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Glenn Reynolds has a good article in the Guardian about the election and expresses some interesting ideas about its lessons for the media.
Thanks to the internet, cable news channels and talk radio, media bias is easier to spot and easier for people to bypass. This not only changes views, but prevents the formation of a phoney consensus – what experts call “preference falsification” – resulting from widespread, and unified, media bias.
Those of you across the Atlantic may wish to take a lesson from this. As the BBC’s atrocious handling of the Gilligan affair – and, indeed, its war coverage generally – illustrates, media bias is hardly limited to the United States.
But what is with that photo? I would not have recognised that as Glenn but for the context in which it was displayed.
Over at the Daily Kos, things are are, how can I put it – deflated. I followed their coverage on the basis that the longer it took to post and the more shrill the content, the better things were going.
Robert Reich looking like he’d just developed piles on the air, whilst trying to pretend that everything was going according to plan provoked deeply uncharitable thoughts in me. I like watching BBC coverage on occasions like this. You can rely on Nanny BBC to dig out scores of ‘independent’ collectivists to first announce their confidence in victory before squirming in the face of reality.
Has anyone seen Michael Moore lately?
Well, that was painful. Although it must have been a whole lot more painful for those who wanted Kerry to win. First, the good news:
The least bad alternative won.
The Islamists were denied the moral and propaganda victory of a Kerry win (what did you think bin Laden’s last video was all about anyway?)
The victory appears to have been beyond the “margin of lawyer” (in Mark Steyn’s priceless phrase), although several states were close, and nothing exceeds the ability of a lawyer being paid by the hour to cook up a marginal claim.
The establishment media were made to look like fools, mostly because they acted like fools.
The odious and unspeakable Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle lost.
The Democrats, running (again) on a nanny state/class warfare platform, were driven a little further into the wilderness. Perhaps they will reach the point soon where a major restructuring can occur and I can start voting for mainstream Democrats.
The bad news:
Ohio is still contested, as Kerry hopes for salvation from that mother lode of fraudulent voting, the provisional ballot.
I was wrong about Wisconsin – I was sure Bush could flip it.
And my prediction? Pretty much on target. Bush won by a small margin, Kerry topped in the high ’40s, Bush lost one state that he carried in 2000 (New Hampshire), and I believe he picked up a few (New Mexico, for one).
Oddly enough, for someone who was up until all hours four years ago, I was out like a light at 9:30 last night, before anything had been decided. I have a tiny niggling qualm about the ability of the Dems to manufacture enough votes to flip Ohio, but the margin there is into the six figures, so this should be a wrap.
Unlike David I actually got some sleep. But this morning, I was woken by some loud bang-bang-bang pop music. But as the thuds thudded through my building and my brain, the thought gradually formed in the latter that there might now be a result in that… that… election… thing. Stagger into kitchen. On with TV.
Bush winning.
And Tony Blair losing. The Labour Party hates Bush, and hates hates hates that their leader has been cosying up to him these last three years. Another four years of Bush gazing out across the world, apparently not even knowing let alone caring that they hate him – well, it is just frightful. This could break Blair, by breaking the through-gritted-teeth support of his party for Blair’s vile vile policy of not hating Bush.
But ‘could’ is not ‘will’. Labour will suffer yes, but they will probably carry on suffering. Today as yesterday, the big questions in British party politics are: How long will Blair last? and: How will his successor conduct himself? For as long as Blair carries on the Conservatives are unelectable. If Blair’s successor gets how Blair has done this, then the crucifixion by opposition of the Conservatives will continue indefinitely, just as the crucifixion of Labour by the horror of having to share the planet with President George W. Bush will continue.
The ITV news is now saying that it is essential that Blair tells Bush that he must do what Kerry would have done. Retreat in his various wars, sign the Kyoto Treaty, blah blah blah. But we all know, and more to the point Bush and his cronies know, that you can only do well in a war if you show no sign of wanting to duck out of it. And America is not convinced about Kyoto. Dream on British media.
As for the USA, here is how it looks to me. The big story that I now see, for whatever that may be worth, is that Bush won despite a much increased turnout. When I went to bed, Kerry stroke British media optimism was based on the notion that all these New Voters who were even then queueing in their millions to actually vote in a Presidential Election for the very first time, would obviously help Kerry. Only settled old farts support Bush. Young people, bright eyed and (if you will part the expression) bushy tailed, will obviously back Kerry, on account of him being obviously nicer, better, wiser, better at talking, not so Christian, etc. etc. Ditto all those gypsies, tramps and thieves who last time around were too befuddled and too unregistered to vote. All these folks were now voting. Democrats, all of them. Got to be. Kerry camp happy. Bush camp ‘subdued’.
What actually happened was that the New Voters turned out in strength, yet Bush still won. Had Bush won with the kind of low and falling turnout that happened last time around, with the Settled Old Farts again voting for Bush but the New Voters again not actually voting, this result would have had a far less definite feel to it. Democrat fundamentalists would have spent another four years saying that they had won really, and that next time around this blip would be corrected.
But this was more than a blip. Either those New Voters are not as pro-Democrat as they were supposed to be, or a whole bunch of Settled Old Farts who had not voted last time around because they were too busy trying to work out how to set their new digital video whatchamacallit machines and forgot, managed to totter out to the polls this time around and vote for George W. Bush. Either way, that is a Bush win, and more of a win than last time.
Apparently Bush got more votes than anyone has ever got before in one of these things.
To deny one’s own basic nature is an act of futility I find. Being a political animal, I have been up for the entire night watching the results of the US Presidential Election unfold on the BBC whose coverage, I must admit, had been admirably comprehensive.
As I type, it is now just past 7.00am in the UK and it appears (and I use that word advisedly) that George Bush has been returned to the Whitehouse.
Anything I have to say in response to this will be drowned out by the weeks, and possibly months, of wailing, whining and teeth-gnashing that is going to be emanating from this side of the Atlantic but I do think that it might interest Bush-supporters in the USA to know that every single BBC reporter looks like they have just swallowed a wasp.
The night is young and the election is totally in the air. One of the more notable things I see thus far is how far behind BBC is running. At least fifteen minutes I would say. I have read things on the net like the Maine vote split long before the Beeb mentioned it.
There is also the question of the exit polling looking a bit shaky. The fact that so many Eastern states are still up in the air is quite unusual. One wonders if the Amish vote turn out might put Pennsylvania in the Bush column despite the solid Democratic machine controlled areas of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. That would truly be an interesting political event.
We will just have to wait awhile. If the exit polls are as badly off as some are saying, the election could suddenly shift to Bush and end early; if they are not, we could have a very long night ahead of us.
Particularly for those of us in the UK…
0350. Looks like the Beeb is now running real time on the Electoral counts, although they are a bit slow to pick up on some stories like the exit poll problems. As in, they have not brought it up at all. Hours to go no doubt, and here’s me with no more munchies…
Medienkritik has some food for for thought which I would recommend reading on this election day:
Democracy is something that members of free societies should never take for granted. It has been dearly paid for in the past and continues to be dearly paid for around the world today in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. We at Medienkritik therefore humbly encourage all our American readers to participate in the political process and the upcoming election. Whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent, exercise that simple and basic right that signifies our freedom: Vote.
Unlike our Dale Amon, I am not going to endorse a candidate – in fact, I am rooting for a 269-269 electoral tie, just for the sake of making history – but I still find the horse race intriguing. I was overwhelmed with requests (okay, two people asked) to run one last version of the election monte carlo that I offered last week. Apart from updating the probabilities, I did a few things differently this time:
– if the price was greater than 90 or less than 10, I changed it to 100 or 0, so that only the swing states impact the model.
– I kept track of which states were most likely to end up in the winners’ column; I wanted to know which states were the kingmakers. (Well, we already knew which states, but I wanted a way to quantify it.)
– I ran a few different scenarios, taking different swing states off the table (i.e. setting their probabilities to 100 or 0.)
Scenario I: every swing state up for grabs
BUSH: 5972 wins, avg. 275.82 electoral votes
KERRY: 3843 wins, avg. 262.18 electoral votes
TIE: 185
Florida ends up in the winner’s column 7578 of the 9815 scenarios where there is a winner. After that, the most ‘decisive’ swing states are Ohio (6515), Wisconsin (5636), New Mexico (5606) and Iowa (5521.)
Scenario II: Bush wins FL, everything else is up for grabs
BUSH: 8227 wins, avg. 287.70 electoral votes
KERRY: 1586 wins, avg. 250.30 electoral votes
TIE: 187
So basically, Kerry almost has to have Florida at this point.
Scenario III: Kerry wins FL, everything else is up for grabs
BUSH: 3083 wins, avg. 260.46 electoral votes
KERRY: 6692 wins, avg. 277.54 electoral votes
TIE: 225
Bush has more ways to win without getting Florida than Kerry does. Let’s try one more …
Scenario IV: Bush takes OH and WI; FL and other states are contested
BUSH: 8313 wins, avg. 291.05 electoral votes
KERRY: 1515 wins, avg. 246.95 electoral votes
TIE: 172
If Bush can take these two Midwestern states, he becomes a prohibitive favorite.
A few other desultory remarks:
– who says the country is more divided than ever? My favorite political story of the week: South Dakota, except for the Indian reservations, is a conservative state, and it is tough for a Democrat to win. So Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth, in the heat of a tough reelection battle, has pledged that, should the election end in a 269-269 tie, she will vote for Bush when the House of Representatives has to choose the president.
– Since I’m rooting for the 269-269 tie, here’s one way it could happen:
source: World66.com
– Finally, Megan McArdle, guestblogging for Glenn Reynolds, offers the best election day advice of all: use the electronic political markets to hedge, just like a farmer would use the grain futures markets to hedge against the possibility of low selling prices at harvest time. If you don’t want Kerry to win, bet a few bucks that he DOES win, so you can at least drown your sorrows with some hard-earned beer.
If you want to read about the truly extraordinary and deeply depressing paroxysm of anti-Americanism that has swept like a firestorm through the British media over the last few days and weeks (having merely smouldered for years), you can read about it here.
Of a particularly fatuous TV guide blurb (“Jonathan Dimbleby takes a critical look at the Anglo-US war on terror…”), Mark Holland has this to say:
A critical look! Just for a change. I don’t know about you, but for me all those “Hey it’s all going swell; Bush, Blair and Howard are doing fine; the oil for food scandal has lined the pockets of Saddam, the UN and Total Fina Elf; etc” documentaries have become a tiresome bore.
For me the most depressing British anti-American exhibit of the last few days was a rant by Peter Oborne in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday. Having ignored the Mail, Sunday or of any other sort, for years, I had no idea it was capable of sinking to these depthsm and I only spotted it because I shared some coffee with Michael Jennings in my local Café Nero yesterday.
This picture, of the front cover of the Review section, sums it up well:
Click to get it bigger and more legible. If you really want that.
This is absolutely not mere anti-Bushism, for Oborne is vitriolically nasty about both Democrats and Republicans. Maybe this piece is available to read on the internet, but I cannot myself find it. I am actually rather pleased about that. → Continue reading: British Anti-Americanism gone mad
It seems like everyone has announced their decisions now: even Megan McCardle. So it is my turn… well, actually that isn’t really true. You see, I had to vote about two or more weeks ago to make sure my absentee ballot made it to Pittsburgh by October 31st so my decision cycle was a bit tighter than most.
It is not so much a difficult decision as a painful one. I have had to do something I have never done in my life. I started off Clean for Gene putting up posters when I was still a high school student; friends were out for McGovern… and then the LP came along and made me feel comfortable voting, something I had not really felt in the earlier elections.
I have election after election been perfectly happy voting straight LP. Even if I did not see my candidate take an oath, I at least knew I agreed with what they stood for.
Unfortunately, this year I again became, in Marshall Fritz’s words, ‘Politically Homeless’. The LP stand on the current war has left me in the unfamiliar and awkward feeling position of selecting the least of three evils.
Do not get me wrong. There is really only one of the three candidates whom I really loath and it is not Badnarik.
I also a worry this election might be another squeeker, something I was not expecting. I believed it would be a runaway. That appears not be the case. Votes do matter more than usual this time.
It really came down to a no-brainer though. I have voted for a Republican for President for the first time in my life. I do not agree with George Bush on many issues, but I do indeed agree with him on the war and the war cabinet is one I quite like. There is a minor plus that all the right people are totally off the wall and over the top insane about the prospect of him winning.
There is an undertone of religious intolerance against his obviously sincere and deep faith. I do not find this distressing despite my own total non-belief. I am a pure physical scientist, but just because I do not see need to posit a supreme being does not mean I do not respect those who do. I feel George is a good man and honourable. I simply do not buy the rantings of the left or even of some of our own. Disagree with him if you must, but please do not descend into ludicrous accusations.
I do not like some of his domestic agenda, but for the exact opposite reasons the Kerry side is against it. On the other hand, he has managed a number of political shuffles that appear to be one thing but whose outcome was not really that bad. The cloning research ‘ban’ appears to have been little more than a ban of state funded research, something no Libertarian could argue with.
But that is all secondary. We are in the middle, not merely of a war in Iraq, but of a global war on whose outcome our very lives may depend. I am too close to technology not to realize how much evil can be done by a small number of dedicated followers of the dark side.
I endorse George W. Bush for President of the United States.
Although I am interested in elections, I rarely feel moved to comment on them at all. But I understand that US voters go to the polls this week. Who can predict who they will elect?
Whoever may get elected, they will have to write an Inaugural Speech in January – and there are parts of this Inaugural from Calvin Coolidge, that some US taxpayers may feel merit a second airing… → Continue reading: An inaugural speech worth listening to
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