Left? Bah!

The news keeps getting better and better. Looks like the Democratic leadership is going to ignore the unsolicited advice of our very own Los Pants and go right. I introduce Nevada's Harry Reid, the likely replacement for Tom Daschle:

"Reid voted with Republicans to ban a procedure that opponents call partial birth abortion. In 1999, he was one of two Senate Democrats who voted against an amendment expressing support for the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. "

Mind you, I know nothing of this man. So he may be great, despite his abortion stance and douchey appearance. But there's arguably nothing I care about more deeply in politics than maintaining the ability for women to have legal abortions. Not a good sign.

Exit Polls

That sucked.
Hey, thanks for that early exit poll information -- it was really awesome for, like, four hours when I was allowing myself to feel that bizarre emotion called "hope." Made the crushing disappointment that much more throbbing.

Anyway, check out the national exit polls here. The base strategy prevails.

White people: 57% to 42% Bush
White men, 61% to 38% Bush
Black people: 89% Kerry
College grads: 50% Kerry, 48% Bush
Democrats: 89% Kerry, 10% Bush
Republicans: 93% Bush, 7% Kerry
Independents: 50% Kerry, 48% Bush
Jewish: 76% Kerry, 24% Bush (Bush +5% from 2000)

Also, it was nearly 60% turnout. Lots of conventional wisdom out the door this election (incumbent rule, high turnout helps Democrats, etc).

Polls

If the final result resembles anything like the first wave of exit polling (here), then doesn't that mean the end of the cottage industry of national surveys, at least for political purposes? Gotta give props to Mickey Kaus, who, if I'm recalling correctly, posted something on that very subject recently. Although, to be honest, I really dislike Mickey Kaus and would rather not give him credit for anything (ed - why? Because he does that annoying thing where he pretends to have an overbearing editor constantly criticizing his analysis? B2008 - Yes!).

Fight the war against Islam, err, terrorism

Check this out.
It's a Johnny Cash ditty spliced with pro-Bush video propaganda. As you would imagine, it features images of the military, babies, handsome white males, the evil mainstream media, lecherous Hollywood stars, menacing Arab men with machine guns, and, of course, the holy cross. Most disturbingly, the troglodyte that produced this mess apparently doesn't recognize the distinction between Islam and terrorism, as a blood-red "ISLAM" emerges from the background when the image of a hooded, KKK-looking terrorist dominates the screen.

Apparently, my conclusion that I had spent all my outrage was mistaken -- it's truly appalling.

Anger vs. Fear

Sure, it's not entirely accurate to sum up the preferences of the electorate in two competing emotions. But methinks this quote, by Newsweek's managing editor, Jon Meacham, on "Hardball" last night, rings true:

"I think this is going to be an interesting test between the powers of the emotions of anger and fear. I think that anger is driving the new voters, anger at Bush. I call them the Michael Moore voters...They have gotten irritated with Bush. They went out and registered. They`re motivated. Or people who are more fearful and believe that President Bush will do a better job ultimately of protecting the country than Senator Kerry."

Bloggers be stupid, yo

The Times' editorial section asked a collection of bloggers what they deemed to be the most important moment of the campaign. The answers? Some were insightful or interesting, but most were surprisingly simple-minded, self-serving, or just personal. A sample:

Joanne Jacobs - The Chechnyan/Russian terrorist attack.

Ann Althouse - John Kerry snapping at a question by a "regular American" by saying, "You're not listening."

PowerLine - MemoGate. (By the way, can we, collectively, stop adding the -Gate suffix to every news story that lasts more than 24 hours? Please?)

Instapundit - A Newsweek reporter saying that "the press wants Kerry to win."

J. Bradford Delong - Bush keeping Cheney on the ticket.

It's fashionable to attack the mainstream media (or, "MSM", in the blognoscenti parlance), but they sure seem to be a lot more well-informed and intelligent than this supposedly elite collection of bloggers. But that Wonkette sure is sassy!

If Kerry wins, the most important event was, by far, the first debate. I will not argue this. For Bush, it's less clear, although I tend to think the Swift Boat nonsense/Democratic convention failure will be what's remembered most vividly.

The crystal ball

Prediction time! Except for Tucker Carlson -- an obvious closeted Democrat -- these guys split down ideological lines. Let's hope Kristol is smoking some seriously strong herb (Bush 348, Kerry 190).

My take:
Electoral Vote: Kerry 275 Bush 263 (Kerry wins Florida and PA, loses Ohio)
Popular Vote: Kerry 50.3% Bush 48.4%
Turnout: 59%

Thoughts?

Historical Implications

I love to think about the stories that will be written in the future about this presidential campaign. As we saw last time, history is not nuanced about these things -- Gore, with hindsight, became a condescending, exaggerating, hapless loser who couldn't campaign his way out of a paper bag. Needless to say, if Kerry loses tomorrow, he'll join the line of weak Democratic candidates for President, remembered in the same sentence as Mondale and Dukakis. But it's even more striking for Bush. If he gets voted out of office, I could easily see him being viewed as the worst President since Hoover or Coolidge. More personally for him, the whole Bush name becomes synonymous with "one-term." National politics are as high stakes and zero-sum as it gets.

Also, the contrast between the candidates' campaign strategy (Bush = base; Kerry = swing votes) has been established to cliche. As these things go, the actual strategy is probably more complex than the media suggests. But, success tends to breed mimicry, and whichever party wins will set the tone for future national campaigns. And, if it's Bush, does anyone think that the Democrats are going to nominate the "electable" guy in the future?

My Larry King impression (insomnia)

We can analyze the impact of the Osama video tape to death. But which tenous Kerry voter is going to see bin Laden and say, "Gee, I really think Bush will do what he's been unable to do over the last few years and finally 'smoke him out of his hole.'"

Plus, c'mon Osama - everyone knows you don't release a big story on a Friday night.

Christ, Andrea Mitchell is ugly. She's creeping up on ex-Uconn basketball player Diana Taurasi territory -- so ugly, that she's vaguely attractive.

When was Rockefeller Center re-named 'Democracy Plaza'? Can we vote on that? Because I liked it as it was.

I used to enjoy Rudy Giuliani. I even defended him once to Los Pants and A-Man. But, after his recent campaign performance, I'd really like to see him go far, far away. There's something sort of Hitler-y about him. Even more than Bush being re-elected, I fear Kerry getting the job, being dubbed 'weak' due to a terrorist attack or whatnot, then having this unstable nutjob slither his way into office, thereby forever negating all of our civil liberties. Somehow doesn't seem so unlikely.

Anyone see Meet the Press? Well, Russert asked Bob Kerrey to sum up why we should elect John Kerry, and he takingpointed his way through the answer, focusing on how we could really trust him, how he'll always be straight with the American people, yada yada. I thought he flubbed it. People don't see GWB as Clinton. They see a flawed, but good-hearted, honest, simple guy. Similarly, they don't see Kerry as being honest; in fact, his political opportunism is one of his more unattractive traits. Doing my best Carville impression, the best answer would have been something along the lines of: It's a complex world requiring a thoughtful, considered (imply, but don't say, intelligent) man. It bothers me that the talking points guys -- I'm looking at you, McAuliffe -- don't know, especially at this point, how to accentuate the positive aspects of Kerry's personality.