And here we have the first hack out of the gate, Michael Barone, arguing that it is unpatriotic for a popular-vote loser to contest the count in the key state for the electoral college:
USNews.com: The National Interest: The second Bush term (11/3/04): Gerald Ford could have been elected to a full term as president in 1976 if he had overturned Jimmy Carter's 11,116-vote margin in Ohio and his 7,372-vote margin in Hawaii. A 9,244-vote reversal could have kept Ford in office. But Ford didn't even try. He trailed Carter by 1.68 million in the popular vote and had no stomach for contention and for the tactic of delegitimatizing American election results for personal victory.
No hint of any sense of historical irony at all.
Posted by DeLong at November 3, 2004 08:15 AM | TrackBackThat one is enough to make SECOND TERM CONGRESSWOMAN Katherine Harris, wince.
What a dick.
Who is the hack? Kerry has just conceded...
Is it within Prof. DeLong's power to stop him?
Quick, quick...
Posted by: else at November 3, 2004 08:43 AMWho is the hack? Kerry has just conceded...
Is it within Prof. DeLong's power to stop him?
Quick, quick...
Posted by: else at November 3, 2004 08:43 AMHistorical irony? Was it not Gore who contested the Florida count? Barone doesn't seem to be saying the popular vote loser should give up regardless, but rather the popular vote loser shouldn't contest a state's election result. Had Bush lost Florida and then contested the result, then I would agree with your point.
Posted by: Rob at November 3, 2004 09:15 AMHey, Cunningham. Why is it you right-wingers always call people "communists" when you disagree with them? Can't you be more original than that?
You should be ashamed that you have the time to read Blogs when you should instead by supporting your Dear Leader's Holy Crusade in Iraq. Now get off your ass and do something productive like burn some homosexuals at the stake or something...
Posted by: Redleg at November 3, 2004 09:23 AMI think, Professor DeLong, that it is time for the DLC wing of the party to rethink where it is.
You were proud of how there was no descent to economic "demagoguery". But what the nation heard was that there was no real commitment to making the lives of the poor and middle class better. The Republican Party was able to therefore mobilize people based on bigotry and fear.
Look, we all know what the economic theory is in regard to comparative advantage. But what value is economic efficiency if the social results are the United States becoming a one-party state, rancidly corrupt, driven by misperception and anger?
Posted by: Charles at November 3, 2004 09:27 AMHey, Cunningham. Why is it you right-wingers always call people "communists" when you disagree with them? Can't you be more original than that?
You should be ashamed that you have the time to read Blogs when you should instead by supporting your Dear Leader's Holy Crusade in Iraq. Now get off your ass and do something productive like burn some homosexuals at the stake or something...
Posted by: Redleg at November 3, 2004 09:29 AMThey must have forgotten 2000.
I suppose anything seems a long time ago when you believe the world was formed in 6,500 bc.
Posted by: Matthew at November 3, 2004 09:31 AMReality check time:
Here's something that maybe should be more meaningful for Democrats to consider than the propriety of asking for a recount when down by 3.7 million.
Dubya, a weak candidate, just got more of the popular vote than Clinton ever did -- and more than any other Democrat has since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
And the Repubs gained in both the Senate and the House -- after they also gained in them during off-year 2002 elections, which was supposed to be impossible.
Even more important in the long run, the Democrats are down to holding 22 governorships, I believe, and similarly few state legislatures -- and still sliding.
That's all about 180 degrees different than 1992.
And yet *somehow* folk around here think the answer to reversing this secular slide is to pour over Dubya's reserve records, howl "Liar! Liar!" at everyone in sight, say Republicans are bad people, and enjoy the great fun of being self-righteous and ... shrill! Shrill is virtue! ;-)
The Democrats have separated from reality.
Hey, here's a sign of what's wrong with Democratic politics:
A while back Robert Reich wrote a piece titled "Dismal Democrats", all about the failures of the Democratic party, how "we failed to build a political movement behind us..." after 1992, and so on.
It was reported on this blog -- but with the title somehow changed to "What's Wrong with American Politics".
So ... what's wrong with Democrats so they can't get elected becomes what's wrong with the American political system that it doesn't elect Democrats! Says it all, doesn't it? ;-)
Well, don't they say that that kind of denial is supposed to be followed by anger?
On *that* point, I'll admit Krugman was finally right about one thing in politics -- he said it was a "momentous event" when the Democrats threw their support to the *angry* Howard Dean, and turned their back on proven skilled national politicians who were *too reasonable* and *not angry enough* like Gepahrdt and Daschle (and before that folks like Sam Nunn, Breaux, the "Orwellian" Moynihan ...)
He sure was right about that! Running somebody nobody in America wanted to vote *for* with a hate-the-other-guy (who is going to bring back the draft and cut your Social Security too!) campaign guaranteed they couldn't get more than 48% even against the likes of Dubya -- while he was saddled with the worst job market economy since Hoover!
Stay angry folks -- if you don't, Karl Rove will taunt you again!
Hey, here's the memory hole campaign report of the day:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/politics/campaign/25TAPE.html
~~~~~
... when Republicans were on the verge of impeaching President Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, then governor of Vermont, was unhappy with Mr. Clinton and disgusted with the Republican leadership in Washington.
But he did find a Republican to admire.
"George W. Bush did very well," Dr. Dean said of the Texas governor, who had just been elected to a second term. "Why? Because he is talking about his issues in a civil, thoughtful way in getting his point across."
Dr. Dean could have been describing himself as governor - a measured, pragmatic, nonideological chief executive who could tip his hat to a Republican.
That dispassionate Dr. Dean may seem like a distant cousin to the finger-jabbing populist who has emerged ...
~~~~~
... seduced with Krugman into the vortex of self-destructive, confirmation-bias-driven, self-righteous, nomination-losing, election-losing, political delusion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/03/opinion/03kris.html
Living Poor, Voting Rich
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
In the aftermath of this civil war that our nation has just fought, one result is clear: the Democratic Party's first priority should be to reconnect with the American heartland.
I'm writing this on tenterhooks on Tuesday, without knowing the election results. But whether John Kerry's supporters are now celebrating or seeking asylum abroad, they should be feeling wretched about the millions of farmers, factory workers and waitresses who ended up voting - utterly against their own interests - for Republican candidates.
One of the Republican Party's major successes over the last few decades has been to persuade many of the working poor to vote for tax breaks for billionaires. Democrats are still effective on bread-and-butter issues like health care, but they come across in much of America as arrogant and out of touch the moment the discussion shifts to values.
'On values, they are really noncompetitive in the heartland,' noted Mike Johanns, a Republican who is governor of Nebraska. 'This kind of elitist, Eastern approach to the party is just devastating in the Midwest and Western states. It's very difficult for senatorial, Congressional and even local candidates to survive.'
In the summer, I was home - too briefly - in Yamhill, Ore., a rural, working-class area where most people would benefit from Democratic policies on taxes and health care. But many of those people disdain Democrats as elitists who empathize with spotted owls rather than loggers.
One problem is the yuppification of the Democratic Party. Thomas Frank, author of the best political book of the year, 'What's the Matter With Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America,' says that Democratic leaders have been so eager to win over suburban professionals that they have lost touch with blue-collar America.
'There is a very upper-middle-class flavor to liberalism, and that's just bound to rub average people the wrong way,' Mr. Frank said. He notes that Republicans have used 'culturally powerful but content-free issues' to connect to ordinary voters.
To put it another way, Democrats peddle issues, and Republicans sell values. Consider the four G's: God, guns, gays and grizzlies.
One-third of Americans are evangelical Christians, and many of them perceive Democrats as often contemptuous of their faith. And, frankly, they're often right. Some evangelicals take revenge by smiting Democratic candidates.
Then we have guns, which are such an emotive issue that Idaho's Democratic candidate for the Senate two years ago, Alan Blinken, felt obliged to declare that he owned 24 guns 'and I use them all.' He still lost.
As for gays, that's a rare wedge issue that Democrats have managed to neutralize in part, along with abortion. Most Americans disapprove of gay marriage but do support some kind of civil unions (just as they oppose 'partial birth' abortions but don't want teenage girls to die from coat-hanger abortions).
Finally, grizzlies - a metaphor for the way environmentalism is often perceived in the West as high-handed. When I visited Idaho, people were still enraged over a Clinton proposal to introduce 25 grizzly bears into the wild. It wasn't worth antagonizing most of Idaho over 25 bears.
'The Republicans are smarter,' mused Oregon's governor, Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat. 'They've created ... these social issues to get the public to stop looking at what's happening to them economically.'
'What we once thought - that people would vote in their economic self-interest - is not true, and we Democrats haven't figured out how to deal with that.'
Bill Clinton intuitively understood the challenge, and John Edwards seems to as well, perhaps because of their own working-class origins. But the party as a whole is mostly in denial.
So George W. Bush was unpatriotic in 2000? Gore won the popular vote and Ms. Harris was able to abuse her office to curtail the proper counting of Florida's critical vote back then. And all Bush cared about was winning the legal battles. But then Senator Kerry has shown he's the patriot that George W. Bush could never be.
Posted by: pgl at November 3, 2004 10:05 AMHey Rob,
Here's a hint. When someone uses a term such as 'historical irony', they may be referring to more than a single event four years ago.
America has a long-standing tradition of contesting elections, and not winning the popular vote has never precluded such.
How 'bout a throwback to 1876? Don't remember? Tilden won the popular vote by 3% (sound familar?) and was 1 EV shy out of 20 yet-to-be-determined. The Republican Party (having lost the popular vote) contested the election, determined to garner all 20 EVs (in 4 states, nonetheless).
And the result? With a senate majority, and a 15-person commission (8 republican, 7 democratic. ) created to evalulate the situation, the Republicans pulled it off and Hayes became the president.
Well, at least they did the patriotic thing.
Posted by: chris- at November 3, 2004 10:18 AMExactly, pgl.
Jim Glass, don't you consider it totally hypocritical to claim legitimacy for Bush now that he has an alleged popular vote majority?
I would have no problem having a president elected with a minority of votes as long as he properly fulfilled the requirement of an electoral college majority.
That's our law, sir.
Posted by: Charles at November 3, 2004 10:20 AMThe real irony is a Republican claim that the key to their victory was "moral values".
Posted by: Steve at November 3, 2004 10:28 AM"History" & "irony" are both, I'm afraid, Blue state concepts. How soon we can make progress depends upon how quickly they are learned in Red states. Reality will be the teacher.
No Rob. BUSH filed the lawsuit in 2000. Gore filed a countersuit in reply.
Posted by: CN at November 3, 2004 10:39 AMI suggest we move on to the next steps:
Can we prevent the confirmation of Scalia is the next Chief Justice? Because that's what's coming, perhaps in the next 2 months.
Can we prevent the confirmation of a Federalist Society member as his replacement Associate Justice? (Who will it be? Silberman? Sentelle? Posner? worse?)
Because if we don't prevent these two things, kiss goodbye choice, privacy, and more.
Could Bush push these through next month as recess appointments? Don't underestimate his gall, he has a mandate now.
Posted by: tjallen at November 3, 2004 11:34 AMTo those Republicans who think that 51% is a mandate, let me frame it in your own terms:
A "wartime president," with all the advantages of incumbancy, was nearly unseated by "the most liberal man in the senate."
I'd say that Mr. Bush and his supporters have nothing to gloat about, and that liberalism is far from dead.
Posted by: modus potus at November 3, 2004 12:02 PMHad Bush lost Florida and then contested the result, then I would agree with your point.
But ... in 2000 (is that we are talking about) Bush DID lose florida.
Jews in Palm beach don't vote Buchannon.
Suh...Imple
Barone is actually incorrect. There was much maneuvering in 1976 to try to (re?-)elect Ford on exactly those grounds.
The ground troops quickly realised that (1) it wasn't going to work and (2) the Party had Reagan ready for 1980.
It is left as an exercise to the reader which of those was more significant.
Posted by: Ken Houghton at November 3, 2004 12:16 PMThe Daily Howler has the background on Tim Russert's damaging insinuations last Sunday . . .
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh110304.shtml
Posted by: Steve at November 3, 2004 12:50 PMI think Jim Glass is the last human on the planet the Democratic Party should listen to for tactical or strategic advice.
Posted by: liberal at November 3, 2004 12:54 PMAs I've said at least twice before, "To paraphrase _The Onion_: 'Moveable Type profoundly blows.' "
Don't apologize, saying it four times over makes me feel appreciated. ;-)
And don't worry about the Democratic party taking advice from anybody, off their 1994-date record. It's sorta like Jim Gettys said to Charles Foster Kane...
Posted by: Jim Glass at November 3, 2004 02:07 PMThe take home message from today's election should be "It's the Fags Stupid."
Marriage measures were on the ballot in 11 states. Even though most ballot measures fail, these measures passed in all cases, in all regions of the country - even in Oregon, which, according to opinion polls of personal beliefs, is the home of "the most Godless city in America."
Cultural conservatives showed up in record numbers. Exit polls indicate that "moral values" (not "the economy" or "terrorism" or "Iraq") was the issue most mentioned by voters.
"Once again, it appears that a Supreme Court ruling gave the election to George Bush. In this case, it was the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which issued a ruling that Massachusetts' failure to recognize gay marriage was unconstitutional."
"Can we prevent the confirmation of Scalia is the next Chief Justice? Because that's what's coming, perhaps in the next 2 months. * * * Because if we don't prevent these two things, kiss goodbye choice, privacy, and more"
No, the Chief Justiceship isn't the tipping point.
The court is 6-3 pro-privacy and pro-choice. Replacing Rhenquist with another rightwinger doesn't change that balance.
Bush will get to replace John Paul Stevens, unless Stevens manages to stay on the Court until he's 90. That will make the Court 5-4.
The key is Sandra Day O'Connor. Replace her with someone who will vote to overturn Roe (or more to the point, Casey) and Lawrence and we've got trouble. She's a committed partisan Republican who, during Clinton's last term, was supposedly wating for a Republican president to retire. She voted to install Bush in 2000, but surprisingly didn't retire during Bush's first term. She can save the pro-choice, pro-privacy majority if she wants to, and remains in good health.
Posted by: rea at November 4, 2004 04:55 AMJim Glass.... uh... what? Democrats decidedly DIDN'T go for Howard Dean, though they (we) mostly liked him well enough. We ultimately decided on Kerry, with Dean coming in third or so, after Edwards and Kerry. I can only assume that you're saying that we embraced Dean in some kind of metaphorical, spiritual sense, rather than actually nominating thim as our candidate. Could you clarify it a bit?
Posted by: Julian Elson at November 4, 2004 10:17 AMI don't know what to believe, but a lot of blog etc. posters think there was election hanky panky and they provide rationally interesting grounds. A digest of the reasons:
Zogby's exit polling shows a CONSISTENT MISS of 3 - 6% ( or higher ) in ALL 20 Battleground states except for one, PA. The exit polls are the most "wrong" in counties with paperless e-voting systems (ie, the infamous Diebold machines etc.), and the "errors" are almost always in favor of Kerry. Just combine that with the CEO of Diebold (and some like companies) being a partisan Bushite who even bragged about helping Bush (?), and can you blame them for being suspicious? Many level-headed people are indeed wondering why exit polling has become mysteriously "misleading", and why the "error" is usually in favor of Democrats since around 2000 (including other races, like Senate when Chambliss beat Cleland by an unexpected or even inexplicable margin.)
In any case: we shouldn't have such voting machines as a matter of principle. There is no reason to trust the results.
I think the Boston Globe has a serious story today about such issues; it was jammed up for me so I didn't see it.
Greg Palast has also referenced "spoiled" paper ballots in NM and etc., and thinks Kerry could have won. http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won.php
Some sites referencing or alleging vote tampering:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org
http://www.isteve.com
http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising
http://www.bartcop.com/111102fraud.htm
http://www.truthisbetter.org/Florida_Election.htm
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=388
http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2004/0,4814,97193,00.html
http://www.democrats.com
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1013-01.htm
http://www.democraticunderground.com
http://www.electoral-vote.com
How could the exit polls get it so wrong? The over sampling of women is a cock and bull story, pollsters are on the alert for that kind of problem and adjust accordingly. A likely scenario is someone tried to slam the sampling by sending in operatives. The downside to this theory is that it would require a large coordinated effort that stands a good chance of being exposed. But then again who would be so stupid as to try a crude forgery with a word processor?
Posted by: A. Zarkov at November 4, 2004 11:19 AMShorter Michael Barone:
I think, based on no evidence, that Democrats gamed the exit polling. I forbid Democrats to think, based on limited evidence, that Republicans gamed the actual vote counting.
Posted by: Duncan at November 4, 2004 12:24 PMThe links on Neil's post about "election hanky panky" are well worth checking out. I'm unable to verify any of it and anybody trying will no doubt be called a sore loser.
There is some compelling evidence here, and maybe someone with a statistical bent can analyse figures such as the ones bartcop reports.
What's needed is a credible team of investigative journalists who can take the necessary time to prove or disprove the allegations. Journalists who know the difference between being disinterested and being uninterested.