Reactions From The World

The English newspaper Guardian writes:

Those outside America, in the chanceries of Europe and beyond, who hoped that this would be a passing phase, like a Florida hurricane that wreaks havoc only to blow over, will instead have to adjust to a different reality. (...) Now that fantasy will be shelved. The White House is not about to ditch the approach of the last four years. Why would it? Despite the mayhem and murder in Iraq, despite the death of more than 1,000 US soldiers and countless (and uncounted) Iraqis, despite the absence of weapons of mass destruction, despite Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration won the approval of the American people. If Bush had lost the neo-conservative project would have been buried forever. But he won, and the neo-cons will welcome that as sweet vindication.

From The Asia Times:

The United States may have gone to the polls as a divided, uncertain, paralyzed-by-fear nation. Today it's still a divided, uncertain, paralyzed-by-fear nation, but now with a clear mandate for the state really to rock the geopolitical boat.
The "most important election of a lifetime" has sent a clear message to the whole world: the face of America in the next four years - barring a Richard Nixon-style impeachment - will be of unilateralism, the "war on terror" possibly progressively escalating into a clash of civilizations. And pay attention to the "axis of evil" hit list - the official and the bootleg. Bush II will attack what it defines as "state terrorism" - Iran, Syria - instead of the global jihadi network. It will continue to rely on Pakistan to "decapitate" the odd "high-value al-Qaeda". It won't engage in diplomacy to address the political causes of terrorism. It won't engage in a cultural and ideological effort to try to counteract the global jihad - especially now that Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri have changed the rules of the asymmetrical game from a religious clash to a political struggle against imperialism.
Total concentration of right-wing power - legitimized by the popular vote: this is the new neo-conservative dream turned reality. So the road ahead is to flatten the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah in Iraq, bomb Iran because of its supposed nuclear aspirations, depose President Hafez Assad in Syria, crush the Palestinian resistance, and remodel the Middle East by "precision strike" democracy. There will be serious blowback.

Frontpage headline in today's edition of Switzerland's newspaper Blick:

Bush re-elected: Are 62 mio. Americans simply stupid?

Democrats Ponder Future

Senator John Kerry's "defeat has Democrats grappling with whether the party must make fundamental changes in philosophy to recapture the White House," the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Washington Post says many Democrats say they "need to restore the language of values to the party's rhetoric and to try to reconnect with people of faith."
Newsweek notes "the losing side always goes through a period of wailing and teeth-gnashing after an election, as the various factions grab for power in anticipation of the next election. It will be especially intense after two narrow, bruising losses."
Meanwhile, Dan Conley has re-launched his blog with this question: "How many elections will it take for Democrats to figure out that we don't know how to pick winning Presidential candidates?"
And Marshall Wittman warns Democrats not to wait for the inevitable scandals that emerge in second term presidencies. "Organization is fine -- ideas and message are far superior."
(Via Political Wire)

The Redneck American won

The Los Angeles Times analysis the results of the presidential election:

According to a nationwide Times exit poll of voters leaving polling places, more than half of Bush's voters cited moral issues as a principal reason for their support —
— more than any other issue, including even terrorism. In fact, morals trumped terrorism by seven percentage points in the Los Angeles Times poll.(...)

By contrast, nearly half of Kerry voters named the economy as their top concern — nearly double the number that picked moral issues.(...)

Just as in 2000, Bush on Tuesday mobilized a massive coalition of culturally conservative Americans, centered on married families, rural voters, and people who own guns or attend church regularly. Although Bush continued to enjoy overwhelming support from his conservative base, he had made only limited progress at expanding his reach among voters beyond it.

Kerry's coalition represented the mirror image of Bush's: He ran best among singles, urban voters and those who don't own guns or attend church regularly. Kerry also received a big boost from first-time voters, most of them young people, who tilted sharply in his direction, the Times Poll found.

Stand And Fight

Great post-election article in The Nation magazine. Excerpt:

Progressives, who were on the defensive two years ago, added millions of new voters as well, and tapped a new energy and activism that will last far beyond November 2nd. The extremism and incompetence of this rightwing cabal has sharpened our focus to a razor's edge. But for me, one of the fundamental questions about this campaign has been whether you could defeat a terrible but clear incumbent without a substantive policy alternative, and this time at least we couldn't. Kerry offered intelligence, a return to fiscal discipline, a bulwark against a rightwing court, and a health plan that few understood. He failed to use the moral message of "Two Americas" to erode Bush's edge. He mounted a late challenge to Bush's disastrous war in Iraq-- but he also talked about "staying the course." That wasn't enough of a coherent positive, populist or moral message to complement the impressive mechanics. We've got to build a politics of conviction, of passion and substance. It's there but it needs to be built and fought for. And the lesser lessons, if that's the big one, are:

1) People really are confused and manipulated (we have a mainstream media that continues to focus on irrelevant stories--Swift Boat, Rathergate and all the rest--abrogating its responsibility to focus on what's important and significant; and too much of it keeps giving head instead of keeping its head.) This makes an expansion of the progressive media echo chamber all the more important; And,

2) Neoliberalism is broken beyond repair and people need to be offered a real alternative not just despair at this point. This is truly a non-violent Civil War between those who think government is basically screwed up and that they're on their own, and those who believe....what exactly? We've got to be much clearer on the latter.

But this morning, we woke to a country at war with itself--as well as Al Qaeda. As America fights Islamic fundamentalism abroad, progressives are re-fighting the Enlightenment here at home. (The two new Senators from Oklahoma and South Carolina are leaders of our homegrown Taliban.)

This is war at a very deep level about how this country will proceed and this war isn't over, it's just renewed. …

The American Right understands we are two nations, and cares less about healing than about holding power. A Bush wins forces us to understand, in a very deep way, what that means for us and for the values and institutions we care about. Not that they are wrong, or rejected or weighed down by "identity politics" or some other rationale for surrender. But that they are in desperate danger and we need to start thinking along the lines of how to resist, delay, deflect, oppose and ultimately defeat the assault on our freedoms. As progressives, we will need to marshal at least as much dedication, purpose, strategic focus and tactical ruthlessness …

And we should be thinking about the indispensable work of resistance. We need to identify legislative and administrative choke points where Bush's initiatives can be blocked, and make clear to both legislators and their constituents that the days of go-along in the interest of non-partisan comity have to stop. …

In the end, this election is about what kind of people we are, what kind of country we'll be. Half of the electorate dissents from Bushism. The election still represents an expression of the strength of opposition to the radical and reckless course Bush has followed, despite the ugly campaign.

Unlike 1972, when Democrats were wiped out everywhere--in 2004 there is an emerging progressive infrastructure capable of standing and fighting. Progressives should build on those structures put in place in this last cycle and redouble their commitment to economic justice, peace and environmental movements that can make real change.

It's Rove again

Karl Rove 'was behind the risky tactic of essentially ignoring undecided voters to concentrate on motivating the president's base - socially conservative Republicans,' Scripps Howard News Service reports. "It was Rove who developed 'The Final Five Days,' a plan to unleash a flood of Bush volunteers in the election's closing hours and contact every identified potential supporter in the campaign's massive database. It was this get-out-the-vote effort, the most ambitious in GOP history, that swung the balance in Bush's favor." Furthermore, it was Rove who "early on determined that the best way to defeat the Massachusetts senator, or any other Democrat, was to lacerate the other guy until he was no longer perceived as a credible option."

It's Over

Kerry has conceded. In his speech he concluded that he could not win the presidency, after realising that the outstanding votes in Ohio were not enough to enable him to carry the state. He also said:

In the days ahead, we must find common cause. We must join in common effort without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor. America is in need of unity and longing for a larger measure of compassion.
I hope President Bush will advance those values in the coming years.

The wrong guy won - against all common sense. What is it with this America?

John Edwards: We Will Fight

"A long night, but we've waited four years for this victory we can wait one more night!
We promised you that every vote would count and every vote will be counted. We will fight for every vote. You deserve no less."
Great! Just what I wanted to hear. Now I can go to sleep.

Election Day Is Over - No Final Results

Deja vu! It's 2000 all over again!

Projections are outstanding in the presidential election for only a handful of states with Ohio - with most of the votes counted but still too close to call - being the key. George W. Bush is ahead in projected Electoral College votes but the Kerry camps refuses to concede. "The vote count in Ohio has not been completed," Mary Beth Cahill, the Kerry campaign manager, said. "There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio."

The current results:
Bush:
249 electoral votes
54,846,554 popular votes (51%)

Kerry:
242 electoral votes
51,157,718 (48%)

For all the updated election results check out this great interactive map by C-Span.

Deciding The Fate Of The World

The English newspaper Independent writes:

From the fate of the Middle East, to the global scourge of terror and the threat of nuclear proliferation, to the economic and financial future of the world's greatest debtor nation ­ on all these issues, the next occupant of the Oval Office must make decisions that will shape history. If that were not enough, the country, which chooses today between John Kerry and George Bush, is as divided as at any time in its history.

Expensive Elections

The Center for Responsive Politics projects that the 2004 presidential and congressional elections will cost a combined $3.9 billion. That figure marks a 30 percent increase over the $3 billion that was spent on the 2000 elections. For the presidential race, the group expects both parities and their allied advocacy groups will shell out $1.2 billion.

Michael Moore To Film Voting

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore announced that he is dispatching 1 200 people to literally watch the polls in Tuesday's presidential election in the United States. The volunteers will be outfitted with video cameras to record any irregularities that might occur in the battleground states of Florida and Ohio. Moore said he was sending out the observers because he was worried that some voters might be intimidated and their votes suppressed.

Bush: No More Years

Jim Treacher from Wall Street Journal lists ten reasons why he's not voting for George W. Bush. Among others:
- Do you really think it's a good idea to be Hitler, George? Hitler killed millions of people and his approval ratings are in the toilet. Why can't you be somebody people like? Regis, maybe, or the Prophet Mohammed. Anybody but Hitler! Being Hitler = BAD IDEA.
- Two words: You. Are. Dumb.
- When Karl Rove used the remote-control device implanted in your upper back to force you to murder Iraqi babies and American soldiers for oil and/or no reason because Saddam was mean to your dad, plus what about the WMDs you lost after you lied about them even being there in the first place, and then Rove tried to make everybody think your Thanksgiving turkey wasn't plastic by planting fake documents about your military service and forcing Dan Rather to say "Sorry, I guess" on national TV, did you really think we wouldn't figure it out?
- Where's Osama? C'mon, Shrub, we all know you've got him in some secret Ashcroft prison and he's running around loose in the world, plus also besides which everybody just saw him live on tape giving the dramatic reading of "Fahrenheit 9/11" that the Halliburton PR department wrote for him to swing the election your way. Well???
- I can no longer afford the premiums on my falling-sky insurance. Adios, chimp!

Bin Laden: Goal is to bankrupt U.S.

The Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a full transcript today of the most recent videotape from Osama bin Laden in which the head of al Qaeda said his group's goal is to force America into bankruptcy. The total U.S. national debt is more than $7 trillion. The U.S. federal deficit was $413 billion in 2004, according to the Treasury Department.

Battleground Ohio

A new Ohio Poll has President Bush leads 50.1 to 49.2 for his opponent.

Kerry Leades in Florida

Must have been hard for Fox News.com to report that. According to the administration friendly TV network Kerry leads Bush by five points in Florida, and by two points nationally, 48-46 percent.
Pollster Zogby considers the presidential race in Florida a tie. Zogby's electoral votes - without the sunshine state: 264 votes for Kerry, 247 votes for Bush.

Youth Vote Could Be Big

The latest from Zogby:

Razor thin margin here, if there is one at all. The President still does not get above 48%. The real news here is that 18-29 year olds favor Kerry 64% to 35%, with 1% for Nader—and 0% undecided. When I see a low undecided number it means that group is going to vote. I am factoring this group to be 12% of the total vote -- but it could be higher. Each point it goes higher translates into two-thirds of a percent for Kerry -- if these numbers hold up.
Otherwise, each candidate continues to do well among his base constituency. Bush leads by 5 among Catholics and there is again a double-digit gender gap.
Today for the first time, terrorism outranks Iraq as the number two issue.

Final Gallup numbers: It's A Tie

From Gallup:

Two days before the election, the final CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows a dead heat in the presidential race, with President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry each receiving 49% support among likely voters in the final allocated estimate. Independent candidate Ralph Nader garners 1% of the vote, and all other candidates an additional 1%.
The poll was conducted Oct. 29-31 among 2,014 national adults and includes 1,573 likely voters, and was weighted to reflect an estimated voter turnout of 60%. The final numbers also reflect Gallup's judgment of how undecided voters will cast their ballots.
Before allocation of the undecided vote, Gallup's likely voter model shows Bush ahead by two points, 49% to 47%, while the results among all registered voters show Kerry with a two-point lead, 48% to 46%.

(Via AmericaBlog)

Polls Suggest Higher Voter Turnout Likely

From Associated Press:

Voter turnout is likely to be higher than in recent presidential elections - especially among young voters - in a very close race, weekend polls suggest. Those polls suggest the race is very close nationally with some polls showing President Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry even and another showing Bush slightly ahead. (...)
More than eight in 10 registered voters in the Pew poll, 84 percent, describe this election as especially important, compared with 67 percent in 2000 and 61 percent in 1996.

Bin Laden Video Warns America

In a new video, Osama bin Laden says Americans' security does not depend on the president they elect, but on U.S. policy. "Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda."- Click here for the latest.

British Ex-Detainees Sue Rumsfeld

Four former Guantanamo detainees, now back in Britain, have filed suit against Donald Rumsfeld and others alleging they were tortured in violation of international law. The suit seeks $10 million in damages for treatment it describes as including

...repeated beatings, death threats, interrogation at gunpoint, forced nakedness and menacing with unmuzzled dogs, among other mistreatment, during more than two years at Guantanamo Bay."

New Polls

A Pew Research Center Poll finds Sen. John Kerry "has made more substantial gains among swing voters in the past month" than has President Bush. "Those who have decided on their vote in the past month mention the debates as a crucial factor in their decision more than any other events or issues."
The new Democracy Corps poll shows Kerry leading 49% to 46%.
The new Economist poll shows Kerry leading 49% to 45%.
Here are some notable state polls:
- Pennsylvania: Bush 49, Kerry 47 (Quinnipiac)
- Florida: Bush 49, Kerry 46 (Quinnipiac)
- Wisconsin: Kerry 48, Bush 47 (ARG)
- Iowa: Bush 48, Kerry 47 (ARG)
- Oregon: Kerry 50, Bush 46 (ARG)
(Via Political Wire)

100,000 Civilians Killed in Iraq

"About 100,000 civilians have died as a result of the war in Iraq, according to research from Johns Hopkins University," Bloomberg reports.
"Most of the casualties occurred after the end of major hostilities in May 2003, researchers said in the study. Observations suggest that civilian deaths since the war are mostly caused by air strikes."

Bush Voted Year's Top Film Villain

President George W. Bush has topped an unlikely poll in Britain - as this year's top screen villain. Bush won the dubious accolade for his unauthorized appearance in Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. The politician beat out the likes of Doc Ock, played by Alfred Molina, in Spider-Man 2; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Leatherface; Andy Serkis' Gollum from Lord Of The Rings trilogy; and Elle Driver, the assassin played by Daryl Hannah in Kill Bill. Almost 10,000 people voted in the poll, conducted by Total Film Magazine.

Visualize Winning

It's a nice flash animation. Watch it

Bush Misleads On Cost Of War

Before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration told the American people that it could be fought on the cheap. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said "We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon." Budget Director Mitch Daniels said Iraq will be "an affordable endeavor","that will not require sustained aid" and cost "in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion." Defense Policy Board Member Richard Perle said, "Iraq is a very wealthy country...They can finance, largely finance, the reconstruction of their own country." They were all wrong. The Washington Post reports "the Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq early last year."

U.S. failed to reject torture in 'war on terror'

Today in the The Daily Star:

The United States has manifestly failed to uphold obligations to reject torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading behavior in the 'war on terror' launched after Sept. 11, 2001, Amnesty International said today.
The human rights group condemned the U.S. administration's response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington as one which had resulted in its own 'iconography of torture, cruelty and degradation.'"
Photographs that surfaced in April showed U.S. soldiers posing, smiling and giving the thumbs-up sign as naked, male Iraqi prisoners were stacked in a pyramid or positioned to simulate sex acts with one another.
Amnesty said the U.S. and the rest of the world would be "haunted by these and other images for years to come" and described them as "icons of a government's failure to put human rights at its heart."(...)
Sunday's Washington Post said U.S. intelligence officials were transferring detainees out of Iraq for interrogation. In those cases, the Central Intelligence Agency had invoked a confidential Justice Department memo to justify its actions, the Post said

New Florida Vote Scandal Feared

The Florida GOP wants to keep blacks from voting.

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals. Election supervisor Ion Sancho believes some voters are being intimidated. Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list". It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.
An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day." [...]
In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows. The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services. On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.

Bush Missleads On Missive Explosives

Misleader: In Iraq, 380 tons of powerful explosives have been looted and may have fallen into the hands of insurgents. In an effort to deflect blame, administration officials are pushing the theory that when "U.S. forces...reached the Al Qaqaa military facility in early April 2003, the weapons cache was already gone." This theory is not credible. According to an AP report, U.S. solders visited the Al Qaqaa in April 2003 and "found thousands of five-centimetre by 12-centimetre boxes, each containing three vials of white powder." Officials who tested the powder said it was "believed to be explosives." Yesterday, "an official who monitors developments in Iraq" confirmed that "US-led coalition troops had searched Al Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact." Thereafter, according to the official, "the site was not secured by U.S. forces." It makes sense that the explosives were there when the U.S. solders arrived because, as the LA Times notes, "given the size of the missing cache, it would have been difficult to relocate undetected before the invasion, when U.S. spy satellites were monitoring activity."

Stunning Consumer Confidence Fall

According to Bloomberg U.S. consumer confidence fell for a third straight month in October, suggesting growing voter discontent with the economy a week before President George W. Bush seeks re-election.

The Conference Board's consumer confidence index dropped to 92.8, the lowest since March, from a revised 96.7 in September, down from the previous estimate. Americans' assessments of the current economy and their outlook for the next six months fell. The survey is the Conference Board's last before the U.S. presidential election on November 2. Since the index began in 1967, every incumbent president has lost his re-election bid when the consumer confidence index was below 99 on Election Day. "It's not good news for Bush. He can still win, but this is not a good omen," said Delos Smith, a Conference Board economist. "People are nervous about their jobs and incomes."

Duuh...

Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004

A fantastic article about the presidential campaign by legendary 'gonzo journalist' Hunter S. Thompson in Rolling Stone magazine. The last paragraph:

We conquered Lyndon Johnson and we stomped on Richard Nixon -- which wise people said was impossible, but so what? It was fun. We were warriors then, and our tribe was strong like a river.
That river is still running. All we have to do is get out and vote, while it's still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House.

Note to myself: I absolutely have to read his latest book "Hey Rube : Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness Modern History from the Sports Desk".