I’m Calling It . . .

Ken AshfordElection 2004Leave a Comment

. . . against my better judgment. As a Red Sox fan, I know that you should never declare victory until the final out. (I know, we broke the curse this year, but still . . .)

But I’m calling it a Kerry victory — now — and here are some (very bad) reasons why.

(1) I pulled my back and I’m not sure how far into the night I can last.

(2) "Democracy Plaza" is Rockefeller Center. That’s all. I can’t deal with "Democracy Plaza" anymore.

(3) Wonkette’s little bird. Conventional wisdom is that Democrats vote LATE, so if Wonkette’s numbers are even remotely correct, it STILL looks good for Kerry. (NOTE: I think her early exit polls are the same as Slate’s. (UPDATE: The later, but more accurate, "unofficial" exit polls are even better for Kerry — see here)

(4) High voter turnout favors the challenger. Record high voter turnout REALLY favors the challenger.

(5) Right-wing blog cites are urging their readers to behave in the face of defeat, except for those which are not. Either way, there seems to be the spector of defeat in right-wing blogosphere land.

(6) Same reason as always: No President with <50% approval rating as ever been re-elected. Case closed.

If some of you intend to really get into watching the returns tonight, you must read this must-read about exit polls. You need to know for your own self how much (or how little) you want to trust them. But Icy Hot patches await me, and I think I’m going to call it a Kerry victory. Feel free to send me some Dewey-Truman jibes — or (ugh!) Koolaid references. I’ll read them all in the morning!!

Final Thoughts and Predictions

Ken AshfordElection 2004Leave a Comment

1. Kerry has the momentum going into the election. He will win the popular vote: 48.8% to 47.8%. More importantly, Kerry will win the electoral college: 280 to 258.

The battleground state breakdown will be:

NH, PA, NJ, MI, MN, FL, NM, WI for Kerry

NV, OH, IA, MO for Bush . . .

although we won’t know the results for many of these states until early Wednesday. Florida and/or Wisconsin will be the tightest. No upsets in non-battleground states, but Arkansas will give Bush a bigger run for his money than expected.

If I am wrong, then the first indication will be when NJ fails to have a clear winner by midnight. If that’s the case, then turn off the TV and go to bed. You will wake up in the morning with Bush being President.

2. The "second headline" for the election (underneath "Kerry Wins") will be the strength of the (Kerry-leaning) youth vote, which all polls have universally underestimated and undersampled.

3. Highest voter turnout ever. For weeks, the right wing has been saying that the left has been motivated by its anti-Bush feelings, rather than pro-Kerry feelings. Yup. You better believe it. Just watch how much.

4. Yes, there will be fighting and lawsuits afterwards . . . by both parties. The public will not stomach it for very long, and it will all go away.

5. The Republican party will fall into disarray as neo-cons fight the Reagan conservatives for the soul of the party. Not to mention fiscal conservatives who want to regain their voice. And then the fight between social (religious) conservatives and the "Arnold" (socially liberal) conservatives. Sadly, they’ll pull it together by 2008 — they always do.

6. There will be no honeymoon for Kerry.

Bush Is No Kennedy

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

"It’s hard for me to listen to President Bush invoking my father’s memory to attack John Kerry. Senator Kerry has demonstrated his courage and commitment to a stronger America throughout his entire career. President Kennedy inspired and united the country and so will John Kerry. President Bush is doing just the opposite. All of us who revere the strength and resolve of President Kennedy will be supporting John Kerry on Election Day."

– Caroline Kennedy (according to Willis).

For those of you wondering what this is about, Bush has been invoking President Kennedy (and FDR) in his recent speeches, making implicit comparisons and suggesting that Bush (as opposed to Kerry) has the same courage of his convictions as those earlier Presidents.

Movie Villain of the Year

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

Total Film magazine’s annual poll of the "Movie Villain of the Year" had an interesting outcome. Was it Dr. Octopus from Spiderman 2? Or the bad guy from Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Or the Alien? Or the Predator?

Nope.

It was George Bush (star of "Fahrenheit 9/11"). (Source)

Heh.

Why Do The Facts Hate America?

Ken AshfordRepublicansLeave a Comment

I think the whole meme that "we got bad intelligence" rings hollow when you have a White House that is uninterested in ACTUAL reality, and more interested in ITS version of reality.

Check out this article (not online, but reprinted in part here from The American Conservative Magazine):

On Sept. 28, at the Vice President’s request, the Agency provided a special briefing on the subject of Jordanian terrorist Mu’sab al-Zarqawi. The CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center (CTC) reviewed all of the available intelligence on the subject and based its briefing on a just completed comprehensive intelligence analysis. The CTC concluded that Saddam Hussein had not materially supported Zarqawi before the U.S.-led invasion and that Zarqawi’s infrastructure in Iraw before the war was confined to the northern no-fly zones of Kurdistan, beyond Baghdad’s reach. Cheney reacted with fury, screaming at the briefer that CIA was trying to get John Kerry elected by contradicting the president’s stance that Saddam had supported terrorism and therefore needed to be overthrown. The hapless briefer was shaken by the vice president’s outburst, and the incident was reported back to Goss, who indicated that he was reluctant to confront the vice president’s staff regarding it.

Why do the facts hate America??

UPDATE: Speaking of "facts", Bush has pulled out his Obsidian Great Sword of Irony (-3 Intelligence) and whacked himself over the head with it today, by saying (in response to the Iraqi "missing explosives" story): "For a political candidate to jump to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief". Funny, that’s what we’ve been saying for months, too.

Pentagon Against Bush?

Ken AshfordElection 2004, IraqLeave a Comment

I think Josh Marshall is on to something when he writes:

This evening, Wingerdom is all aflutter about what they now see as the New York Times-CBS-IAEA international anti-Bush conspiracy. But they might do better to focus their anxieties elsewhere.

Like at the Pentagon, for instance.

Who over there is trying to stick it to the president?

Look at two big news stories on Tuesday, the Washington Post report that the White House plans to ask for some $70 billion more in Iraq spending just a week or two after the election and this USA Today piece reporting that the Pentagon is planning to add roughly 20,000 more troops to the force in Iraq in anticipation of the elections in January.

The White House can’t approve of these stories getting out. Not THIS week, of all weeks. So who is doing the leaking, and why?

Bush Flips On Sex

Ken AshfordElection 2004, Sex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

Get off the subject, George. It’s a minefield. Don’t get all flippity-floppity with the election one week away!

Bush Says His Party Is Wrong to Oppose Gay Civil Unions

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: October 26, 2004

WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 – President Bush said in an interview this past weekend that he disagreed with the Republican Party platform opposing civil unions of same-sex couples and that the matter should be left up to the states.

Mr. Bush has previously said that states should be permitted to allow same-sex unions, even though White House officials have said he would not have endorsed such unions as governor of Texas. But Mr. Bush has never before made a point of so publicly disagreeing with his party’s official position on the issue.

No, what am I saying???? Keep it up!!

Ouch, Ouch and Ouch

Ken AshfordElection 2004Leave a Comment

Today, three well-respected political magazines representing very distinct corners of the political spectrum have either (a) endorsed Kerry and/or (b) forcefully rejected Bush.

They are:

The Nation

The New Republic

The American Conservative

So Bush gets the neo-cons. But as for the greens, moderates, liberal hawks, and traditional conservatives? They can’t they seem to get behind Bush. Why is that?

More ouches: Well-known Republican blogger (and assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago) Dan Drezner joins the Kerry crowd, and several notable libertarians either pick Kerry or reject Bush by staying at home.

Oh, Jesse Ventura endorses Kerry today, too. What a big tent I suddenly find myself in.

Update: Hey, look. Even spy novelist John LeCarre has shown up in the Kerry tent. Too bad he can’t vote here. Although, now that I think of it, isn’t "John LeCarre" probably the literal French translation of "John Kerry"?

And On This Farm He Had Some . . . .

Ken AshfordElection 2004Leave a Comment

Mere hours after Bush unveils an ad using scary wolves, Political Wire is reporting that Kerry has a response ad comparing Bush to an ostrich:

Ad transcript: "The eagle sours high above the earth; the ostrich buries its head in the sand. The eagle knows when it’s time to change course; the ostrich just stands in its place. Given these challenging times, shouldn’t we be the eagle again?"

Some one wake me when they get to snow leopards.

UPDATE: Actually, the eagle/ostrich ad comes from the DNC. And it’s pretty effective.

Bush Doesn’t Understand The Nature of The Terrorist Threat

Ken AshfordWar on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

It’s odd. Bush says that Kerry is failing to comprehend the war on terrorism.

It’s odd, I say, because Bush’s own people, are saying (implicitly anyway) that it is Bush who doesn’t get it.

The Bush Administration seems to think that the way to defeat terrorism is by decapitating the leadership of al Qaeda. Capture or kill those AQ leaders (from a three-year old list) and you have defeated terrorism, the theory goes. Hey, that might work if we were fighting a nation-state like, oh, Nazi Germany, but as the above article suggest, that is not the true nature of our enemy. Our true enemies have morphed into numerous cells who no longer wait on al Qaeda leadership for their marching orders. Does Bush care about these facts?

Interesting article — recommended reading.

What It Means

Ken AshfordRed Sox & Other SportsLeave a Comment

I am by no means a sports nut. And I don’t understand the "fandom" that comes with many sports. Like NASCAR. How can car mechanics even be called a sport, which (I always thought) had something to do with physicality and the indomitable human spirit . . . or something close to that?

No matter. I’m in no position to judge. I am a Red Sox "fan". Or more correctly, a long-suffering Red Sox fan. Everybody raised in New England (as I was) is a Red Sox fan — even those like my sister who has never seen the Red Sox play as much as an inning in her entire life.

Being a Red Sox fan means being for almost winning, or — as some bright person once said — snatching a defeat from the jaws of victory. And for the first time in my life, I am beginning to think that the Red Sox might be unable to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the American League Championship. I may have to accept the fact that — this one time — they were actually victorious over the Yankees (although, like Robb Cordrey of TDS, I still haven’t quite entirely ruled out a Yankees comeback . . . somehow).

I won’t bore you with "the curse". You either know about the Bosox’s 7th game World Series loss in 1967 to the Cardinals . . . or not. Or its extraordinary 6th game win in the 1975 World Series, only to be followed by an excruciating loss in the 7th game, to the Reds (29 years ago today). Or its one game tiebreaker against the Yankees in 1978, where it lost (that Bucky Fuckin’ Dent!). Or the painful 1986 World Series, where the Red Sox were one strike away from winning the World Series, and that awful grounder that (somehow!) went through Buckner’s legs. Or 1999, when the Yankees (again) denied the Red Sox a trip to the World Series. Or 2003, when the Yankees hit a home run in the bottom of the 11th in the 7th game of the AL League Championship.

No, I won’t bore you with "the curse".

But I will tell you this. There are graves, my friends. Graves of my relatives — as well as the forebears of many a New Englander — bearing the remains of once-lively bodies who have done little but wait for a baseball year like this. My grandmother never saw the Red Sox win a World Series — she died in 1977. My mother — as diehard a Red Sox fan as they come — is pushing 70. She knows there aren’t many more chances to see a victory. "What would that be like", I remember her thinking out loud to her kids . . . 30 years ago!!!

What would it be like? The psyche of an entire region of the United States will change overnight with a Red Sox victory.

And I can’t stress this enough: the impact of a Red Sox World Series victory will extend to those who never even watch baseball. New Englanders — all New Englanders — even those who are not Red Sox fans — possess an undercurrent of cynical pessimism which can be directly attributable to the tortured history of the Red Sox. You soak it up like a sponge, whether you pay attention to the Red Sox or not.

The cataclysmic sea change in the social psychology of New England will have far-reaching implications beyond the world of sports — it will effect millions of people politically and culturally. Instead of repeating the well-understood lesson of accepting defeat from an almost-win with grace (like Gore in 2000), millions will taste true victory. Heck, we might even become "faith-based Republicans"!!!

So send some good karma up North and to the East.

Need more incentive? A Red Sox win will stop New England intellectuals like me from pontificating out of our butts about the Red Sox. We simply will have nothing to write about anymore.

Thank you.

White House Stops Airing Its Dirty Linens

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

A little late, in my opinion, but the White House realized it is probably not a good idea to have Bush’s bloopers and flip-flops on the official White House website. So they have been slowly and quietly removing them.

Not to worry. This guy is on top of it. Gone now are Bush’s "I’m not that concerned about Bin Laden" audio and video, as well as audio and video where Bush talks about how dangerous Saddam’s WMD are, and all those Saddam-AQ links.

Now if only the White House could get a hold of them nifty flashy mind-erasing pen-things they had in "Men in Black" . . . .

Fisking Ann

Ken AshfordRight Wing Punditry/IdiocyLeave a Comment

Yes, she’s an easy target, but her Amazon Interview is too priceless to miss. Plus, it’s short. Let’s begin.

Amazon.com: How important is this presidential election in the larger context of the Republic and its history?

Ann Coulter: Insofar as the survival of the Republic is threatened by the election of John Kerry, I’d say 2004 is as big as it gets.

The survival of the Republic? Yes, that DOES sound pretty big and important. But what a weak system of government we must have to begin with if John Kerry’s election can bring it to shreds. Who were the assholes who thought up our pansy-ass Republican structure?

Amazon.com: Is there one standout issue, and why does it make a difference? What are the most crucial issues?

Coulter: I repeat: The survival of the Republic is threatened by the election of John Kerry. I’d say that’s the big one.

I’m detecting a theme here, Ann. Actually, it’a theme they floated around back in — let’s see — 1860, if I’m not mistaken.

Amazon.com: What are the top five books you’d recommend to become an informed voter? And what can your new book contribute?

Coulter: The Bible, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Slander, Treason, and How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).

One of these things . . . is not like the others. One of the these things . . . doesn’t belong. Can you tell me which thing . . . is not like the others . . . before I finish my song.

Oh, and Ann? How come you didn’t answer the second question?

Amazon.com: What’s the closest parallel from American history to this year’s race?

Coulter: 1864. Bush is Lincoln and Kerry is General McClellan–who, I note, was a great military leader.

I see. A "great military leader" is a general who repeatedly refuses to take the fight to his enemy, based on false paranoia that the enemy has more strength than it actually does. Thank you, Ann. I didn’t realize you were such a military historian.

Amazon.com: What is the most important lesson from President Bush’s term so far?

Coulter: Peace through strength is an idea that never goes out of style.

Where have we achieved peace through strength in President Bush’s term thus far? Just asking.

Coulter: Also, some people can’t be negotiated with but have to be crushed; e.g., the Taliban, al Qaeda, possibly North Korea and Iran, Pat Leahy, Carl Levin, Richard Ben-Veniste…

Whoa, whoa, whoa!!! I’m getting writer’s cramp here, Ann!

So . . . Richard Ben-Veniste has to be crushed, but only "possibly" North Korea and Iran?? I’m glad to see you have your priorities in order. What happened to peace through strength, by the way?

Amazon.com: What would a Kerry administration mean?

Coulter: Quite possibly the destruction of the Republic.

And we return to the theme which we started, just like they taught us in freshman writing class. Wow.

So to recap: Kerry = "end of the Republic". Ann’s books are kind of like the Bible. McClellan was a great general which explains why there are so many statues of him as opposed to, say, Lee. And saying "go fuck yourself" to Pat Leahy isn’t as effective as crushing him with a huge boulder.

Thank you, Ann. Nice Halloween costume.

Oh.

Sorry.

Bush Supporters Are More Likely To Be . . . er . . . Wrong

Ken AshfordRepublicansLeave a Comment

It’s true, according to this study. For example . . .

Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program.

But how can this be? Could it be because Bush & Co. misled — and still continue to mislead — their supporters?

You betcha. How about how the U.S. is perceived around the world? Do Bush supporters have an accurate sense of the world’s view toward us?

Nope.

Despite an abundance of evidence–including polls conducted by Gallup International in 38 countries, and more recently by a consortium of leading newspapers in 10 major countries–only 31% of Bush supporters recognize that the majority of people in the world oppose the US having gone to war with Iraq. …

Similarly, 57% of Bush supporters assume that the majority of people in the world would favor Bush’s reelection; 33% assumed that views are evenly divided and only 9% assumed that Kerry would be preferred. A recent poll by GlobeScan and PIPA of 35 of the major countries around the world found that in 30, a majority or plurality favored Kerry, while in just 3 Bush was favored. On average, Kerry was preferred more than two to one.

Interesting. But surely if there is ONE thing that Bush supporters get right, it is their own candidates’ positions, yes?

Bush supporters also have numerous misperceptions about Bush’s international policy positions. Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports multilateral approaches to various international issues–the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines (72%)–and for addressing the problem of global warming: 51% incorrectly assume he favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty. After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he favored it dropped from 66%, but still 53% continue to believe that he favors it. An overwhelming 74% incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. In all these cases, majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush. Kerry supporters are much more accurate in their perceptions of his positions on these issues.

So to Bush supporters, I say this: Be sure that Bush really believes what you THINK he believes.

Actually, the same should be stressed for Kerry supporters, too, although this seems to be less of a problem.