Take Five, post-election wrap-up edition

* A moment of silence, please, for the alleged Bradley effect. And a moment of applause for Nate Silver and fivethirtyeight.com, which got the percentages for Obama and McCain exactly right. Read more about Nate here.

* Have we reached the point of no return when it comes to information jammed on the television screen on election night? Some channels showed returns on a rotating basis, state predictions, poll closing times, identifications of speakers, and actual pictures of someone talking. Good thing I didn't look at the returns on my one-inch Watchman.

* Sarah Palin said she would be very upset if she cost John McCain even one vote in the election. Sarah, a friend of mine went on this very blog and saw a clip of your interview with Katie Couric ... and announced she was voting for Obama/Biden. Oops. I'm still wondering if Lindsay Graham of South Carolina might have brought John McCain a lot more gravitas along with credibility with the Republican base and a youthful image had he been picked for VP. But maybe he just didn't want the job.

* Go back a couple of entries, and you'll see where I said that McCain probably would get torched by conservative talk-show hosts after the election. Well, a local announcer on Wednesay called McCain "a corpse," and a national figure said the conservatives didn't lose the election because they didn't have anyone running for President. Those same hosts, by the way, respectively said Obama was "a socialist Marxist" and that the vote's outcome was a case of more than half of America committing "assisted suicide."

* Let the record show that a few days ago someone asked me when the election would be decided. "At 11 o'clock [Eastern], when California comes in," I responded. That's one in a row. I'm ready for that pundit's job in 2012 now.

A preview of Wednesday

What if John McCain really does lose on Tuesday? What will Wednesday be like, at least as far as certain political commentators are concerned?

I don't think it's going to be pretty. I can see some commentators throwing McCain under the proverbial bus on Wednesday.

The argument would go something like this: "The Republican Party made a huge mistake when it nominated a moderate as President. It gave up the soul of its party. John McCain wasn't one of us. He was never one of us. The man was just pretending to be a true conservative. He didn't represent a choice. Sarah Palin tried hard to show us what true conservatism was like, but as a vice presidential nominee she couldn't make up for what McCain represented. Today marks the first day of our efforts to take back the Republican Party, and fight the socialist hordes that will attack us from the White House in the years to come."

Here's the catch. McCain did better than any other possible Republican choice for President, better than he could have been expected to do.

Any Republican was up against it this year:

1. It's a Democratic year. The generic Democrat beats the generic Republican in polling. Party registration tilts heavily toward the Democratic side. Abraham Lincoln would have had trouble running on the Republican line this year.

2. It's a poor year to be associated with George Bush. The current President's approval rating is south of 30 percent. Any Republican candidate was going to be linked to him, especially one that was a member of Congress. That was a huge disadvantage.

3. The economy's timing was perfect for Obama. Initially, it looked as if Barack Obama could ride an anti-war feeling into the general election. The surge has bought the Republicans some time at the least for the moment. However, Obama received a replacement issue when the stock market started to crumble, and fit into his motto of change nicely. Sure McCain didn't handle the initial meltdown well, but that only reinforced the situation.

4. There were few game-changing choices out there for Vice President for McCain or anybody else. McCain obviously felt he needed something to shake up the calculus of the situation. Tim Pawlenty, the pick of conventional wisdom, wouldn't exactly send volunteers out into the streets to ring doorbells.

McCain took Palin, who clearly was not ready for the national stage. Yes, she invigorated the Republican base. Yes, she found an audience for her brand of politics. She also stunned many by not even knowing what a vice president does, which is high school social studies material. She drove away those with moderate views with some of her public stances, and her "us vs. them" approach to politics appealed to the Pat Buchanan wing of the Republican Party. The pick was obviously a political one, which flew in the face of "Country first." And it ruined one of McCain's best arguments, that experience matters. If it did, how could you put her a 72-year-old's heartbeat away from the White House? So add it up, and the gamble didn't really work ... but McCain clearly loses without doing something.

McCain has a great biography and an unquestioned love of country. Yes, his message has wobbled at times over the campaign, and he and his supporters could have done some things differently. But he still is projected to lose by only six percent or so. Obama hasn't been the perfect candidate, but he's run a clean, focused campaign. It's not a bad showing for McCain to be slightly out of striking distance at this point.

It's been a pretty ugly campaign at times, with some incidents that shouldn't be preserved as Kodak moments. The last ugly moment could come Wednesday to someone who deserves better.

We'll see what happens Tuesday ... and Wednesday.

Incident at a bookstore

The other day I was visiting one of the area's Barnes and Noble stores, hanging around a display about the upcoming Presidential election. I'd lie and say I stopped briefly on my way to the philosophy department or Greek history section, but you know better.

Anyway, two men in their early 20's passed by the display. One stopped at the display and noticed a biography of Sarah Palin that was there.

"Hey, it's the hockey mom," one of them said. Then after a pause, he said with equal parts sarcasm and disgust, "I've never known a hockey mom to spend $150-thousand on her clothes." His friend chuckled and agreed with him as they moved on.

Governor, based on that incident I'd say it's going to tough for you to shake that image off for a while.

Here's to tolerance...

We'll see if this Friday night article from the Associated Press gets much play:

Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts. All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action.

The imagined look into the future is part of an escalation in rhetoric from Christian right activists who are trying to paint Obama in the worst possible terms as the campaign heads into the final stretch and polls show the Democrat ahead.

Although hard-edge attacks are common late in campaigns, the tenor of the strikes against Obama illustrate just how worried conservative Christian activists are about what should happen to their causes and influence if Democrats seize control of both Congress and the White House.

"It looks like, walks like, talks like and smells like desperation to me," said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston, an Obama supporter who backed President Bush in the past two elections. The Methodist pastor called the 2012 letter "false and ridiculous." He said it showed that some Christian conservative leaders fear that Obama's faith-based appeals to voters are working.

The story goes on to say:

But the tone this election year is sharper than usual and the volume has turned up as Nov. 4 nears.

Steve Strang, publisher of Charisma magazine, a Pentecostal publication, titled one of his recent weekly e-mails to readers, "Life As We Know It Will End If Obama is Elected."

Strang said gay rights and abortion rights would be strengthened in an Obama administration, taxes would rise and "people who hate Christianity will be emboldened to attack our freedoms."

Separately, a group called the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission has posted a series of videos on its site and on YouTube called "7 Reasons Barack Obama is not a Christian."

The commission accuses Obama of "subtle diabolical deceit" in saying he is Christian, while he believes that people can be saved through other faiths.

Focus on the Family Action is legally separated (but obviously connected) from Focus on the Family, Rev. James Dodson's group. Dr. Dodson, you might remember, urged prayers for heavy rain during Barack Obama's convention acceptance speech in Denver. Sean Hannity once said on air that it was "an honor" to talk to Dr. Dodson in an interview.

Mischief in the air

The other day, I looked through the mail and noticed that a big envelope had come for me from John McCain.

"How nice of him to write," I thought as I opened up the package. "You'd think John would be too busy to send something to me." McCain and my family go way back, since he met my parents at a wedding in the early 1970's.

Inside was a note from the Senator, saying that he needed financial help to win the election and he needed it fast. To that end, he had enclosed a FedEx billing form and an envelope so that I could send a check to his headquarters, post-haste.

And the thought struck me, what a great chance for some mischief -- particularly if I were a strong Obama supporter.

For starters, I could send the envelope back with nothing in it. That would cost the McCain campaign some money just for the postage. Or I could send a note explaining that I was supporting Obama, and appreciated this chance to drain the opposing campaign of resources. Or, I could say that the economic crisis caused by President Bush's policies have left me too poor to contribute anything at this time. Or, I could say I had spent all my money "palling around" with questionable friends from my youth in Chicago. Or, I could send a picture of Obama, and ask to get it autographed when the Illinois Senator takes office in the White House on January 20. Or, I could put something else in the envelope, something that could stink up the entire building when opened.

I could have done any of those. But instead, I did the right thing. I put it in the recycling bin, so that the material at least will be used again in another form.

But, boy, it was tempting.

Take five, post-VP debate edition

1. Is there any reason why Joe Biden kept referring to his running mate as "Barack"? Senator is a very impressive title, and you'd think Biden would want to use it as often as possible to give the relatively inexperienced Obama a bit more stature at no cost.

2. Can't say I've ever heard a debate participant say she wasn't going to answer the questions asked by the moderator, and I'm a little surprised Sarah Palin didn't take more heat for it. I had visions of John McEnroe taking over the session and yelling out along the lines of his famous sound bite, "ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!"

3. Congratulations to Biden for not saying, "Governor, I knew Dan Quayle. Dan Quayle is a friend of mine. And you, Governor...." I think we set a record for low expectations in this debate, and Palin did get over that bar.

4. Wouldn't you have liked to hear a totally honest comment about this election? I'd frame it something like this: "We all know that no one is coming back from Iraq anytime soon, and we all know we're not going to have any money for discretionary spending thanks to the recession. So neither of us are going to be able to do much on Jan. 20. But we will be able to appoint a bunch of Supreme Court justices in the next four years..."

5. When Wall Street's collapse and the government's takeovers took place, I said that barring something unexpected, Obama had this election won. The Bush Administration has had to act like socialists in taking over bad debts, flying in the face of years of support by Republicans for free markets and cutbacks on regulations. How do you square those two positions? Then throw in the standard line in such situations, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" and I'd say I haven't seen anything to change my mind yet from that original prediction.

Numbers guy

Nate Silver is one of the people behind "Baseball Prospectus," the annual book that tries to forecast player performance on an annual basis. The book is well done and nicely written; it's obvious the writers know what they are talking about and have a lot of fun doing it.

Silver apparently is doing other things in his "spare time" -- politics. He was just written up in Newsweek for being on target in his predictions for primaries.

I went searching for a sample of his work, and found this -- a very impressive page of notes on the upcoming election.

If you have an interest in elections, this one might be worth a bookmark.

What happened here?

A couple of decades or so ago, my five-year-old nephew was going from the porch to the living room, and didn't see the screen door. So he bounced off it, hit the floor, and paused for a moment. You could just see his mind working.

"What happened here?"

Then he burst into tears.

I didn't do any crying while watching the New Hampshire primary returns the other night, but I knew the feeling. What happened up there?

Oh, I know the way the returns went, as Hillary Clinton and John McCain were winners. (Food for thought that Clinton didn't get much credit for being the first woman to win a primary -- as compared to the reaction to Obama's equally history-making win in Iowa.) But the analysis afterwards was interesting too.

All of the polls said before the election that Barack Obama was headed toward a convincing win, perhaps by double digits. The candidates' polls even said that. But it was Clinton by three points or so when the counting was done. The polls were right on McCain's margin. So what happened to Clinton/Obama?

The spinmasters gave their usual explanations about the race, how women over 40 turned out for Clinton, how her display of emotion in a debate had warmed her up to some voters, etc. etc. etc. But that didn't explain what went wrong with the polls.

I had three thoughts. One, the independents messed things up. In New Hampshire, they can pick a primary and vote in it. The opportunity for mischief certainly is there. Could voters think Obama was headed toward a big win, and decide to help out McCain with a vote? Could someone leaning toward the Republicans think Obama would be the tougher candidate to beat and vote for Clinton? Hard to judge that. These open primaries sure can be complicated.

Then there's the theory that people lied to the pollsters. That one went unsaid until 1:45 a.m., when NBC's Chuck Todd (he's good, by the way) pointed out that often when elections go in bizarre directions, an African-American candidate is involved. (See Tom Bradley's run for Governor in California a quarter-century ago.) In other words, people told pollsters they would vote for an African-American, but it was a different story when the curtain closed in the voting booth.

Obama seemed to overcome a lot the week before in Iowa, but that was at a very public caucus. This was a different sort of electoral test. You'd hope we've moved beyond that sort of thinking, but it's at least possible.

Then there's the belief that a good-sized percentage of voters didn't make up their minds until very, very late in the process (18 percent on the day of the election alone), and they broke to Clinton in a disproportionate way.

Was there truth in any of these theories? All of these? Tough to say. It's impossible to know where the truth is. But we have learned a lesson before jumping to conclusions: count the votes.