Well, that was painful. Although it must have been a whole lot more painful for those who wanted Kerry to win. First, the good news:
The least bad alternative won.
The Islamists were denied the moral and propaganda victory of a Kerry win (what did you think bin Laden’s last video was all about anyway?)
The victory appears to have been beyond the “margin of lawyer” (in Mark Steyn’s priceless phrase), although several states were close, and nothing exceeds the ability of a lawyer being paid by the hour to cook up a marginal claim.
The establishment media were made to look like fools, mostly because they acted like fools.
The odious and unspeakable Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle lost.
The Democrats, running (again) on a nanny state/class warfare platform, were driven a little further into the wilderness. Perhaps they will reach the point soon where a major restructuring can occur and I can start voting for mainstream Democrats.
The bad news:
Ohio is still contested, as Kerry hopes for salvation from that mother lode of fraudulent voting, the provisional ballot.
I was wrong about Wisconsin – I was sure Bush could flip it.
And my prediction? Pretty much on target. Bush won by a small margin, Kerry topped in the high ’40s, Bush lost one state that he carried in 2000 (New Hampshire), and I believe he picked up a few (New Mexico, for one).
Oddly enough, for someone who was up until all hours four years ago, I was out like a light at 9:30 last night, before anything had been decided. I have a tiny niggling qualm about the ability of the Dems to manufacture enough votes to flip Ohio, but the margin there is into the six figures, so this should be a wrap.
I haven’t looked at the internals, but I would guess that the deciding factor would be the utter failure of the non-existant Republican effort to suppress the minority vote. In other words, the success of the massive campaign in the inner city to convince people that they needed to vote as an act of resistance to that non-existant suppression. I am also seriously suspicious of fraud, but I doubt that it was as outrageous as that which has been reported in Michigan.
I watched the results at a party given by an American consul in another country and was startled by the hostility to Mr Bush. In my experience, expatriates (of any nationality) tend to be rather conservative people. Yet at this party, a mock poll produced a two-thirds majority for Kerry. At a party like this, it’s obviously infra dig to inquire who other people want to win, yet last night I was asked several times who I was rooting for. When I responded, “Why? Who do you want to win?”, the answer was, with an irritating, inclusive smile, “Well, Kerry, of course!!” It was exactly like the Seventies, when every stupid little hippy dopehead just assumed that his politics were so self-evidently unassailable that it was inconceivable that you didn’t espouse them too.
There were two people who went further in scaling the heights of crude manners and were cheering news about Kerry and hissing when Bush took a state, as though they were at a campaign headquarters instead of a diplomatic party.
It’s interesting that conservatives seem able to rein in their personal feelings and display courtesy to all fellow guests and the arrogant left wing yahoos are the ones whooping and swinging from the trees. What is it with socialists?
It ain’t over till it’s over. The lawyers are still deciding.
Robb, at this point I think that it is unlikely to impossible for Kerry to win a recount.
Their only possible strategy is to force a count of the some 130,000 provisional ballots. Based on what I gather of their history, well over half of these will be thrown out as invalid, so (to be nice) say there are 70,000 provisional ballots that can be counted. That is about half of the margin.
So, Kerry can’t win on provisional ballots, even if he wins every single provisional vote. But Ohio requires a recount of all ballots if the margin drops below a certain level (I think its around 0.25%). He may be trying to get the margin below that level, but assuming anything like normal attrition for the provisional ballots, I don’t think that closing to the level of an automatic recount is mathematically possible.
So, is he going to try to force an elective recount when he is way, way outside the margin that you would ordinarily expect a recount to make up? No honest party would force a recount in this situation. Only a party that thinks it can rig a recount would go for one when it is more than 2% behind.
Who says the Dems are an honest party? Or for that matter lucid at this point. I ment only to poke fun at how far away this is from anything resembling the landslide vicotry or mandate from the people that both canadates were expecting.
Verity, I think you’ve just put your finger on the source of their rage, as well. Their politics are so obviously, unassailably correct that every time they come into power, they assume that’s it! They’ve got the reins and they’re keeping them forever.
Hence, the rage at Reagan after Carter, and Bush after Clinton. How could it be?
More bad news:
* No reason to think Bush is the least bad option.
* Religious psychos turned out in droves to git dem queers, giving Bush the victory. What drove the vote was, more than anything else, “moral values”. This means that Bush is beholden to Islamicist wing of Christianity, not to small-government anything.
* Bush confirms his “mandate of heaven” belief.
* Much more war.
* Undivided government.
Silver Lining:
* No more political commercials.
– Josh
Who are all these people who think Bush is some sort of religious fanatic? Because he prays? And yet Jesse Jackson is a progressive man of the people. Gee, doesn’t he pray? Oh, but he does it in rhyme! The left side of the collectivists is batty. They have totally lost their connection to reality. When 70% of voters reject gay “marriage”, it may be time to examine the concept for artificiality.
Its not a hopeful sign to see trolls beginning to post here. This election was disappointing in one way. The American people were given a chance to decide between Bush’s policies of those of a man whose record is at best questionable. Having been on the wrong side of every foreign policy issue since he entered the Senate Kerry built his campaign on a non-existant war record (who else has three purple hearts and never spent a day in hospital nor a scar to show?).
Kerry’s themes were to divide the nation by class, by race, by religion, by whatever means possible.
That so many people could ignore this and vote for the man says little of a large number of Americans character. On the positive side despite the horrible media performance and the constant lies the American people could not be persuaded to buy Kerry’s snake oil.
The world will be a better place with Bush at the helm.
Actually I put Jesse Jackson in the same camp as Bush as far as trying to use the government to push their religious agenda.
Hey Tom, he’s still a statist, be careful what you wish for.
Who are all these people who think Bush is some sort of religious fanatic? Because he prays? And yet Jesse Jackson is a progressive man of the people.
Can I think Bush is a religious fanatic – or a fake religious fanatic – and be opposed to JJ at the same time? I believe I can.
Kerry’s themes were to divide the nation by class, by race, by religion, by whatever means possible.
Bush was doing the same thing. The difference of course is that according to the new Republican “color blind” rule Republicans aren’t supposed to do that.
President Bush may have won Wisconsin – there are claims of Democrat voter fraud in Milwaukee (voters up from Illinois).
The voter fraud in Philadelphia was (as so often) massive. President Bush almost certainly won Pennsylvania.
The Democats rigged as much as could, but they still lost the election.