Vent too

From a diary at Daily Kos.

Turnout (in North Carolina) so far in 2012 early voting can only be described as epic. Yesterday's diary reported that turnout was up 26.6% above 2008. Now with updated data, turnout is 36.6% above 2008. And that number will only go up even further if there are still some counties lagging behind.

Overall, Obama appears to be building up an early vote margin right in line with the early vote margin he built up in 2008. In fact, Saturday was even better than the same Saturday in 2008. But because early turnout is higher, it could be harder for Romney to make up the difference on election day than it was for McCain in 2008, because there may not be as many Romney voters left over for election day. More of the Obama early voters are new voters who would not be able to vote on election day if they did not vote right now, whereas most of the Romney early voters would otherwise just vote on election day.

In sum, 2008 is happening again in North Carolina, only the turnout is even higher.

I hope the diarist is correct in his assessment, but I'm pretty sure that 2008 is NOT happening again in North Carolina. Because while I fully expect Obama to carry North Carolina, outcomes in down-ticket races promise to be disastrous.

If every person who is worried about the presidential race in North Carolina spent a tenth of that energy working to defeat Pat McCrory and Republicans running for the General Assembly, we might actually create some history here in the Old North State. Instead, they're going ga-ga over Obama when our state hardly matters at all in the electoral college calculus.

I ask myself: "What the hell are people thinking?" The answer usually is: "They're not."