IT LOOKS GOOD, BUT IS IT OVER?

With 100% of the precincts reporting, George Bush has won Ohio by 145,098 votes.  That's right, 145,000 votes.  The Poodle's campaign won't concede because of desperation and sour grapes, but if they think they're going to win Ohio, it ain't gonna happen.

All of this seems to hang on the so-called "provisional ballots."  Many of these are ballots were cast by people that were too dense to actually show up at the right precinct to vote.  Some  were filled out by people who may not have the right to vote, including people who were not registered.  A certain amount of those ballots will be disqualified.  The estimates on the number of these ballots is 175,000.  If you work on the assumption that (1) all the provisional ballots will be allowed, and (2) those ballots will fall within 5% of mirroring the Ohio vote, there is no way that Kerry can come close to erasing the 145,000 deficit.  If you're a leftist, things don't look good.  Ditto if you're an Islamic terrorist.

I guess that this all means that I was wrong.  Not real wrong.  Not embarrassingly wrong ... but wrong nonetheless.  Yesterday I was predicting that The Poodle would win.  Well it sure doesn't look that way right now.  Something extremely odd and extraordinary would have to happen to turn things around right now. 

You do know, don't you, that if the situation were reversed in Ohio ... if it was John Kerry instead of George Bush leading by 145,098 votes, Kerry and his media myrmidons would be declaring a complete Kerry victory and demanding Bush concede.  Last night The Poodle sent out The Breck Girl  to announce that every vote would be counted.  Well, every vote has been counted, and Ohio goes to Bush.

Kerry has a chance to show a bit of class here.  His advisors are telling him that the game is over.  He should concede and allow the process to go forward.  

THOSE OHIO PROVISIONAL VOTES

Your Talkmaster has pulled out his calculator and played with the provisional ballots in Ohio.  The Bush margin of victory in Ohio is 145,000 votes.  The largest number I've heard for Ohio provisional ballots is 250,000.  The actual figure is probably around 175,000, but we're going to play with the 250,000 number just to fudge for Kerry.

So ... 250,000 provisional ballots.  In the last Ohio election 90% of all provisional ballots were allowed.  So we'll go with that figure and say that 225,000 of these ballots will be allowed.   How many of these votes will be for Kerry?  Past experience in Ohio shows that the provisional ballots generally run pretty close to the percentages in the general vote.  But .... again let' s fudge for Kerry.  Let's add 5% to his vote total of 48%.  We'll say that 53% of the provisional ballots that will be counted were votes for John Kerry.  That would give Kerry 119,250 additional votes, and still make him about 25,000 votes short.

Back to that 90% figure .. .the 90% of provisional ballots that were counted in the last Ohio election.  Since that time the restrictions on just which provisional ballots will count have been tightened.  These new rules make that 90% total highly improbable --- making a Kerry victory in Ohio a pipe dream.

We will give Kerry this.  He did carry his home state.  That's something Al Gore couldn't do.  I don't know that there's any bragging rights that come with carrying Massachusetts though.  George McGovern did it.

YOU DO KNOW THAT THIS IS A RECORD, DON'T YOU?    

With 95% of precincts reporting nationwide Bush has almost 57 million popular votes. This is a record popular vote for any presidential candidate in the history of the nation.  Now I know that the popular vote is a Constitutionally irrelevant figure ... but the Democrats were sure proud of the fact that Gore won the popular vote in 2000.  Let's see if they give Bush the same props. Oh ... by the way, Bush also got the majority of the popular vote.  That's something Bill Clinton was never able to do.

SORRY AMERICA .. BUT HERE SHE COMES AGAIN

Yesterday's election wasn't a total wash for Islamic jihadists.  The voters of Georgia's 4th Congressional District have seen fit to send Cynthia McKinney back to the Congress.  Denise Majette, the woman who clobbered Cynthia a few years ago, got the big head and decided that she was ready for the U.S. Senate.  The voters in Georgia had other ideas.  While Majette was tilting at windmills Cynthia ran for her old seat and won.

This is not good news for the residents of Georgia's 4th District. Yes .. they are sending the cutest little Jihadist in Congress back to Washington, but just what is she going to do once she gets there?  Cynthia has been and will be regarded as a loose cannon .. someone not to be taken seriously.  She'll spend the next two years running seminars in her district teaching people how to sign up for the Earned Income Tax Credit and a good bit of time claiming that Bush has a cure for cancer but he's negotiating to sell it to Halliburton.  When it comes to any major congressional initiative, McKinney is toast. She simply doesn't have the respect of the other members of Congress to have any real impact on policy or to move her initiatives forward.

DEMOCRATIC DEFEATS WIDESPREAD

As if the president's victory wasn't enough, Democrats were soundly defeated all over the country.  Right at the top was Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle getting knocked off by John Thune.  The Republican edge in the Senate now stands at 53.  The Republican majority in the House also remained.

I take special pleasure in the defeat of Tom Daschle.  This is the man who engineered a Senate filibuster of a judicial nominee that had the majority vote needed for confirmation.  This has never happened before.  Hopefully Bush will place those names in the hopper again and see if the Democrats are still in a filibustering mood. 

The vote was close, to be sure, but once again the ideals of  the modern Democratic party have been soundly defeated at the polls.  Tom Daschle, the symbol of liberal obstructionism in Washington DC has gotten the boot.  The Republicans picked up seats in the Senate.  

The Democratic party is the party of Michael Moore, George Soros and a bevy of disgruntled movie and rock stars.  Now they see their politics soundly rejected.  The terrorist-appeasing, Bush-bashing, lie-telling Democratic party is being sent to the showers.

BUT THERE'S NO REST FOR THE WEARY

One of the happiest people in the nation today must be Hillary Clinton .. the Hildabeast.  Ninety seconds after Kerry concedes this election the Democrats will begin work on 2008, and Hillary will be at the center of all their plans.  In my estimation Hillary remains the single most dangerous politician in the United States today.  Her college professors who branded her a socialist knew their stuff.   In fact, they were probably praising her, not condemning her.  The 2008 nomination is Hillary's if she wants it.  The Republicans?  Anybody's guess.  Jeb?  I don't think so.

MEDIA VOTING MYTHS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND

How many times did we hear running up to the election about supposed voter intimidation, widespread voting problems and overall mayhem at the polls?  The fear-mongering by the left and the media was off the charts.  So what happened?

Nothing...zippo.  There were no widespread reports of intimidation and no supposed "disenfranchisement."  The machines worked, people waited to vote, and the votes have been counted.  So what about the turnout?

The youth vote didn't really make that big of a difference either.  These were the supposed large groups of people being driven to the polls by Moveon.org and other groups, and it never materialized.  Exit polling done for the AP shows only one in ten votes attributed to the youth vote.  And of those youths, while most of them were Democrats, Bush still had some support.

The Democrats are not the only ones discredited by this election.  The media came up way short too.   Ain't that nice.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

You gotta love this.  Tom Daschle, the man who engineered the Democratic filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominations, has been defeated in South Dakota.  Now the Democrats have to chose a new minority leader.  

I won $100 from ace nationally syndicated consumer advocate Clark Howard.   He bet me that Bush would win by more than 330 Electoral votes.  He's going to hate handing that money over.

It looks like Ralph Nader wasn't a factor in this election with his paltry 1% of the vote.   Actually, this is bad news for the Democrats.  They aren't going to have the meaningless popular vote canard to throw around, and they can't blame Nader for Kerry's loss.  Well ... they do have Cynthia McKinney to celebrate.

In at least two states where Democratic Senatorial candidates tried to demagogue their Republican opponents over the Fair Tax, the Democrats lost.  Good news.  So, let's get on with some tax reform.

Georgia adopted a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.  I voted no on that one.  I can't see voting to deny someone else the opportunity to do something that deprives nobody of their right to life, liberty or property through either force or fraud. I don't care who lives with whom and what they want to call themselves.  Hollywood has done more to damage the institution of marriage in this country than a gay couple ever could.

Perky Katie Couric isn't so perky today.  She's dressed in black.  Go figure.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Kerry concedes to President Bush. Kerry to address the people at 1PM ET today and President Bush will deliver a victory speech at 3PM.

The best and the worst from Election 2004 from Janes Taranto

It was tears at the Kerry campaign party.  Poor babies.

Here is a website where you can check the results of any House or Senate race in the country. 

Andy Card came out and declared victory, but the president did not.  What a class act.  Would The Poodle have done the same if the situation were reversed, of course not.

Bush wins!  Here are all the details of the final vote tally...you can taunt your liberal friends.

Dick Morris analyzes the Bush victory.  He called it early on.

The Republicans picked up Zell Miller's seat in Georgia, and Republicans won in other states.  Click here for all of the results.

The Tort King says the Democrats will fight for every vote.  That's fine, but there's not enough votes left to fight for.

The President won Florida...of course, that hasn't stopped the ACLU from filing lawsuits.

Check out the county-by-county map of red and blue counties...not too many voting for The Poodle.

Tom Daschle was the first minority leader to get the boot since 1952.  South Dakota voters finally got tired of the extreme liberalism.

Remember Katherine Harris?  She's the former Florida secretary of state demonized by the left....and she was reelected.

Barrack Obama beat Alan Keyes.  In other news, the sky is blue and the day is long.

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