gates of the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School shows that the votes of the LGBT population (which was estimated to be 5% of the electorate (or 4.5 million votes), more than the Jewish or Asian-American populations) were crucial in Obama's popular vote win nationwide by 3 million votes.

As the above graphic shows, 76% of LGBT voters went for Obama-Biden 2012 while an astonishing 22% voted for Romney-Ryan 2012. So, among all voters the Democratic ticket had a 51%-48% advantage but among non-LGB voters the Republican ticket had a close 50-49% advantage, which means that if there were no LGB voters in the sample or if the margin of support had been significantly lower, Obama would not have won re-election.

Of course, mathematically this is not surprising. When an election is so close (51-48) then any group which overwhelmingly goes for the winning side (LGB voters, Latino voters, African American voters, Asian American voters, voters under age 29) can be considered to have provided the winning margin. But that is also precisely the point of building a winning coalition: identify your base voters that you will win by 40+ points and make sure that they turn out.

Gates points out that the LGB vote was aso important in the Blue team winning Florida:

The national LGBT vote was crucial to President Obama’s popular vote victory on Election Day, according to new analysis from Gary J. Gates, distinguished scholar at the Williams Institute. In a contest of razor-thin margins, the 4.5 million votes cast by the LGBT population was a critical component of the president’s winning coalition.

Similarly, analysis of preliminary returns from Florida show that the 420,000 total LGBT votes cast in the state may be a deciding factor in President Obama’s projected lead in Florida. Though final results aren’t yet known, an estimated 300,000 LGBT Floridians voted for the president—a margin many times larger than the current vote difference between the two candidates.

We can only talk about LGB voters because the exit poll did not ask about transgender voters.
Interesting, voters who support marriage equality also went for the Obama-Biden ticket in large numbers:

Another interesting feature of this result is that marriage equality is ahead 49%-46% but is not a majority position by the 2012 electorate so that the campaigns that won in Maryland, Maine, Minnesota and Washington actually did better than the national average.

It also goes to show that the President and the Democratic party being in favor of marriage equality is a vote-winning position.

Celebrity Friday: Gay Man Selected CO Speaker

Mark Ferrandino, openly gay Speaker of the Colorado House

Democrat Mark Ferradino has been elected as the first openly gay Speaker of the Colorado House. One of the little noticed results of the elections was the advances Democrats made in state legislatures around the country. This was particularly notable in Colorado, especially for gay Democrats.

Before Tuesday, Republicans had previously had a very slim 1-vote majority in the House and the Republican Speaker of the House had used that power to kill a pending civil unions bill in the legislature last year. After Tuesday the Democrats won a 37-28 advantage in the state House and have chosen openly gay Mark Ferrandino to lead their caucus and become the first openly gay Speaker of the Colorado House:

“Twenty years ago, Amendment 2 passed in Colorado,” an emotional Mr. Ferrandino said after his election, referring to a 1992 state constitutional amendment passed by voters that banned laws protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination. “And now we have our first openly gay speaker. I think that is an amazing turnaround for our state. It speaks volumes for how much we’ve grown.”

Amendment 2, which led some to call Colorado “the hate state,” was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. A separate 2006 amendment to the state Constitution defined marriage as being only between a man and a woman.

Mr. Ferrandino said that the economy and education were legislative priorities, but that in terms of expanding rights for gay men and lesbians, “civil unions is the thing we really are pushing for.”

Now that is what I call pay back! Amazingly, Colorado almost had gay men as heads of both houses of the legislature as openly gay Pat Steadman ran to become President of the Colorado Senate but lost the vote in the 20-member Senate Democratic caucus to John Morse.

Openly gay Speaker of the House John Perez congratulated Ferrandino and also acknowledged that Oregon State Representative Tina Kotek may become the nation's first openly lesbian Speaker of the House soon.

Queer Quote: Frank Schubert Reacts To Epic Fail

Frank Schubert is the man behind the anti-gay, deceptive ads promoting the heterosexual supremacist position on all four ballot measures in Maryland, Maine, Minnesota and Washington.
After losing all four ballot measures, Schubert issued an official statement which  is today's "Queer Quote":

"I am, of course, very disappointed with the very narrow defeat it appears we’ve suffered in each of these four states. It appears that we have lost by a point or two in each state. It’s important to consider that these battles occurred in a very difficult political landscape. We were contesting in four deep blue states and were outspent very badly in all of them – at least four-to-one, and greater in some states. I have to accept that losing in this very difficult political environment was always a real possibility. 

"I firmly reject the spin surely to come that this result signals a fundamental shift in American opinion in support of gay marriage. It means that we very narrowly lost four difficult contests in four very deep blue states after being badly outspent. Despite the outcome, I am extremely grateful to all the donors, volunteers, staff, vendors and committee members who were part of our team. I am honored to have played a role in these campaigns to preserve marriage in America. It is an institution worth defending, and I look forward to continuing to play a role in this historic debate." 

Of course you would probably continue the fight for discrimination too if you made more than $3 million this year alone!

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Nate Silver Vindicated: Prediction Matches Reality

Elections have consequences. I strongly suggest that there should be consequences for pundits like Newt Gingrich, Michael Barone, Karl Rove and Dick Morris who all made outlandish predictions based on "secret" data that Mitt Romney would win the presidential election, with some of these fantasy-based commentators suggesting the Republican would win a landslide.

The media should refuse to take anything these people (and other partisan hacks who eschew a reality-based view of the world in lieu of an attempt to choose their own "facts") say in the future about politics without acknowledging how wrong they had previously been in their analysis of the 2012 election.

Nate Silver, on the other hand, should probably be awarded a special McArthur "genius grant" fellowship for the accuracy of his predictions and for what he has done to promote the importance of mathematics and quantitative thinking to millions of Americans.

This tweet, demonstrating the unerring accuracy of Silver's predictions of the 2012 presidential election results compared to the actual results, is pretty stunning.

For the Nate-haters, here’s the 538 prediction and actual results side by side twitter.com/cosentino/stat…
— Michael Cosentino (@cosentino) November 7, 2012

GRAPHIC: Why Republicans Lost

MN Anti-Gay Prop 8 Copycat Measure Defeated!

In a historic win, Minnesota voters rejected a ballot measure modeled after California's Proposition 8 to insert a discriminatory ban on marriage equality into their state constitution on Tuesday. For the second time in 33 electoral contests about same-sex marriage (Arizona in 2006 being the first) voters chose the pro-gay position despite misleading (and dishonest) appeals to voters by the coalition of religious extremists and heterosexual supremacists who oppose marriage equality nationwide and in individual states.

Polling right before the election indicated that the measure was likely to fail and the final results indicated that the pre-election polls were generally accurate:

Results on Minnesota's Amendment 1: 1,507,189 NO 51% to 1,400,668 YES (48%)

The opponents to the measure outraised the proponents $11 million to $5 million. Another key feature of Minnesota's battle was that the Yes vote needed to outnumber the number of no votes cast for Amendment 1 and all other races. In other words, the Yes votes needed to be a majority of all the votes cast in the election, which is substantially higher bar than that which occurred in other electoral contests over marriage equality in other states.

It was a big night for progressive causes in Minnesota with not only the anti-gay marriage amendment failing but so did a voter identification amendment and Democrats took control of both houses of the legislature following two years of a rancorous and divisive Republican majority. With a Democratic governor in Mark Dayton who supports marriage equality,  as well as a Democratic legislature, Minnesota may become a new flashpoint for passage of state recognition of same-sex couples in the form of civil marriage or civil unions in the next two years.

Congratulations to the North Star State!

Marriage Equality Approved In Maine and Maryland

LGBT history was made last night when voters in Maine and Maryland voted to approve marriage equality at the ballot box for the first time in history.

Question 1 Results in Maine:      312,021 (53%)   YES  to  272,613 (47%) NO
Question 6 Results in Maryland: 1,208,068 (52%) YES to 1,112,998 (48%) NO

The victory in Maine was particularly sweet since in November 2009 a referendum on that state's enacted marriage law was rejected by a vote of 53% to 47%.

The victory in Maryland was even more exciting because there had been numerous questions raised about the way the campaign was run with Freedom to Marry, the primary organization in charge of the campaign to win marriage equality nationwide, initially refused to engage in the battle in the state. However, as polls consistently showed that Maryland's Question 6 was ahead (albeit far less ahead than Maine's Question 1) the LGBT activist community coalesced around Maryland and important high-profile donations from billionaires raised the profile of Maryland's attempt to make history.

With wins in Maine and Maryland there are now 8 states in which marriage equality is legal (or will be soon). Marriage is also legal in the District of Columbia and there are nearly 18,000 married same-sex couples in California and there may be many more married lesbian and gay couples soon depending on the Supreme Court's decision to take up the Proposition 8 appeal.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Baldwin Becomes 1st Openly Lesbian Senator

Tammy Baldwin made history by becoming the first openly LGBT candidate to be elected to the United States Senate tonight. She also became the first woman to be elected statewide in Wisconsin.

And I’m well aware that I will be the first openly gay member of the United States Senate. #Tammy2012 #WIsen
— Tammy Baldwin(@TammyBaldwinWI) November 7, 2012

Obama Re-Elected President of the United States!

President Barack Obama made history by winning re-election, as predicted by Nate Silver and most pre-election polling. Obama won at least 303 electoral votes, including most of the swing states of Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Wisconsin and Iowa. Florida was too close to call late into the night, but the president maintained a strong lead there with 91% of the vote counted with Democratic-leaning counties yet to fully report.

Spain's Top Court Upholds Marriage Equality Law

Good news! When the conservatives in the Popular Party (PP) won Spain's parliamentary elections last year they vowed to overturn the country's marriage equality law which has been in effect since 2005. They first did so by appointing conservative judges to Spain's high court which has been considering an appeal to the law's constitutionality that was filed shortly by the PP after the law went into effect more than 7 years ago.

Today comes word that by a vote of 8-3 the law was upheld by Spain's Constitutional Court in Madrid:

Spain’s Parliament passed the gay marriage law in 2005 when it was Socialist-controlled, with Popular Party deputies opposed. The Popular Party took power late last year after the Socialists were ousted over their handling of the economy. 

The gay marriage law angered the predominant Roman Catholic Church but opinion surveys showed most Spaniards backed it. Belgium and the Netherlands approved gay marriage laws before Spain. 

More than 22,000 gay marriages have taken place in Spain.

The PP could still try to pass a new law through Parliament repealing marriage equality in the country, but since then other countries in Europe have also ratified marriage equality, including neighboring Portugal in 2010, Sweden in 2009, Denmark in 2012 and Norway in 2008. In 2010 fellow Spanish-speaking country Argentina enacted marriage equality and France is poised to consider legislation to do so soon, although the political debate and religious opposition is growing more fractious as the possibility of marriage equality becomes more realistic in that country.

Regardless, today we can celebrate that Spain has marriage equality, which is one of the reasons why my husband and myself spent a week visiting the country (Barcelona and Madrid) earlier this year!

0 Days Until Election: Obama 290, Romney 191

Today is election day and the TPM Electoral Scoreboard indicates that Obama-Biden will win the election with at least 290 electoral votes. The only undecided states at this time are Florida (29), Virginia (13) and North Carolina (15) with the only change from the electoral prediction I posted 2 days ago was that Virginia has slipped from being in the Blue column to the yellow column. The Romney-Ryan team has essentially been stuck at 191 electoral votes for the last week.

Happily, since Virginia's polls close at 7pm on election day it is very possible that the networks may be able to call these states rather early in the evening, and since Romney basically need to win all three of these states and flip a blue state red, the overall presidential election results may be known at that time.

That will not mean there will not be a lot more races to follow even after the presidential election is called. I will be interested in the four marriage initiative results (in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington), whether Tammy Baldwin gets elected to become the first lesbian U.S. Senator and what happens with important California propositions (Prop 30, 34 and 36).

What results are you looking out for in today's elections?

Final Poll On MN Prop 8 Copycat Shows Defeat Likely

The final poll on the ballot measure which would amend the state constitution of Minnesota to insert a discriminatory clause declaring that "only a union of one man and woman shall be valid o recognized as a marriage" shows that the Proposition 8 copycat measure likely to be defeated, 52% No, 45% Yes, 3% Not Sure. These results are from PPP, a Democratic-leaning polling firm, which reports:


The more interesting findings on our final Minnesota poll deal with the state's high 
profile amendments to ban gay marriage and require voter identification. We find both 
narrowly trailing. 45% of voters say they'll vote for the gay marriage ban, compared to 
52% who are opposed to it. And 46% say they'll support the voter ID amendment to 51% 
who are opposed.  

The marriage amendment is trailing because of a massive generational divide. Seniors 
support it by a 57/40 margin but every other age group opposes it, including a 36/62 
margin against it among voters under 30. Republicans support it (79%) and Democrats 
oppose it (76%) in almost equal numbers, but independents tip the balance by opposing it 
41/55.


An interesting aspect of this latest poll is that the voter-id measure had long been though to pass but is now solidly behind. Perhaps some of this is the electorate turning against both high-profile ballot measures, which were put there by extremely conservative forces in the state.

This is good news to be sure, but it is astonishing that nearly $16 million dollars have been spent on a measure which if defeated would not change the fact that same-sex couples will still not be able to get married in Minnesota. (Enacting the measure would prevent courts from enacting same-sex marriage and would insure that in order for marriage equality to occur it would have to happen through federal courts or a future repeal of the state constitutional amendment if it were to pass.) The pro-equality side has raised $11 million dollars, with the anti-equality side reporting $5.1 million, a nearly 2-to-1 ratio for the "good guys" but still the measure is very very close. If Minnesota were to defeat the anti-gay constitutional amendment it would be historic, since 32 states have previously enacted anti-gay ballot measures since 1998.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Eye Candy: Brandon Carter

Brandon Carter is a 30-year-old singer who also happens to be a 6-foot 2-inch, 175-pound fitness model. He is very active on social media, with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Myspace accounts.

He is also hella fine, as you can tell from the above pictures. He is another Eye Candy candidate who blogger David Dust discovered before me, but I'm not mad because he has great taste in good-looking guys!

Enjoy :)

PARIS MASTERS 2012: Ferrer Wins 1st Shield

5'9" David Ferrer of Spain won his first ATP Masters shield by defeating 6'8" Jerzy Janowicz of Poland 6-4 6-3 in Paris. The 21-year-old qualifier made quite a splash at the tournament by defeating World #3 Andy Murray and World #9 Janko Tipsarevich both of whom will be joining Ferrer in the ATP World Tour finals which begin in London on Monday. He became the first qualifier to reach the final of an ATP Masters 1000 tournament since Guillermo Canas did it in 2007 at the Key Biscayne Masters tournament.

Ferrer's win was also historic, becoming the first player outside of the world's top 4 seeds (Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal or Murray) to win a master's shield since Robin Soderling won the 2010 Paris Masters.

It was the hard-working Spaniard's 7th title of 2012 and the 18th of his career. He now has won 72 matches in the year (one more than Djokovic) compared to 14 losses.

GRAPHIC: Why CA Should End Death Penalty (And Vote Yes on Prop. 34)

This graphic sums up a lot of the reason why I and millions of other Californians are voting YES ON PROP 34 to end the death penalty in my state.

2 Days Until Election: Obama 303, Romney 191

One thing is sure, and that is that election day is nearly here, just two days away. In the TPM Electoral College Scoreboard the Blue team has now surged to a 112 vote lead, with 303 electoral votes to the Red Team's 191 electoral votes. Only Florida (29) and North Carolina (15) still remain Yellow, or "Too Close To Call" in this scenario.

This is a small change from Friday's outlook when Obama-Biden led 285 EV to 191 EV, as Ohio (18) has moved back ever slightly into the blue column. For Romney-Ryan to win the election, they will have to not only win the two yellow states, but flip  blue states worth a total 35 electoral votes from the Obama-Biden side. This is definitely possible, and Ohio would count for half of those votes needed, and when combined with Virginia (13) and New Hampshire (4) that would be sufficient.

It may be a long election night on Tuesday!

POLL: Maine Marriage Equality Fight Now Very Close

The latest poll from PPP on Maine's Question 1 to legalize marriage equality shows that  the pro-equality side has a slim 52% to 45% lead. This is a much smaller lead than has been found in previous polls of Maine which at one point indicated a nearly 22-point gap in favor of marriage equality. The margin of error in the latest poll is ±2.2 percentage points, so technically it no longer indicates a majority in support of marriage equality.

PPP characterizes the current poll this way:

Maine's referendum to legalize gay marriage is leading for passage by a 52/45 margin, numbers virtually unchanged from 52/44 in our last survey. What we've found historically with these gay marriage ballot measures though is that undecided voters tend to end up voting anti-gay so if I had to guess this is something more like a 52/48 advantage and at that point it can go either way- this is likely to be a pretty close vote. 

Maine is widely considered the best-run of the three ballot measure campaigns to enact marriage equality and the one most likely to succeed. Hopefully, the forces of equality will indeed be successful on Tuesday and finally end the streak of losing "popular votes" on whether the fundamental right to marry should be extended to same-sex couples.

Saturday Politics: Nate Silver Predicts Obama Win

Nate Silver, statistical prediction maven who runs the FiveThirtyEight blog at the New York Times has come under fire from mainstream journalists (and Republican/conservative political pundits and even the public editor of the New York Times itself) for rejecting the media meme that the presidential race is "too close to call." Silver uses statistical and mathematical modeling techniques to generate probabilities of election results. His current estimate is that President Obama has a probability of 0.837 of winning the electoral college. This means that using the sum total of all the public polls released in the states over the campaign season and considering past historical trends Silver runs computer simulations of the elections and in 83.7% of them, the Obama-Biden tickets gets more than 270 electoral votes and retains the presidency.

Silver is so confident of his techniques that this indicates a likely Obama win that he tweeted a bet to Joe Scarborough of MSNBC that if Romney wins Silver would donate $1,000 to the Red Cross and if Obama wins Scarborough would donate $1,000 instead. It was the bet that got Silver in to hot water with "serious journalists" but they have been resentful of Silver's brand for years.

The problem is that many, many people (including political pundits) are functionally innumerate and do not really understand what probabilities are and have no idea of the techniques Silver uses to compute his calculations. A probability of 83.7% does not mean that it is impossible for Mitt Romney to win the presidency. In fact, the New York Times lists more than a half-dozen times when Silver made a political prediction and was defied by the actual results (most notably saying that in 2009 Maine would enact marriage equality by passing Question 1 when it failed).

Anyway, Silver summarizes his position in an article posted today which strikes back directly at his critics:

The FiveThirtyEight forecast accounts for this possibility. Its estimates of the uncertainty in the race are based on how accurate the polls have been under real-world conditions since 1968, and not the idealized assumption that random sampling error alone accounts for entire reason for doubt. 

To be exceptionally clear: I do not mean to imply that the polls are biased in Mr. Obama’s favor. But there is the chance that they could be biased in either direction. If they are biased in Mr. Obama’s favor, then Mr. Romney could still win; the race is close enough. If they are biased in Mr. Romney’s favor, then Mr. Obama will win by a wider-than-expected margin, but since Mr. Obama is the favorite anyway, this will not change who sleeps in the White House on Jan. 20. 

My argument, rather, is this: we’ve about reached the point where if Mr. Romney wins, it can only be because the polls have been biased against him. Almost all of the chance that Mr. Romney has in the FiveThirtyEight forecast, about 16 percent to win the Electoral College, reflects this possibility. 

Yes, of course: most of the arguments that the polls are necessarily biased against Mr. Romney reflect little more than wishful thinking. 

Nevertheless, these arguments are potentially more intellectually coherent than the ones that propose that the race is “too close to call.” It isn’t. If the state polls are right, then Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College. If you can’t acknowledge that after a day when Mr. Obama leads 19 out of 20 swing-state polls, then you should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public.

And this last paragraph is precisely the point. Election coverage happens in media channels which are part of corporate conglomerates that are out to make a profit. They have a financial incentive in promoting the notion that the election result is a 50-50 proposition and that either team has an equal likelihood of winning, but just because there are only two possible outcomes on Tuesday does NOT mean they are equally likely! (If you understand this concept then you are on your way to understanding probability. That being said, it is still then a very difficult question to estimate the probabilities of the two possible outcomes, and this is what Silver succeeds at.)

Silver;s main points is that to assert that the two outcomes on Tuesdays are equally likely and thus "we have no idea what could happen on Tuesday" in order to raise ratings and increase traffic to political websites is about entertaining the public, not informing the public.

ATP TOUR FINALS 2012: The Final 8 Are Set

With the surprising results at the ATP Masters in Paris (Andy Murray being upset by a qualifier, and Novak Djokovic, Tomas Berdych and Juan Martin del Potro both losing early) the final 8 who will be at the ATP World our Finals at the O2 Arena in London starting Tuesday November 6th are now set.

They are Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Murray, David Ferrer, Berdych, del Potro, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Janko Tipsarevic. Rafael Nadal qualifiied but withdrew earlier in the year and has not played a single professional match since Wimbledon 2012.

WATCH: Maryland Pro-Marriage Equality Final Ad

I agree with Joe.My.God that this is a pretty good way to close the campaign for marriage equality in Maryland. Above you can see the final ad by Maryland's pro-marriage equality forces which emphasizes support for marriage equality from Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton as well as clergy from around the state, and features images of people who have appeared in previous ads  for marriage equality in the state.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

4 Days Until Election: Obama 285, Romney 191

The latest polling data reflected in the TPM Election Scoreboard shows that with 4 days left the blue team has a solid lead in the electoral college of 285 votes for Obama-Biden to 191 for Romney-Ryan.

The only  undecided states right now are Ohio (18), Virginia (13) North Carolina (15) and Florida (29), totaling a mere 62 ekectoral votes out of the total of 538 (270 are needed to win the presidency).  The point here is that even if the Red team were to win all the remaining Undecided states, President Obama would still be re-elected.

This is a somewhat significant change from just 3 days ago where, with 1 week to go, Obama-Biden by 247 electoral votes to 206 electoral votes, small lead of 41 electoral votes, which now with a mere 4 days to go has become a muhc larger 94 vote lead for the President.

Hopefully, despite the closeness of the national polls, the result of the election will be known by midnight on Tuesday November 6th!

SCOTUS Sets 11/20 For Prop. 8 Certioari Decision

On November 20th, the 9 Justices of the United States Supreme Court will meet in their chambers  to decide the fate of Proposition 8, the November 2008 ballot measure which attempted to amend the California constitution to remove the previously granted right to marry to same-sex couples. The technical term is whether they will grant certioari to the heterosexual supremacists who have appealed their repeated losses in federal courts to the highest court in the land. If there are not four Justices who want to hear the case, then the lower ruling will stand and soon afterwards marriage equality will be restored to the state of California. If there are at least four Justices who want to hear the case, then certioari will be granted and eventually a briefing schedule will be determined and oral arguments will occur. Then a final decision on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 will be issued by June 2013.

The Justice's certioari decision in the case, now called Hollingsworth v. Perry, is not expected to be announced until Monday November 26th. Many observers think there is a reasonable chance that the Court will decide not to hear the case, since the lower court ruling in the 9th Circuit is relatively narrow, and there are several other LGBT-related cases pending before the Court as will this term.

In addition to a certioari decision on Proposition 8, the Justices will also decide on which of the many DOMA-related cases it will hear. The Justices are widely expected to grant at least one of these appeals, especially since the Justice Department is also asking them to. We'll know the answer on November 26!

Maine Has My Favorite Pro-Marriage Equality Ad

I think this is the best pro-marriage equality ad that I have seen so far this year from all of the four marriage equality ballot measure states of Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. It has a straight married couple named Eric & Jen Humphrey, clearly in love, talking directly to the camera and matter-of-factly stating the obvious: allowing the same-sex couple down the street to get married will have absolutely no impact on the lives of the straight couple. This message is delivered twice in a mere 30 seconds. First, with the sentence "Allowing the same-sex couple down the street to get married doesn't change our marriage. We know who we are and what we mean to each other." This is a devastating rebuke to the claim that marriage equality somehow impacts heterosexuals' marriages.

Then the "no impact" message is repeated again at the end with  "Allowing loving, committed couples to get married isn't going to change our relationship one bit; we're voting Yes on 1." It's also significant (and effective) that it is the husband in the couple who delivers the no impact line, since almost always, men are more opposed to marriage equality than women.

And so the ad basically summarizes a basic truth at the core of the ballot measure fights: marriage equality only impacts the people who would be able to get married. The heterosexual supremacists have to try and scare and confuse voters that somehow allowing gay people to get married is going to have some detrimental impact on children, on society, on marriage itself. But these claims are not based on facts or evidence but are appeals to simple homophobia, discrimination and ignorance. This ad rejects these appeals and re-affirms the basic principle at stake of "live and let live." I would have liked to see an inclusion of the golden rule in the ad, but it's corollary is in there and is also effective.

Poll: Prop 36 (Three Strikes Repeal) Has Huge Lead

One of the major reasons I did not re-register to vote in Virginia even though I have been living and working there since August 2011 and it is a swing state in the presidential election, was my desire to vote on the 11 ballot measures pending before California voters this election. (Another reason was to make sure to vote for my friend Luis Lopez to become my Assemblymember in the 51st District, but that is another matter!)

I turned in my absentee ballot last week. You can see how I voted on all 11 pending ballot propositions.

I am particularly interested in the passage of Propositions 30, 34 and 36. Propositions 30 (which would insure a new revenue of up to $6 billion per year for schools, community colleges and public universities) and Proposition 34 (which would replace the death penalty with life without parole) both seem to be in very tight races with the result in doubt. The latest Los Angeles Times poll indicates that Prop. 34 is at 42% Yes, 45% No (which reflects an increase in support) while Prop. 30 is at 46% yes, 42% No (and reflects a sharp decrease in support).

However, the one bright spot in the latest polling on the Propositions is the huge support for amending the Three Strikes law, with 63% in support and a mere 22% in opposition. This is very exciting, because it would be the first time in years that California has voted to reduce the size of the prison-industrial complex and reject "soft-on-crime" taunts.