November 2/3

Early:

All the signs are of a huge turnout, beyond many expectations – possibly up to 120m, they’re saying - with inspiring TV pictures of lines of citizens snaking round blocks all across the country as they wait patiently to vote. Many pundits opine about how "good for democracy" such a thing is. Let’s see…

Interesting, that when the TV cameras pan along lines of waiting voters none of them that I’ve seen so far appear to be wearing campaign buttons.

Thankfully, there also seems to have been relatively few legal complications to the actual voting process, although it’s still early. Claims, particularly on Fox News and circulated on web sites, that there had been irregularities with voting machines in Philadelphia, were refuted by city officials.

There had been some challenges over polling place observers, though, and perhaps unsurprisingly there were accounts of some problems with new voting machines.

And still - despite the Kerry camp's optimism about first-time voters, new registrants and the 18-29s being factored out of conventional polling, it looks likely – as it has done all along - that it will come down to Ohio and Florida.

Andrew Sullivan offers a bit of much-needed perspective ahead of the torrent of noise that will engulf us sooner rather than later…

"I'm I'm taking the beagle for a walk, getting lunch at my local diner, finishing an overdue freelance piece and then going on a bike ride. If there were any time that a blog should be silent, it's now. As I write this, as you read this, hundreds of thousands are silently, privately marking their votes. They do so in peace, and there's a kind of gravity about that in this noisy insta-culture. Yes, I'll post any exit polls if and when I get any. But these few hours are a pause in the chattering and venting and spinning. The arguments are over. Let's enjoy the quiet for just a tiny bit longer.” and venting and spinning. The arguments are over. Let's enjoy the quiet for just a tiny bit."

Amen.

Later:

While the networks, as you might expect, are more cautious this time about calling individual states. CNN, whose Times Square election center was "..like TRL for grown-ups," according to The Daily Show, has a pretty good election night blog from network contributors.

Entries range from this from "Crossfire" host Paul Begala, for example,

"How on God's Earth do we not have absentee ballots counted in Florida? Jeb Bush and Glenda Hood - the Republican secretary of state playing the part of Katherine Harris - are making the state look like a banana republic run by a bunch of banana Republicans."

to this from Jeffrey Toobin:

"So far, the big story is the dog that didn't bark, the lawyers who didn't bite, the litigation that hasn't taken place. We thought the presence of so many lawyers would lead to so many lawsuits. We're not seeing zero lawsuits, but the activity so far seems manageable - even in Ohio."

The Indecision 2004 blog from The Daily Show on Comedy Central has a mock front page reading: "Dewey Defeats Bush - Elderly Floridians demand cheap drugs, pants".

Given the discussion about the Daily Show’s resonance with a younger, educated audience, one interesting aspect seems to be that despite expectations, the "youth" vote seemed to hover at around 17 per cent, based on exit polls – essentially the same as in 2000.

If it turns out that Bush wins, it will be interesting to see how that 18-29 demographic breaks down. It could be that the two big assumptions we’d all made – that a high turnout would benefit Kerry, and that the youth vote was more galvanised than before, again to Kerry’s benefit – could turn out to be way wide of the mark.

OK, first big state - Kerry takes Pennsylvania a keystone – sorry - of the ‘non-Florida’ strategy. Just makes Ohio even more crucial, though.

Bush takes Arizona – a key story is the demographic and population shift towards the southwest and how that is likely to play out two, three election cycles down the road, if the current trend is extrapolated.

Much Later:

The networks are now calling Florida for Bush.

James Carville – who had been so gung-ho earlier over initial exit polls – is now saying the GOP was “headed for a celebration”, but many of the precincts in Ohio are still being counted.

It’s seems like it’s pretty much over, though. Kerry doesn’t look likely, even with the long lines of late voters, to be able to close the gap on Bush.

There’s a very subdued crowd over at Copley Square.

CNN says Kerry looks set to carry New Hampshire. Went GOP last time, but now too little way too late.

The Kerry camp puts out a statement saying there are still 250,000 votes to be counted in Ohio. They probably mean provisional ballots, though - where voters weren’t for whatever reason able to cast a regular ballot – and those won’t be counted until 11 days after election day (and probably then only if there is more of them than the difference between the candidates).

Talk about Ohio being this year’s Florida seems close to the mark. What were we saying earlier about a refreshing lack of legal contention?

Washington and Oregon both fall into the Kerry column. Makes the running electoral college tally 249-211.

The Republicans take the House.

Over in the Senate, it’s not looking good for Tom Daschle in South Dakota. Jeff Greenfield points out on CNN that a big part of that was the perception that after he had bought his house in DC, he had lost touch with local voters.

But as far as the Democrats are concerned, at least their rising star – do they only have one, for goodness sake? – Barack Obama won in Illinois.

The same-sex marriage ban proposal passes in five states and looks set to pass everywhere it’s on the ballot – it was certainly one driver of pro-Bush turnout, and likely a foretaste of things to come, with Republicans already talking about extending tax cuts and redrafting energy policy to open up the Alaskan national wildlife reserve to oil exploration.

And, er, you were expecting precisely what, exactly?

NBC calls Ohio for Bush. That’s the ballgame right there. Not sure there might be a satisfactory resolution in that state for days though, regardless of what happens in the national picture.

Meanwhile back on CNN, Wolf Blitzer still insists on leading into every ad break with "we still don’t know who the next President will be"…. But he just sounds like Joe Buck trying to keep viewers interested in a 13-2 blowout in the eighth.

Online, the live election night bloggers had a pretty good night; Glenn Reynolds on Instapundit had a nice entry: BAD NEWS FOR THE GUARDIAN: Bush has a 9-point lead in Clark County, Ohio. Oh well…

Wonkette thinks Ohio “is the new black”, but winds up just being preoccupied with her alcohol intake and Joe Trippi’s plaid jacket.

Nice rolling job here by Frank Bruni at The New York Times.

It has also been interesting to follow the trending picture nationally and state-by-state on the betting site Tradesports.com
http://www.tradesports.com/ thus blurring the lines in the couch voter’s mind even more successfully between politics and sports.

The Daily Kos http://www.dailykos.com/ sums it all up, though, when he says the Democrats needed surprises to win, and there just weren’t any.

CBS projects Kerry wins Michigan.

The FT’s graphics department essentially crystallises everything by providing us with the latest wire pictures labelled: “Victorious Bush Supporters, Sad Kerry Supporters”

John Edwards tells supporters the campaign will “fight for every vote”, while NBC reports that Kerry won't concede tonight.

Jeff Greenfield says something about folks going to bed thinking one candidate had won and waking up to find a different reality; but for Democrats, it’s hard to imagine that the world they wake up to later this morning will be anything but all too real.

Bruce Springsteen said, when he was asked why he had appeared at Kerry rallies in the final couple of days, that he didn’t want to wake up on Wednesday morning and think there was something more he could have done.

First impressions are that the Kerry camp did everything they could have.

If, as looks likely, even that wasn’t enough – and the detailed post-mortems will surely come over the next few days - it could just be that the nation is so divided, so polarized, that no amount of rational discussion and persuasion would be able to shift two camps whose fundamental beliefs on their economic and cultural positions are so entrenched as to be almost tribal.

It will be fascinating to watch how the play unfolds.

October 31

So, is the Bin Laden tape a classic 'October Surprise'? And if so, how is it likely to break at the polls?

Nice piece in the Post by Ellen Goodman, in which she explores the "pre-Sept 11 mindset" and how both the nation and the world have changed in the intervening period. She says:

"On Sept. 12 the world was divided into us and them, the community of nations against the terrorists. Today, the world is divided into the United States and them. After all the bungling and arrogance, we are nearly isolated."

This week's Time magazine runs an interview with Osama Bin Laden's half-brother, in which he says - seriously - it's tricky getting restaurant reservations and that what happened on September 11 "hurt the family financially." No, really?

Oh, and by the way - this advisory from Time indicates that every eventuality is being planned for:

TIME’S 2004 ELECTION COVERAGE:
TIME plans to have a special election issue on newsstands Thursday, Nov. 4 – if there is a clear winner in the presidential race. (If TIME does not publish Thursday, the next issue is scheduled for Mon., Nov. 8.)

Over at Newsweek, meanwhile, their weekly tracking poll shows Bush pulling ahead 50-44 (the candidates were tied last week), although Eleanor Clift thinks turnout will be the key, and a high number favours the challenger.

The Philadelphia Inquirer - in a state which has logged over half a million new registered voters - has a poll showing Bush and Kerry in a virtual tie; with, interestingly, the President's approval/disapproval rating split at 47-47, while the Des Moines Register has Kerry edging slightly ahead among voters who have already cast their ballots.

One crucial aspect of the candidates' ground game in the closing phase will be motivating activists to knock on doors. Bush chief of staff Andrew Card told CNN that the fact that his team had mobilised "over a million volunteers in key battleground states" makes him confident of victory.

In this effort on the part of both camps, younger voters and students are an important element of that.

Not that young people pay any attention at all to celebrity endorsements, but ... as John Mercurio on CNN.com points out, Bush may well have the star-power of Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling stumping for him, but the crowds that have turned out to see Bruce Springsteen at his recent Kerry rallies have proved so remarkable that another event was scheduled for Miami at short notice.

Mercurio says it's Bruce's fellow Garden Stater Jon Bon Jovi we should probably be sorry for, since he has apparently been bumped to John Edwards' campaign bus to make room for The Boss...