The election

Well the day is finally here, and tomorrow - for better or worse - it (should) all be over with.

I think Bush will win by about 30 or so electoral votes and by about 3% in the popular vote. Just a gut feeling. Bush is running strong in the Midwest and he has a structural advantage in the Electoral College. He is virtually certain to get 191 votes out of the gate, another 40 votes or so seem pretty much to be his, and if he wins Florida and Ohio, the election is over. If he doesn't win Ohio, he can still win, but it will be tougher. (If he loses Florida, he is probably toast).

Make no mistake: I am still worried. I believe that we are locked in the opening phase of World War IV - a huge civilization altering war that will make Iraq and Afghanistan look like minor dust-ups.

The fact that many Americans choose to deny this reality is very disturbing to me. The Arab World is diseased and it will not heal itself. But a democratic Iraq offers a way out. Eighty percent of Iraqis want to see their country governed democratically, and most believe it is getting better, not worse. We must not abandon them to the thugs who have terrorized the Arab world for decades.

Kerry's election would tell the world that we are throwing in the towell and abandoning the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who are working with us. It will - I believe - make a much more destructive war inevitable (one probably involving nuclear weaponry). Even if President Kerry were to keep the course in Iraq, his election would encourage our enemies.

To govern is to choose, and so far, Kerry has done a surprisingly good job of getting people to ignore the fact that he has difficulty making decisions.The last indecisive president we had was Jimmy Carter, and his four years were filled with foreign policy setbacks -the Iranian crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Soviet troops in Cuba, Cuban troops in the Carribean and Central America, and communists advancing everywhere.

Kerry will face much of the same, against enemies who are worse in many ways: our enemies today have no homes, and they are driven by a fanatical desire to die in suicide attacks. They crave the world's most dangerous weapons, and Kerry's lukewarm approach to terror will insure that they will get them.

If Kerry is the winner, there will be celebrations in Ramallah, Tehran, Pyongyang, and Damascus (and Paris).

I have plenty of reasons to hate George Bush. As a fiscal conservative, I have been absolutely disgusted by his spending and his big new government programs.

If it wasn't for this war, I doubt I could even vote for him.

But I will vote for him enthusiastically.

The Democrats are screaming that this election will be like no other. Don't trust the polls, they say. New voters will swarm the booths and cast Bush out of office!

Well maybe.

But I am heartened by what James Carville said in 1992. He scrunched up his face in that strange smile of his, revealing his rodent-like teeth. The strange little man said - in between nervous Beavis laughs - something like this:

"In Louisiana, you know what we call a candidate who thinks new voters are going to come out of the woodwork and sweep him into office?

We call him a loser."

So it will be - I pray - for John Kerry.

Update: Thank God. It's over (except for the lawsuits)....Good night.
- posted by total @ 11/02/2004 05:57:00 AM .