A Statement on the State (of the Union)

I'm not feeling energetic enough to give Dubya a full review this year, but I'll just say he did an excellent job. Every year he gets better at presenting the State of the Union. I just wish I could have been there.

Our president laid out a confident, clear plan of what needs to happen in Iraq before we leave, the need to modernize social security, the need to vote on judges in the Senate and much more. Of course, he also threw in another nod toward lowering dependence on foreign oil, a push for the Marriage Protection (Constitutional) Amendment and acknowledgment of the need to protect life at every stage.

There was not anything surprising but it was good. It was much more of a nuts-and-bolts domestic issue kind of speech rather than the philosophical champion of freedom style of speech that we had two weeks ago at the Inauguration. That's not to say that Iraq did not get significant attention (or that there weren't some not so veiled threats went out to Syria and Iran), but that international issues were not the main focus of the speech. I expect the big discussion point in the coming days to be Social Security Privatization rather than the “Axis of Evil” or Iraqi Interim government plans, as the discussion went the last two years.

What did you think?

Ashcroft Resigns

I feel kind of bad about feeling happy that Ashcroft is resigning. I mean, he's a Missourian and I supported him as a senator. By most accounts, the DOJ seems to be running quite well under his command. My main problem with him is the USA PATRIOT Act and, really, only the PATRIOT Act. As discussion flies around about who will replace him, I wonder — will they be any better? In actuality, I can't remember the last AG I did like… so maybe Attorney General Ashcroft wasn't as bad as he's seemed the last few years.

Summary of My Election Night Posts

In case you don't want to look through all eight of my election night posts, here are the high points:

• Most of “my” candidates won, including U.S. Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO 2nd District), whom I forgot to mention in my candidate post (see link) and whom bumps up my total support of the GOP to 9 candidates (vs. 1 Dem, 5 non-partisans and 0 other party candidates). Everyone won that I voted for, save state Rep. Catherine Hanaway (R-Maryland Heights; Speaker of the Missouri House) for the Secretary of States race and Chris Byrd ® for the Attorney General's race. Hanaway, apparently, discovered how hard it is for a St. Louis candidate to win a statewide election, despite Sen. Jim Talent's 2002 win that added “sen.” to his name (he lost the gubernatorial race in 2000 in a very close race).
• TNGALLOP proves an accurate predictor of the winner! Surprise, surprise!

Today's Schedule: Four More Years!

• Sen. Kerry will give a concession speech at 12:00 CST.
• President Bush will give an acceptance speech at 14:00 CST.

This is great news. On the other hand, I do feel sorry for Kerry — I know it must be terribly hard on him, especially since he apparently has aspired to this job for most of his life. I also respect the senator for not dragging this out for days on end or even for the rest of today. Who wants to bet he tries to take Daschle's job now that Daschle has lost his seat in the senate?

Congrats to President Bush: let the celebration begin!

Kerry Calls Bush; Concedes

John Kerry has called President Bush to concede the election according to CBS Radio News, Fox News and CNN. Updates when available.

Looking Good, Will Kerry Concede?

Well, after sleeping for about seven hours, I am back. Right now, Bush is leading by 136,211 votes in Ohio, he's all but taken Iowa and New Mexico as well. He leads with a 3.5 million vote popular vote lead, making Dubya (No. 43) the first president to win a popular vote majority since 1988 and George Herbert Walker Bush (No. 41).

The Kerry campaign looks like it plans to hang in for quite awhile, which seems potentially unreasonable. In 2000, Bush hung in because he was leading in the Electoral College, despite being behind in the electoral college. In 2004, Kerry seems to be behind in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. In essence, if this becomes a “multi-week election,” it will be the second time the Dems have made us suffer that in four years.

Election Night Part VIII

I'm going to go to bed. Right now, Bush is barely leading in Iowa, although Iowa's election workers are apparently tired (!) and the machine for counting broke, so we won't hear what happened there until tomorrow. In Ohio, the lead for Bush has grown to 126,345 votes — that looks really good… let's hope it holds.

It looks like Thune will oust Daschle in North Dakota amazingly. Blunt looks good in Missouri for the governorship. Overall, that is one gain in governors for the GOP and two gains in the Senate.

Election Night Part VI

Drudge has declared Bush the winner, Fox has all but done so as well. Fox News and NBC News have both projected a Bush Ohio win — let's hope they are right. Presently, with 91% of precincts reporting, Bush has a 51-49 lead. Overall, it is Bush 249 vs. Kerry 211, by CNN's numbers.

Paul Begala noted that this election will break one long held rule: (1) America doesn't abandon a war time president [if Kerry wins] or (2) America does not reelect presidents with less than a 50% approval rating [if Bush wins]. If (2) is true, it seems to me that perhaps the answer is that the polls have been poor, just as the exit polls have been.

As a side note, Electoral Vote, one of the two major pre-election electoral vote projection sites, is being operated by Andrew Tanenbaum. AST, as he is often known, is best remembered for a major debate in 1992 with Linus Torvalds over microkernels (Minix) vs. monolithic kernels (Linux). AST wrote Minix and has, recently, defended the originality of the GNU/Linux codebase from SCO's attacks.

Election Night Part V

Well, Fox News appears to have already given Ohio to Bush, but I think that might be jumping ahead of things a bit still. Voting still has not ended in the Buckeye State and personally I think CNN's more conservative method of awarding states is a good thing (especially, given continuing voting in these states). CNN stayed away from broadcasting exit polling and projects until after the polling places in each state closed — a very nice move compared with previous elections. Kudos to the CNN team which has been doing very good tonight — Wolf Blitzer, Aaron Brown, Larry King, Jeff Greenfield, Carlos Tucker, John King, Candy Crowly, Tucker Carlson, Robert Novak, Paul Begala and James Carville all have done a professional, commendable job. Obviously Novak, Begala, Carlson, and Carville — the Crossfire hosts — are quite partisan, but the others stayed very neutral all night.

Presently, Bush has taken Alaska, leaving just Ohio to get Bush to 269 — making it virtually impossible for Kerry to win. Begala and Carville (a former Clinton Administration advisor) seem to be conceding the election to Bush, as did Greenfield before he was scolded by Wolf Blitzer for going out on a limb outside of Crossfire.

In other news, Blunt appears to be set to become the next Governor of Missouri, although it looks like Catherine Hanaway will not be the next Secretary of State.

Election Night Part IV: Who/What I Voted For

President: George W. Bush ®

Governor: Matt Blunt ®

Lt. Governor: Peter Kinder ®

Secretary of State: Catherine Hanaway ®

State Treasurer: Sarah Steelman ®

Attorney General: Chris Byrd ®

State Senator: Chuck Gross ®

State Representative: Carl L. Bearden ®

Circuit judge Circuit 11 Division 1: Ted House (D) (House often runs as a “Conservative” and is — like many lower level Missouri democrats — a social conservative.)

Non-partisan Judges: I voted to retain the present judges (5 of them).

Constitutional Amendment 3: Yes (Require fuel tax dollars go to MODOT/transportation issues.)

Proposition No. 1 (St. Charles County): No. (Children's fund sales tax.)

Revenue Recovery Proposition (City of St. Peters): No. (“Use tax” on interstate purchases.)

Proposition S (Central County Fire and Rescue District): No. ($0.17 property tax increase — too much at once, in my opinion, despite my general support of taxes for the Fire dept.)