In the Gallup Tracking Poll for the US election, Obama leads McCain for the ninth straight day, and for the seventeenth out of the last nineteenth pollings. We will have to see if the absurd new tactics being attempted by Palin and her running mate McCain will have an effect on this one way or another.
The current Real Clear Politics estimate has Obama/Biden with 49 percent of the electoral college votes, to Bush/McCain's 30%, with 21% in the 'tossup category." If we look only at the 'solid' electoral votes ... the ones that no one expects to change ... it is Obama with 42% and McCain with 34%.
It will be very important to watch the in between states over the next four or five days, as the new Cheney/McCain strategy plays out.
On a local level in Minnesota:
The latest poll regarding the Presidential Race is from the Star Tribune, and this poll which came out today shows that Obama is running away with the popular vote, 55% over Palin/McCain's 37%.
In the Minnesota Senate Race, Norm Coleman has really come out of the gate with very nasty attacks against Al Franken. And, the Minnesota voters have responded!
Franken is now leading Coleman 43 to 34 percent (a statistically significant lead), with Hapless Dean Barkley (Independence Party) holding on to 18 percent. In case you are wondering, that 18 percent is not going to move at all.
In my district in the house, the latest available poll shows Republican Bad Guy (and man, he is a nasty SOB) at 44%, with Nice Guy Democratic Candidate Ashwin Madia at 41%, in a statistical dead heat. This is a case of Paulsen coming on line and actually running for the first time, and slamming the airwaves with a bunch of absurd lies. The third district is traditionally racist, and Ashwin Madia is not exactly a white boy, while Paulsen is as white as they come (I mean, he even spells his name with an "e" instead of an "o" .. which makes him Norwegian instead of Swedish or something. Minnesotans like their Vikings).
However, this is not terrible news, as this poll was taken about a month ago. I'm pretty sure Madia is moving along very nicely and I expect that he has pulled ahead. Hopefully we'll have another poll soon. Also, this poll (Surveyusa.com) may be thought of as suspect. They tend to favor Republicans, and the web site is sponsored by Palin/McCain, so go figure.
Nobody seems to be have polled the other districts in some time.
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As someone who views Vikings with pedantic solemnity, I believe the "sen" rather than "son" points to Danish rather than Norwegian ancestry (although most Danes would probably prefer Paulsen to be Norwegian).
We still have two years to go with our buffoon Rhode Island governor Don Carcieri. He doesn't deserve the capitalization of the g in governor.
I'm watching with keen interest. The lead as far as I can see is Patrick Lynch. I was asked to work on his campaign but declined since he and I have a history and I'm not one that believes in the politics makes for strange bedfellows thing.
The reason I think Lynch (D) who is currently sitting as Attorney General will get it is because his brother is the state Dem party chair.
Doyle: Right now, as we speak, a large number of Minnesotans of Norwegian ancestry named Paulsen, Ericksen, and Hansen are boarding their big Viking boat and heading your way....
But seriously, I believe that there is no consistent connection between Sweden, Norway or Denmark and sen vs. son. They are the same thing (sen and son) and which one is used in a given village/county/port/state/whatever is a matter of quirky historically irrelevant random convention.
But then, in the context of this or that immigrant region, say in the US, people get all normative and go crazy and fetishize specific beliefs about name origins.
Don't tell anyone I said this.
There's also the fact that these things not infrequently changed during immigration. My Nielsen great-grandmother had cousins who were Nielsons and others who were Nelsons. My understanding is that they were all originally German and had some really good reason to want a new name anyway.
While we do have some -sens in Sweden, -son is by far more common. Also it's usually with two s-es. So in Sweden it'd be Paulsson. Paulsen does not look Swedish to me and I'd assume the family came from Denmark at some point. I'm not sure about Norway.
Felicia, almost no one in Minnesota is from Denmark. I know one guy, that's about it. All the "Paulsons" and "Paulsens" and so on are from Norway or Sweden.
Except that when the ancestors came from "Norway" it did not exist, and was part of Sweden.
I'd guess that the 'sens' in Denmark are the Norwegians that the Swedes put there after ethnically cleansing the Danes. Or at least that is how the story goes around here (I think Norwegians don't like Swedes very much here .. which again, is probably a post-hoc mythical belief system).
I seem to have sidetracked the discussion a bit, for which I apologize. However, since others have decided to follow me off on this tangent, I assure you that "sen" is, in fact, the Danish spelling. There are people who use that spelling in Sweden and Norway (and people with the "son" spelling in Denmark), just as there are people with Welsh, Irish or Scottish names in England, and for pretty much the same reason: lots of migration between neighboring countries. Name Withheld, your knowledge of both Scandinavian history and Minnesota demographics seem to be faulty. Perhaps a visit to the Danish American Center or the National Danish-American Genealogical Society (both located in Minneapolis) is in order.
Doyle, now that I think about it, the one Danish guy I know is dead, so that does make the Danish presence rather historical. (I used to live near the Danish Historical Society in Minneapolis, and they were always closed. Which makes sense.)
I'm sure you are right about everything, but I promise you there are no people in Minnesota named Paulsen, Ericksen, or Hansen who consider themselves Danish. Or at least, very very very few. I can think personally of way more than 40 people who are Paulson, Erickson, or Hanson and about six or seven who are *sen, and all of them talk about Norwegian and Swedish ancestry.
Now, I just remembered another Dane who used to live in Minnesota but he moved out east. His name was Mortensen ... with the 'sen' ending. But I'm pretty sure Mortensen was some kind of viking. So he could have been from anywhere, really.
Doyle, those (Minnesotan) German ancestors I was talking about? We thought for years they came from Denmark, because that's what they told people--probably something to do with why they wanted new names. Have you considered the possibility that "being from Denmark" is a euphemism?
Aha! That reminds me of a story. But I'm not sure if I can tell it because eeryone isn't quite dead yet. But yes, there were Germans, and there was Denmark, and a boat....