Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
Michael Moore Urges Democrats to Embrace Hollywood (Reuters) “Fahrenheit 9/ 11″ director Michael Moore on Monday rejected the idea that Hollywood had hurt John Kerry’s chances of winning the White House, insisting that he and other entertainers helped spare Democrats an even bigger defeat. “For the last month, we’ve had to listen to a lot [...]
Frist Political Fund Can’t Cover Bank Loan (WaPo, A02) A campaign fund controlled by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has lost almost $460,000 in stock market investments since 2000 and now does not have enough to cover a sizable bank loan, according to federal election records and the manager of the Frist account. The [...]
Michael Kinsley says “To Hell With Values” in his latest LAT column. It’s been less than a month since the gods decreed that, due to the election results, American political life henceforth must be all about something called “values.” And I gave it my best. Honest. But I’m sick of talking about values, sick of [...]
Another paper in the “Bush stole the election” theme has been cooked up by 3 U.C. Berkeley graduate students in sociology. The paper uses data from the 2000 Census, and county voting data. The list of variables in the “analysis” is extremely impressive (by the way, that was supposed to be sarcastic). number of voters [...]
Conventional wisdom tends to separate the two theories: most people either think that values — in the form of morality or social conservatism — propelled George W. Bush’s reelection, or national security — particularly issues stemming from the war on terror — exposed John Kerry’s weaknesses. But my friend Rachel Belton, who co-directs the Truman [...]
Professor suspended for showing class ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ (Jackson Sun News – AP) A community college instructor who was suspended for showing classes ”Fahrenheit 9/11” in the week before the presidential election says he is unapologetic and believes he should be able to teach as he sees fit. ”This story is now about academic freedom … [...]
Democrats Question Kerry’s Campaign Funds (AP) Democratic Party leaders said Wednesday they want to know why Sen. John Kerry ended his presidential campaign with more than $15 million in the bank, money that could have helped Democratic candidates across the country. Some said he will be pressured to give the money to Democratic campaign committees [...]
Daschle Bids Democrats Goodbye (AP) Tom Daschle bade his fellow Senate Democrats farewell Tuesday with a plea that they seek common ground with Republicans yet continue to fight for the less fortunate. After 10 years as the Senate’s Democratic leader, Daschle congratulated his longtime assistant and now successor, Harry Reid of Nevada, as Democrats chose [...]
BocaNews.com Mental health officials in South Florida blasted Rush Limbaugh on Monday, saying the conservative talk show host’s offer of “free therapy” for traumatized John Kerry voters has made a mockery of a valid psychological problem. “Rush Limbaugh has a way of back-handedly slamming people,” said Sheila Cooperman, a licensed clinician with the American Health [...]
As a Canadian watching and arguing about Bush vs Kerry with others in my own country, I often volunteered that I wouldn’t have been concerned about the consequences of a potential Bush defeat had the Democrats had the good sense to nominate Joe Lieberman. Fox News Sunday WALLACE: But isn’t that letting the Democratic Party [...]
Kevin Drum points to last week’s election of Democrat Brian Schweitzer as governor of Montana as evidence that Democrats can carry Red states. A Washington Monthly piece by David Sirota outlines Schweitzer’s route to victory. Clearly, people calling themselves “Democrats” or “Republicans” can win statewide races in states dominated by the other. It happens all [...]
So asks Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post: Does he become the party’s leading spokesman in the Senate, overshadowing little-known minority leader Harry Reid? Does he start some sort of America’s Future group and raise truckloads of cash from his donor lists and play the role of power broker? Does he use the fact that [...]
Jonathan Rauch, writing in the esteemed National Journal, makes a rather bold pronouncement: “In 2004, The Country Didn’t Turn Right — But The GOP Did.” The election of 2004 was one of the greatest of our era, but the post-election of 2004 was as bad as they come. Rarely have election returns been so widely [...]
No Vote Necessary (David Broder, WaPo) John Mica has pulled off a feat many of us would have thought impossible. He has been elected to Congress without ever having his name on the ballot this year. His story says a lot about what has happened to the House of Representatives, the part of the federal [...]
Via e-mail: You may have heard that I have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Your strength is carrying my family through too in this latest struggle, and this is a fight we will win. We have (and I say we because John has been with me every minute) started chemotherapy with tremendous confidence, confidence in [...]
Les Jones has announced the winner of his election prediction contest: The final results are in, and the electoral vote tally is Bush 286, Kerry 252. Three bloggers predicted the results: Election Projection, Outside the Beltway, and VodkaPundit. The tiebreaker is the date of the prediction. Outside the Beltway made its prediction on November 1. [...]
This paper from the CalTech/MIT Voting Technology Project says “no”. Here is a summary of the findings A series of claims have been made in recent days alleging that discrepancies between exit poll results and the presidential vote in certain states provides evidence of malfeasance in those states. These claims seem to be concentrated on [...]
Walter E. Williams takes a stab at explaining “Why we’re a divided nation.” Recent elections pointed to deepening divisions among American people, but has anyone given serious thought to just why? I have part of the answer, which starts off with a simple example. Different Americans have different and intensive preferences for cars, food, clothing [...]
Washington Times managing editor Wes Pruden has an amusing take on the secessionist movement, “Driving the blues from Jesusland.” Four years ago 36 days of uncertainty in Florida transformed the Gore-Lieberman team into the Sore-Loserman ticket, but the anger if not the rancor soon subsided. Alec Baldwin threatened to move to France but never did [...]
David Brooks urges readers to “Take a Ride to Exurbia” if they wish to understand the outcome of this election. About six months ago I came out with a book on the booming exurbs – places like the I-4 corridor in central Florida and Henderson, Nev. These are the places where George Bush racked up [...]
Though I myself have closely examined this bloc, I think that context is in order. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’m prompted to move in such a direction because of a New York Times article [RSS]: The Spanish-language television advertisements for President Bush went negative this fall, attacking Senator John Kerry’s voting record and his stance on abortion. [...]
The political genius of George W. Bush (Carlos Watson, CNN) Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican or an independent, it is hard not to look at President Bush’s re-election victory last week and conclude that he is probably one of the three or four most talented politicians of the last half of a century. [...]
George Will has several “Election ’04 epiphanies.” Among them: In 2000, Americans were reminded that electoral votes select presidents. In 2004, Democrats were reminded that Bruce Springsteen does not. Other Nov. 2 epiphanies include: In 1984, Walter Mondale’s running mate was Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, a Catholic woman from New York. Ronald Reagan carried Catholics, women, [...]
With all the talk about the purported influence of the religious right in last week’s election, I have a question: given that both sides of the political spectrum have their extremists — their true believers — isn’t it better to be allied with the followers of Jesus rather than those who worship and follow the [...]
Lest Republicans think that only Democrats bitter over another defeat hold those voting for the other side in contempt, witness this bizarre piece in Human Events (stumbled upon via Memeorandum; it’s not my usual reading fare) by Mike Thompson: A Modest Proposal It’s Time to Reconfigure the United States For many decades, conservative citizens and [...]
Kate O’Beirne points out a fundamental truth of American politics: the need to build coalitions among groups who hold disparate views. Republicans were mocked when popular social liberals Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger were showcased to make their party’s case on national security and economic opportunity at the national convention in New York. What Democrats [...]
Mark Steyn: Believe it or not, it wasn’t just rednecks who voted for Bush The big question after Tuesday was: will it just be more of the same in George W Bush’s second term, or will there be a change of tone? And apparently it’s the latter. The great European thinkers have decided that instead [...]
Man Kills Self at Ground Zero (Fox – AP) A 25-year-old university worker from Georgia shot and killed himself at ground zero Saturday morning, authorities said. The man, Andrew Veal, of Athens, Ga., was found atop the structure housing the 1 and 9 subway lines after a hotel worker spotted what he believed was somebody [...]
David Brooks [RSS] has pretty much the same reaction to the “gay marriage decided the election” meme as I did: Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it [...]
President Bush wins Iowa, finishes with 286 electoral votes to Kerry’s 252 (AP) CNN AllPolitics President Bush won Iowa on Friday, finishing the 2004 campaign with wins in all three of the states that were still up in the air on election night. The last result came in the state that started the election year [...]
Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes (AP) An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said. Franklin County’s unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry’s 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in [...]
U.S. Job Gains Strongest in Seven Months (Reuters) New U.S. jobs soared at the sharpest rate in seven months in October, the government reported on Friday, helped by a surge in construction activity as hurricane-battered areas in the Southeast were rebuilt. A surprisingly strong 337,000 jobs were added to payrolls last month — twice the [...]
WSJ’s Kimberly Strassel has an interesting analysis entitled, “Life After Daschle,” examining what having 55 seats will mean in the Senate. She does a solid job explaining the mechanics of the Upper House and noting that “the only numbers that matter are 50 and 60,” the threshholds for a majority (if the Vice President is [...]
The “Outlandish” McCain Offer (Newsweek) Kerry’s courtship of Senator John McCain to be his running mate was longer-standing and more intense than previously reported. As far back as August 2003, Kerry had taken McCain to breakfast to sound him out to run on a unity ticket. McCain batted away the idea as not serious, but [...]
Yesterday evening, I put up maps of the 2004 Election County-By-County using the Red and Blue America imagery that became famous in 2000. I’ve just stumbled across this via MSNBC: Robert J. Vanderbei, Princeton University, Election 2004 Results It creates the image of a less bifurcated America by weighing the red and blue hues by [...]
Alex Knapp calls BS on the post-election meme that the press seems to have settled upon: Look, gay marriage was mentioned, but it was totally ancillary to the campaign. Both candidates were against gay marriage and said so. Maybe I̢۪ve just been slipped in here from a parallel universe, but in the campaign I watched, [...]
Elizabeth Edwards Diagnosed With Breast Cancer (WaPo – AP) Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards, was diagnosed with breast cancer the day her husband and Sen. John Kerry conceded the presidential race. Spokesman David Ginsberg said Mrs. Edwards, 55, discovered a lump in her right breast while on a campaign [...]
Analysts at the major papers are still struggling to understand how Bush could have won even though he’s an extreme right wing nutjob who doesn’t appeal to anyone they know. Even setting aside MoDo’s asinine comments–she’s a “humorist,” after all–it’s rather clear that too many people who write columns for a living travel in very [...]
Virginia Postrel does some interesting math: [T]he results aren’t as bleak for supporters of gay rights as you’d think from listening to triumphant social conservatives or despairing gays. Nationally, gay marriage is a loser, but civil unions are a big winner, with 35 percent support (and 32 percent in the South). Assume that the 25 [...]
Brad DeLong thinks we need a different system for picking presidents. Analyzing presidential elections since 1972, he finds a disturbing trend: The pattern is clear: when there isn’t an unknown southern governor running, an incumbent president can win reelection or an incumbent vice president can win election; but the unknown southern governor without a national [...]
There are several articles out today pondering what it means that President Bush was comfortably re-elected and the Republicans increased their margins in both the House and Senate. Some people apparently think it means that the American public prefers Republicans and their policies and fear that the policians will reach that conclusion as well and–shudder–enact [...]
The famous Red and Blue county map is back. I was wondering if we’d see another one of these: USATODAY.com This compares interestingly with the famous 2000 map: USA Today Hat tip: Michelle Malkin See also this interesting discussion with Brad DeLong that I had in July 2003 over the degree to which the “red-blue” [...]
Redstate notes that the candidates supported by Daily Kos’s $547,157.97 fundraising effort had a less-than-stellar evening: # Tony Miller — Lost # Ben Konop — Lost # Dan Mongiardo — Lost # Richard Romero — Lost # Samara Barend — Lost # Jeff Seemann — Lost # Nancy Farmer — Lost # Ginny Schrader — [...]
Bush Voices Pride, Humility and Optimism [RSS] (NYT) President Bush basked in victory today, reaching out to the supporters of his defeated rival, Senator John Kerry, and vowing to lead the United States toward new paths of greatness. “I will do all I can do to deserve your trust,” Mr. Bush said at a thunderous [...]