Politics

If the Democratic Party expects to maintain moral high ground this election, there’s going to have to be a lot less of this sort of thing.

CNN’s Carlos Watson thinks it’s a tight race, but he’d call it for Kerry after months of thinking Bush had it in the bag. I think he’s being pretty realistic. Eleanor Clift, over at Newsweek, uses much of the same reasoning to predict a Kerry win (original). Once again, it’s about the end game (original). As I’ve said before, Kerry has the superior end game. Rove is terrifying, sure, but he’s known for slinging mud well before the election. He is not so good at handling those last few days. Remember in 2000, when he made the nearly fatal mistake of sending Bush to California in the closing days of the election? Whouley and Sasso have proven experience as closers. That’ll show this year. ...

Ron Suskind has a nice archive of Bush White House documents that he’s releasing now and again. Interesting stuff. One recent piece of interest was this projection of oil price rises (original) following an invasion of Iraq. Suskind notes the optimism inherent in the assumption that oil prices will be the only thing affected. Me, I notice the optimism that $45 a barrel is the worst case scenario. We’ve beaten that by $7 a barrel, for reasons that the memo doesn’t even speculate on. Namely, terrorist action to prevent the flow of oil.

Your article of the day is from Fox News (original), and it says that Bush is leading Kerry by 2% in the polls. “Um, how is this good news for Kerry?” The key paragraphs are paragraphs two and three, which read: These new poll results show a slight dip in polling conducted Wednesday and Thursday night when Bush topped Kerry by 50 percent to 45 percent. Polling was conducted Thursday and Friday evenings, so about half of those interviewed would have had the opportunity to hear reports of a new tape from Usama bin Laden. ...

Today we’re going to dispel the myth of chaos in the Democratic ranks. This is a really popular one, because everybody knows that the conservative movement has spent 40 years building a network of think tanks, foundations, funding, and so on. Progressives can’t compare. Wring your hands. This apocalyptic vision fails to take into account the utility of the Internet, which makes a huge difference when you’re trying to build a movement. Thankfully, someone figured this out. Make no mistake: Howard Dean will be as responsible for a Kerry victory as anyone. ...

Right. You’re going to get one of these once a day between now and Tuesday. They’re mostly directed at my friends who are feeling mopish about the potential for a Kerry victory. Today, I’ve got an Al Giordano essay for you. Al is one smart cookie. He predicted Kerry’s victory in Iowa. He knows Kerry and Kerry’s people really well. He is not randomly making stuff up to make himself feel better. ...

Because I could, I made a spreadsheet for the election night drinking game. You enter the predictions for each player, using the nifty little pulldown menus for the candidate choice, and then you enter the actual winner and their percentage over in those right hand columns. If the square in the “Glug” column goes red, that player has to drink. No, I don’t expect anyone to actually use this or anything.

Lawrence Haws wrote me the other day and pointed out that Bush recently said (original) it was “up in the air” whether we could ever be safe from another terrorist attack. He said this disproves my assertion that Bush pretends he can keep us safe. True enough! And Kerry responded to Bush’s comment by saying that he was going to win the war on terror, which is just as ridiculous when Kerry says it as it is when Bush says it. Terror is not an opponent, it’s a tactic. ...

This scenario is not going to happen, because if McCain was going to take a shot at Bush he’s had plenty of opportunities to do it already. But it’s a fun little piece of speculation about an obscure piece of election law, so if you want to find out how McCain could be elected President this year, go read it.

Without further ado, the non-partisan competitive Election Night drinking game. The players come to consensus on which network they’re using for results. If they can’t come to consensus, they have to use CNN (if the party is predominantly Republican) or Fox News (if the party is predominantly Democratic). Everyone predicts the winner and his percentage of the vote in 15 battleground states. If you get the winner wrong, drink! If you get the margin of victory wrong by more than 1%, drink! ...