For feminists and progressives it's really easy to criticize Sarah Palin. She has a horrid record of defending reproductive rights for women. She sees nothing wrong with abusing her power as governor of Alaska. She has a record of taking gifts and expensive favors from lobbyists and political allies.

What's worse : It's no secret she was not chosen for her knowledge of national domestic or foreign policy and politics. The woman was not vetted properly because she was not crowned the GOPs beauty queen for her knowledge or experience. She was chosen for being a good looking Christian Nationalist that would "turn on" the theocratic faction of the GOPs "base". And it doesn't hurt she actively sold herself to the neo-con hacks desperate to slap some lipstick on the ever ugly Republican Party pig.

Yet all those negatives were pushed aside by the GOP operatives, Bill Krystol included, who sold Sarah Palin as a viable Vice-President to John McCain. All those hacks squabbled over Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and McCain's own pick Joe Lieberman. They wouldn't have any of them.

After a less than 2 hour meeting, McCain and his campaign and party hacks chose her. No drama involved just a cold and calculated political decision. They had more experienced and better qualified women to go after the "Hillary Vote", yet they made her their political beauty queen as the last "Hail Mary" pass they had up their sleeve.

And it worked --at least for a little. McCain's announcement right after the DNC Convention and Obama's speech took all the thunder away from him. The media went ga-ga and so did the 70% of forlorn Republicans who didn't vote for McCain during the primaries he none the less won.

Then Katie Couric happened. Strike One : The woman was a disaster.
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There are several photographs there where you can see Obama has been or is on the verge of crying. These are an absolutely amazing look into the our new President.

[UPDATE @ 3:38PM]
I can't believe that after I spent the whole day re-creating the damn Flickr slideshow the thing is now working. AUGH!

Anyhow, you can also see my curated slideshow of these photographs at my NING multimedia site : Barack Obama's Election Night.

Waiting in line to vote:

This line doesn't look long but for my neighborhood polling place it is. Especially since there were already 50 people in line waiting by 7am.

One hour later, I voted :

It was an incredibly emotional vote, to say the least.

Best Moment Ever :

Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House.

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I had various oasis available to me during the DNC and RNC conventions. In Denver, the PBS crew saved my sanity after my gear broke down and had no cell phone nor mobile video to work with. Also there I had The Huffington Post aptly named Oasis pepper me with massages and scented oils (I kid you not).

And then there was the CNN Grill at both conventions. Le sigh. The food, the drinks, the journos, politicos and the pundits were fantabulous to consume and watch. So it's with great pleasure I can revist the grill (and be part of the live telecast) one more time right here in New York City.

I can't bring you all with me but I will be live streaming, blogging and pinging to Twitter and other services from inside the bowels of the MSM

Hope you can all join me online tomorrow night.

Now, off to have my hair "did".

New York City has the onus of making 2,000,000 phone calls to battleground states by the time the polls close on Tuesday. The New York for Obama has a "New York Last Call" action alert that has been going on since Friday.

Babysitting in the city is rather expensive. So to do my bit, I brought them with me to phonebank at the Teamsters' HQ :

Teamsters Local 237
216 West 14th St.
btwn 7th and 8th Aves
New York, NY 10011
Sun noon-9pm
Mon 10am-9pm
Election Day 9am-9pm

If you are in the 14th Street area, send in your RSVP.

The kids helped with picking up all the callers' paperwork and taking it to "the lady with the computer", so she could process the information on their central database. They also streamed some videos and did some interviews. You can see the fruit of their labor at the culturekitchen channel on Qik.com.
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