Are we ready to elect a couple of guttersnipes to the White House? Has it really come to that? Sam Schulman of The Weekly Standard assures us that those dirty Republicans won't win—can't win. The social order will not be overcome by a couple of shabby nonconformists:

CLASS WILL TELL:

Why is Bill Ayers a respectable member
of the upper middle class,
and Sarah Palin contemptible?

Pour yourself a Johnnie Walker Black and remember. The presidential campaign was going to be about sex—the sex of the inevitable winning candidate. Then it was going to be about race. We dreamed we would atone for slavery and the Berlin Airlift, impress Europe and charm the Arab world. But the undecided voters who will determine the winner are no longer interested in race or sex. They are looking at social class. Which ticket best expresses the values and tastes of the upper-middle-class—and captivates the rest of us who follow the lead of the upper-middles?

It is, according to his theory, quite anxiety-making. We were already hamstrung by having a member of the military at the head of the ticket: and then we brought this stubborn trailer trash from the last frontier into the mix. I have started biting my fingernails.

Scheiber spoke to various people from Palin's past, all of whom have two things in common: Every one of them is smarter than Palin and none of them has been heard of since their encounter with her. Scheiber's pet specimen among what he calls "the more urbane members of the community" is a Dartmouth graduate who reads Civil War histories, self-published a book, and not only does but "savors" the New York Times crossword puzzle. This sort of résumé wouldn't get your niece an unpaid internship on L Street—but for a Rhodes Scholar lost in Alaska, the Dartmouth degree, the Civil War buffery, the Times crossword puzzle all take on huge significance. Unable to comprehend how Palin could have outpaced the Wasilla gentry, poor Scheiber clings for dear life to these sad fragments of class dignity.

While Palin threatens class solidarity, Obama is emollient. The more urbane members of the Hyde Park community are cleverer than their Wasilla counterparts and believe that they have captured Obama for their class--just as Richard Stern persuades himself that the still-radical couple he dines with are merely Unitarians in a hurry. But the man who may be president is cleverer still.

Obama and his surprising choice for vice president have spent most of their career working on their own images, smoothing out the rough edges, trying out devices, rhetorical and cosmetic, to make the nicer sort of people feel comfortable with them. Obama wrote his own life, and then wrote it again; Biden practiced for years in front of a mirror to overcome his childhood stutter. Carefully composed, Obama holds the upper-middle class in his steady hands, and has no need of Stern's help to assure our anxious electorate that he will not shock their class sensibilities.

The Republicans, alas, are stuck with this election's true and unrepentant revolutionaries. McCain and Palin have each refused, by sheer cussedness, to fulfill the social expectations of others. This may make them poison to undecideds who suffer, more than most, from class anxiety. But do not despise the undecideds. Even conservatives can contract Scheiber Syndrome. Think of David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, David Frum, Peggy Noonan, and George Will. The symptoms? Curiously amplified, obsessively repeated, sometimes elaborately stage-whispered doubts about the Republican ticket.

There is no cure, but there is an etiology. All share a dreadful secret—their writing is driven by an anxiety to be tastemakers to the gentry, not merely thinkers and entertainers. There is nothing more anxious-making than striving to create taste for the classes, not masses, or even to keep up with it. (The struggle to do so is etched in the lines of Tina Brown's face.)

But what the classes think is a matter to which the GOP standard-bearers are sadly but nobly indifferent.

Because, of course, McCain and Palin, according to Schulman, just do not know their place. My emphasis in the second quote.

This entire phenomenon will leave the upwardly mobile middle-class reaching for its valium (or its muffins) as the rest of this unfolds. Because it turns out there are a lot of working people out there, and all this time, they've been breeding. If McCain and Palin win, we don't just pass up our chance to atone for slavery: we do something far, far more serious.

We upset the cultural apple-cart. We take power away from the Costco shoppers and give it to the Wal-Mart customers.

This cannot stand. Read the whole wry essay: it's pure gold. At least, my father will get a bitter laugh out of it. Though he likes Sarah Palin's legs. If my stepmom isn't looking, gosh knows whom he'll vote for.

Had things gone the way Dick Morris thought they would: had this year brought us a Condi Rice/Hillary Clinton choice, my father's head might have exploded.

h/t: Memeorandum.

UPDATE: Darleen responds:

At her home blog, and

At the Protein Wisdom Pub

She's all like, "your trackbacks aren't working."
And I'm all, like, "I'm not sure they ever did."

I guess I should check with Pixy about that—at least when we update the site this fall.

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almighty psuedo-Messiah.

Robin Robinson started by saying that “This was the demise of democracy… The Democrat party forced their delegates to vote against the will of the people.” Robin and Bettyjean were bitterly disappointed. When they heard that Sarah Palin was going to be the Vice-Presidential candidate, “our spirits rose and we headed to St. Paul.”

Robin continued, “We were heartbroken that [the Democrats] were going to do this to a woman.” Bettyjean pointed out that, “they turned against Hillary and then they attacked Geraldine Ferraro.”

Robin and Bettyjean said that “the MSM is hiding us, they won’t cover us.”

“Governor Palin will be able to be Vice President and we’re going to support her,” adding, “when we heard the Democrats’ personal attacks against Palin’s family we decided that this is not a ‘Democratic’ party after all.”

“Women’s issues are human rights issues, and without human rights there is no democracy at all.”

They exhorted Hillary supporters to step in now: “If Palin doesn’t become Vice President, no other woman will feel that she’s going to be able to run again…. look at the candidate, and look at the person. Palin’s real.”

They both ended by saying, “If you want change, vote for Sarah Palin.”

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. . . you should. It's Iowahawk's take on how the Blue Staters are coping with the "Dollywood" values that ooze into their lives.

"It was one day last spring," says Ellen McCormack. "My life partner Carol and I were in the garage, working on a giant Donald Rumsfeld papier mache head for the Bay Area March Against the War, when Rain walked by. I thought he looked kind of strange, so I stopped him and looked closely into his eyes. Then I realized the truth -- he was wearing a mullet. I was shocked, but he swore to me that it was only ironic."

"After a few months, it was clear Rain had lied to us -- that hideous Kentucky waterfall was completely earnest," she adds, choking back sobs.

Her 18-year old son would soon exhibit other signs of disturbing changes.

"I was driving past a McDonalds one day last summer, and I thought I saw Rain's bike outside. He had told me earlier that he was going to a friend's house to stuff envelopes for the Dennis Kucinich campaign. I pulled a U-turn and headed back," she recalls. "When I confronted him in the parking lot, he started giving me a lame story about how he was only there to protest globalization, but I could smell the french fries on his breath."

McCormack says that Rain's erratic behavior would also come to include excessive politeness and deference.

"Everytime I tried to talk to him it was 'yes Momma,' and 'no Momma,' when he knows damn well my name is Ellen," she says, anger rising in her voice. "It was like I didn't even know him anymore."

Via Mikal, the selective, eclectic bookseller. And several other fine blogs.

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Rusty Shackleford has a reasonably plausible explanation for the wildly inaccurate polling data that was leaked to the media on Tuesday morning.

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James Joyner rejects the notion that gay marriage (or other religous issues) decided the election, and runs a small roundup of articles/entries that have disputed the idea—including pieces by David Brooks, Paul Freedman, Kevin Drum and Sully.

Freedman has the statistical goods:

The evidence that having a gay-marriage ban on the ballot increased voter turnout is spotty. Marriage-ban states did see higher turnout than states without such measures. They also saw higher increases in turnout compared with four years ago. But these differences are relatively small. Based on preliminary turnout estimates, 59.5 percent of the eligible voting population turned out in marriage-ban states, whereas 59.1 percent turned out elsewhere. This is a microscopic gap when compared to other factors. For example, turnout in battleground states was more than 7.5 points higher than it was in less-competitive states, and it increased much more over 2000 as well.

Brooks sums it up:

Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them. In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top. This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong.

The only thing I have to add is that the story line is also being pushed within the religious and evangelical right, because it flatters them as well. "See what happens when you push us too hard in the culture wars? Behold our power." But in reality, it was Bush's gains among women, black people, Jews and Catholics that pushed him over the top, and the biggest "moral value" in this campaign was the idea that people who kidnap others and decapitate them should be put out of business.

(Head over to Outside the Beltway [link at the top of this article] to access the links to the original pieces; I'm way too busy to sling the code in here myself. Besides, Dr. Joyner has written on this topic before, and it's worth scrolling around to find his other thoughts on the subject. There's a nice entry yesterday, IIRC.)

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It appears that all is forgiven, and The Wall Street Journal is taking Peggy Noonan back agian [/joke]. This ran, as I recall, circa Thursday:

Let us get our heads around the size and scope of what happened Tuesday. George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States, became the first incumbent president to increase his majority in both the Senate and the House and to increase his own vote (by over 3.5 million) since Franklin D. Roosevelt, political genius of the 20th century, in 1936. This is huge.

George W. Bush is the first president to win more than 50% of the popular vote since 1988. (Bill Clinton failed to twice; Mr. Bush failed to last time and fell short of a plurality by half a million.) The president received more than 59 million votes, breaking Ronald Reagan's old record of 54.5 million. Mr. Bush increased his personal percentages in almost every state in the union. He carried the Catholic vote and won 42% of the Hispanic vote and 24% of the Jewish vote (up from 19% in 2000.)

She is just so good. The leitmotif on this essay is the word "savor," which somehow annoyed me, either despite or because I knew it wasn't a synonym for "gloat." But in between the "choruses," the verses are still so damned good: vintage Peggy. Read the whole thing, if you haven't already.

There is a tendancy to try to find one cause for Bush's victory, to place this all on evengelical voters without seeing that Bush could not have won without increasing the percentages of Jews, Black people, and Catholics who voted for him. Or to link this election more strongly to the issue of gay marriage than to that of Kerry's own personal integrity, simply because "moral values" were mentioned in some exit polls. (Not lying in front of Congress could be perceived to be a moral value, no? Or not exacerbating the suffering of American POWs during the Vietnam war . . . ?)

Michele of ASV recommends that the left chill the hell out:

If you don't mind, I'd like to address the throngs of Chicken Littles who seem to be out in full force on the net today. I just want to clear up a few things, as you all seem to be pretty misguided in more than one area today.

I voted for George Bush.
I am not a redneck.
I do not spend my days watching cars race around a track, drinking cheap beer and slapping my woman on the ass.
I am not a bible thumper. In fact, I am an atheist.
I am not a homophobe.
I am educated beyond the fifth grade. In fact, I am college educated.
I am not stupid. Not by any stretch of facts.
I do not bomb abortion clinics.

You will not be thrown in jail for the sole reason of being a liberal.
Your child's public school will not suddenly turn into a center for Christian brainwashing.
Your favorite bookstore will not turn into puritan central.

This is not Nazi Germany in any way.
You will not be forced into concentration camps.
You will not be burned in human-sized ovens because of your religion.
We will not be forced to wear uniforms and march in line every day.
You will not live in fear.
If you think this is a country in which you have to live in fear, I have some friends in Iran who would like to have a little talk with you.

Finally, Micheal J. Totten has been discussing this a lot lately—the myth of the Christian Takeover. In one entry, "An Exodus of Women," he points out that females abandoned the Democratic Party in droves this last election. Lively discussion ensues on his comments board: one commenter points out that the 2004 results simply reflected a liberal-conservative coalition against the left. I think that's about right.

IÂ’m not buying the now-popular theory that says Bush won because he whipped up an evangelical frenzy against gay marriage. John Kerry also opposes gay marriage. Both Bush and Kerry are in favor of civil unions. Kerry bragged that his position on gay marriage is exactly the same as the presidentÂ’s. (I think theyÂ’re both wrong, for whatever thatÂ’s worth. IÂ’m to the left of both of them on this question.) Besides, my state of Oregon voted to ban gay marriage and also chose Kerry in a landslide. The gay marriage debate was barely whispered here. It didn't help Bush at all. Lots of people around here saw no contradiction voting against gay marriage and also for Kerry.

And in a follow-up piece, "Zombie Hordes of Theo-Cons," he links to an Andrew Coyne essay and shares his own thoughts:

The Republican Party has a nut-job wing. Pat Robertson is real. James Dobson is real. Michael Savage is real. These guys have fans, and they voted. ThereÂ’s no denying it. But thereÂ’s also no denying that if John Kerry faced Pat Robertson in an election the Republican Party would have to dig itself out of a smouldering crater.

45 percent of the people who voted for Bush are self-described liberals or moderates. (Earth to Democrats: ThatÂ’s why he beat you.) Only 55 percent of the people who voted for Bush are conservatives. (See AndrewÂ’s piece for the details.) And, as most of us know, there are many different kinds of conservatives. There are neocons and paleocons, Wall Street conservatives and religious conservatives. Not to mention plain old run-of-the-mill conservatives. ItÂ’s a fractious group of people who have little in common but, oddly enough, happen to wear the same useless label.

Zeroing in on only one of those factions and blowing it all out proportion will get the Democrats nowhere. It makes as much sense as Ann Coulter accusing every leftie in the land of being pro-terrorist. ItÂ’s not only dumb but exceptionally counterproductive.

(My emphasis.)

So enough with the stereotypes, okay? And enough with picking one strand out of the tapestry and suggesting it represents the whole thing.

The Democratic Party has to dig itself out of the "victim mindset" it uses to foster dependency within its various client groups, and do a little soul-searching.

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1 Well, having lived in NC for so long, I qualify as a redneck. I love when the left refers to me as such, and thinks that that means that I am an "igit". I always ask them if they realize how much food is grown by us "rednecks," and how many tech companies have moved south of the Mason Dixon line. Never get an answer from them Then I ask them why they are moving down south from NJ, NY, etc, where all us rednecks live, in droves. No answer to that one, either. But then, I guess all us RWers are just sheeple and lemmings. PFFFTTTT!

Posted by: William Teach at November 06, 2004 11:11 AM (TFSHk)

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Spoons has some funny election "predictions" that I suspect were made circa Wednesday evening.

And a few of the comments that follow are actually from their "authors."

Via Patterico.

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Kate McMillan has a red/blue map of Canada, so that when you move up there to escape Bushitler you don't settle in a "red" area by mistake.

Although that would be amusing to the rest of us.

Via James.

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“Who is the father of George W. Bush?” Gnat asked on the way to school today. Oh boy.

“You’re not going to believe this, but his name is George Bush, too.”

“Oh, daddee.”

“True.” Pause. Should I? Might as well. “And he was the president once, too.”

“George Bush’s daddy was president too? You’re joking me. That’s silly.”

And so it begins. But if all goes as it usually does, in 14 years sheÂ’ll vote for someone I donÂ’t like; heÂ’ll win, and sheÂ’ll and remind me: you taught me to respect the President.

If I can give her that much, IÂ’ve done my job.

Read the whole thing; and check out his new book, now being promoted on his site. Looks like good stuff.

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particularly in terms of the Electoral College, which we've all been focused on (for obvious reasons). But the President got 51% of the popular vote (first time since 1988 that anyone has pulled that off [it was his father]). And he got an unprecedented raw number of votes.

Turnout helped both guys, but Bush more than Kerry.

And, furthermore, Bush had coattails: Republicans down the ticket benefited from the association with him.

Not a landslide. But a mandate.

He also benefitted from all the pro-gay-marriage initatives, which energized the "devout Christian" vote—to the point that I think advocates of gay marriage (and I am one, though I don't breathe fire on this issue) should regroup and start pushing for civil unions, and finding a way to assure full federal benefits for these types of partnerships. If there's a way to get the legal and financial protections that gays and lesbians need without forcing people to place the label "marriage" on it, it would get us through the next 10-20 years while we work this thing out. (Ultimately, I believe the state should only grant civil unions to any couple, and then the specific church/religious group would be responsible for pronouncing it a marriage.

The average person doesn't feel ready yet to go up to a man and discuss his husband. They can say "boyfriend," or "partner," but they're hung up on "husband," and need a few years to get used to that idea. Provided we can get all the necessary legal and financial protections in place, why does it hurt us to wait on that semantic issue?

Also, ixnay on the hate rhetoric. That Michael Moore stuff did you guys no good whatsoever, unless your goal was to make money for terrorists in the Middle East through distribution rights—or to savage the morale of American troops. Cut Moore loose, and thank me later.

And grab yourselves an electable candidate next time.

End of advice-giving.

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Edwards just came to the podium to tell the country that the concept of democracy is shit.

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1 I didn't hear this. What exactly did he say?

Posted by: David Foster at November 03, 2004 07:20 AM (XUtCY)

2 "We will have the votes to win as soon as Ter-AY-zaH gets back from Kinkos."

Posted by: The Pirate at November 03, 2004 08:19 AM (0ZKi5)

3 Is it any wonder why those of us who live in North Carolina weren't going to relect edwards? The guy is scum. Might have to drive by his house and TP it

Posted by: William Teach at November 03, 2004 01:35 PM (KCG7N)

4 David, he said essentially that they weren't going to concede, and muttered some nonsense about making sure every vote counted and was counted. I figured they were setting the stage for a long series of court challenges on an unambiguous result, and I lost my temper.

Posted by: Attila Girl at November 03, 2004 05:00 PM (SuJa4)

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Heading out to vote in a few minutes. I'm really sleep-deprived, but I promise to concentrate, so I don't vote for JFK by mistake. Then I'm off to my local Bush-Cheney party headquarters, so I can make some "get out the vote" phone calls. Not that it matters at the Presidential Level in the Golden State, but there are some important local issues here. I also want the statewide gap between Kerry and the President to be as narrow as possible, in order to embarass the Democrats and to give W. the strongest possible popular vote numbers.

One piece of advice, less for my blogger friends than for their mothers and brothers and aunts: don't watch (or listen to) any mainstream media sources until after you vote. Remember what happened in 2000: there would have been no dispute about the results in Florida if the panhandle had shown up at the polls. And the panhandle voters didn't bother, because the MSM had already called the state for Gore. There will be attempts by our friends in the MSM to manipulate the data so that things appear as hopeless for W. as possible. Vote, and then turn on the TV—if you must. (By the way, the advice works for Democratic voters as well: voting is a civic duty, and we can all be swayed by last-minute data or a hard day at work: vote as early as you can—before work, if possible—and don't tune in until you've done it.)

Apparently, the fraud has already begun: Vodkapundit has a few examples (hop over there and scroll around). I anticipate there will be many today, and I just hope the poll-watchers stay on their toes.

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I went back to the old Blogspot site, to see when I first predicted a strong showing for Bush in this election. Turns out the first ones predated Kerry's nomination.

Here's what appears to be the very first:

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Welcome to 2004, the year that:

1. George W. Bush will be re-elected in a landslide election;

2. There will be another successful terrorist attack on the U.S., though not on the scale of 9/11;

3. The economy will take off, and employment will go through the roof;

4. My freelance copyediting income will, likewise, increase dramatically;

5. My husband will get another union job, thereby preserving our health care benefits--or he'll sell his screenplay, and we'll be able to afford to buy insurance through his company;

6. We'll be approved to adopt a baby;

7. I'll finally finish a draft on one of my backburnered writing projects.

I pray I'm right about everything but the second prediction.

And then there was this one, a bit later in January:

OKAY, I KNOW I'M LATE

But I'll say one thing about the Democratic primaries: the dems are acting less like lemmings lately, and more like folks who want to win. They appear to be leaning toward guys who have a chance, like Kerry and Edwards, and away from Angry Young Men Without a Prayer, like Dean and Clark.

But it'll all be for naught, and I'll give you two reasons why: 1) the war on terror/national security, and 2) the economy. The only thing that could really un-seat W. is a large-scale, successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil. And even that might backfire, since a lot of people feel he's being very aggressive in pursuing terrorists. As far as the economy is concerned, he's sitting in the catbird seat.

Bush by a landslide. And you know it, deep down.

Those were written 10-11 months ago. And now we'll see how I do. As at least one friend has pointed out, I've been "waaaay out on a limb" for many months—and not always when things looked good for the President.

If Kerry is elected, the Republic will survive, but hundreds or thousands will die here that wouldn't otherwise have to, and thousands of Iraqis will as well. In fact, the future of the Iraqi experiment will be in doubt if Kerry wins. And we need a democracy in that region other than Israel; we really do.

I'm no longer hoping for a landslide; I'd just like a lawyer-proof victory.

Goodnight, now. I'm voting first thing in the morning so I can go to Bush-Cheney headquarters around noon, have a couple of friendly arguments with the social cons there, and do a little get-out-the-vote phone calling.

Then it's out to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Interocitor for a little gathering with the Angeleno Chapter of the Bear-Flag Leaguers. It'll be the first time they'll be meeting Attila the Hub. I'll bring the laptop, but I'm not committing to live-blogging, particularly since this will partially be a social event. After all, I'm a nerd, but I do try not to let that show.

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Most bloggers, pundits and poll-collectors give it to Bush 286-252. That assumes Hawaii doesn't flip, New Hampshire goes to Kerry, and Kerry takes the West Coast, New England, and Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois. Pennsylvania to Kerry, Florida to Bush, New Mexico to Bush and Ohio to Bush.

I'm going to say that we get at least four more EVs than that, for a minimum of 290 Bush votes: Hawaii will come over, and maybe New Hampshire as well (which would bring us to 294). And I think it's likely we'll get one more of the Great Lakes states, in light of the bin Ladin threats. Americans do not like to be threatened.

But what do I know?—I'm a middle-aged gal with a computer.

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Yigal Carmon, President of The Middle East Media Research Institute, wrote an article on the MEMRI web site that corrects an early mis-translation from Osama bin Ladin's recent video:

The tape of Osama bin Laden that was aired on Al-Jazeera on Friday, October 29th included a specific threat to "each U.S. state," designed to influence the outcome of the upcoming election against George W. Bush. The U.S. media in general mistranslated the words "ay wilaya" (which means "each U.S. state") to mean a "country" or "nation" other than the U.S., while in fact the threat was directed specifically at each individual U.S. state. This suggests some knowledge by bin Laden of the U.S. electoral college system. In a section of his speech in which he harshly criticized George W. Bush, bin Laden stated: "Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."

The Islamist website Al-Qal'a explained what this sentence meant: "This message was a warning to every U.S. state separately. When he [Osama Bin Laden] said, 'Every state will be determining its own security, and will be responsible for its choice,' it means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as president has chosen to fight us, and we will consider it our enemy, and any state that will vote against Bush has chosen to make peace with us, and we will not characterize it as an enemy. By this characterization, Sheikh Osama wants to drive a wedge in the American body, to weaken it, and he wants to divide the American people itself between enemies of Islam and the Muslims, and those who fight for us, so that he doesn't treat all American people as if they're the same. This letter will have great implications inside the American society, part of which are connected to the American elections, and part of which are connected to what will come after the elections."

Another interesting aspect of the speech is the fact that while bin Laden made his specific threat to each U.S. state, he also offered an election deal to the American voters, attempting to influence the election by these means rather than influencing it through terrorist attacks.

The short version?—Binny says, vote Kerry if you know what's good for you.

Adds Jeff of Protein Wisdom:

Reached for comment, California pulled two enormous bong hits, opened a bag of Doritos, and fired up the Playstation 2.

Protein Wisdom also has a pretty good roundup of blogger reactions, so follow the link right above this if you want to read more.

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Hawaii is in play (Bush slightly ahead), and so is Michigan (Kerry still ahead there). If Kerry loses either of those states it's going to be embarrassing. As it is, he lost Nevada and New Mexico. But I guess he'll be hanging on to New Jersey by his fingernails. Maybe even Pennsylvania and Minnesota.

Hell--California's looking like Kerry is only ahead of Bush in the single digits. Is there any state that's still rock-solid for JFK?--Oh, right. New York. And Illinois.

This could be a bloodbath—or at least, a strong enough result to save us from the lawsuits.

I suspect we'll all be pretty cheerful Tuesday night: expect lots of toasts.

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Power Line's Hindracker hits the big time:

NBC News has asked me to be part of their election night broadcast team. I'm not sure yet exactly what the format will be, but I'll be in New York at the NBC studio. I'll once again be paired with the Wonkette. Given the long hours that these election night shows consume, I expect to get some air time. I'll try to lend whatever balance I can to NBC's coverage, and if I get the opportunity, I'll let Tom Brokaw know that I'm one of the guys he called a "Jihadist" in connection with Hurricane Dan.

So: tune in to NBC on election night. If it's a good night for President Bush and the Republicans, I'll be the only happy guy in the building.

I'll be with the Los Angeles Bear Flag Leaguers on the West Side, celebrating the Bush win, and I would think we'll probably tune in, though it certainly won't be up to me.

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Over at Jane Galt, Megan McArdle has fiiiinaaalllyy made up her mind. She goes through the issues close to her tree-hugging, libertarian heart and tells us which guy wins out on each issue before making her reluctant declaration.

It's good reading, because she in some ways a genuine centrist, and she's smarter—and better-informed—than I am. Good stuff. Go, now—no matter your political persuasion. It's one of the most thoughtful political essays I've read this whole damned election season.

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Oh, no fair. Eminem has this new video to underscore the fact that we're never the cool kids on the block. And they're all wearing their black hoodies to the polls.

Nice video, though: I like the way the animation is integrated into the live action of Eminem himself.

Hm. Should I wear my gray zip jacket with the hood? Will it make me cool? At 42, I'm finding that quality more and more elusive.

We should wear hoodies that are white. Or multicolored ones in red, white and blue. Or orange hoodies, since it'll be two days after Halloween. Or maple-leaf brown, for autumn.

You know what we should wear?—red. It's the symbol of blood and bravery.

Michele praises the video, and notes that it's Eminem's right to speak his mind about the President. But she points out that it's a little hypocritical of the left to 1) lionize celebrities who speak out on politics only when you agree with them, and 2) suddenly decide they like Eminem after all, when just ten minutes ago they despised him as a gay-bashing misogynist who glorified violence.

Hey, Michele—that was then. This is now.

You know what sucks about this election? In a sane year, efforts like those of Election Protection would be bipartisan efforts, rather than the Democrats having their own poll observers and the Republicans, our own. Or we'd at least be able to cooperate to the point that we would have squads of observers, equally matched as to party, at each location to make sure that no one is intimidated, but that no voter fraud occurs. Instead, we have mutual suspicion and rumors of intimidation based on race—and yet, at times, an out and out celebration of vote fraud by Democrats. And of course that isn't right, either: whenever someone votes fraudulently another citizen is being disenfranchised.

This sucks. No matter what happens, I hope America regains its equilibrium, and I weep for what we've lost.

I hope it doesn't take another attack to bring us together again.

Please get this over with, and please—let there be some peace and reasonableness when it's done. And get my democracy to some radiation therapy, please: it has cancer.

Posted by: Attila at 10:26 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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. . . malfunctions in the Rove chips? I'm having trouble thinking straight. Lots of static.

Supposed to say . . . Russians took the explosives from Al-Qaqaa . . . Ter-AY-suh is ugly, and Edwards is dim . . . we're up in Florida and Pennsylvania, and still might take Ohio. Michigan is falling, falling to us fast. Hawai'i is being seduced by the dark side . . .

Out. Signal's out. Nothing to blog about.

Perhaps Voldemort can help me; as it turns out, he's a good IT guy. Who knew?

Posted by: Attila at 12:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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