Nicest of the Damned

The party of homophobia

Too tired to do the math, but I'm sure there will be plenty of commentary later today on the nationwide success of "Protection of Marriage" measures and their correlation with Bush's success. In Ohio, for instance, Issue 1 passed 62-38.

Coincidentally (hah!), in Ohio, I show Bush taking 63 or so percent among people who attend church at least weekly, and 83 percent among people who said "moral values" were the primary determinant of their vote (Source: CNN Exit Poll).

Other states with an anti-gay marriage measure included Georgia (to our everlasting shame), Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah.

Florida decided to direct its moralizing at the children, and so passed a parental notification amendment that probably served a similar role in mobilizing thumpers. Again, somebody else will probably run the numbers.

Looks like the social engineering measures probably gave Bush Ohio, gave crazy Sen. Jim Bunning (who was reportedly suggesting his opponent might be "light in the loafers") a win in Kentucky, and might have made the difference in Arkansas (measure passed 75-25 with almost 700k votes, Bush won 54-45 with 530k votes), and kept it close in Michigan (Bush lost by less than 100k votes, measure passed by 650k votes).

Democrats used a similar strategy in California, where the stem-cell measure passed 59-41, with 3.7 million 'yes' votes, and Kerry won 54-45, with 3.6 million votes. Unfortunately, that's the only place where Democrats successfully bucked the conservative tide.

So much for prognostication....

Guess I'll keep my day job.

Things are looking dark in the Electoral College, with the networks putting Bush at 246. But his remaining easy pickups are in Alaska (3 EVs) and potentially New Mexico (up by 15,000), which could only get him to 254. Kerry is holding razor-thin leads in New Hampshire, the entire upper midwest, Hawaii, and Nevada (5,000 or so votes), which would get him to only 263. Several of Kerry's states could flip, but that rarely seems to happen to Democrats, since heavily Democratic precincts tend to be bigger and take longer to count.

That means it's all down to Ohio. Hamilton County (Cincinnati) has reportedly come in slow and Republican, while Cuyahoga (Cleveland) is running late and heavily Democratic. Statewide, Kerry needs to make up 200,000 votes, and the county-by-county rundown provides some basis for optimism, as most of the heavily Republican counties have 100 percent reported, while the late arrivers are mostly Democratic or split. Update: looking worse and worse; there are some big counties with strong Republican majorities with 30-50 percent of their precincts still out, while most of the Democrat counties are closing out their votes.

On the downside, I may have the chance to be embarrassed over my birth state and my adopted home state all because of one election.

Update: Fox News has called Ohio for Bush, although the margin in the state continues to fall.

Worse yet update: Carville has essentially conceded Ohio on CNN.

Election prediction

CNN.com has a terrific interactive feature going until midnight tonight -- it's their Presidential Showdown Game, where you get to choose what states you think will break for which candidate.

Best of all, the winner takes home a 30" LCD TV.

One small complaint: DC (which has 3 electoral votes) isn't represented on their map.

Here's my guess, with Election Day officially kicking off in 9 hours:

Bush (26 states):

Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Arkansas (6), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Missouri (11), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), Nevada (5), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), Virginia (13), West Virginia (5), Wyoming (3)

Kerry (24 states & DC):

California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), DC (3), Delaware (3), Florida (27), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Iowa (7), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (15), New Mexico (5), New York (31), Ohio (20), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (21), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (11), Wisconsin (10)

My math suggests that breaks down as Bush 218, Kerry 320. It's interesting, because I've been guessing Kerry might break 300 or 305, but when I look at the state polls, and the exceptional turnout early voting locations have seen, I could see things going this well for Kerry. Looking at it state by state, with the latest polls, this looks like a real possibility.

I take great comfort in the fact that Bush was up 3-5 points in all the pre-election polls in 2000, and, of course, lost the popular vote. In my mind (maybe ONLY in my mind), that suggests at least a 3 point swing between the final polls and the actual results.

States I have for Kerry that Bush might take away: Colorado, Florida (but not if all the votes are counted). Recent polling data on Hispanic Americans leads me to believe Kerry will unexpectedly take New Mexico. Most recent polls have Bush up in Ohio, but by 1-2 percent, which won't hold up tomorrow. If Bush were to take both Colorado and Florida, he moves up to 254, and Kerry drops to 284.

States I have for Bush that Kerry could take away: Virginia. A Kerry victory here could put him at 333, Bush 205.

Showdown for the undercard

It's hard to deny the conventional wisdom that the VP candidates debated to a draw (although Andrew Sullivan disagrees, although I think that helps Kerry/Edwards. Not because, as the pundits are saying, Edwards looked serious enough, but more because the Bush/Cheney ticket lost an opportunity to score, and the momentum is not on their side right now.

Based on last week's performance, and the administration's poor domestic record, I can't see Bush scoring a knockout in either of the remaining debates.

My favorite debate factoid so far is from CNN, who had 2 dozen people rating the candidates with people meters, and found that Cheney was at his most popular when he was discussing gay marriage. He said something like, "You've got to let people be free," and his rating spiked. He further said that marriage has traditionally been a state issue, suggesting it should stay one.

The irony, of course, is that he was describing a position in direct contravention of his ticket's official position on the issue. The official position is in favor of an amendment banning gay marriage and allowing states to ignore gay marriages performed legally in other states.

Maybe the debate was more inspirational than I give it credit for. It inspired both Howard and me to post within an hour....

An insider's view of Bush National Guard controversy

It’s no secret that I would vote for Reagan, Alzheimer's and all, before I would vote for a second term under G.W. Bush. (Historical note: 12-year-old Frank thought G.H.W. Bush was the best candidate in the 1980 race. I was disgusted when Bush refused to run as his own candidate in '88, instead running as Reagan II).

I'm torn as to whether the controversy over G.W. Bush's military service is a legitimate story or just a sideshow, but I'm following the story with some interest. CalPundit, in particular, is covering the story from almost every angle, and Joshua Micah Marshall is keeping up, as well.

But in reading CalPundit, there were a few comments from someone who spent time in the service as a personnel officer for the Air Force Reserve. Jerry at Milblog has posted why he doesn't believe Bush was AWOL and his analysis of Bush's service points for his May '72-May '73 service year.

I think Jerry is going a little easy on Bush, but his perspective based on his background is valuable. If you're following the story, you'll understand it better after you've read his take.