More generally, the picture is of a solid Democratic win, but not the tsunami some had expected. Obama won the popular vote by a solid, but not crushing, margin of slightly less than six percent (52.4-46.5). Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole by a significantly greater margin and even greater relative percentage (49.25-40.71), and George Bush by a slightly lower margin, but higher relative percentage (43.01-37.45). Bush, meanwhile, beat Dukakis by a larger margin, 53.4 to 45.6. The Democrats picked up about twenty House seats, on the low end of the expected range. And, as noted above, they seem likely to pick up five or six Senate seats,which would make the Senate races either 18-16 in favor of the Democrats, or tied at 17-17, again on the low end of the expected range.
Although I didn’t make an overall prediction, this partial prediction turned out right: http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/17510/#296961
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Biggest surprise: the apparent survival of Ted Stevens.
Clearly we remain a country pretty evenly divided. However, it is not at all clear that the majority of voters are especially well informed. And it is also not clear that the people running present their true identities and beliefs in a campaign. E.g. when he was campaiging,
now-President Bush made a major issue of NOT doing nation building and then proceeded to make that the central focus of his presidential terms. As many people have pointed out, there is a difference between running for office and actually governing. The Democrats no longer have Bush to bash, they will be in charge. I hope they do better than I expect. If they don’t in four years that middle 10% will shift back over and there will be new “CHANGE.”
The Senate race in Minnesota is down to a difference of about 700 votes, with Norm Coleman in the (very slight) lead. Those ACORN phony voters registrations are looming bigger every day.
Jeffersonian [#3]: So if fraudulently registered voters actually voted, we’ll see investigations and prosecutions, right?
Under an OBAMA Justice Department? Dream on….
#3- Who is going to investigate ACORN now… or those millions of dollars in unreported donations under $500? I admit we are a country pretty evenly divided right now, and I am pleased to see high turnout, but we have to find a way to better educate the electorate. With a media in thick with the Democrats and the return of the (un)fairness doctrine how do you get the facts on the ground out?
Kevin [#5]: In case you’ve forgotten, fraudulent voter registration and fraudulent voting are also crimes under state law.
For your further delectation, Bush controls the Justice Department until Jan. 20.
Iraneus: As much as I’d like to see Minnesota’s DFL Attorney General pursue charges against ACORN and their Jacobin allies, that’s not going to happen–a lot of those potential defendants recruit voters who vote for HER, too.
There is no way that a Bush Justice Department can investigate voting fraud, identify defendants, get indictments, and try those defendants in the next ten weeks. And even if they could do so, Obama’s AG would just dismiss the charges on appeal.
[blockquote]So if fraudulently registered voters actually voted, we’ll see investigations and prosecutions, right? [/blockquote]
If they can catch the perp(s), sure. In 2004, there were at least 1,600 illegal ballots cast, with the margin of victory in the governor’s race a fraction of that, and I don’t think they ever caught a single perp.
Oops….that was in reference to Washington state.
[i]Biggest surprise: the apparent survival of Ted Stevens. [/i]
Of course if he were a Democrat, he would have gotten all kinds of assistance in his re-election bid from the DNC.
Republicans, it seems, are only all too willing to throw each other under the bus to show they’re ‘non-partisanship’ in politics.
I hate corruption in all it’s forms, but hey, if the Dems can do it without criticism, more power to Sen. Stevens.
Irenaeus – I would remind you of the simple logical fact that absence of proof is not proof of absence. We had several instances yesterday of people bragging about voting twice and we have anecdotal evidence of people moving into someone’s home so they could register in Ohio to vote – voting early – and then leaving to vote in their home state.
I don’t understand why you seem so reluctant to admit that voter fraud is occurring and has occurred.
On one respect, I am glad that Obama won by such a large margin. His margin of victory exceeded the “margin of fraud” (which I guesstimate to be < 2%.). So, we won't have people shouting about a "stolen election" for the next 4 years. I remember the Secretary of State in Ohio (a Democrat) saying that federal law required her to have certain checks and balances in place. However, she said, it did not require her to use them. The appearance of voter fraud is almost as effective as actual voter fraud in suppressing people's trust in the system. One thing we cannot allow is for our trust in the election system to errode further. That erosion would be bad for the country - no matter which political party is in power. Will you join in helping us to make voter fraud harder and harder to commit? YBIC, Phil Snyder
libraryjim,
Ted Stevens should be jailed and expelled from the Senate. I don’t care if he is a Republican or a reliable conservative or not. Corruption is like cancer – if tolerated, it will spread to the whole body. It must be rooted out and destroyed. If that means losing political clout then so be it. It is not right to steal just because everyone else is doing it.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Going on about voter fraud, at this late hour, is simply licensing yourself to disrespect the outcome.
“Of course if he were a Democrat, he would have gotten all kinds of assistance in his re-election bid from the DNC” —LibraryJim [#11]
Jim: The surprise is that Stevens survived indictment and conviction.
Stevens suffered no shortage of campaign money. Mr. Bridge-to-Nowhere well understood the political importance of money.
#14 – I accept the outcome and will pray for President Obama and support him on things I can. However, we desperatly need to fix the holes in the system so that, in the case of a close election, fraud does not determine the outcome of the election. Remember, the 2012 election is going to start in about 6 months (groan).
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
“As much as I’d like to see Minnesota’s DFL Attorney General pursue charges against ACORN and their Jacobin allies, that’s not going to happen” —Kevin Babb [#8]
Kevin: If politicians could, with impunity, crassly protect their allies, then why would the Justice Department under President Bush have prosecuted Senator Ted Stevens? Or Scooter Libby? Or Jack Abramoff? Why were Karl Rove and Rep. Don Young investigated?
The politics of voting fraud aren’t nearly as crude as you assume. U.S. attorneys, although political appointees, have their professional reputations on the line. Their deputies and assistants are career employees who would resent (and have ways of resisting) political interference in a pending investigation and prosecution. More broadly, covering up crime poses significant political risks.
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“There is no way that a Bush Justice Department can investigate voting fraud, identify defendants, get indictments, and try those defendants in the next ten weeks”
It wouldn’t need to. If investigators find credible evidence of misconduct, the investigation will have a life of its own.
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“And even if they could do so, Obama’s AG would just dismiss the charges on appeal”
Utter nonsense, for reasons already stated.
“I would remind you of the simple logical fact that absence of proof is not proof of absence” —Phil Snyder [#12]
You continue to misunderstand me. Talk-show hosts would have us believe that this country suffers from an epidemic of fraudulent voting—an epidemic that tilts the outcome of elections. Yet neither they nor others have shown that fraudulent voting occurs on any significant scale.
If it occurs at all, let’s detect it and punish it. Let’s not leave the allegations hanging: let’s investigate them and find out, one way or the other, whether they are true. That’s my fundamental point.
Irenaeus,
The problem is that the Democrats have hampered and stymied all proposals to reform election laws that would minimize voter fraud. How much is going on? Probably less than Rush Limbaugh says and probably more that you seem to think. My point is that there are some things we can do to stop or minimize voter fraud. How much voter fraud is to much for you? 1%? 2%? 5% 20% I submit that any voter fraud is too much and we should take all reasonable precautions against it – like requiring picture ID to register or vote and having a national registration so that people can’t vote absentee in one jurisdiction and vote by normal ballot in another one.
Also, we should take the time to validate our voting machines and tighten up the security and accuracy of them.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Phil [#19]: Your comment is uncharacteristically insulting.
How is it insulting? I read it twice and don’t see it.
Ted Stevens is just trying to make his pre-sentence report look better.
This is something to remember in cleaning up the numbers of the next election.
🙄
Irenaeus, Can you show me where my comments are insulting? I understand you comments to say that, since there is relatively low prosecution of voter fraud, there is realitvely low incidence of voter fraud. I submit that the incidence of voter fraud is greater than the prosecution of voter fraud. So, why shouldn’t we do what we can to combat voter fraud?
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
The fact of the matter is that we only check voter registration state by state. This means that one person could be registered and vote in several states and no one would be the wiser, unless some news outlet gets nosy:
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/11/100000-georgia-voters-also-registered.html
The news story Dave provides suggests we Federalize (capital F) national elections. Personally, I think there are some Constitutional issues with that, although most people would snap to agreement with the idea that “there ought to be a [federal] law! Yankee and not particularly States Rights oriented person that I am, I do think the writers of the Constitution set up these elections for the national government as [i]state[/i] elections. Each state gets (or did get) to decide how the election of its representatives and electors works for them. People have either forgotten this bit of our history or decided the Founding Fathers got it wrong and we’ve been fiddling to make election laws just like each other since. I’d suggest that the states should work to establish compacts to tidy up these voting issues, but recent history leads me to believe most Americans would opine that it’s easier and therefore better to pass the buck to Washington to make things right.