Well well

I am shocked that Nancy Pelosi is apparently backing John Murtha for House Majority Leader and Alcee Hastings for Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Unless there is a deep game being played here, this would seem to run counter to what common sense would indicate is the path to a sustained Democratic majority in the House.

Scandel played a huge part in the GOP losses last week and yet here is the soon-to-be-Speaker endorsing two crooks? Alcee Hastings is just plain dirty and that is on the record for the whole world to see. He was impeached, convicted, and removed from the bench by a Democratic controlled Congress.

John Jack Murtha is nothing more than a penny-ante political hack who has been overestimating his importance for over 25 years. There is ample video evidence of his corruption starting at least as far back as ABSCAM. Why he has never been called to account is far beyond me.

Why would Pelosi jeopardize everything the Democrats have just won by supporting these two losers? Is it possible she is not the canny politico I feared she is and is instead just a garden variety liberal goof?

I am more hopeful now that the "new" Democratic Party will be just as stupid as the old one.

Why and What Now?

Part 1.

Amongst all the foofahrah in the aftermath of Election Night 2006 I am already hearing enough axes being ground to put the entire rain forest in jeopardy. While I expect many good points to be raised and pointed to, I think there is a simple way to interpret these latest results.

I intentionally say "latest results" because while we tend to view elections as being The End of the play, in fact they are merely the end of a numberless number of individual Acts in the play. The lights dim and the curtain falls but soon it rises again for the next act. As act follows act new characters are introduced and the dynamics of the storyline are altered.

My hypothesis is based on a theory that all voters can be placed in distinct partisan segments or compartments. While the American electorate could be divided into dozens of categories, in the name of practicality I’ll stop with just seven major groups. I make no attempt to control for smart people as opposed to dumb ones, old, young, black, white, poor or rich. While Americans are in certain matters divided along some of those lines, I no longer believe those are the true answer to why elections turn as they do.

Let me further explain that clearly individual candidates and the campaigns they run play a large part in the result. For instance Any of a dozen other Montana Republicans probably would have defeated Jon Tester. Conrad Burns was an uninspiring Senator who had grown tired and tiresome in office.

Without further ado:
The seven segments should be considered somewhat fluid, as some voters move from one to another (and perhaps back again) from election to election to election. The Seven Segments are:
A. Republicans
B. Republican Leaning Independents
C. Right of Center Independents
D. Independents
E. Left of Center Independents
F. Democrat Leaning Independents
G. Democrats

The two bracketing groups are the best known and understood. Republicans vote for Republicans and Democrats vote for Democrats. I chuckle when I see exit polls that show (by example) that Republicans voted 92-6 for George Allen and Democrats voted 92-6 for James Webb. How on Earth could ANY "Democrat" vote for Allen? Or "Republican" for Webb? I posit that this is impossible.

What I believe actually happens is people who were ONCE Republicans and can’t quite bring themselves to admit they no longer are, voted for Webb etc.
Obviously anyone can claim to be anything, but if you voted for Al Gore and John Kerry, and think Dubya is a jerk and you voted for James Webb, you ARE NOT NOW a Republican.

So when I use the labels Republican and Democrat I intend it to be understood in the most literal, direct, dogmatic, and unrelenting way possible. Put another way, "Republicans" voted for Barry Goldwater and "Democrats" voted for George McGovern.

I shall be posting in depth over the next couple of days, however a quick word.

All is not lost. In a year when the Democrats SHOULD have won big they won only by tiny amounts at the margins.

Yes, they took control of both the Senate and the House, but by narrow vote totals across the spectrum. Allen lost by about 6500, Burns by about 4000, Talent by about 42,000.

Numerous House races were very close.

American politics ALWAYS has shakeouts along the way. Nothing that happened yesterday is new, or a once in a lifetime event.

As Arnold might say "We'll be back".

BestHope

Ok, I'm back. After a year of unrelenting turmoil in my life I finally feel like blogging again.

Election day is tomorrow and while I have not been blogging I have certainly been reading and listening to all the hubbub.

My gut tells me that the Democrats pick up 12 to 18 seats in the House. This would result in an absurdly narrow margin for either party.

In the Senate I look for the GOP to lose 3 to 5 seats. Ohio and Pennsylvania are gone. I suspect Rhode Island is also. Tennessee is firmly back in the R column. Montana I fear will go for Tester along the lines of 52-48.

Missouri I believe will go for Talent by a few thousand votes.

Allen will hold on in Virginia by 51-49.

My major upset pick is Steele in Maryland. He is within 3-4 points in all polls, and I believe the black vote will turn his way strongly on Tuesday.

That all amounts to a net Dem pickup of 3 seats. However, Talent and Allen are in tough tough races and the ground game could turn them either way.

BestHope

Much Ado About.....

Several interesting items this morning. The usually clear headed Michael Barone gets tied up in his own facts and logic. After once more displaying the incredible depth of his political knowledge, he arrives at two diametrically opposed conclusions.

1. The Republicans SHOULD worry about the results of special election in Ohio.
2. Special election results are notoriously poor predictors of general election results.

Newt Gingrich also weighs in and so I wonder if maybe this is just a case of Barone and Newt making sure that the GOP brain trust is awake.

In any case I would argue that the narrow victory by the Republican in the special election in Ohio's second district is virtually worthless as a harbinger of the '06 general.

The "out" party is motivated to go for the upset in these special elections while the "in" party is bored and satisfied with all its goodies. When only 20% or so of voters bother to come out, you naturally should be prepared for the possibility of wacky results.

George Will has a piece out today that in the main makes a thoroughly logical case for Bill Frist's stem cell position. However in his rush to show what a broad minded fellow he is, Will takes a swipe at conservatives that just does not hold up under scrutiny.

"Some "social conservatives" purporting to speak for "values voters" - what voters do not intend their political choices to advance their values? - insist, simultaneously, that Frist made a gross political blunder, and that he sacrificed principles to politics. This train wreck of logic makes one's head hurt."

This train wreck of a paragraph serves to prove beyond all doubt that Will has completed his multi-year transition from conservative to moderate. His decision to enclose in quotation marks "social conservatives" and "values voters" clearly transmits his disdain for both groups. His lame attempt to cast ALL voters as "values voters" sounds like something he read in Jon Stewart's Snarky Things To Say About Conservatives manual.

Finally his snide implication that Frist's decision CAN'T be both politically motivated AND a political blunder is simply dishonest and embarrassingly stupid. Below is a short list of well known events that fit both descriptions.

3. Gary Hart(pence)'s invitation to reporters to follow him for proof of his upstanding life style.
2. Jimmy Carter's cloying reference to his nuclear war advisor, daughter Amy.
1. Mike Dukakis' ride in a tank to show what a bad mamajama he was.

Unprincipled actions for political gain that turn into blunders happen pretty much every day in Washington. Will's snippy tone serves only underline the bankrupt state of his truth and logic cupboard.

Idiots On All Sides

I think one of the great discoveries I made along the way is that some people who I agree with, almost completely, are none the less jerks.

Perhaps that is part of the essential difference between Conservatives and Liberals. Liberals tend to paint ALL Liberals as lilly white and heroic, and all Conservatives as dark and evil.

Conservatives on the other hand understand that there are good people who are liberals and complete dumb-asses who are Conservative.

Case in point is this post (and others like it) at Confirm Them and Red State et al. (WHY do they need to cross post things in nine different places?) What has drawn my ire is the line at the bottom:

"BTW, if you don’t know who Leonard Leo is, then you have no business commenting on the Roberts nomination in the first place."

Well kiss my down home ass. Leonard Leo might be a great fellow doing great deeds but he is one of many and earns no special consideration from me in the GOP Hall of Sucking Up and General Obsequiousness.

Geesh what a twit "Feddie" must be to post such nonsense. Grow up boy.

Stare Decisis and Whistling Past the Graveyard

Among the churning mass of Liberal convulsions brought on by the John Roberts nomination, we are seeing a heretofore little known "legal doctrine" mentioned, with numbing regularity, by the Liberal media and commentariat.

"Stare decisis" translated into American (as Floyd R. Turbo might say) means "let the decision stand". Further translating, a judge who strongly adheres to stare decisis would be a judge who generally would frown on attempts to overturn prior decisions of the Supreme Court.

While stare decisis has an important role to play in the broad application of constitutional law, it is by no means a trip wire that one must avoid at all costs.

Where were the proponents of stare decisis when Earl Warren, William Brennen and Harry Blackmun where running amuck in the 50's, 60's, & 70's? Where were the sensibilities of the great Liberals of the day when the Warren Court smashed long standing precedent after long standing precedent in pursuit of their political agenda?

If stare decisis were preeminent among legal principles and guideposts, wouldn't Dred Scott still be the law of the land? And if stare decisis is inviolate as a principle of constitutional law then shouldn't we apply it as well to criminal proceedings? A little stare decisis would go along way toward lessening the load on our overburdened courts of appeal.

Almost anyone with a dash of common sense realizes that a Supreme Court that constantly revised and meddled with decided cases would undercut the stability of the entire system. Imagine that if each time a new justice was sworn in the court would revote on all the 5-4 decisions of the past 30 years. Chaos would ensue.

That path would be roughly as absurd as the one now being suggested (demanded?) by the avid supporters of stare decisis. These jokers would have us fall for the notion that there are SUPER DECISIONS that shall never be over turned. Naturally Roe V. Wade is first in line on their list of SUPER DECISIONS.

Nonsense and phooey.

And Then There Were Four

Reliable conservatives on the Supreme Court, that is. Following the likely confirmation of John Roberts, the Supreme Court will have a near majority of honest to goodness conservative justices for the first time in over a decade. Since Ruth Ginsberg replaced Byron White, the Court has been made up of three groups. The Liberal Four (currently Breyer, Souter, Ginsberg & Stevens) the Wishy Washy Two (Kennedy & O'Connor) , and the Conservative Three (Rehnquist, Thomas & Scalia).

Fortunately for Conservatives (and the Republic) The Wishy Washy Two never completely succumbed to the blandishments of The Dark Side and thus we have had a dozen years of moderation/compromise/goulash. It seemed that for ever really awful ruling, there was one that was fairly decent, and thus an uneven stasis was maintained.

It has been amusing to watch both Liberals and Conservatives take turns being happy and gloomy the past few days. Neither side seems quite able to decide whether this "stealth" candidate is Santa Claus or the Bogey Man.

Amongst all the breathless chatter about how Roberts' votes will differ from O'Connor's almost no one has publicly considered how Roberts' personality will affect the OTHER Justices. Only on this Liberal web site have I seen anyone put their finger on this important issue. The closing lines say it well:

"Kennedy probably won’t budge on the core issue of reproductive rights, but in other areas, he may be up for grabs. In fact, should Roberts be confirmed, his impact on Justice Kennedy is likely to be the most important near-term effect of his arrival at the Court. "

Robert's effect on Kennedy is THE most profound short term question.

Yeah, what I said!

Several months ago I held forth on the damage Al Gore chose to inflict on the American electoral system.

Now, via RealClearPolitics, the ever outstanding Michael Barone has taken the point even farther.

I am thankful I won't be called upon to decide the Washington State case. It is very thorny and has immense implications.

In this political "off-season" I will be sporadic at best with my posts but I am here!

Wrong, Stupid, and Unnecessary

As soon as the votes were counted (the first time) showing that George Bush had been re-elected, most pundits and politicians immediately began talking and writing about the coming Battle Supreme over judicial nominations.

Majority Leader Bill Frist who wants to run for President in 2008, and has a reputation for smarts and urbanity, jumped into the fray by loudly proclaiming the possibility of invoking the "nuclear option" (NO).

The NO, as most of you likely know involves the United States Senate voting to disallow use of the filibuster during votes on judicial nominations. If used, the NO would lower the bar from 60 votes to 51 votes to confirm the President's choice.

While today's Democratic Party deserves any dirty tricks that are sprung on them, the Republicans need to think long and hard about this "option". It would be a stupid move, so ill-advised that it could send the GOP back to minority status far sooner than expected.

Wrong

First, it is wrong because it arbitrarily reverses over 200 years of tradition. The Filibuster was conceived to protect the minority from the majority. It is just one of MANY such protections that exist in our law and practices.

Freedom of Speech is primarily about minority rights. Saddam Hussein enjoyed free speech in pre-war Iraq, but no one else did. In the United States we put tremendous importance on the right to say what you wish because it allows a person or group of persons who otherwise have little or no power, to make their case and help guide decision making.

The fact that SOME people abuse that freedom, is no good excuse for REMOVING the right to free speech. The same is true of the filibuster. If the 60 vote rule to stop a filibuster was EVER a good thing, it still is, regardless of the Democratic Party's abuse of the system.

Stupid

Second, it would be a monumentally stupid action to reverse Senate tradition and change the 60 vote rule. Stupid because American's would see that action for what it is: A power grab by a majority, a short cut born of impatience, and an arrogant taking of minority rights.

American's love an underdog even if they hated him last week. No matter that the Democrats have become an odious collection of special interest whiners and ambulance chasers, it is they who in this instance are playing by the rules and it would be the Republicans who would be viewed as bullies and cheats.

Unnecessary

Finally if wrong and stupid aren't reasons enough, the NO is in fact completely unnecessary. A "real" filibuster is composed of two ingredients that are wholly missing from the modern low fat FilibusterLite. Up until roughly 30-40 years ago, a filibuster brought ALL Senate business to a halt. Nothing else could be voted on or disposed of. Additionally, in order to continue, the filibusters had to speak constantly, around the clock, 24 hours, 48 hours, 200 hours, whatever it took and however long they could stand it.

In the present time the filibuster is a pathetic shadow of its former self. Other business goes on, only the specific issue that the filibuster is related to stops. And, it is no longer required to go around the clock, in fact I don't think they have to speak at all. In effect the "filibuster" has become just another parliamentary maneuver. If one side wants to derail anything they don't actually have the votes to stop, they simply declare a "filibuster" and Voila! 60 votes are required to pass the motion.

The solution is so obvious and so simple. Go back to the way filibusters were administered 50 years ago and for many decades before that. Force the Democrats to bring Senate action to a crashing halt and thereby effectively paralyzing the federal government.

The Republican Party is the MAJORITY party again for the first time since Calvin Coolidge was President. Let's not throw it all away with a bullheaded decision that actually empowers and breaths life into the sorry heap of debris that the Democratic Party has become.

The Chile Incident

I am deeply troubled by what happened in Chile Saturday. The attempt by local "security forces" to separate President Bush and his Secret Service contingent is a very serious matter.

Clearly the administration is trying to keep the lid on this incident and not allow it to become a major story. Yet the fact is that this was a very dangerous situation, that could have turned out very badly.

Someday there will be a book written about this episode. Bet on it. The President's quick thinking illustrates very well the fact that he:

A) Is no dummy
B) Is very aware of his surroundings and what is going on
C) Is damn good at thinking on his feet

One quails at the thought of how the great debater John Kerry would have handled this snafu.

The President's men must NEVER allow this to happen again.

Let's not be spun by their spin.

One of the more pernicious phenomenon of modern day America is the way in which certain little nuggets of fact or opinion are often magnified far beyond their true worth or significance.

The media loves a catchy label, a quick and lazy way to package news, events and trends. Reaganomics. The Teflon President. The Great Communicator. The Wimp Factor. Bimbo Eruptions. Watergate, Whitewater, KoreaGate, TravelGate, Iran-Contra. Year of the Woman. Soccer Moms. Angry White Males. Security Moms, and on and on.

Another facet of this approach to reality, is the way in which the media leads us and themselves to focus on something that would have gone totally unnoticed 75 or 100 years ago. I am thinking specifically about how the media has taken to boiling down presidential elections to just a hand full of states and then pretending that somehow the CLOSENESS of those states is significant beyond who eeks out a win.

Much is made of the closeness of the President's Ohio win, yet in the larger state of Pennsylvania that Kerry won, the vote was closer, and almost NO ONE is pointing that out! Ohio gets all the attention because THE MEDIA anointed Ohio early on as THE STATE TO WATCH. So we watch and we watch and we watch. Poor Pennsylvania is not sexy enough to merit attention.

American presidential elections are ALWAYS close when measured against those held in places like China and Egypt. In the U.S. , a 60-40 landslide is a MAJOR threshold that only a tiny handful of candidates have ever reached or even threatened. Yet in real world terms 40% of something is very respectable. For instance, I would love to own 40% of General Motors and if you were to eat 40% of a pie it might well make your tummy hurt.

So when Democrats and the Old Media make disparaging remarks about GWB's 51% victory, the last thing we conservatives should do is agree with them and further enable their dishonest spinning. 51-48 is a solid win. When held up to the realities of 2004, 51-48 is a VERY solid win.

The 2000 election left many ordinary voters (as opposed to Democratic Party hacks) with a distinctly bad taste in their mouths. Because of Florida and Al Gore's decision to dishonor himself and the system, and the fact that Gore "won the popular vote" (yes, I still owe you an explanation on why I set that in quote marks!) George W. Bush had a very difficult starting position RELATIVE to the other successful incumbents of the last 50 years, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton.

This preamble brings me to my current peeve which is Ohio and the already seemingly set in stone "fact" that "a switch of just 136,000 votes would have made Kerry president". First off you can't just switch 136,000 votes. It is strictly against the rules and would upset people. Secondly however, if the Kerry camp gets to switch 136,000 votes then I insist that we Bushies also be allowed to switch a like number. Let us see.....hmmmm, OK here is how I would do it:

Take away 137,000 Bush votes in Ohio and let Kerry win those 20 electoral votes (EVs) by 1000. (But wait, isn't 1000 votes a LOT less than 136,000 so wouldn't Kerry's NEW win be even more suspect than Bush's? Oh never mind.) Okay back to vote switching, I want to take 99,000 of those former Ohio Bush votes and move them to Minnesota, thus giving the President those 10 EVs. Then I'll take 10,000 votes and move them to New Hampshire thus giving the Pres those 4 EVs. Next I'll move 13,000 Bush votes to Wisconsin so Dubya can claim those 10 EVs. So let's see where we are now: Bush has 290 EVs and Kerry has 248 EVs and I still have 15,000 votes left over to pad Bush's lead in New Mexico and/or Iowa.

See the stupidity and shallowness of this line of reasoning? Many a World Series game is won by a single slender run. The Super Bowl has been won by a single point, or a last second field goal. The Yankees won a couple of blowouts over the Red Sox in the first three playoff games, but they couldn't move a couple of those "excess" runs to Game 4.

Winning is winning. As a party, the GOP must look very hard at the narrowly won "red states" and devise a plan for making them less close in 2008, but in terms of 2004, Bush WON! Period. Mission accomplished.

One final blow to drive the point home: Kerry won Pennsylvania by just 129,000, Minnesota by just 98,000, New Hampshire by 9,000, Wisconsin by 12,000, Michigan by 165,000 and Oregon by only 67,000. 480,000 votes were all that separated Kerry from losing these states and their 69 EVs. Why isn't someone talking about that?

Some "get it" some don't.

Today I've read two interesting columns by two "conservative" pundits. I put the word in quote marks because I consider one of them to be something other than conservative.

Morton Kondrake is a bit of an oddball on the punditry stage. Long thought of as conservative, he more and more appears to be a moderate with inconsistent urges but a general tendency to condescend toward those who are to his cultural right.

Jonah Goldberg on the other hand has become a very reliable conservative, who writes in a style that cuts through the clutter and makes clear the foolishness of his fellow man.

Since November 2, there has arose an unbelievable clamor on the Left unlike anything I have ever seen. Keep in mind that I lived through the elections of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Both of those events saw liberals come unhinged in ways large and small, but nothing like the swinging from the rafters now happening in latte shops across America.

Joe Scarborough on MSNBC has been leading the charge on confronting this nuttiness. The past couple of nights he has engaged Carl Bernstein on this issue.

What is fascinating is how clear it is that Bernstein does not have a clue. He sits there yammering about the intolerant and dangerous right wingers, when it is himself (Bernstein) who oozes intolerance and ignorance.

That is all for today. I am working on two major posts related to the election and its aftermath and I hope to have them up in the next couple of days.

Victory is sweet.

This will be short. I will be posting my thoughts on this election over the next few days.

In particular I want to go into the media's incompetence.

I am reasonably pleased with my score on the electoral votes. I missed by 17 votes, and just four states.

One thing I want to note here and now, is how easy it was for me to conduct my own "exit polls".

Simply by firing up my 56K modem, I was able to access the election boards in all the key states and keep track of the actual vote tallies.

By comparing County X 2000 to County X 2004, I knew VERY early that Florida was going for Bush.

That's all for now but I shall return.

State-by-state predictions:

Alabama 9 Bush 9
Alaska 3 Bush 12
Arizona 10 Bush 22
Arkansas 6 Bush 28
California 55 Kerry 55
Colorado 9 Bush 37
Connecticut 7 Kerry 62
Delaware 3 Kerry 65
District of Columbia 3 Kerry 68
Florida 27 Bush 64
Georgia 15 Bush 79
Hawaii 4 Kerry 72
Idaho 4 Bush 83
Illinois 21 Kerry 93
Indiana 11 Bush 94
Iowa 7 Bush 101 SWITCH
Kansas 6 Bush 107
Kentucky 8 Bush 115
Louisiana 9 Bush 124
Maine 4 Kerry 97
Maryland 10 Kerry 107
Massachusetts 12 Kerry 119
Michigan 17 Bush 141 SWITCH
Minnesota 10 Bush 151 SWITCH
Mississippi 6 Bush 157
Missouri 11 Bush 168
Montana 3 Bush 171
Nebraska 5 Bush 176
Nevada 5 Bush 181
New Hampshire 4 Kerry 123 SWITCH
New Jersey 15 Kerry 138
New Mexico 5 Bush 186 SWITCH
New York 31 Kerry 169
North Carolina 15 Bush 201
North Dakota 3 Bush 204
Ohio 20 Kerry 189 SWITCH
Oklahoma 7 Bush 211
Oregon 7 Kerry 196
Pennsylvania 21 Kerry 217
Rhode Island 4 Kerry 221
South Carolina 8 Bush 219
South Dakota 3 Bush 222
Tennessee 11 Bush 233
Texas 34 Bush 267
Utah 5 Bush 272*****WINS!
Vermont 3 Kerry 224
Virginia 13 Bush 285
Washington 11 Kerry 235
West Virginia 5 Bush 290
Wisconsin 10 Bush 300 SWITCH
Wyoming 3 Bush 303

FINAL TALLY:
Bush 303
Kerry 235

Points to ponder:
#1. I have 7 states switching from their 2000 result, which is higher than you will see predicted pretty much anywhere else. Five go for Bush, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and two go for Kerry, New Hampshire and Ohio.
#2. I have based my switches not so much on polls but more on polls + recent trends. I think Ohio is slowly moving out of the GOP's orbit. I hope I am wrong. But there is a creeping effect from the Northeast, as Pennsylvania as slowly morphed into a Democratic state, and even Virginia shows signs of losing its "safe Republican" label at the presidential level.
3. On the other hand, I see the Upper-Midwest leaving the Dems, and in the case of Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, finally swinging over to the GOP after a slow migration.
4. Michigan I see as a more questionable long term convert and it may well be THE big swing state of 2008.
5. New Mexico and New Hampshire I see simply as falling into their more natural orbits.

Tomorrow will be a very long day, but I am soooooo glad it is finally upon us.

In which I join the chattering throngs.

In larger amounts than ever before, this election has been filled with "expert opinion" .

Whether on the television shout shows night after night, on the internet, or via newspapers, pundits have held forth with various degrees of hyperbole for well over a year.

In another 36 hours we will know who was right and who was blowing smoke. I think a lot of people who get a lot of "face time" in the media, really are clueless about this election, where it is going and what it means.

Not wanting to get left out, here are my FINAL predictions for 2004.

Popular Vote:
Bush 49.50
Kerry 49.00

Electoral vote:
Bush 303
Kerry 235

Senate:
GOP +4

House
Status Quo + - 2

Next post I will show my state by state electoral predictions.

Al Gore is no Richard Nixon

As political junkies well know, Richard Nixon had ample justification to challenge the results of the 1960 Presidential Election.

John Kennedy won by an exceedingly slender margin and there were serious allegations of election fraud in LBJ's Texas and Mayor Daley's Chicago. There were "irregularities" in other states including perhaps Hawaii where Nixon at first won and after a recount, lost.

Instead of contesting the election, Nixon swallowed hard and presided over the counting of the electoral votes in his role as Senate President. Why did he choose this path? Afterall Nixon was nothing if not a bulldog who when bitten would bite back harder.

I have long felt that Nixon's reasons were two-fold. In which order or in which amount I'll leave for others to decide .

The first reason is the one Nixon himself always (naturally) cited: He did not want to put the country through a long and bitter fight, it would have been dangerous to subject the nation to possible instability at that point in the Cold War etc etc.

The second reason is a cynical/practical one. Nixon realized it would be a longshot to overturn the results and if he failed he would be finished as a national political force. Americans hate a sore loser, preferring fighters that take their lumps like a man. But we Americans also like an underdog, a guy or a team who makes a stirring comeback. In 1960 Nixon was only 47, plenty young enough to wait a few years for another shot at glory.

I strongly suspect the truth was a mixture of the two. Nixon probably honestly felt a legal challenge would not serve the national interest AND he likely understood that the smart political move was to take his medicine and bide his time for another shot at the golden prize.

Al Gore would have done well to have studied Nixon's behavior and actions. Four years ago when Gore "won the popular vote" (why I set that in quote marks I'll explain later) but lost Florida and the Electoral College, Gore put his selfish interests first, last and always.

I in no way blame Gore for asking for a simple recount of the Florida vote. Recounts are fairly common and don't generally cause an untoward amount of problems. It is highly reasonable for a candidate to ask for a recount when only a few hundred votes out of millions cast, are the difference

But Gore went farther, much, much farther. He and his party started a highly sophisticated campaign to discredit the entire election process in Florida. No one was safe, as even officials who were DEMOCRATS (remember Theresa LaPore?) were routinely accused of high crimes and chad abuse.

Gore chose to drag the country though a month long temper tantrum, as he vainly tried to win through political and legal machination, what he lost fair and square at the ballot box.

And make no mistake, GORE LOST FLORIDA in 2000. EVERY count, every recount, even the major media circus that re-re-counted the ballots, all showed that George W. Bush received more votes than Al Gore. No matter how they twisted and turned logic, no matter how they tortured common sense, the answer kept coming up the same: Bush won.

Gore and his fellow travelers like to slyly comment that Gore "won" the 2000 election. They "base" this on two very weak reeds, one of which is the Florida excuse that has been completely debunked.

The other is the fact that Gore "won the popular vote". It is certainly true that Gore received more votes nationally than George W. Bush. It is also true that the Yankees won more regular season games then the Red Sox did this year. Those two facts are almost perfect bookends.

The Gore Whiners pretend that winning the popular vote is filled with some deep meaning and importance. For starters, since "winning the popular vote" was not and is NOT the object of the game, one can't draw any real conclusions from the fact that Gore got 48.4% and Bush 47.9%.

Had "winning the popular vote" been the object of the game, the game would have changed. The game would have been played differently. To use another analogy, the Gore complaint is identical to a football team that loses 21-20 and then yells "Yeah but we had 23 first downs and you only had 22". The dishonesty of the Gore 2000 Revisionism is breathtaking in its scope and chutzpuh.

Gore lost a heartbreakingly close election, but he DID lose. That he will be tortured by it until the day he departs this vail of tears, I fully understand. If he had borne his pain with strength and dignity he could have been an American hero, a shining example for a nation who needs more statesmen. By his self pitying words and actions, he put this nation at risk and damaged our institutions in ways we won't fully grasp for decades.

If America continues it present downward spiral into ever more bitter public discourse, filled with angry words and gestures of violence, we will have Albert Arnold Gore Jr. to thank most of all.

Post Script: I have been working on this piece for a couple of days, both in my mind and on "paper". Imagine my surprise when I saw this on Powerline today while still working on this post. As soon as I publish this I am going here to read the column by Joseph Perkins of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Good news on the poll front.

Just as a reputed GOP Insider predicted, President Bush has now nudged out to a 3-5 point lead nationally.

Rasmussen has it 50-48, WaPo 49-48, Gallup 51-46, Fox 50-45, and Battleground 51-46. The Battleground poll is huge given that it too pushes Bush up over 50%, and confirms a definate move in the President's direction AND shows him with a 53% approval rating.

Have a GREAT weekend!

A Note on Zogby

Not wanting to be accused of sour grapes, I am purposely timing this post at a point where John Zogby shows Bush leading in the national vote.

Simply put, I think Zogby is full of it, but what bothers me more is how the media fawns over his PREDICTIONS as though he is an oracle.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Zogby is at best a very good pollster. Frankly I don't even believe that, but I'm willing to cede it for the sake of argument. However, being a very able pollster does not in any direct way qualify you as a political expert or soothsayer.

As a pollster Zogby can perhaps tell you who is leading RIGHT NOW but this does not enable him to reliably predict who will actually win on November 2. Political prognostication is part information, part art and part knowledge.

By information I mean such things as how many new voters have registered in Locality X, how did locality X vote in 2000 or 2002 or 1998 etc.

By knowledge I am referring to a well rounded understanding of political history, past trends, and how various factors affect voting patterns etc.

The art comes into play in how one combines the information with the knowledge and then leavens the concoction with an accurate sense of the mood and temper of the voters. This last part is VITAL to having a meaningful opinion. Will Republicans vote in higher numbers than 2000? Lower numbers than 2002? Will Bush get 9% of the Black vote or 12%? 18%?

John Zogby has not shown that he has any expertise beyond polling, thus it is a waste of everyone's time for TV talking heads to ask him who he THINKS will win on Election Day.

Zogby has wavered all over the map, saying months ago that Kerry would win, then apparently telling Robert Novak that Bush will win, and now evidently doubling back and saying Kerry will win. None of his predictions matter because he is a pollster not a prophet.

If it LOOKS like Desperation...

and SMELLS like Desperation, there is a real good chance it's DESPERATION.

I am referring to NYTrogate and the "missing explosives" that John Kerry has made such a huge deal of the past couple of days.

Kerry's harping on this story was raw political opportunism but it was also incredibly stupid. Handed an "issue" like this, the Kerry campaign should have relied on outside operatives to press the "Bush is a futz" line. The candidate should have looked grave and concerned, indicated that he did not feel he should discuss such a vitally important event until all the facts are known, and gone about his business of pressing his CORE issues.

What Kerry did was drop all the talking points he has honed over the past month (that seemed to be working to some degree) and allow himself to crawl WAYOUT on a limb to make a dubious charge out of rumor and hearsay. Dick Morris strongly points this out in today's NY Post.

Now he is starting to pay for this blunder. I suspect the polling numbers will start to move decisively in W's direction the rest of the way. This was one flop by Flipper too many.