So much for last minute predictions, eh? First, let's dispose of the obvious - Ohio is going for Bush, and the desperate hope of a miracle by the Kerry folks is a fantasy. Game, set and match for Bush. So with that fact clearly stated, what do we conclude?
First, three major pieces of conventional wisdom died last night. Among the very first things one learns in Political Science 101 (at least back when I was a poli sci major) are these three things:
1. High turnout always favors Democrats and hurts Republicans.
2. High turnout always favors challengers and hurts incumbents.
3. Negative and nasty campaigns drive people to stay home and not vote.
I submit that it's time for some new conventional wisdom. And it's time to stop listening to the exit polls, which were further off the mark than Stevie Wonder in an archery competition. It's also time for Kerry to concede the election, say all the nice things they don't really believe and go back home to lick his wounds. Let's not drag this out and file suits and have a repeat of 2000.
Let's also be consistent. For myself, at least, I think the electoral college is outdated and no longer useful in a modern society, and I really do think that the popular vote should decide elections (though I'm not too fired up to actually amend the constitution to do that). Bush won the popular vote by a wide margin, some 3.5 million votes. As far as I'm concerned, that means he ought to be the President. I thought the same thing with Gore in 2000, who also won the popular vote.
And finally, let's not descend too much into doom and gloom. I think I've made my distaste for President Bush pretty clear over the last few months. And maybe I'm just conditioned to this because I've always voted for candidates I knew wouldn't win, and as a result I'm used to being unhappy about who wins on the morning after an election. But it's not the end of the world. Second term presidents are a mixed bag. They typically go one of two ways. Either they view themselves as invincible because they don't have to run for reelection again and get themselves into major trouble (Iran-Contra, the Clinton fiasco, even Watergate's post-election trauma), or they go in the opposite direction - they start to be concerned about their historical legacy and try to do some good things to make sure they are remembered fondly. Now, Bush's overriding arrogance and unwillingness to even contemplate the notion that he might be wrong about something probably suggests that he'll go in the first direction. On the other hand, perhaps the fact that he doesn't have to worry about reelection means he'll listen more to his policy advisers than his political advisers; it may well put Rove into a back office where he can't hurt anyone. But either way, we will all survive it. We survived the Cuban missile crisis, assassinations of our greatest leaders, Vietnam, Watergate, hostages in Iran and everything else; we will survive this too. See, this is one of the advantages of being a cynic; the preemptive disappointment keeps me from being too dramatic about these things.
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One piece of conventional wisdom that was borne out, though, is that the youth of America still aren't voting. (Disclosure: I'm 25, and I voted.) They might have made the difference for Kerry--but they live in apartments and carry cell phones, so I'd imagine they're easily missed in GOTV campaigns. (Plus they have P. Diddy telling them to "vote or die," and we all know how young folks feel about being told what to do.)
Man, I'm so depressed. I need to drink to excess.
Oh, about the EC. One advantage to it that I haven't seen mentioned is that it contains and focuses Electoral Issues. Imagine a close popular vote (closer than last night's) where one candidate or another wants to do a nationwide recount. At least the EC approach concentrated attention on Ohio where it could be quickly determined that the number of provisional ballots would not be enough to swing the election.
You could rail against the EC as much as you want, I can't see 3/4 of the states approving an amendment to repeal or reform it. I think we're stuck with it.
I think the Osama video tipped the scale. And I think Osama intended the video to help Bush. If terrorist recruitment has skyrocketed since Bush started his war on "terror", I can't imagine what it will be like now.
More than that, I felt bad because my state passed an amendment, 60-40, to ban same sex marriage. I was embarrassed when I went out today. I talked to a friend of mine earlier, who is a lesbian, and I could hear the bitterness in her voice. Bitterness she likely feels for the entire state who decided that her sexual orientation is somehow their business. And I can't say that I blame her. I feel pretty bitter myself, even though this doesn't directly affect me.
I respectfully disagree. We are headed for the most dangerous domestic turbulence since the (first) Civil War. I expect Bush to further inflame passions and widen divisions to the point where things spiral out of control. I do not trust these bastards ever to do the right thing. It may not be the end of the world, but it may be the beginning of something truly awful. Read David Niewert if you think I'm nuts.
"Bush won the popular vote by a wide margin, some 3.5 million votes. As far as I'm concerned, that means he ought to be the President."
Whoa, whoa, here.
I think it's really important to understand that the "popular vote" statistic is not a meaningful one. It's an anomaly. You can't conclude based on this what the results would have been if direct election were actually the rule.
The EC system changes everything -- where candidates campaign, what they say, who they choose for a running mate, where organizations focus their resources, and whether semi-apathetic voters decide to bother voting or not.
No one can say what the outcome would have been in a direct election.
Another way to look at it -- in this election, we had closely-fought states, and we had blowout states. In the first category, people were hit heavily with political information and were highly motivated to vote. In the second, the election felt like it was mostly a formality. And which of these two categories accounts for the final popular-vote spread?
I'll concede that the spread is large enough that he probably would have won regardles.
Young people did vote. In 30 years of voting, I've never seen so many college students at the polls. It was absolutely incredible... they were running out of ballots and going out to Kinko's to print more! So that is one positive thing that came out of all this.
Now Bush has no excuse for what happens in Iraq. Republicans control the entire government, and every election they control more and more. If Iraq elections don't go well, and it doesn't look like they will as of now, he has no more escape goats to put the blame on.
The scale-tipper probably wasn't the OBL tape, or anything to do with foreign affairs. The late exit polls show (almost) clearly that tons of people voted on the basis of the so-called moral issues. That's gay marriage, abortion, stem cells, et al.
The real kicker is that the GOP might have finally broken through with the black vote. The African American community apparently resents the characterization of gay marriage as a civil rights issue.
20 or 30 years ago, guys like Jesse Jackson, Malcom X and Louis Farrakhan succeeded in alienating their supporters from the Jewish community; the same contingent of civil rights advocates, and their successors, that marched with Martin Luther King. History, it seems, has repeated itself.
We're headed for a marked intensification of the culture war. That conflict will define Bush's second term, and most likely several administrations thereafter. Given the turnout for this election and the results, I don't like the good guys' prospects.
E
Young people usually vote in proportion to the vote of their parents. There isn't a lot of swing. If there actually was a bit of a threat of a military draft, that might have skewed it somewhat. But not by much.