Election day updates 11 a.m.

    Morning turnout was low at a couple of the larger Lexington County precincts, according to poll workers. Both the Lexington 1 precinct at Saxe Gotha Presbyterian Church and Irmo precinct at Irmo Elementary School are usually Republican bastions with residents waiting in lines to vote. While the stream of voters into those polling places Saturday was steady, neither had lines to speak of.
    Most of the voters willing to share their choices when leaving the polling place had selected John McCain, while Mike Huckabee was running second.
_ Marjorie Riddle

    A Blythewood area voter called to complain that his voters’ registration card had incorrect information about his polling place. Howard Peake had voted in Blythewood in the past, but the new registration card said his precinct should vote at Kelly Mill Elementary School at 1141 Kelly Mill Road.
Peake said he spent 30 minutes looking for Kelly Mill Elementary School. All he could find was Kelly Road Middle School. Finally stopping there to ask where the elementary school was, he found out he was supposed to vote at the middle school. “That can be very misleading for the first time you vote at a new place,” Peake said.

    Donna Jeffcoat in Lexington called to complain that campaign workers had put Mitt Romney signs within about 25 feet of the entrance to the entrance to the Pilgrim Lutheran Church precinct. Campaign law bans any campaign literature within 200 feet of the entrance. It’s the responsibility of poll managers to enforce that regulation, so if you see violations, point them out to poll workers.

Comments

[Karen]

Romney says he "doesn't have lobbyists running my campaign" and he "doesn't have lobbyists at my elbows that are arguing for one industry or another industry and I do not have favors I have to repay to people who have been in Washington for years."

Mother Jones decided to look into it.

The truth is that Romney is tied closely with many lobbyists. The AP reporter Romney exchanged sharp words with later reported that several Romney aides and advisers are lobbyists. Additionally, as the Nation first reported, Romney has accepted more money from lobbyists and received more endorsements from lobbyists than any other Republican presidential candidate.

The lobbyists who have endorsed Romney have represented, in 2007 alone, nearly every part of the health care and financial services industries, the NRA, members of the tobacco industry, and gambling interests.

Read more from Mother Jones, including a partial list of the phantom army of lobbyists that Romney says he doesn't have.

http://www.motherjones.com:80/mojoblog/archives/2008/01/6914_mitt_romneys_lo.html

http://www.thenation.com:80/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=272128

http://www.opensecrets.org:80/pres08/select.asp?cycle=2008

[DreherHighGrad]

I hope Mitt Romney is the next president.

ROMNEY 2008

[DreherHighGrad]

I hope Mitt Romney is the next president.

ROMNEY 2008

[voter2008]

I respond with evidence ... Dick Morris statements in an effort to set the record straight on Hillary's history.

For those of you who don't know Dick Morris was the political advisor to Bill Clinton during his White House years. He was about as close to the Clintons as anyone during that time. I am reposting his comments concerning Hillary.

"If you happen to see the Bill Clinton five minute TV ad for Hillary in which he introduces the commercial by saying that he wants to share some things we may not know about Hillary's background . . .
beware .

As I was there for most of their presidency and know them better than just about anyone, I offer a few corrections;

Bill says: "In law school Hillary worked on legal services for the poor."
The facts are: Hillary's main extra-curricular activity in law school was helping the Black Panthers, on trial in Connecticut for torturing and killing a federal agent. She went to court every day as part of a law student monitoring committee trying to spot civil rights violations and develop grounds for appeal.

Bill says: "Hillary spent a year after graduation working on a children's rights project for poor kids."

The facts are : Hillary interned with Bob Truehaft, the head of the California Communist Party. She met Bob when he represented the Panthers and traveled all the way to San Francisco to take an internship with him.

Bill says: "Hillary could have written her own job ticket, but she turned down all the lucrative job offers."
The facts are: She flunked the DC bar exam, yes, flunked, it is a matter of record, and only passed the Arkansas bar. She had no job offers in Arkansas, none, and only got hired by the University of Arkansas Law School at Fayetteville because Bill was already teaching there. She did not join the prestigious Rose Law Firm until Bill became Arkansas Attorney General and was made a partner only after he was elected Arkansas Governor.

Bill says: "President Carter appointed Hillary to the Legal Services Board of Directors and she became its chairman."

The facts are: The appointment was in exchange for Bill's support for Carter in his 1980 primary against Ted Kennedy. Hillary then became chairman in a coup in which she won a majority away from Carter's choice to be chairman.

Bill says: "She served on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital."
The facts are: Yes she did. But her main board activity, not mentioned by Bill, was to sit on the Wal-mart board of directors, for a substantial fee. She was silent about their labor and health care practices.

Bill says: "Hillary didn't succeed at getting health care for all Americans in 1994 but she kept working at it and helped to
create the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that provides five million children with health insurance."

The facts are: Hillary had nothing to do with creating CHIP. It
was included in the budget deal between Clinton and Republican Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott. I know; I helped to negotiate the deal. The money came half from the budget deal and half from the Attorney Generals' tobacco settlement. Hillary had nothing to do with either source of funds.

Bill says: "Hillary was the face of America all over the world."
The facts are: Her visits were part of a program to get her out of town so that Bill would not appear weak by feeding stories that Hillary was running the White House. Her visits abroad were entirely touristic and symbolic and there was no substantive diplomacy on any of them.

Bill says: "Hillary was an excellent Senator who kept fighting for children's and women's issues."
The facts are: Other than totally meaningless legislation like changing the names on courthouses and post offices. Presently she is trying to have the US memorialize the Woodstock fiasco of 40 years ago.

Here is what bothers me more than anything else about Hillary Clinton. She has done everything possible to weaken the President and our country (that's you and me!) when it comes to the war on terror.
1. She wants to close GITMO and move the combatants to the USA where they would have access to our legal system.
2. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of suspected Al Qaeda phone calls to/from the USA.
3. She wants to grant constitutional rights to enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.
4. She wants to eliminate the monitoring of money transfers between suspected Al Qaeda cells and supporters in the USA.

One cannot think of a single bill Hillary has introduced or a single comment she has made that would tend to strengthen our country in the War on Terror.
But, one can think of a lot of comments she has made that weaken our country and makes it a more dangerous situation for all of us.

by Dick Morris, former political advisor to President Bill Clinton