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November 02, 2004

Rove tears up resume

: CBS calls Florida for Bush. Looking like four more, eh?

: NBC wins the castration award. Hasn't called Florida yet.

: Frank Catalano at LostRemote says ABC was first, then CBS, now the AP. NBC and CNN holding back.

: CNN just called Florida.

: NBC just called Colorado for Bush. Still no Florida call.

: And NBC just called Florida.

That's what I call foreplay.

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Exit stage right

: On CNN, Jeff Greenfield and Marc Racicot, the head of the Bush campaign, are complaining about the exit polls being far off, acknowledging that they weren't quoted on the air but that they were "flying across the internet" and affected at least campaign staffs and media.

Exit polls are going to be as trusted as lawyers, journalists, and used-car salesmen in future elections.

: Glenn Reynolds links to this Randy Holloway post saying the story of tonight is how the polls f'ed up.

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Free Wonkette!

: Ana Marie Cox is being held prisoner.

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Throw away the Keyes

: It's so nice seeing imported nutjob Alan Keyes going down in flames. The Republicans would have been better off running Homer Simpson.

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Will this be on the final

: Oregonlive.com (a day-job site) has a professor calling the election for Bush.

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Aaron Brown buzz

: I'm told that Aaron Brown just read my Pledge on CNN.

It made Joe Territo do a spit-take with his Sam Adams.

Jim Treacher says in a comment below: "Aaron Brown just read your pledge on the air. It probably took him longer to say it than it did for you to type it."

Many nice folks are sending me email to let me know. Thanks.

I'm delighted. Spread the pledge. Who better to do it than Aaron Brown?

: UPDATE: The amazing Staci Kramer, now of PaidContent.org, backs up her buffer and transcribes what Aaron said:

We've long lamented the coming of the day when nobody, nobody, will listen to or entertain an idea different from their own. We're more than halfway there already, it seems. Part of the passion animating this campaign derived from taking the country back,­ back from them. Or, by the same token, keeping it out of their hands whoever they and them might be.

A viewer of ours and a frequent e-mailer wrote tonight that if the Democrats won it would only be because of massive voter fraud. It just never occurred to her that in the field of ideas they might just have won.

With that in mind the blogger Jeff Jarvis posted this pledge on his web site:

After the results are in, it goes, I promise to support the president even if I didn’t vote for him, criticize the president even if I did vote for him, uphold civil standards of discourse in blogs and in the media while pushing both to be better, unite as a nation even as we work together as a party to make America better.

Given how little we agree on as a country these days maybe it's too much to ask but ask yourself this tonight: isn't anything better than what we call political discourse these days?

: Matt Welch prefers the Steve Martin pledge.

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What he says.

: "This prudence is driving me crazy." -- Mort Kondracke on FoxNews

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Spinning wheel

: Blogs are big enough to get spun on election night. See Instapundit and Wonkette reporting Republican confidence in Florida, the same message that went to NBC.

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The alternative to the alternative to the alternative

: It's a big night not just for Drudge but for the new, bird-dogging DrudgeBlog.

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Vote our way, Yankee dog

: I'm seeing a Kyocera copier commercial with its logo animated against an outline of the U.S. -- an outline all in red. Subliminal Asian political message.

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Back in the saddle couch

: At Buzz HQ. Ready for a long night. Cabernet in hand. Feet up. Remote in hand. It's like watching a tennis match in which no one breaks serve. Or beach volleyball. Naw... I don't want to see these guys in Speedos.

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On the road again

: Heading back to HQ in NJ. See you online in a bit....

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Political real estate scams

: Brian Williams just said that if Kerry pulls off Florida, it will be thanks to new voters. They make up 13 percent of those who voted and they lean to Kerry 59 to 40 percent.

The strategy for winning in 2008: Political condos and kibbutzes in the Sunshine State. Birkenstock Estates. The Vegan Arms. PETA Plaza. No More War Woods.

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On the air

: TV Newser is getting carpal tunnel syndrome, he's typing and clicking the remote so much.

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Pong ping

: NBC calls Virginia for Bush.

: Lisa Meyers gives us the live GOP spin: The real votes are coming in higher than the exit polls, they say. Republicans are reality-based, after all.

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Ping pong

: ABC is calling North Carolina for Bush, which isn't surprising (but that it took this long is surprising).

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Free marketing tip

: A smart marketer would buy all the Drudgereport ad inventory and take away his f'ing popunders.

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The F word wins

: Comedy Central said it best:

GO F*CK YOUR SELF
Pat Leahy, Dick Cheney’s sparring partner just won reelection in Vermont.

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Oh that pesky war

: The AP exit polls say the war won Jersey for Kerry. And I thought it was Bruuuuuce.

Opposition to the Iraq war, and dismay over its course, helped John Kerry capture New Jersey's 15 electoral votes, according to an Associated Press exit poll.

About half of those casting ballots in the state and nation Tuesday said they opposed the war, and the Massachusetts senator got nine in 10 of their votes in New Jersey, the poll found. A solid majority of New Jersey voters also thought that the Iraq war is going badly, and about four in five of them voted for Kerry.

However, terrorism was also an important issue in New Jersey, which lost nearly 700 residents in the Sept. 11 attacks. It was cited as the top issue for about one-fourth of state voters, and more than four in five of them chose President Bush.

At the same time, many Kerry supporters were lukewarm about the candidate: about 40 percent said their vote for president was mainly against his opponent, a feeling shared by just one in eight Bush voters.

And who says we're atypical in New Jersey? Those sentiments will likely be reflected across the country.

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The people speak

: Check out MSNBC's citizen journalist reports here.

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Where have all the flowers gone?

: Kelly O'Donnell, the second-hottest redhead on NBC tonight, tells us that Kerry was relaxing more and playing his guitar. But what was he playing? THe people want to know.

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The Electoral College football team

: At Location One, there are some nice folks from other countries and they've been asking me what the hell this Electoral College thing is. I'm making it sound like it makes sense, doing my diplomatic best. And I'm telling them it will never go away. It used to be about slavery and confederation and state's right. But now, of course, it's all about campaign spending. It makes TV so much cheaper... for now. But once TV is no longer regional but directly addressable by anyone anywhere on the internet, that will change: Candidates will need to advertise to all the people again.

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No swingers, us

: Jersey goes Kerry. You're welcome.

: Connecticut, Illinois, Mass, Maryland, Maine, DC, Deleware to Kerry.
: Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma to Bush.

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Young Ohio speaks

: NBC shows its Ohio exit poll revealing that all age groups under 60 are going for Kerry. That's making it look like Kerry, my rudimentary math would tell me.

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Check Craig's List for Rove's resume

: Brokaw and Russert are saying that Virginia and North Carolina are too close to call. And those are surprising because they're Republican (save for the Edwards homeboy factor). Wonkette says it's all the odder because Kerry pulled out of Va. last month on the presumption of loss.

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Crown the new queen of leaks: Wonkette!

: Wonkette is beating the panties off of Drudge with leaks and predictions and prognostications.

: DRUDGE CONCEDES DEFEAT. PUTS UP WIMPY RED HEADLINE: "ENOUGH OF THE MEDIA EXITS; LETS COUNT THE PEOPLE'S VOTES!" Yeah, sure, Matt.

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Bloggers on TV

: MSNBC is showing Joe Trippi and not Wonkette. Bad TV choice.

: Chris Matthews and the MSNBC folks keep talking about blogs as if they are synonymous with "young people." We're flattered but that's wrong. It's just people.

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Whereabouts

: I'm going to the city now to go here. Call it Democracy Plaza Downtown.

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The Pledge

: Lots of good people are taking the Pledge and also remixing -- see Megan at Insta's place.

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Exit poll PC

: I know there'll be a lot of gnashing of incisors tomorrow about blogs leaking leaked exit polls.

To hell with the gnashing. We're all big boys and girls. We can decide whether to (a) believe it and (b) vote on our own.

Let information be free. Let us know what big media and big politics know.

Transparency, man, transparency.

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Online hell....

: Been down for two hours...

: Wonkette's exit polls looking damned good for Kerry....

: Blogs moved the market....

U.S. stocks reversed course suddenly on Tuesday and drifted lower as chatter on the Internet speculated that early exit polls had Sen. John Kerry leading the presidential election in key swing states....

"That's what we're hearing," said Lisa Hansen, head trader at Transamerica Investment Management. "Apparently the blogs are saying that Kerry is ahead in one or two of the swing states and that's why the market dipped."

Keith Keenan, vice president of institutional trading at brokerage Wall Street Access, said he'd heard vague rumors that early exit polls out of Ohio and Florida favored Kerry.

"That's some of the chatter I've heard," Keenan said.

: Will post as often as the internet allows me.....

: The good host who handles many, many of us bloggers said they maxed out on their bandwidth. I don't know whether it was DOS. But there was a lot of traffic. Wonkette slowed to a crawl as well, on another host.

Blogs are big, all right. Too friggin' big.

: Hinderaker is trying to calm the nervous GOP souls.

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Attacked

: 601am confirms that the host for many blogs -- including Instapundit and this one -- have been under dos attack. They seem to be putting out the fire.

: UPDATE: The wonderful Stacy from Hosting Matters says in the comments this is NOT a DOS attack. They are running at 100 percent on their pipe.

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The non-est nonstory there is

: Election day before the polls close is the biggest nonstory there is. There is nothing to say and the cable networks are proving it live.

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The best thing about today...

: ... is that we will have no more TV interviews with slow-talking, dull-eyed undecided voters.

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Celebrity sells

: Amazon is looking for someone to create more lines of products using celebrity names. Knock off another middleman: Instead of endorsing products, own them. Do the George Foreman thing. Joan Rivers. Paris Hilton. [via the PaidContent jobs blog, which reveals all kinds of fascinating info on what companies are up to]

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The responsibility of the link

: Glenn Reynolds answers my posts yesterday regarding his linking to a story that tried to allege questions about John Kerry's discharge from the military. He says:

Jeff Jarvis thinks that by linking the story above, I'm engaging in mudslinging. Apparently Jeff thinks that there are some things my readers shouldn't be told about, for their own good and the greater good of society. That seems rather Old Media to me, and somewhat contradictory when you consider his staunch defense of Howard Stern's right to talk about Nigerian women eating monkeys.

But a link brings responsibility.

It especially brings responsibility if you're the Instapundit and you know the number of people you'll drive to read what's on the other side of that link.

Of course, that's not to say that we should limit our links. The more the better. But we do need to provide context and that context matters.

If, on the eve of the election, you send thousands of people to read one last scurrilous attack on a candidate without saying that you think it's a bunch of monkey poop, then I'd say, yes, that's mudslinging.

As Glenn had made clear, his blog is not trying to be fair and balanced and I don't want it to be (for then it would be dull). He has partisan views and his blog reflects them and that's the way it should be.

But that doesn't excuse you from the responsibilty of the link and the test of consistency. If you complain about big media attacking your candidate too close to the election, then you can be held to the same test. Goose, meet gander. If you send people to something that's malicious and destructive without providing context to reveal that, then it's a tacit endorsement. It's the same as big media giving air time to, say, Michael Moore without contradiction.

Blog links bring power, especially if you have the traffic -- and attention in high places -- of a Reynolds, Kos, Sullivan, Atrios, et al. And that power brings responsibility. Whether you like it or not, it's the same power and the same responsibilty big media has.

Uh-oh, are blogs turning into big media? Well, the bigger they get the bigger media they are.

The bottom line here: Glenn wanted to get in one more splat of mud before election day. And I wanted to get in one more post whining about the mud.

And it's good that we link to and quote each other and that you all join in the conversation. This medium is, in ways such as this, better than prior media. But keep in mind that it still bears responsibility for its action. Links matter.

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The flock of hawks

: Reason's Tim Cavanaugh breaks out his arsenal and shoots at the liberal hawks -- listing me -- who aren't voting for Bush.

One of the most dramatic and least surprising developments of Election 2004's final period has been President Bush's abandonment by the "liberal hawks," the collection of left-leaning thinkers, commentators, and pundits who approved of the invasion of Iraq as a progressive operation, offered well reasoned and often enthusiastic support for Bush in the prelude to the war, were granted their wish by the White House, and have now paid the president back with withering criticism and endorsements for John Kerry.

Anybody seeking to prove the Kerryan criticism that George W. Bush doesn't know how to build an alliance need look no further than the pan-ideological coalition he built right here at home. In the heat of battle, when their support was most important, the liberal hawks broke ranks and fled the battlefield. Nor will they acknowledge having betrayed the president who gave them what they claimed to wish for: In the minds of the liberal hawks, it is Bush who has betrayed their grand ideals with his "mismanagement" of the postwar situation.

He makes a few flawed assumptions: First and foremost that Iraq is the only issue that makes us decide our vote; it isn't. Second, that criticizing any administration's execution on any issue is an abandonment; welcome to a world of grays.

He argues that we liberal hawks can't complain about inadequate force in Iraq because that gives lie to our contention that the real reason to go into Iraq was to establish democracy and that Iraqis were ready and eager for the right to run their nation.

If keeping Iraq on life support meant committing a vast occupying force indefinitely, then clearly Iraq wasn't a very good test case for the democratic experiment.

That's clearly a crock and too glib by half. Every nation on earth is ready for democracy but they can be thwarted by tyrants and terrorists and Iraq has been the victim of both.

Then Cavanaugh argues:

More than that, the liberal hawks must consider the very real possibility that what is happening today in Iraq is not an unforeseeable disaster but the best outcome any reasonable person could have expected.

He has a point. It is anybody's guess. But I think we made the wrong guess about the terrorists ("insurgents" in some dictionaries) who would do -- no, are doing -- anything to stop freedom and democracy from rising in Iraq. Fine. Anybody could guess wrong. But the problem is that we haven't admitted that mistake and worked hard to fix it. Am I worried about Iraq? Absolutely. I don't think we had a great choice here: Bush lacks the ability to fix the mistake; Kerry lacks the will. But both men do know that they cannot fail at this and I believe -- hope and pray -- that either will do their best to make better guesses going forward.

I hope Tom Friedman -- the liberal hawk who truly did retreat from the policy he helped establish and justify -- was wrong when he said on Bill Maher this weekend that either candidate will get us out of Iraq in less than a year. That is the abandonment that matters -- not of Bush but of the Iraqi people.

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Early poll report from New Jersey

: Out my way, in GOPland, the polls were empty. I mean, empty. I've never seen them this sparse at this hour of the morning. And because I'm an idiot (and my wife threw out the sample ballots) I went to the wrong polling place and saw the same situation at both. One district had a handful of people. The others had nobody.

I don't know what that means. Could it be that Republican turnout will be low?

: Megan reports on Instapundit that her New York polls were packed.

Fred Wilson also reports crowds in New York.

: By the way, what would have happened if all those people who waited for two to five hours in line in Florida had all showed up to vote today?

: ADD YOUR REPORT... Lots more dispatches from polls here and there in the comments. Keep 'em coming.

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Election helmets

: Nema at Iranian Truth predicts rioting in America if Bush wins.

No, Nema, that's what happens on your side of the world. Here, we riot only if our team wins.

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So help me Blogger

: Andrew Sullivan takes the Pledge. So does Marc Danziger.

: UPDATE: Michael J. Totten takes the Pledge. And see this great post of his.

You have the right to vote. You do not have the right to see the man of your choice in the White House.

If George W. Bush wins the election, the world will still spin on its axis. Canada will not grant you asylum. If John Kerry wins the election, America will still be America. Australia will not grant you asylum.

People who vote for the other guy aren’t stupid, brainwashed, or evil. They are your friends and family. Someone you love will almost certainly cancel your vote. (My wife cancels out mine.)

If, by some chance, everyone you know votes for the loser it won’t mean the election was stolen. It will only show that you live in a bubble....

Glenn Reynolds takes Dean Esmay's instead.

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And you can't stop me...

: Going to vote. See you as soon as the line allows.

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