Burnt Orange Report

Afternoon Humor

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

It's not often that a Quorum Report story makes me laugh, but oh boy, this afternoon was great. Republican consultant, Royal Masset goes off on a claim that TRMPAC wasn't responsible for winning even a single House seat in the Texas Lege.

"Say something often enough and people will believe it, even if not true says regular contributor Royal Masset" the banner screamed as I thought, yeah, Denial is more than a river in Egypt. The money quote...

I do deny that. Dick DeGuerin is wrong. Tom DeLay and TRMPAC had no impact on the 2002 State House elections. Their efforts won 0 State Rep seats. None. Zero. Nada. Zip. If TRMPAC did not exist the Republicans would have won the same 88 seats.

... But I think it is very important that the truth be told here. The notion that Texas' legislature can be bought is a lie.

Let me pick myself back up off of the floor. The lege can't be bought? Hahaha. Good one. I find it really hard to believe that a Republican PAC, run by people who see politics like business, would spend money that has no effect on house races. It flies in the face of Republican Political Economics.

Let me know where I should send Royal Masset's invitation to join the Reality Based Community.

Texas Democrats: A Statistical Profile

By Jim Dallas

Using the recently-released Edison/Mitofsky 2004 exit poll data (back-up | code-book | my Excel spreadsheet), a few interesting statistics about Texas Democrats can be constructed.

Exit polls are, of course, polls, so take with a grain of salt. I sure wish those urging that exit poll discrepancies prove voter fraud would take a chill-pill.

UPDATE: Some errors in the age tabs were fixed. The under 30 share of the Democratic vote is 20 percent, not 8 percent (8 percent is the 18-24 share).

The entire Texas electorate is summarized on the CNN web site, and my weighted numbers essentially match theirs (adjusting for rounding).

Numbers may not add up to 100 due to missing data, etc.

Democratic Voters (32.1% of total electorate, MoE 2.4%)

Presidential Vote:

Ideology/Philosophy (self-reported)

Gender:

Race/Ethnicity

Age

Size of Place

N: 577, Approx Margin of Error 4.2%

I'm not going to reproduce the Kerry and Liberal voter cross-tabs here, though I will note an odd quirk - 32 percent of self-identified "liberal" voters reported voting for Bush (approximate margin of error 6.5%).

The exit poll data contains a number of other interesting variables (region, religion, income, urban/rural, etc.) but I am busy working on a paper this weekend, and don't have the time to crunch those numbers.

A Burnt Orange Flashback; and, let's do it right this time

By Jim Dallas

I'm once again starting to ponder quantitative election models. My last foray into this field was a couple of years ago; I ended up producing a rather-flawed (mathematically speaking) model that ended up producing a pretty good forecast, although that's probably just a coincidence.

My 2003 prediction got 48 of the 50 states called correctly; but one of the errors was a doozy. Calling West Virginia for the Democrats looks downright embarassing in retrospect:

Still, 48 out of 50 ain't bad for a model which was created by an innumerate slacker like me. In fact, this was far more accurate than my "expert" subjective/qualitative/bullshit/whatever projection I made a week before the election:

I'm intrigued by the folks over at Pollyvote, who did a really, really good job.

I'm going to go back and re-think the whole thing, now that I've got a few years to play with computers.

Row Boat Veterans for Truth

By Jim Dallas

Steve Clemons, on his excellent Washington Note blog, noted a poll this week pitting president number 43 and president number 1:

The C.V. Starr Center for the American Experience at Washington College, founded in 1782 and located in Chestertown, Maryland, just released this interesting polling data and comment:

If George Washington returned from the dead and attempted to recapture the presidency of the United States, he would beat the incumbent President Bush by nearly 20 percentage points, according to a new national poll conducted for Washington College by the public affairs research firm of Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas, Inc. Asked to choose between George Washington and George W. Bush, Republicans in the survey supported Bush by a margin of more than 2 to 1, while Democrats and independents overwhelmingly favored Washington.

Apparently because the American people don't know the real truth about George Washington:

While most Americans remember the myth of the cherry tree, fewer and fewer Americans under the age of 50 can identify any of the pertinent facts of his life. And let's face it, "First in war, first in peace, and seventh in the hearts of his countrymen," doesn't sound very impressive.

Indeed it doesn't. Let's remember that George Washington was a big government tax-and-spend "elitist" flip-flopper who married a wealthy widow, who claims to have seen real combat. Sure, his supporters might try to claim he's likable and not boring, but what do they know?

P.S. Seems like somebody beat me to this punchline. But they don't have my pictures of Hanoi George.

Crazy, reckless, and anti-social, in an honest sort of way.

By Jim Dallas

Mark Kleiman, The Poor Man, Atrios, are all flabbergasted at a recent column whereby Gregory Djerejian argues, in essence, that it would have been horribly polarizing for John Kerry to condemn torture (quoting world-famous mental contortionist Andrew Sullivan), but the fact that he didn't showed that he was a wuss and wasn't worth voting for.

Apparently after taking enough pot-shots, Dejerejian shot pack with a little post-script:

Spare me the flames that my position is absurd--ie, voting for the guy who presided over the torture mess--and against his opponent, simply for not condemning it more loudly. This episode was merely one of many (if a significant one for me) revelatory of Kerry's character. Here, in case you missed it then, is a piece on why I supported Bush contra the Massachusetts Senator.

And therein lies the key; Dejerejian knows that he's being non-sensical, but it doesn't matter because it's really about "character."

And that pretty much fits the profile. For example, "Democrats don't really mean it when they say they care about the poor" (despite, well, an occasionally decent track record) somehow justifies, for one relative, voting for the Republicans which loudly and proudly proclaim their indifference or outright antipathy towards social justice.

Now, say what you will about Kerry, but we already knew what the script was going to be before the campaign started. Because it's the same script that was applied to Gore, to Clinton, to Dukakis, and Mondale. That they're lilly-livered limousine liberals who don't believe in anything, are at best spineless debaucherers and at worst criminals.

If I ever go on Jeopardy! and Alec asks me, "this was the Republican party line about the Democratic candidate in [random year]," I know with certainty that the answer will be "what is 'he's an untrustworthy, flip-flopping extreme libertine?" (Now give me my "Cliches for $400, bee-yotch.")

See, it's not about results at all. If it were about results, a reasonable person would say, as the Poor Man does, that:

[T]he way to oppose torture is by opposing torture. That's how you do it. You don't do it by voting for the torturer, attacking the people who won't, and then saying "oh, but torture is bad." You don't do it by sitting above it all and denouncing those with more courage for their unsightly partisanship.

It really boils down to the buying into of crude stereotypes about liberals and Democrats (Kerry is a nominal member of the former group and the archetypal member of the latter), perpetuated by years of demonization and demagoguery (as well as an inability to fight back and creater a positive image by said liberals and Democrats). And now it's built up to the point that people are willing to put up with torture - even rewarding its architects! - just so long as they don't have to put up with those "lie-beral demon-crats." For a brief reminder of what I mean by torture, go here.

Now, can we agree that it's time to fight back? Do we really need any more examples of just how things have gotten out of hand?

USA! USA! USA!

By Jim Dallas

Karl-Thomas just noted it, but 60.7% turnout in last November's election. That's really super, especially considering we still have one of the world's largest prison populations, and we don't have mandatory voting like some countries or even same-day registration (in almost all states, that is).

All Americans should pat themselves on the back for their commitment to democracy and patriotic fervor.

Bush Election Certified, But Not Without Dispute

By Vince Leibowitz

Guest Post By Vince Leibowitz

For the first time since 1977, the U.S. House and Senate were forced to separately debate the Electoral College vote count following challenges by Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer of California. Though the results were never in doubt, two Texans--Congresswomen Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Houston) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Dallas) were among the 31 House members who voted against certifying the results.

The Houston Chronicle notes:

The Democrats said they were not disputing the election outcome, in which Ohio's 20 electoral votes went to Bush and tipped the balance of the national election against Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

Rather, they said they wanted to press Congress to fix what they called a flawed election system that led to voter disenfranchisement in Florida in 2000, and in Ohio and perhaps other states last year.

"We, as a Congress, have an obligation to step up to the plate and correct (irregularities)," said Tubbs Jones.

Of course, Republicans including none other than U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land), were appalled:

"Rather than substantive debate, Democrat leaders are still adhering to a failed strategy of spite, obstruction and conspiracy theories," DeLay said.

The Senate voted 74-1 to uphold the election results, with Boxer casting the only dissenting vote. The House voted 267-31.

The challenge to the Ohio vote began in the House, after Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and Congressional Black Caucus members raised questions about inadequate and jammed voting machines in Democratic precincts, the Chron noted.

Interestingly, Boxer and other Dems agree that a stronger election challenge would have been had four years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court cast the deciding votes in Bush vs. Gore. Boxer said she didn't challenge the election in 2001 because Gore asked her not to.

John Kerry was absent from the Senate Thursday while touring in Iraq, but said he supported a close examination of the Ohio vote.

The last time the House and Senate were required to separately debate the electoral vote in 1877, when Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Samuel Tilden.

Vince Leibowitz is County Chairman of the Democratic Party of Van Zandt County.

Ohio Electoral Votes Challenged

By Byron LaMasters

I'll probably get bored with it soon, but I'm flipping between the House and Senate debates on C-SPAN. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) and Sen. Barbara Boxer signed the objection to Ohio's electoral votes forcing each chamber to seperately debate the claims. I'm basically indifferent towards the challenge - I think that there were serious problems with the vote in Ohio, but not enough to have changed the outcome. However, if such a challenge raises awareness on electoral reform, then I guess it could do some good. There was legitimate cause to challenge Florida's electoral votes in 2000, and it's a shame that no senator stepped forward then, but this time there doesn't seem to be much point.

A look into the Kerry Web Team

By Byron LaMasters

By Zack Exley. It's in response to Kos's calling him an idiot after reading an article where Zack was quoted in The Register, a UK paper where Zack claims he was misquoted.

Exley defends himself for his role in the Kerry campaign, and responds to Kos and other critics of the Kerry webteam with a long, but very informative rebuttal. I'm sure that Greg will find it to be an interesting read.

Via Pandagon.

Random Trivia

By Jim Dallas

How large is the average candidate rally before the Iowa caucus? In order to find out the answer, I did a Nexis search, and dug up as many stories as I could with crowd estimates from this year. (Numbers below the fold).

Candidate - Event - Date - Crowd Size - Location

Five Candidates - Forum - June 20, 2003 - 350 - Newton
Kucinich - Peace Rally - July 12, 2003 - 100 - Des Moines
Kerry - rally - July 19, 2003 - "packed room" - Dubuque
Gephardt - Teamster rally - August 8, 2003 - 300 - Des Moines
Dean - Labor Day picnic - August 31, 2003 - 200 - Iowa City
Edwards - So. Cent. Iowa Fed. Labor - August 31, 2003 - 2000 - Des Moines
Dean - Univ. of Iowa rally - October 4, 2003 - 800 - Iowa City
Edwards - home event - October 22, 2003 - 50 - Dubuque
Dean - Howard in Howard rally- October 22, 2003 - 200 - Cresco
Six Candidates - Jeff/Jack Day Dinner - Nov. 15, 2003 - 7500 - Des Moines (Kerry: 2000 supporters)
Hillary Clinton - book signing - Nov. 15, 2003 - 900 - Des Moines
Three Candidates - forum - Nov. 15, 2003, - 200 - Des Moines
Gephardt - union rally - Nov. 29, 2003 - 100 - Dubuque
Kucinich - UNI raly - December 4, 2003 - 100 - Cedar Falls
Kucinich - UD rally - December 5, 2003 - 50 - Dubuque
Jim Dean (H.D's borther) - rally - December 5, 2003 - "two dozen" - Dubuque
Howard Dean - Gore endorsement - December 8, 2003 - "hundreds" - Cedar Rapids
Edwards - speech - December 21, 2003 - 200 - Robins
Dean - speech - January 2, 2004 - 300 - Ft. Dodge
Gephardt - speech - January 3, 2004 - 100 - Dubuque
All Cand - outside Iowa Public TV - January 3, 2004 - 200 - Johnston
Kerry - Ted Kennedy rally - January 10, 2004 - "hundreds" - Dubuque
Dean - Gore/Harkin/Dean UD rally - January 10, 2004 - 300 - Dubuque
Kucinich - native american rally - January 10, 2004 - 100 - Des Moines
Dean - Reiner/Sheen rally - January 12, 2004 - "hotel lobby" - Des Moines
Gephardt - union rally - January 12, 2004 - 400 - Des Moines
Edwards - Simpson College rally - January 13, 2004 - 300 - Indianola
Edwards - rally - January 14, 2004 - 500 - Des Moines
Edwards - NCSML rally - January 15, 2004 - 400 - Cedar Rapids
Kerry - rally - January 16, 2004 - 300 - Clinton
Edwards - rally - January 17, 2004 - 400 - Cedar Rapids
Gephardt - Clarke College rally - January 18, 2004 - 150 - Dubuque
Dean - UI rally - January 19, 2004 - 1000 - Iowa City

Riddle Me This

By Jim Dallas

Believe it or not, today is John Kerry's 61st birthday.

As my friend Brady asked, why have we not been spammed with fundraising requests?

I don't enjoy getting lots of fundraising e-mails, but it does prove to me that the DNC is still alive.

Howard Dean does an ad

By Jim Dallas

Just heard Howard Dean's Yahoo! Local ad on Launchcast.

It amused me, although I am a little sad that Dean's left doing the ad thing. I hope he doesn't get stuck prescribing Viagra to Bob Dole...

Latino Exit Polling Wrong, Corrected towards Kerry

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

NBC goes oops.

In a stunning admission, an elections manager for NBC News said national news organizations overestimated President George W. Bush's support among Latino voters, downwardly revising its estimated support for President Bush to 40 percent from 44 percent among Hispanics, and increasing challenger John Kerry's support among Hispanics to 58 percent from 53 percent.

The revision doubles Kerry's margin of victory among Hispanic voters from 9 to 18 percent. Ana Maria Arumi, the NBC elections manager also revised NBC's estimate for Hispanic support for Bush in Texas, revising a reported 18-point lead for Bush to a 2-point win for Kerry among Hispanics, a remarkable 20-point turnaround from figures reported on election night.

John Kerry has some Explaining to do...

By Byron LaMasters

Greg and Ezra hit the nail on the head. Why the hell does John Kerry have $15 Million remaining in his campaign (not recount) account? If Kerry wants to even be considered in 2008 as a potential candidate, he ought to come up with a damn good excuse for this.

If you are a candidate in a down-to-the-wire race, you should be in debt by the end of the campaign. For a local example of this, take a look at Mark Strama. We have until December 11th to help him retire his campaign debt -- which I've heard is around $100,000. Strama won by 550 votes by the way. That's the way to do it.

Update: The DSCC and DCCC think the same way as Mark Strama. Campaign debt can be quickly reversed. Losing cannot. CNN reports:

Congressional Democrats and labor leaders also privately questioned Kerry's motives. One said he would personally ask the Massachusetts senator to donate some of the money to the Democratic House and Senate campaign committees.

Democrats lost seats in both the House and Senate on November 2, setbacks compounded by the multimillion-dollar debts they incurred in the process.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee borrowed $10 million in the final days of a campaign in which it spent heavily in Texas, where four veteran lawmakers wound up losing their seats. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee borrowed a smaller amount, more than $3 million according to officials.

Lets see here. John Kerry has about $15 Million in the bank. The DCCC and DSCC have about $13 Million in debt. Does anyone else see the obvious solution here? The DCCC may have been unsuccessful in Texas (Chet Edwards excluded), but at least they went down fighting throwing in everything they had and then some (and don't forget, the DCCC needs our help for those two pesky Louisiana runoffs next month). That's the only way to do it...

I feel Better

By Byron LaMasters

I decided to have five days of mourning following the election. So from Wednesday (11/3) through Sunday (11/7) I pretty much avoided the world and reality, and well -- mourned John Kerry's loss. I told myself I'd feel better by Sunday, and I was. I got up last Monday and made it through a relatively good week. So, I woke up this (Monday) morning with that post-election depression attitude again, and I was just sort of bumbling my way through my classes, and trying to forget how this country got screwed for the next four years. So, I asked myself what I could do. I went to watch the UT basketball game where we beat Tarleton State silly. But Brian Boddicker has graduated, so it's not quite as much fun to watch as the past couple of years. So, then I came home and watched Senator-Elect Barack Obama's convention speech for the gazillionith time, and I felt better. Even my very Republican grandfather (who lives in Illinois) likes the guy. Amazing. Obama '08 or '12 or '16 or '20 or whenever that man wants to run for president. Tell me where to sign up...

3/5 Top Bush Counties in Texas

By Byron LaMasters

Not a big surprise here.

The Lasso has the top five counties for both Bush and Kerry.

The top five Bush counties are all pretty similar. They're all small, rural counties in the Great Plains / Upper Mountain West. The top Kerry Counties are Washington D.C., San Francisco, two Indian Reservation counties, and one Black Belt county.

Here's the top five Bush counties:

Ochiltree, Texas: 91.97 percent
Madison, Idaho: 91.90 percent
Roberts, Texas: 91.65 percent
Glasscock, Texas: 91.56 percent
Arthur, Neb.: 90.15 percent

To get an idea of the size of the Texas counties, here's the raw vote totals. Ochiltree and Roberts counties are in the panhandle. Glasscock is just east of Midland:

Ochiltree County:
George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney REP (I) 2,920 91.96%
John F. Kerry / John Edwards DEM 251 7.90%

Roberts County:
George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney (I) REP 428 91.64%
John F. Kerry/ John Edwards DEM 39 8.35%

Glasscock County:
George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney (I) REP 488 91.55%
John F. Kerry/ John Edwards DEM 44 8.25%

So, you ask, what were John Kerry's best Texas counties? All three were in south Texas.

Zavala County:
George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney (I) REP 777 24.91%
John F. Kerry / John Edwards DEM 2,332 74.79%

Starr County:
George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney (I) REP 2,552 26.09%
John F. Kerry / John Edwards DEM 7,199 73.60%

Duval County:
George W. Bush/ Dick Cheney (I) REP 1,160 28.35%
John F. Kerry / John Edwards DEM 2,916 71.27%

Fuck the South?

By Byron LaMasters

Obviously meant as a parody, but take out the "fucks", "dickheads", "dickwads", "assholes", and this guy makes some good points.

The Onion on the GOP Majority

By Jim Dallas

Nails it, as usual:

Last week, Bush became the first Republican president to be re-elected with House and Senate majorities since 1924. What do you think?

Beverly Banks, Systems Analyst
"So they still control the House, Senate, and Oval Office? Well, at least we still have the smug, condescending attitude that cost us the election in the first place."


Edgar Mendez, Data Keyer
"Our nation may be bitterly divided, but at least our government can agree on being ultra-conservative."

Sam Howell, Credit Checker
"What's so bad about this? Could some Democrat explain it to me in under an hour, without starting to scream or cry?"


Ted Jacobs, Dentist
"Now that the Republicans run Congress, the White House, and soon the Supreme Court, they'll just have to invent some new branches of government to dominate, as well."

Leo Watts, Custom Tailor
"The fact that 48 percent of Americans voted for a boring placeholder like John Kerry is actually a really good sign for the Left."


Erika Williamson, Interior Designer
"Hold on. I'm being text-messaged orders from my Republican congressman on how to proceed next. Put clothes in dryer? Yes, Rep. Burchardt."

Back in Doña Ana County... And some Post-Election Thoughts

By Byron LaMasters

After a couple-of-day hiatus of trying to ignore the news and the blogosphere, I crawled my way back here. I was cleaning my apartment this afternoon, and managed to finally unpack from New Mexico. That got me curious as to how Kerry did in Doña Ana County, where we block walked last weekend...

Kerry won:

PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
JOHN F. KERRY and JOHN EDWARDS Democratic 30602 50.8%
GEORGE W. BUSH and DICK CHENEY Republican 29023 48.2%
DAVID COBB and PATRICIA LaMARCHE Green 96 0.2%
MICHAEL PEROUTKA and DR. CHUCK BALDWIN Constitution 52 0.1%
MICHAEL BADNARIK and RICHARD V. CAMPAGNA Libertarian 125 0.2%
RALPH NADER and PETER MIGUEL CAMEJO Independent 336 0.6%

Kerry's margin this year was slightly smaller than Gore's 2000 margin in the county:

Gore 23,905 51%
Bush 21,261 46%
Nader 1,158 3%

In the rest of the races in Doña Ana County, I don't think that there were any significant changes. Democrats came within a few hundred votes of picking up a couple of state house races, but fell short in both cases. I was disappointed to see the one candidate we had the chance to meet -- challenger for state representative, Jeff Steinborn lose by about 400 votes or 3%.

Overall, it looks as if Bush's 2004 victory in New Mexico is due to the increase of his margins in the rural areas (espeically in the south) of the state. Kerry improved upon Gore's margin in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but Bush improved upon his own margin in many of the rural counties. That offset Kerry's gains and more. It's a similar pattern nationwide. Kerry did even better than Gore in many urban counties, but that margin was offset everywhere by Republicans significantly improving on their rural margins. This ought to teach Democrats several things.

First, the Republicans decided early on in the campaign cycle to wage a campaign centered around base-vote mobilization. Democrats mobilized our urban base like never before, but it wasn't enough. No longer can Democrats pretend that we can always squeeze out a few more votes in our urban counties. We did that -- and while it was enough to carry states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, it's not enough to get us to 270 electoral votes. Second, given this reality, Democrats must make a decision for 2008. In order to win national elections, we must aggressively court either suburban or rural voters. Both groups require different approaches, and the issues that appeal to one group are often opposed by the other. I tend to think that courting suburban voters is the way to go. That doesn't mean that we abandon rural areas, but that suburban voters offer Democrats the greatest potential.

A cursory look at Texas state representative races suggests that Democrats have great prospects with the suburban vote. Our three (assuming Vo's victory holds up) pick-ups were all in more-or-less suburban districts (Strama, Vo, Liebowitz), whereas our two losses were in more-or-less rural districts (Mabry, Ellis). Looking further into the results also shows a greater rural / suburban divide. Republicans did better than expected throughout east Texas. Max Sandlin -- supposedly even in some polls, got trounced. Meanwhile, Richard Morrison lost by a smaller margin in a suburban district. In races where one party did better than expected, Republicans did better than expected in their challenge to WD-40s (aka rural Democrats). I don't think any Democrats saw Dan Ellis's defeat coming, and I don't think many of us thought that Mark Homer or Jim McReynolds would have come as close to losing as they did. On the other hand Kelly White, Harriet Miller, Katy Hubener and others ran extremely effective campaigns against incumbent Republicans in relatively suburban districts.

My analysis of this election in the coming weeks will likely focus on the question of what went right -- espeically in suburban areas where voters responded to candidates like Mark Strama and Hubert Vo. I'm convinced that their are two keys to Democrats regaining a majority in Texas. First, is maintaining and expanding the Hispanic vote -- a challenge, but I'm confident. Second, however is the suburban vote. Right now, it's solidly Republican in this state. But, that's changing as we saw on Tuesday. By no means am I suggesting that Collin and Williamson county will carry Democrats to victory in 2006. That's lunacy. But make no mistake about it -- Democrats defeated three* Republican incumbents in suburban seats on Tuesday. That's not an accident.

Jesus Land

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

You know you've been wondering what the rage about Jesus Land is all about.

Thanks.

Umm...

By Jim Dallas

Now this is an amusing site. I dropped a profile there in part to make penance for my f*bomb towards the "flee to Canada" crowd.

Kerry's Concession

By Byron LaMasters

It's a good speech, but nothing too remarkable. It's hard to beat Gore's concession speech though, after everything that he went through. Kerry looks a bit like he's in shock as well. I don't think neither him, nor John Edwards know what is next in their life. Both are good and honorable men that put themselves, their names and their families on the line against an unprecedented barrage of despicable and malicious attack advertisements against them by the Bush campaign, the Republican party, the Swift Boat folks, groups attacking trial laywers, etc. You have to feel for them and their families.

Back to the overall picture, I agree with most of what Jim has to say. Democrats must re-evaluate our strategies. Something went horribly wrong last night. I've spoken with various friends across the state, and elsewhere in the country in other states who are inclined to buy into conspiracy theories and fraud. That's silly. Unlike four years ago, George Bush won this election fair and square, and he has a small, yet clear popular vote mandate. I accept that.

I can't, however, in good conscience give President Bush a "fair shake". Jim writes that he has a historic opportunity to unite America. I disagree. He had that historic opportunity to do that in 2001, and he failed. How can I give a president that has governed from the far-right, that has sought to divide Americans by using the lives of gays and lesbians as a wedge issue, that has shown no interest in helping young people get a better education or well-paying jobs, that has divided Americans by states and region (the constant reminder that Kerry is a "Massachusetts" liberal -- somehow suggesting that Massachusetts, the birthplace of our nation and our democracy, is not as American as say... Texas), and has bungled just about everything in Iraq -- how can I give this president a "fair shake"? George Bush had a choice after winning four years ago, and then again after 9/11 to govern from the center and unite Americans. Both times, he rejected that course in favor of consolidating his base, and governing from the far right. For that, I can't muster a single ounce of respect for the man. There's a lot of Republicans that I can respect, and that I can give the benefit of the doubt from time to time. George W. Bush is not one of them.

So what is next? I don't know. We must follow the lead of John Edwards from today, and continue the fight. We are the loyal opposition. I hope that Democrats spend at least a few weeks reflecting on the elections before pointing fingers and blaming one group over another. I'll go on the record with this right now. John Kerry was the absolute best Democratic nominee given our options. Sure, Kerry made mistakes. Kerry was an imperfect and flawed candidate in many ways, but he is a patriot whose life and long career in public service exuded the ideals of the Democratic Party, and more importantly of America.

The Deaniacs will argue that a more principled candidate such as Dean could have made a more coherent case against Bush. I find it hard to accept an arguement that Howard Dean -- a man with little to no foreign policy experience could have made the sell to the American people that he could be an acceptable choice in leading the war on terrorism. The hawkish / conservative wing of the party will argue that Joe Lieberman would have done better. They might be right that Democrats need to move in a more hawkish foreign policy position in order to win national elections, but Joe Lieberman could never have inspired the Democratic base to give the hundreds of millions of dollars, and to volunteer on election day in the millions that made the election as close as it was.

The fact is that there is no leader of the Democratic party right now, and no obvious candidate (not to mention nominee) for President in 2008. Hillary will probably run, although I hope she does not. Edwards really doesn't have anywhere to go. I'm sure that he'll find something productive to do over the next four years -- but nothing that would give him a platform for a national campaign. If he has presidential ambitions, his best chance is probably to go home to North Carolina, watch his kids grow up a little bit, and run for NC Governor or Senate in 2008, perhaps setting up a run from president in 2012. Barack Obama is a true rising star, and has a bright future of many years of public service ahead of him. I'm grateful for that, because that man is truly a gift to our party and our nation. Here in Texas, Hubert Vo, Mark Strama and Lupe Valdez won key elections that give me hope for the future of our state -- despite painful losses in the congressional races here in Texas.

Who knows what the next four years will bring. I do fear for America, and that fear and frustration was obviously reflective in my posts over the past 12 hours or so. Sorry about all the F-bombs, Chris. As for the Bush gloaters in the comments, say what you want. I can take it. The Democratic Party has a long, painful road ahead, but it's a process Democrats need to explore together, and our fight must continue. The American people have spoken, and God Bless them. I'm glad it's all over. I need a vacation.

CNN Exit Polls

By Byron LaMasters

Are now available in the states where polls have closed.

Vote, dosh garnit!

By Jim Dallas

For all you smarties with pop-up blockers:

And apologies for the large image size. For those of you with dial-up, you know you probably should be VOTING right now instead of waiting for this to load.

Exit Polls and Other Data

By Byron LaMasters

It's out all over the place, but since a lot of the blogs are going down due to extraordinarily heavy traffic, I'll post what I've seen throughout the afternoon. Again, I stress that exit polls are a flawed science, and read this disclaimer before you try and draw a lot of conclusions:

Slate and Kos have posted these numbers at 4 PM:

NV CO NC PA OH FL MI NM WI
Kerry 48 46 49 54 50 50 51 50 51
Bush 50 53 51 45 49 49 47 48 46

If they're correct, this election is about what we've thought all along -- Ohio and Florida. If Kerry wins one of two, he wins.

Kos and MyDD have great news leaked from CNN:

Ohio - African American precincts are performing at 106% what we expected, based on historical numbers. Hispanic precincts are at 144% what we expected. Precincts that went for Gore are turning out 8% higher then those that went Bush in 2000. Democratic base precincts are performing 15% higher than GOP base precincts.
Florida - Dem base precincts are performing 14% better than Bush base precincts. In precincts that went for Gore, they are doing 6% better than those that went for Bush. African American precincts at 109%, Hispanic precincts at 106%.

Pennsylvania - African American precincts at 102% of expectations, Hispanics at 136% of expectations. The Gore precincts are doing 4 percent better than bush precincts.

Michigan - Democratic base precincts are 8% better than GOP base states. Gore precincts are 5% better than Bush.

I tend to think that applying actual turnout data to historical patterns is much more significant than exit polls. Seeing these turnout numbers in Democratic precincts gives me much more confidence than exit polls (which can be all all over the place). It just very well may be ACT and the Democratic 527s that will win this election for us.

Looking over at National Review's The Corner Blog - there's a good deal of exit polls leaking out. Speaking of the fickleness of exit polls -- they had Bush up by 8 in Ohio in the first batch of their exit polls, and then one came in with Kerry up 4.

Drudge also has exit polls that show Republicans doing well in Senate races:

Thune +4 (SD)
Castor +3 (FL)
Burr +6 (NC)
Bunning +6 (KT)
Coburn +6 (OK)
Demint +4 (SC)
Salazar +4 (CO)

Another bit of hard data that gives me comfort is the fact that in real numbers from Dixville Notch and Hart's Location in New Hampshire (that have voted and been counted), John Kerry outperformed Al Gore (from those locations in 2000). Matthew Gross analyses it. I had a similar thought this morning (although I didn't post it here) in my comment on Boi From Troy's post on the story.

Here's the trendlines (comparing Bush/Gore in 2000 vs. Bush/Kerry in 2004):

Location: 2000 (B/G) 2004
Dixville Notch, NH: 21/5 19/7
Hart's Location, NH: 17/13 15/15

So Bush's twenty vote margin of 38-18 in these two towns in 2000 was reduced to a twelve vote margin of 34-22. That's a seven point swing towards Kerry as Bush's percentage in the two towns has shrunk from 68% to 61% from 2000 to 2004.

Update: Via Atrios is Zogby's final prediction: Kerry 311, Bush 213

Update: Kos has the 6 PM numbers:

Kerry Bush
PA 53 46
FL 51 49
NC 48 52
OH 51 49
MO 46 54
AR 47 53
MI 51 47
NM 50 49
LA 43 56
CO 48 51
AZ 45 55
MN 54 44
WI 52 47
IA 49 49

Stay within the lines

By Jim Dallas

If you have young ones (or if you are a young one), why not print off this coloring-book-style Election Night map?

Teach civics with a box of crayons!

Of course, I still have the bottle of Jack I bought ... in a gas station!... in Las Cruces. And I intend to mix it up with soda and take a sip of Jack'n'Coke every time Kerry wins a state tonight.

(Don't do that with the kids)

Every Gambler Knows

By Jim Dallas

Kerry is surging in both IEM and TradeSports.

Still, I'd note that you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run...

Furthermore, don't count your votes while yer sittin' at the table, there'll be time to count votes when the votin's done.

Exit Polls

By Byron LaMasters

Looking Good... I got them about 30 minutes ago with instructions not to post, but Kos has them up now, so it's good to see. I've been pretty relaxed the past several days (last week I was pretty anxious about the election). I'm confident. We will win. Say President Kerry. Start practicing.

Update: Grits for Breakfast has an election day poem for us.

Update: Jim asks me to update this thread with this important disclaimer. Exit polls are sometimes right and sometimes worthless. In 2000 they gave Bush an early lead, in 2002 they were all over the place, but in the 2004 primaries they were often relatively close.

Update: I'm getting more exit poll numbers on some non-swing states now -- no big surprises in any of them.

On The Proper Use of Sidewalks

By Jim Dallas

One of the occupational hazards of canvassing is the temptation to do silly things, like jump off of a small (3 or 4 foot) wall and on to a sidewalk below. I tried doing this Saturday night, and ended up losing balance, bouncing and spinning off the sidewalk, and into the road. With a scraped palm and a bruised shin. But I'll probably live.

At least I didn't rip a big hole in my pants doing a cartwheel, unlike a certain co-blogger...

Remember, Election Day is supposed to be cheery. Be careful. You don't want to be waiting in line at the Emergency Room when you could be waiting in line at a polling place.

Oh yeah, and I second everything Byron said about New Mexico.

The Ground Game

By Byron LaMasters

I didn't have the chance to post on the New Mexico trip yesterday, but I did want to post on my thoughts on a few things.

We arrived at the Doña Ana County Democratic Party office on Saturday morning. After a quick training, we were sent out with swing canvass lists of undecided and new voters. Most of us didn't believe that such voters existed, but sure enough there were. Most of us on the trip can point to at least a few voters where we believe that our two or three minute conversation made the difference between them remaining undecided or not voting, and voting for John Kerry. I had two specific encounters where I feel like I made a difference with an individual voter.

One young woman was concerned about health care, especially for her parents. They couldn't afford many of the prescriptions that they needed and she wanted to know what the candidates would do about that. Easy. Millions of people have lose health care under President Bush, and he has no plan. John Kerry, on the other hand, wants to give you and your family the option to buy into the same health care program that senators and congressmen give themselves. John Kerry had prostate cancer last year and he got great health care and treatment, because senators give themselves great health care. He wants your family to have the same. Young woman: "That sounds really good. I think I'll vote for change with John Kerry again". She was a little bit confused, but she told me she would vote early later in the day.

Voter #2 was a 19 year old guy concerned about Iraq. He wanted to know if Kerry would start bringing our troops home. I told him that Kerry would be able to get a fresh start with the rest of the world, and that he would do a much better job of bringing other countries into the fight to defend Iraq. Under Bush, America has paid 90% of the costs and 90% of the casualties in Iraq. John Kerry wants to bring other countries into Iraq and lessen the burden on America. Instead of giving Bush's oil buddies and Haliburton all those contracts and special deals that Bush has done, Kerry will give other nations a stake in Iraq. Voter: "Ok, I think I'll vote for Kerry on election day". He was an undecided / non-voter three minutes earlier, and today I think he's voting for John Kerry.

These were the "hard to reach" voters that we were told that in any other year they would be ignored because there simply wasn't the time, money or manpower. This year these folks were being canvassed two and three times -- and that's just by the Kerry campaign. We ran into dozens of ACT, ACORN and NAACP people while we were out canvassing. We ran into a few church groups and Bush / Cheney campaign people, but Democratic ground organizers far outnumbered Republican ground folks in Las Cruces.

On Sunday volunteers were flooding out the doors. Saturday was the last day of the swing canvass, and Sunday was the begining of the 72 hour rush to the finish. There were a couple of hundred people signed up to volunteer in their office on Sunday, and they showed up. Dozens of people were sticking precinct voting location information on generic Kerry / Edwards doorhangers that were probably put out last night. Dozens were phone banking, and several of us were sent out to election day voting locations to put up Kerry / Edwards signs everywhere we could imagine. Others in our group went out with 4"X8" Kerry / Edwards signs at busy intersections for visibility. Literally, the office was so overflowing that dozens of teams were sent out for visibility. As we left Las Cruces we probably passed at least five or six Kerry visibility teams on Main street and the road back to I-10.

Does this mean that Kerry will win New Mexico, or any other swing state for that matter? No. But it does mean that I can say from first hand experience that our ground game is absolutely phenomenal. It's by far the best I've ever seen. I know the Republicans probably have the best field organization that they've ever had, but Democrats have the best field organization ever in American history.

Election Night Timeline

By Jim Dallas

This is a modified version of David Leip's Election Night Timeline, with the states colored for the time-bloc when the "last" polls in that state close. For example, Texas is in the 8 p.m. block because polls do not close in El Paso until 7 Mountain Time. Also the times have been adjusted to Central Time for you Texas poll watchers.

I also added how many electoral votes are contained in each time block. In theory, we could know who won as early as 7 p.m. Central Time.

Click the map for an enlarged pop-up.

In the comments, I am informed that CNN has a similar and slightly different (probably more accurate) map. But mine has prettier colors!

Stix nix Bush

By Jim Dallas

Garance Franke-Ruta says that the Bush campaign is experiencing a Howard Dean-like flame-out in Iowa.

Oh, the sweet irony.

Election Prediction: Who am I to disagree with Fafblog?

By Jim Dallas

Via Atrios, we find that Giblets is likely to win in an unexpected landslide today.

Since polls would never lie, I therefore have to agree with the Fafbloggers. Giblets will win every state but acursed Wyoming:

In two days Giblets will not just be your supreme leader, commander, and Giblets. He will be your constitutionally-mandated supreme leader, commander, and Giblets. In this Giblets is unstoppable! In fact Gibletsian state-by-state projections by Giblets's polling firm, Gibletsian Vision (G), show Giblets winning by a landslide - 535 to 3! (Wyoming will go to Bush. Damn you to hell, Wyoming. Damn you to hell.)

Gibletsian partisans may already begin prematurely celebrating Giblets's victory! Giblets has already commissioned a 500 foot tall sculpture of himself on horseback trampling his foes, to be entitled Triumphe d'Gibletse! On January 20th Giblets will spend all of his inauguration ceremony eating an enormous pile of gold!

But if - as some scurrilous rumors and half-mad acid-eating anti-Giblets propagandists have suggested - Giblets loses the election to John Kerry, it will be clear why. It will be because of the bias of the liberal media.

The liberal media, who again and again painted John Kerry as a weak-willed pandering flip-flopper, knowing that Americans appreciate the supple pliabilty of a flip-flopper's ever-shifting positions over the hard resolve of Giblets! The liberal media, who represented Kerry's every position as an incoherent one knowing full well that Americans would be helplessly seduced by a convoluted, byzantine rambler instead of a straight-shooter like Giblets! The liberal media, who entertained the notion that John Kerry was a traitor to his country who had deliberately wounded himself to get out of Vietnam and besmirched the reputation of his fellow veterans, knowing that Americans love a quick-witted spineless coward over a heroic anti-terror crusader like Giblets!

Election Day: A BOR Weather Report

By Jim Dallas

It's Election Day, and we're seeing some heavy rainfall here in the Houston area this morning. According to the Weather Channel, the same system will dump rain on battleground states Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, West Virginia, and Arkansas today.

The wet forecast for Ohio worries me somewhat, since it will probably depress turnout, although the hourly forecast suggests that it will begin to clear up by about 4 p.m. or so.

Taegan Goddard says it'll rain in the (Republican) Florida panhandle, but the rest of the state should be dry.

A Short LAH Voter Tale

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

Reading across the blogs today, there have been some interesting stories and report, official and personal, that talk about the large number of voters and the early voters. Some of that talk has been about Democrats being motivated to go early.

In our Liberal Arts Honors class of about 150 students, a place crawling with Liberals politically, the question was asked today, who has already voted? Very quickly and with amazing vigor, over 75% of the hands shot up in the room. As everyone suddenly took a breath in shock... wow.

I am willing to bet that in the on campus precincts, Kerry wins with between 63% - 68% of the vote. I'm also going to bet that there will be a couple of percentage points, i.e. more than 1% for Libertarian Badnarik. And of course, there will be some Nader and Cobb write-in votes, but I really don't feel those will amount to even a couple hundred votes.

By the way, if you live in precincts 147 or 148, meaning you live anywhere actually on the UT campus including Dobie or the Villas- you will VOTE TUESDAY at JESTER on the first floor from 7 am to 7 pm.

If you don't know where to vote or what precinct you are in, it's on your blue registration card OR you can search for your registration here and when you find yourself, it will list the precinct and location of voting.

If you already know your precint here in Travis, then go here to look it up with a handy map generator.

Quick Snap for UT students living just West and North of Campus.

Precincts

261 Pearl Street Co-op
265 St. Austin Catholic Church (on Guadalupe)
266 Lamar Senior Activity Center
274 First English Lutheran Church
277 Taos Co-op (on Guadalupe)

Vote Democratic. Vote for Libertarians against Republicans where there is no Democrat. Vote FOR the Capitol Metro Transportation Plan at the very end of the ballot, even if you vote straight ticket.

Go early as you can as the lines for student precincts will start swelling around 10-11 a.m. through lunch, and then after people finish their classes. Don't worry, if you are in line to vote even at 7 p.m. they must let you vote.

VOTE and then GOTV.

Viva Las Cruces

By Jim Dallas

I'm on a bad internet connction, on the road here in Dona Ana county, so I'll be brief. When they say NM is a battleground state, believe it. Blockwalking today, we saw EVERY interested group trying to GOTV, and it appears houses are getting knocked many times over. The mission is truly to hunt down every last possible voter.

I thought the Iowa caucuses were crazy, but this right here is the big enchilada.

More thorough after-action reporting when Byron and I get back to Texas.

Early Voting Over

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

The Early Vote is cast in Texas and the results from Travis County are in.

On Friday, an astounding 30,987 votes were cast bringing the total Early Vote draw to 217,428, or 37.17% of 584,949 registered voters.

Early vote has been less than election day voting in Travis County traditionally, so even assuming a 50-50 split, my prediction is that a 70-75% turnout for the Austin area is in the cards. That's huge when you consider that in 2000, Travis county had a turnout of around 51%.

The University of Texas Campus had lines up to 150 at some points this afternoon. There were about 40 in line 15 minues after the polls closed even. There were 1984 votes cast at UT today, the highest daily vote return. All 23 early vote locations in the county cast their early vote record days today.

Here is the full and more or less, final file.

Byron's Predictions

By Byron LaMasters

Well, it's that time in an election year. Bloggers wear a lot of hats. We're part-time party activists, part-time news regurgitaters and members of the notorious blog echo chamber. Most importantly, we're full time political news junkies and probably have just as good of a read on the election as anyone, so there comes a time where we ought to stick out our necks, put our names and reputations on the line, and make a prediction or two.

So, without any further disclaimers, check out the extended entry for my predictions on the Presidential race (popular vote and electoral college) and races here in Texas (and make your own predictions on this thread). The winner of each category will win their choice among several books that I have to give away.

President: John Kerry 277, George W. Bush 261 (Popular vote: Kerry 51%, George W. Bush 48%, Others 1%).

Kerry wins all Gore states except Iowa + Ohio and New Hampshire.

I think that Iowa and Florida are extremely close, but I'll give them to Bush. I think that it's certainly possible that both go for Kerry, giving him 311 electoral votes. If Bush wins, I predict that he'll win without Ohio. Ohio has been trending Kerry in the past week, and I think it goes for Kerry either way. I think a likely scenario is a Bush win with 280 electoral votes by winning the states he won in 2000 minus Ohio plus New Mexico, Wisconsin and Iowa.

My prediction for Kerry is based on two assumptions. First, minority voters turn out in very large numbers. Republican pollster Fabrizio, McLaughlin and Associates basically say that the race is dead even, but when adjusting poll results for a large minority turnout, Kerry's lead grows to several points. Also suggesting a very large minority turnout is the well known and unprecidented level of organization, coordination and funding of Get Out the Vote organization of Democrats and left-leaning groups.

Second, undecided voters will break for the challenger as they traditionally do in the final weekend. There's some doubt as to whether the tradition will hold in this election, because of the focus in this election on national security. I think the tradition does hold for several reasons. Polls of undecided voters show very low approval and reelect numbers for President Bush. The question of these voters is not whether they like President Bush or not. They've already decided that they don't. The question is whether John Kerry has met the threashold of acceptability on the issue of national security. It's taken a long campaign, and most importantly three debates for John Kerry to reach that threashold, but I think he's finally reached it among the type of voters who will decide this election. These voters are people who might have voted for Bush or Gore in 2000, they rallied to Bush after 9/11, they supported the war in Iraq from the begining, but they have deep reservations about how Bush has handled the war. While Kerry's lead in newspaper endorsements is unlikely to swing many votes, I believe that its reflective of the thought process of many undecided Americans in this election cycle. In recent days, I think Andrew Sullivan and The Economist well articulate the reasons why John Kerry is the best choice on national security issues, despite the flaws that some find in him. The only question in my mind, is whether the views of the Economist and Andrew Sullivan are widespread among undecided voters making up their minds this weekend, or if their views simply represent the pundit class elites who quick to overthink and overanalyse. I honestly don't know.

Texas Congressional Races:

CD 1: Sandlin 51, Gohmert 48
CD 2: Poe 51, Lampson 48
CD 17: Edwards 53, Wohlgemuth 46
CD 19: Neugebauer 54, Stenholm 45
CD 22: DeLay 52, Morrison 44
CD 32: Frost 50, Sessions 49

Sandlin has run a strong campaign, and has the NRA endorsement. He's running very strong in rural areas -- strong enough, I belive to offset Gohmert's margin from Tyler/Longview.

Lampson has a shot, esspecially if he gets a huge turnout from Jefferson County (Beaumont), but in recent weeks, it does look as if Democrats are less confident about Lampson than they are about Frost, Edwards and Sandlin. I don't have recent polling from the race, so its basically a gut feeling.

Edwards is in the best position of any Texas Democrat. He won't win in a landslide, but I think he'll win with a solid margin.

Meanwhile, Charlie Stenholm is in the worst shape of any Texas Democrat. Like Edwards, I think Neugebauer will win by a solid, but not overwhelming margin.

I hate Tom DeLay, but I do have a hard time seeing him lose in his overwhelmingly Republican district. I think the race is in the single digits as Tom DeLay has gone negative in recent days, but I still see DeLay winning.

Frost / Sessions is going down to the wire. It could go either way, so I decided to be optimistic and give Frost a one-point win.

State Representative Races

Democratic Pick-ups: Strama (Stick), Vo (Heflin), Liebowitz (Mercer).
Republican Pick-ups: Anderson (Mabry).

I'm not very confident about these picks. State Rep races are hard to peg, but this is my best shot. There's a lot of races I think could go either