If you are reading this, stop and go vote
By Jeffrey Jolson

Voters determined despite lines or weather

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 11/4/08 — Older African-Americans remember when they could not even vote. One tearful senior woman outside a voting place in the South said “God kept me on this earth for something. I guess this is it.”
With Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain doing last-minute rallies, young people are voting for the first time — in record numbers and with a sense the” urgency of history” is no longer a contradiction in terms. Millions of new voters are turning out, creating a new America as well as over-crowding problems at the booths.
Balloting tribulations have been reported, from broken voting machines to long lines and weather in key states like Virginia. Yet overall, people apparently sense this is the most historic election they may ever vote in, and 130 million are expected to carry out their passion. If nothing else, no Senator has been elected President since 1960, no black person or woman has ever been elected on a major ticket and never have so many people voted in the U.S.
Starbucks is giving out coffee to voters, Krispy Kreme is passing out star-shaped pastries while Ben and Jerry’s is handing out free ice cream. Call your local store first, but it is emblematic of this new breed of election that businesses are handing out a little freebie just for showing your ballot receipt.
Everything about this race has been new: The way money is raised – less big lobbyists and corporations and so many more average folks with smaller amounts that added up to hundreds of millions. So much for big oil and pharmaceuticals influence, though they are not likely to go away.
Part of that is because this is first election in the true Internet age, making it easier to contribute, communicate, and register new voters than ever before. Getting your message out, no matter what it is, is easier as well. Many large Internet newspapers, including Hollywood Today, were not even in existence four years ago; yet now get millions of readers each day. Even YouTube did not exist when the last Presidential election was held.
“I think we’ll be analyzing this election for years as a seminal, transformative race,” said Mark McKinnon, a senior adviser to President Bush. “The year campaigns leveraged the Internet in ways never imagined. The year we went to warp speed. The year the paradigm got turned upside down and truly became bottom up instead of top down,” he told the New York Times.

Big stock rally on Election Day

Hollywood Today does not solicit direct ads for ethical reasons, yet Google indirect ads see at least 2-3 Obama and/or McCain ads on HT per day, more than even the film and TV companies one expects.
The Internet allowed for an intimacy between candidate and voter on the people’s time schedule. Obama is expected to have an unprecedented 250,000 people at his Chicago party tonight, primarily promoted through his website visitors. Even a rock festival or sports championships don’t usually draw that many.
“The great impact that this election will have for the future is that it killed public financing for all time,” said McCain’s chief campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt. “We have to compete (with the Democrats) use of the Internet and viral marketing to communicate and raise money. It was a profound leap forward technologically,”
For instance, thousands of young ‘Power Vote’ leaders in Los Angeles and around the country have been working around the clock to make sure young voters turn out in record numbers to vote for clean energy, smart climate policy, and green job creation. Power Vote is a national, non-partisan campaign that has been active on over 300 campuses and communities around the country.

For the last few days, Power Voters at Claremont College, University of Southern California, and University of California-Irvine have been organizing green concerts, festivals, and rallies, ‘dorm storms,’ bike blitzes, phone banking, and good old fashioned door knocking and canvassing to ensure that the youth vote is huge this year. Today, hundreds of volunteers- in green Power Vote t-shirts and hard hats- are making one last sustained push to the polls and entertaining voters waiting in long lines.

“Young people in California understand that their future is at stake in this election,” said Jessy Tolkan, Director of Energy Action Coalition’s Power Vote campaign. “Our generation is not only committed to voting on November 4 but is also actively engaged in the democratic process. We have had enough of dirty energy politics and are doing everything we can to make sure this election is the beginning of a clean energy future for America.”
Meanwhile, the Dow Jones stock index was up 300 points in an Election Day rally, a good sign that the market likes Obama too, who is the favorite at the polls so far this afternoon. Exit poll info will be available here in about one hour.