Just a reminder…I’m starting a chat at 8:45pm (EDT, i.e., Boston time) tonight for anyone who wants to kibbitz during the debate. Go to johodebate at irc.freenode.net. Details here.

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I woke up this morning imagining it’s election night. As soon as polls have closed in each state, the networks are busy projecting the results based on their exit polls. “With 2% of the vote in, ABC is calling Pennsylvania for Kerry, 52% to 48%.” You know, that type of thing. But as the night wears on, the networks have to eat their predictions with an unusual frequency. “We’ve got a change. With 35% of precincts reporting, we are now moving Pennsylvania into the Republican camp, 53% for Bush, 46% for Kerry, and 2% for Nader.” One after another, states are flipped.

And then the networks begin to notice that some of the flips occurred where the electronic voting machines were doing the tabulation.

The Democrats, no longer shy about pursuing electoral matters vigorously through the courts, demand recounts wherever e-voting was used. The most basic pillar of democracy — that the electoral process is honest — has been toppled. Three months later, the matter is still in the courts and the people are in the streets.

Now, onto something more fun. Mathew Gross, the former lead Dean blogger, has asked bloggers to take a guess, before the 2nd debate, at what the final electoral tally will be. I ran historic and current polling data at the precinct level through my simulation software. Then I ignored the results and took the following wild-ass guess:

Popular vote*:
Bush: 64.3%
Kerry: 51.8%
Nader: 1.1%*

Electoral vote:
Bush: 275
Kerry: 262
Nader: 0

*Numbers do not add up to 100% because of over-enthusiastic e-voting machines.

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Salon has a sober consideration of the blog-based rumor that Bush was wired with a receiver so that he had a direct line to the voice of God (i.e., Karl Rove) during the first debate. It is an hilarious rumor that I am delighted to pass along as delightfully unsubstantiated.

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Wanna chat during the debate tonight? I’ll set up a channel at irc.freenode.net called johodebate, starting around 8:45pm (Boston time). If you want to get all snarky and dry one another’s tears of frustration, c’mon in.

If your chat software works the way mine (HydraIRC) does, you go to File -> Connect, and then click on Freenode as your server. Beneath that you should see irc.freenode.net. Click on that one. Once the window opens indicating that you’re connected, in the type-in field at the bottom, type “/join #johodebate” except without the quotes.

Play nice. No trolling. And I get to decide who to kick.

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Bush Bounces Back in Spirited Debate

After a lackluster performance in the first presidential debate, President George W.Bush was forceful and focused in last night’s debate, an encounter marked by the most direct accusations yet.

Sharing a stage at a town hall style debate at Washington University that was supposed to focus on demestic issues, the most dramatic moments nonetheless came as the candidates circled back to Iraq. Senator John Kerry, emboldened by polls shifting in his direction and by a week of bad news for the President on Iraq, repeated twenty-three times that the President is “out of touch” with the reality of the situation in Iraq and with the American people. But it was the President who had the sharpest words: “On September 10, America maybe could have gotten by with politicians. After September 11, America needed a leader. I am that leader. My opponent is still just a politician who’ll say whatever he has to to get elected.”

Unlike the previous debate in which the President was perceived by many as being tired, irritated or unprepared, President Bush was direct and upbeat last night, at one point asking the moderator, Charles Gibson, if he could give a “big ol’ Texas hug” to the woman whose question Gibson had just read. “That’s not in the 32-page agreement you both signed,” Gibson said. “I know,” said the President playfully, “but sometimes a hug is more important than some old rules. Senator Kerry, John, you wouldn’t say no to me giving that woman a hug, would you?” As Kerry looked flustered and speechless, Gibson denied the President’s request. The woman’s question had to do with the conflict between Title 12 of the Medical Aid for America Act and provisions of the Employee Reimbursible Tax Code.

Senator Kerry repeatedly tried to paint a picture of the President as “dangerously out of touch,” “protected from the truth by a coterie of advisors who believe they can reshape the world and history unilaterally.” In response to a question about No Child Left Behind, the Senator again turned the topic to Iraq and the previous debate, saying, “You continue to misrepresent, even here tonight, what I said in plain view of all America. You’re not deaf. You’re not dumb. And you were there [at the debate]. So, America has to conclude that you’re misrepresenting my words on purpose.”

Senator Kerry, seeming not as comfortable with the town hall style debate as with the format of the previous debate, was perceived by many as stiffer and more condescending than his opponent who seemed to find his sea legs. For example, PResident Bush prefaced his responses to many questions with an expression of sympathy or light remark. While the President made a habit of referring to the questioner by his or her first name, Kerry looked directly at the home audience and delivered unaltered portions of his stump speech. In one response that seems likely to be excerpted by the Republicans for their ads, the Senator waved his finger rhetorically at “those who would harm this country” but was caught by the camera as seeming to wave it in the face of the questioner who looked alarmed by the gesture.

“This was not Kerry’s best night,” admitted a senior aide to the Kerry campaign off the record. “The format favored President Bush who, one on one, is charming and likable. We’ll be watching the tapes very carefully.” Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Bush/Cheney campaign committee, said: “America tonight saw the Bush they know and love: A world leader who speaks plainly and is working every day to keep them safe.”

At the debate, the candidates answered questions about health care, education, stem cell research, the Patriot Act, the environment, the economy, race relations, and what advice they would give to their favorite baseball team.

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It is easy to be dismissive of undecided voters. Who are these people? How can anyone be undecided in such a glaringly obvious election? But that feels patronizing and simplistic. Most undecided voters seem to me to be victims of a political process that seems alien and unresponsive.

— Jonathan Alford, “Looking for votes, finding America,” an account of a week spent campaigning for Kerry, in Salon.

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As Erik D’Amato writes in his Hungarian blog:

In a stunning upset likely to send shockwaves throughout the so-called “blogosphere,” recently-launched Hungarian-American website Pestiside.hu yesterday beat recently-launched Hungarian-American website www.georgesoros.com in the race to be the first Internet weblog, or “blog,” to successfully throw a significant electoral contest.

At issue was the presidency of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hungary:

The Hungarian AmCham has ceased to be an institution dedicated to promoting the “American” way of doing business, and is instead now a local symbol of the most “un-American” of bad business habits, including cronyism, cartelism, non-transparency and even a degree of media coercion.

Erik exposes the issues, including a possible conflict of interest for the incumbent. Did Pestiside make the difference in the election? Why don’t we just say yes? After all, aren’t all politics blogal?

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The flood of emails from both sides spinning each detail of the debate has gotten to be hilarious. Email is not the right medium for this. We can wait ten or fifteen minutes. Besides, your chattering makes you sound frightened and like you don’t trust us. Shhhh. Drink some cocoa. It’ll be fine.

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ThisIsRumorControl.com (“a blog dedicated to the “ground truth” that the war on terrorism is worth fighting, and al-Qaeda worth defeating, but the current U.S. policies in pursuit of these goals are failing our country in its moment of need”) is asking pumping a lecture series by Bobby Muller, head of the Alliance for Security, which is part of the Vietnam Veterans for America Foundation. Got that? I don’t, but if you’re interested in hearing Muller — Nobel Peace Prize winner as a co-founder of International Campaign to Ban Landmines — talk about the draft and the right use of force, here’s the schedule.

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I understand why Ken Mehlman, as the Bush/Cheney campaign manager, in his latest msg pounds on Kerry’s “global test” statement, as if working with allies is the same thing as giving them a veto. But I can’t figure out how he can talk about Kerry’s “repeated denigration of our troops” at the debate. I mean, we were there. We heard him. Kerry could not have been more straightforward in his honoring our soldiers.

Yeah, yeah, I understand the logic: If you think a war is mistaken, you must also think the soldiers are mistaken. It’s stupid logic, but I understand it. What I can’t understand is why the Republican campaign thinks that, given Kerry’s actual statements and his demeanor, which we saw with our own eyes, we’re going to fall for this one.

(The subject line of the message is: “Fight the Spin – Spread the Truth!” Beyond spin and all the way to chutzpah.)

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