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November 03, 2004
Post-Election Thoughts
1. Bush has an actual majority of the popular vote, the first time this has happened since 1988.
2. My last-day electoral forecast is looking good. So far I've no states wrong, and it looks like I was right to call New Mexico for Bush.
3. As usual, almost all the incumbents were re-elected. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. After all, we'd naturally find a close fit between a representative and his district-- that's why he was elected in the first place, and that's why he votes the way he does.
4. There was massive opposition to same-sex marriage in the ballot propositions. See Clayton Cramer on this.
5. Why don't we stamp people's hands with invisible, indelible ink, as in third-world countries? Maybe the cost isn't worth it. Or maybe live double-voting is not a problem. Absentee ballots are no doubt where the biggest fraud is.
6. I'm surprised that it was so close. Not only is Kerry the most leftwing Senator, with few accomplishments and a lot of votes he'd rather not have anybody remember, and not only is the economy in good shape, but there were at least four scandals in his campaign this summer:
(a) Advisor Joe Wilson turned out to be lying about his mission to Niger.
(b) Advisor Sandy Berger was caught stealing secret government documents.
(c) Kerry himself was caught having very dubious grounds for the war medals he boasted so much about.
(d) The Kerry campaign and CBS was caught using obviously forged documents to try to discredit Bush's war record.
Add to this Kerry's refusal to release his war records (except selectively) and his wife's tax returns (except the first two pages).
And what scandals came out about the Bush campaign? Nothing, despite intense attempts to find something damaging about his National Guard record or Swiftvets connections or Halliburton. There was constant abuse and insinuation, but nothing ever panned out.
I think this shows the power of the mainstream media. They are growing ever more aggressive in their bias. Also, it may be that all the money flowing into the get-out-the-vote effort has paid off, and that the new voters don't really know anything about the candidates except that their recruiter has endorsed one of them.
Posted by erasmuse at November 3, 2004 02:59 PM
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