It's 3:15 P.M. on election day here in Burlington Mass. and I am just back from casting my vote. At this time the polling count was around 7000 or just at 50% of the local electorate having cast ballots. It always amazes me to see this kind of turn out in the presidential when we can barely scrape together 20% for the local elections.
In any event our local results seem to be part of the nationwide trend of an unusually high turnout. The talk at the polls is very upbeat for Kerry and many of the locals are expecting a decisive Kerry victory. The thinking here is that Kerry benefits by a huge turnout however I am not convinced that is the case.
I am not sure of any analysis which has been printed which makes any sense but a couple of things do resonate with me. Mark Mellman, a nationally known Democratic pollster makes a couple of very interesting points in a piece in The Hill, http://www.thehill.com/mellman/110204.aspx about how difficult it is to try to unseat an incumbent president during war time. It seems a bit strange to be printing this the day before the election but he seems to be making a case as to why Bush will be winning today. He refers to the misery index which is inflation plus unemployment which together is 7.2 nationally, contrast this to 20.4 when Jimmy Carter was defeated in his re-election bid.
Other comparisons include Bush approval rating which is 49% yet when his father was defeated it was 33% and the overall average for defeated presidents is 38%. Additionally on the right course for the country statistic Bush Sr. Was 72% of the country saying the wrong course while Bush Jr. Is only at 52%. After adding these and other statistics up he comes to the conclusion that President Bush will get 51.6% of the vote. After all is said and done it makes little sense to me that a guy who is being paid to work for Kerry is predicting a Bush victory.
There is no doubt that the Democrats have made a significant get out the vote effort and it seems to be paying dividends but it would be foolish to overlook the grass roots efforts made by the Republicans as well. Of the 18 battleground states 11 have some sort of referendum on the ballot regarding gay marriage. This is a hot button issue and two voting blocks are going to respond to this in very high numbers. Evangelical Christians who were reported to have been luke warm in the last election with as many as four million staying home are certain to come out in force on this issue. An additional turn out wild card is the African American vote. Bush has made inroads in this voting group and with the addition of the gay marriage issue having impact in black church congregations, he may realize larger gains..
One opinion I thought was interesting was George Will's point several weeks ago about the number of Roosveltian era Democrats who have passed away since the 2000 elections. Will had this number pegged at somewhere around 7 million nationally. If even remotely correct that would be a lot of new turnout necessary to make up that loss.
All we can do is wait and see at this point and hope that there is a decisive victory for one or the other. The last thing we need is to have the lawyers arguing in several states over the outcome and leaving us with a disaster like 2000. I doubt very much that the planets are lined up in such a way as to give us the "perfect storm" of elections twice in a row.
In the end I believe President Bush will win because of a variety of reasons. First and foremost is the need to have an ideologue in the white house instead of a diplomat. For too long the US has been a punching bag for Islamo fascists and Bush has put that policy to bed. The UN is a fine ideal and we should be making every effort to continue to be a main pillar of it. However when push comes to shove we can't be having third world diplomats engaging in discussion and voting on issues which are paramount to US security. When it comes to a global test I am a unilateralist.
Even if the candidates were exactly the same on issues for me it would be no contest on the character issue. As a constituent in Kerry's state I have found him to be an unprincipled opportunist who makes decisions based on how it affects his electability. This is apparent when we examine Kerry's reaction to the recent Bin Laden tape. Kerry immediately engaged in polling to measure American reaction in order to test the direction of the wind.
The last straw for me is the Viet Nam issue. In the end Kerry came back and acted like a quisling, denouncing his comrades and fraternizing with the enemy. It is my sincere hope this man is not the president of the United States of America
