Small Mercies

I was a witness to a car accident on my way into the office today. A woman not
paying attention just sailed through a red into cross traffic. The car she hit
spun out and its driver momentarily lost consciousness so it started just kind
of drifting forward. It motored up onto the sidewalk and was just driving down
the sidewalk. This man was walking down the sidewalk with his small son, maybe
two or three years old. He was just staring at the car bearing down on him
like a deer in the headlights. I myself was standing in the middle of the
intersection. Seeing the car heading down on the man and his son people kind
of snapped awake and started yelling at him. At almost the last possible
second he seemed to snap back awake, grabbed his son and jumped out of the
way. The car soon after bumped a wall and came to a stop.

Thank God for small mercies. The drivers of both cars were OK (the one who
apparently lost consciousness for a moment didn't want an ambulance, but the
police talked her into accepting it). So, nobody hurt (or if so, none too
bad).

Watching that car bearing down on that child like that... a short, poignant case-study in the misery and fear of helplessness.

Another Great Article

From the Washington Post

Please read it.

Really good reading.

I recommend this article at TNR on the "pscyhology of the undecided voter."

It's a great read.

Posting to Resume

Shortly. I've been working on my suggestions for the Democratic Party. This is a quick follow-up to the post immediately below, regarding DoD Casualty Statistics. The DoD no longer makes an archive of the casualty reports available, but I noted four days ago, on November 12th that the Pentagon reported 791 KIA "post combat" and 4100 WNRTD (Wounded, Not Returning to Duty) "post combat."

Four days later, that count stands as follows:
831 KIA, 4478 WNRTD

That's 418 soldiers disabled or killed over the last four day period, almost 110 soldiers per day. Hopefully, this is just a blip attributable to the combination of intensive operations in Fallujah and an insurgent flare-up throughout Central Iraq. I don't see how U.S. Forces can sustain that kind of casualty rate on a regular basis without necessitating an increase in troop strength.

Hmmm...

I often check the DefenseLink Casualty Reports to get a sense of what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Checking today to see what the totals bode, it hit me how absurd the categories they use to classify when a casualty occurred. Casulaties are broken down into three categories:

• DoD Civilians
  
• "Combat Operations - 19 Mar 03 thru 30 Apr 03"
  
• "Post Combat Ops - 1 May thru Present
  

109 were KIA during "Combat Ops", whereas 791 have died "Post" combat... 411 wounded not returning to duty "during combat", 4100 wounded "post-combat." 138 dead "during combat", 1166 dead "post combat". 542 wounded "during combat", 7916 wounded "post combat".

It's really a very inapt classification - a stark indicator of the absurdity of our current worldview - that such a vast bulk of our casualties in this war would be considered "post-combat." I often get scolded for thinking too "short-term" in my pessimism about this war.

What then to say of the organizers of this war who arbitrarily divide it into a "combat" phase and a "post combat" phase?

Why Democrats Suck

GOD, I hate them! From today's NY Times:

While the selection of Mr. Gonzales as attorney general may create a public fight, some Senate Democrats said they might want to save their heavy ammunition for what is expected to be a battle over possible Supreme Court nominees rather than expending it on what is likely to be a losing cause for attorney general.

Hello, Democrats! All your causes are losing causes!

In the meantime, President Bush is appointing a lawyer deeply implicated in the Torture Memo scandal to the position of Attorney General. You know, that jurisprudential bodice-ripper with this sizzling finale:

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that torture as defined in and proscribed by Sections 2340-2340A, covers only extreme acts. Severe pain is generally of the kind difficult for the victim to endure. Where the pain is physical, it must be of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure. Severe mental pain requires suffering not just at the moment of infliction but it also requires lasting psychological harm, such as seen in mental disorders like posttraumatic stress disorder. Additionally, such sever mental pain can arise only from the predicate acts listed in Section 2340. Because the act inflicting torture are extreme, there is significant range of acts that though they might constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment fail to rise to the level of ttorture.

Further, we conclude that under the circumstances of the current war against al Qaeda and its allies, application of Section 2340A to interrogations undertaken pursuant to the President's Commander-in-Chief powers may be unconstitutional. Finally, even if an interrogation method might violate Section 2340A, necessity or self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability.

This IS the heavy ammunition. Sure, Democrats aren't likely to be able to prevent this nomination. But they damned well better use this opportunity to underscore just what a moral outarge this appointment would be.

Repulsive

I dunno much about this guy Adam Yoshida, but I hear he's a relatively prominent conservative blogger. Anyhow, the following passage was brought to my attention. I find it revolting:

Let’s face a hard truth: this was the bitterest Presidential campaign in living memory. The Democrats and their allies staked everything on the defeat of this President. All of the resources they had accumulated over a generation of struggle were thrown into this battle: and they have failed. Despite all of their tricks, despite all of their lies, the people have rejected them. They mean nothing. They are worth nothing. There’s no point in trying to reach out to them because they won’t be reached out to. We’ve got their teeth clutching the sidewalk and out boot above their head. Now’s the time to curb-stomp the bastards.

Tactics - The Senate

One thing I think the Democratic Party should focus on like a laser is consolidating its regional strength. Consider the following:

Senate Control, By State and Party

Red indicates both Senate seats are held by Republicans, Blue indicates both are held by Democrats, and green indicates a split delegation.

There are 9 Republican Senators hailing from "the Blue States." There are 16 Democratic Senators coming from "the Red States."

In the next class of Senators up for re-election, 18 are Democrats and 15 are Republicans.

I hate to say it, but those moderate New England liberal Republicans need to be brought down. Democrats need to make New England Republicanism as rare as Southern Democrats have become. There's not enough "blue states" to regain control of the Senate through regional dominance alone. But without regional dominance, we're driving without insurance. And Rick Santorum? He needs to be brought down. If we can't take that bigot out of Pennsylvania's Senate seat in 2006, we'll deserve what we get.

I'll spend more time over the next year looking at individual Senators and try to figure out who's weak and who's strong. My instinct suggests we should go after Bill Frist with a vengeance in 2006, just as they've done to Daschle (hey, Al Gore! Got any plans?). If not to win, at least to take him down a notch and to keep them fighting for home turf... But to do so, would require a concerted effort to "soften him up" by pinning as much credit for Republican "misbehavior" as possible. I'd like to think Trent Lott can be drawn into a nasty campaign that, like Alan Keyes in Illinois would provide enough drama to embarrass Republicans throughout the nation. A good competition against Lott in 2006 seems like it could do a lot of good for Democratic candidates in liberal states.

Knowing nothing about the incumbents and their reputations at home, I'd suspect that Virginia, Missouri, Nevada, and Ohio offer some shots. If John Kyl is who I think he is, he'd be a hard candidate to beat in Arizona without developing an authentic libertarian plank for the Democratic Platform (something I strongly believe we should, and will clarify later).

As for the Democrats, I suspect they'll face stiff competition in 2006 in Nebraska, Florida, Wisconsin, Minnesota, West Virgina, New Mexico, and North Dakota.

A Legacy or a Mandate?

As Democrats hash out the way to go forward, many will be tempted to flirt with the idea that Clinton brought them two victories, and thus the key lies with his counsel. Don't believe it. Bill Clinton did not win the kind of victories that the Democratic Party needs. The presence of Ross Perot on the ballot in 1992 and 1996 helped to mask the fundamental weakness of Clinton's support. However, if Dole had simply carried each state in which the combined total of Dole's votes and Perot's votes exceeded his own votes, he would have lost the election of '96.

Here is how the election actually turned out:


Here is how it would have turned out if Perot is added to Dole:


What a difference a freak makes. Bob Dole wins the second scenario by 288 electoral votse to Bill Clinton's 250. Clinton got lucky. Careful about putting your money on Clintonism.

Think you're angry?

Check out fuckthesouth.com

Lord Almighty...

Watching Scarborough Country... "they just don't get it, that an entire society is under attack" - referring to American liberals for... well... trying to live in accordance with their social values, so far as I can tell.

The Democrats are still to blame! If they weren't being "insane" or calling them "theocrats" there would be no problem! Feel the outrage! America, those liberals hate you AND your God!

What a victory party...

Drinking the Blues Away

All evidence indicates that Democrats will be frequently looking for consolation in the coming years of Republican hegemony. And, as you decadent coastal elitists surely know, nothing numbs the pain like a good shot of booze. So, I present to you my “Cocktails of Condolence – A Whine List for the Wearied.”

Kentucky Bourbon – This drink is a little rough going down, and the rougher the better. It should be drunk on the occasion of Democratic incumbents (any office) in the South or Midwest being defeated by arch-conservative Republicans.

Vodka – I recommend learning to drink vodka without mixer nor chaser. It is best drunk on the occasion of illiberal crackdowns in Russia by Vladimir Putin that go unremarked by the U.S. Administration.

Screwdriver – Best to drink when taking it straight in the eye. I recommend this soothing beverage in the event of a Bush Administration employee retaining his job after an amazingly egregious act of incompetence.

Manhattan – Should that next terrorist attack come, striking at a vulnerable urban target which still remains unsecured years after 9/11, this will be the only drink for you.

Rob Roy – Perfect for commiserating on the destruction of another cherished federal institution at the hands of some Republican firebrand.

Highballs - An old-fashioned beverage perfect for marking the appointment of a former lobbyist or corporate officer to the regulatory agency of the industry they used to represent.

Cognac - Reserve this beverage for the occasion of a senior Administration official crudely and sneeringly insulting traditional American allies. It would also be appropriate in the event of your political region being described by such a person as "practically French."

Irish Whiskey - Nothing serves better than this drink to lessen the pain of major new "moral values" legislation restricting the rights of gays, promoting abstinence-only "sex education," or further restricting women's access to legal abortion.

Rusty Nails - The perfect drink for news that makes you crave a vaccination. Imbibe heartily when reports are released of increased numbers without health insurance or major reductions in spending for programs delivering health care to society's poorest.

Malt Liquor - A beverage of solidarity, ideal for celebrating the release of the latest unemployment report. Especially prudent if you find yourself counted in the latest statistic.

Gin and Tonic - Easy drinking to accompany revised deficit projections or upward revisions to the federal credit limit.

Sex on the Beach - When the Administration advances a new "environmental protection" initiative that rolls back long-standing environmental regulations, nothing will drown your sorrows better.

Cosmopolitan - If your city is forced to lay off employees or scale back essential services on account of unfair federal redistributionism transferring your great city's wealth to America's anguished "heartland," you'll find the Cosmo resonating perfectly with your world-weary despair.

Scotch Whiskey - The only thing harder than understanding a Scottish dialect is making sense of the President's latest syntactically mangled proposal. When your President says something you just don't understand or too blunt to believe, help yourself to a night of Scotch.

The Radical Centrist Fringe

There are many changes that I feel the Democratic Party should adopt - both substantive and stylistic; conceptual and practical; regional and national. I'd like to begin by identifying what strikes me as a conceptual flaw in the way the national party has been thinking lately.

The mentality is perfectly embodied by former President Clinton, whose career was built by poaching the most popular elements of the Republican platform but saw very little advance in any of the domestic issues important to liberals. Apparently, before this election, Clinton's advice to Kerry was to endorse the anti-marriage referendums - a stance which Kerry, massively to his credit, rejected.

The operative logic of this conceit is that somewhere there is a "middle" of the American political spectrum waiting for a politician to sweep in from the skies and capture their hearts with personal charm and a bag full of "moderate" policies.

The problem with this logic is that it distorts the reality of the political process. Most people aren't moderates at all. They have some conservatives beliefs, some liberal beliefs. They endorse some conservative policies, and they endorse some liberal policies. If I could have a dime for every self-described moderate who came out with some outlandishly winger-sounding ideal, I'd be a wealthy man.

Generally speaking, the electorate cleaves into those who are party-ticket voters and those who are not. The moderates are those whose loyalty is ambivalent and can be swung by the right appeal. Average this lump together and ask them about their specific opinions, and you'll probably come up with the perfectly "moderate" agenda. But if one "moderate" is really big on universal health care and really big on free trade while the other "moderate" is opposed to both, the two are as likely to cancel each other out if you endorse both universal health care and protectionism - even if both together form the "moderate mean." What it leads to are victories like Clinton's - cheap and narrow victories of chance against a fractiously divided opponent. If the Democratic Party wants to spend a decade warming the bench during fraticidal Republican spats, then by all means, let us "chase" the moderates...

The alternative, however, is for the Democratic Party to start re-investing in the concept of "leadership" - smart, articulate, convincing proponents of a package of policies (more on what those policies should be) which drive the political debate back in our direction. Even silly stunts like Gingrich's TV-Guide "Contract for America" that get our vision and our plans into the public debate. Republicans have been talking about privatizing Social Security since 1994. Their proposal is certainly still unpopular. But they've reduced the voltage on politic's third-rail, and the more they keep at it, the more they will innoculate themselves against election-based punishment for it. Democrats don't need to expunge every unpopular idea they have. What they need to do is start launching a credible advocacy campaign for their unpopular opinions, and wed that to a "go-slow" approach at the policy level for any policy that is widely reviled - building confidence that our principles are consistent, but that we have no revolutionary intentions to ram them down anyone's throat.

So, going forward into the debate about whither the Democratic Party, I think it important to reject this idea that we have to chase the center. We have to lead it. And leadership begins with the assumption that those who are asked to follow don't necessarily know where they are trying to go, but will follow whoever offers the best vision of a destination and a route to get there.

Come, imbibe my potion...

one draught and all your defeats will be transformed into victories. I offer you the bitter brew of denial.

Liberals, we didn't lose the election! It was stolen from us! Somehow, the record turnout by Republicans in nearly every district of the country was merely a mirage... a phantasm sent by the cruelest of the Fates to obstruct your plans and deliver you into darkness.

Reject it! You really won a majority! It was just so silent nobody can hear its screams of protestations.

George W. Bush went to Iraq to discover weapons that didn't exist.

Paranoid Democrats nation-wide are going to the election results to discover a majority that didn't exist.

Please, my fellow Democrats. Be more like Bush. You must be prepared to destroy our democracy in your efforts to save it. Reject empirical evidence. Bend the truth, bend the facts, bend your very brains themselves to win back our mangled victory from the jaws of defeat.

My First Reactions

My, what an election! I've been reticent to weigh in with an immediate post-election reaction, because I figured a few days to cool off and sort things out would do me some good. And, I'm feeling better now. Some reflections on Tuesday's elections:

1. Congratulations, President Bush: I have to hand it to him. He won, and he won well. Over the last few days I've had to spend quite some time trying to wean despondent liberals away from the comforting illusion that this election was marred by some secret fraud. I've looked at the numbers, and I have to say that Bush won this election the hard way - by doing better than before almost everywhere. The Democrats incontestibly put on the best election of their life. We got within 100 thousand votes of the brass ring in Ohio, and Kerry netted 4 million more votes than Gore. And both of those candidates put Clinton's two election numbers to shame (he never did win a majority, I might remind you...). But Bush just turned it on at an even higher level. I'm obviously dejected that the wrong guy won. But at least he won the right way - by winning without technicalities. As I told one friend, it just doesn't pay to pretend against all evidence that a secret majority backs your point of view. That's what Communists do... and who wants to end up like that?
   
   
2. Congratulations, Senator Kerry: As you can see, Slate's already posed the question, "Why does America hate Democrats?" The question is inherently unfair. We won 48%, the President 51%. This was a vigorous and well-fought election. What's more, Kerry won more votes than even Ronald Reagan did in 1984. 55.9 million votes. We may have been defeated, but we didn't lose. This was the best Democratic campaign of my lifetime. It just wasn't good enough. Of course, we'll need to ask why we lost. And, more importantly, we'll need to ask how to win the next one. But we shouldn't let our defeat obscure our vision of just how well we did in this election.
   
   
3. Welcome to the Opposition: I find myself hoping that the Democrats will now come to terms with the outsideness of our new outsider status. More importantly than the Presidency, we got trounced in the Senate. The time has come to stop running on dire warnings of horrors to come, and start running as an opposition to what is. The Republicans have all the power, and as Democrats would do well to remember from their own time in power, with power comes corruption. A fiery Newt Gingrich began his party's reascendance by going after the ethical lapses of a House Majority leader. As the opposition, our party will be doing the nation a disservice if it doesn't ferret out abuses of power by the governing party and bring a spotlight to bear upon them. So, memo to Republican congressmen... be very scrupulous with those postage stamps.
   
   
4. The Republican Coalition: They've got a narrow but winning coalition right now. I disagree with Saletan that the way back to the big time is simply a matter of framing. It's also a matter of policy. The Democratic Party is going to need new policies, hopefully the kind of innovative policies that have always been the prerogative of the outsider party. More importantly, our goal shouldn't be to blunder into a majority by confusing a few befuddled suckers. That Republican juggernaut isn't invincible. There's a core Republican constituency that the Democratic Party can't have and shouldn't want - it's clear that there is in fact a values gulf dividing the "two Americas" and there's a moral hazard inherent in chasing the wrong demographic. But in the Republican tent, some folks are more equal than others. The trick is to identify ambivalent constituencies that have buoyed the Republican Party and to win them over, through genuine change, without sacrificing our core principles and beliefs. I'd pick Catholics and libertarians as the most vulnerable elements of their coalition, but I'll dwell on that at another time.
   
   
5. Hello, Federalism: It's clear that there's not just an ideological divide in America. There's a geographic one as well. Democrats would do well to push for a looser union. California just upped its top-tier income tax, we've committed to funding stem cell research, and we've proven an openness (through referendum, no less) to a wide variety of liberal-minded experiments. With newcomers to the Senate like DeMintt and Coburn, we should start pressing hard to let live and be let alone. We may be one country, but the best way to stay that way is to press ahead with multiple systems. I worry what a more autonomous South might decide to do, from my perspective of universal human rights, if the states were given a longer leash... but I worry more what a "Big Red Fed" is gonna' do to my beloved California.
   
   
6. Anti-Government: Liberals, take a deep breath and repeat after me - "It's their government." Are you counting on the judiciary to protect your rights from legislative encroachment? Give it up, now. That's a pipe dream. Roe v. Wade is doomed. If you want a consolation prize, consider a post Roe union with 30 states preserving a woman's right, and NARAL turning into a Greyhound travel agency. Gays like me? Don't look to the courts - we can hope for stare decisis to keep Lawrence in place for another 20 years. But in the meantime, we got to change some hearts and minds and get some laws passed. If we can't do it, then the writing's on the wall. The Democratic Party has gotten sucker-punched by issues delivered through the back-door of the democratic process. As for the laws we may or may not see in the next few years that will strike some of us as restricting essential liberties... I've got one mantra for you to keep chanting - "we seek the consent of the governed, not just their compliance."
   
   
7. Suffrage: On Election Night, I spoke with a friend of mine who lives in Ohio. He had gotten to his polling place at 7am, and waited in line for an hour and a half before having to give up and go to his job. He came back later and waited in line for another 5 and 1/2 hours. Reports came in from all across the country of people waiting in 6 or 7 hour lines just to vote. Elsewhere in this country, the entire process didn't take longer than twenty minutes. I'm willing to concede that those who abandoned the line probably didn't make a decisive difference to the race's outcome. But it's simply unacceptable to have people waiting in six-hour lines on a work day. I won't demand a particular solution. Perhaps it's expanded early voting. Perhaps it's an election-day holiday. Perhaps it's precincts equipped to deal with maximum turnout rather than anticipated turnout. But I hope we can all agree that no American citizen should be unable to cast their vote by a failure of the process.
   
   
8. E-voting: I still think this is a very bad idea (though I vote this manner myself). The paper trail would ameliorate it. But as a man who works professionally with computers, I think it's a fool's errand to entrust our nation's electoral process to them.
   
   
9. George W. Bush: My opinions of him should be well known, but just in case the aren't, I've hated him and thought he didn't deserve to be President. Morally, that may still be true, but he clearly earned the Presidency this time, whether deserving or no. I'm willing to give him a small "grace period." My private hope? That a second term will set him free from concern for his re-election and we'll find him a very different President than he's been. I've heard Ashcroft is retiring, which strikes me as good news. There's likely a Supreme Court appointment coming. Powell may be replaced. Rumsfeld should be. I'm not expecting a second term to be much different from the first, in which case I expect I'll soon be back to where I was. But, as long as I find the man a moral mediocrity, I can certainly hope that he's been a complete hypocrite all this time, and the second term will show a new man, beholden to noone and guided by some inner light less dim than what we've beheld...
   
   
10. Gay Marriage: We gays got a long road ahead of us. I don't believe our rights will mean a thing until they've been democratically ratified through the legislative or referendum process. I simply don't want my essential freedoms to hang upon the hooks of a judge's cloakroom. So, I figure I have a lifetime of hard work ahead of me persuading people that reciprocal love and reciprocal commitment are to be cherished wherever they're found. And, in that work, bitterness and resentment aren't going to help me one bit. But I hope you'll understand if I allow myself just one little burst of animosity: Fuck Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah. And, more broadly, fuck all the voters who's primary rationale for voting Bush was fear of gay marriage. If there was some reason to think that gays already had the right to get married, I could understand this kind of thing. But a look at the generation under 30 shows me that the day is coming, and sliding constitutional padlocks onto the door of that emerging consensus really frustrates me. But, now that I've got that emotional reaction out of my system, we can revisit the issue's merits... as I'm sure I'll be doing for as many years as I'll be drawing breath...

Analyzing Defeat

So, we lost. Big time and fair and square. I'm in a period of reflection upon this. I invested a lot in the election, and I've got a lot to chew on after our defeat. Narrow, but substantial.

So, over the next few days, at no particularly guaranteed intervals and in no particular order, I'll be posting various elements of my emerging thought. I figure they'll break down into three categories:

1) Which way from here for the Democratic Party?

2) How to evangelize for my core beliefs and values (clearly not popular ones)?

3) What would New Liberalism look like? Why would it appeal to more people?

4) What have I misunderstood about the relation between evidence and reality? What have I misunderstood about politics?

5) Where next for me?

Hearkening Update

Email from a friend who received from a political operative:

As of 5 pm, John Kerry has gone up by over two points nationally. His
lead will increase to more than three. No one who is involved in the
exit poll operation or in any of the networks believe that Bush can win.

The only major surprise from the last update in that Kerry has gone two
points up in VIRGINIA. Also, the size of Kerry's showing in
Pennsyvlania (he's up by 14) is putting Hoeffel awfully close to
Specter. Daschle is still down, but not by as much. Knowles and
Salazar will win. Bunning's lead has fallen into the margin of error
and that race is too close to call. Castor looks like she's winning in
Florida. DeMint has pulled back ahead in SC but it's close.
Interestingly, North Carolina is now too-close-to-call, with four models
projecting Burr and three models projecting Bowles.

Internet Troubles

Won't be blogging much today in light of the massive server loads on everything. However, I've been following releases of early exit polls which indicate good news for Kerry. I've been following rumblings coming out of both parties, which indicate good news for Kerry. And just look at the latest results for Bush at Tradesports. He's lost 20 points since this morning! He is now trading at a 30% re-elect!

Truth Chases Fiction

Dismaying New from New Mexico:

She went to Valle Del Norte Community Center in Albuquerque, planning to vote for John Kerry. "I pushed his name, but a green check mark appeared before President Bush's name," she said.
Griffith erased the vote by touching the check mark at Bush's name. That's how a voter can alter a touch-screen ballot.
She again tried to vote for Kerry, but the screen again said she had voted for Bush. The third time, the screen agreed that her vote should go to Kerry.
She faced the same problem repeatedly as she filled out the rest of the ballot. On one item, "I had to vote five or six times," she said.
Michael Cadigan, president of the Albuquerque City Council, had a similar experience when he voted at City Hall.
"I cast my vote for president. I voted for Kerry and a check mark for Bush appeared," he said.
He reported the problem immediately and was shown how to alter the ballot.
...
In Sandoval County, three Rio Rancho residents said they had a similar problem, with opposite results. They said a touch-screen machine switched their presidential votes from Bush to Kerry.

Read this

Click this link

It's too bizarre to summarize. You'll laugh. Then maybe you'll cry. Then you'll probably start laughing again. Then you'll start to choke on your own snot because it's hard to laugh while crying. Then you'll just shake your head and wonder quietly to yourself "what the fuck?"

The Day Before...

Here's my averaged polling results for Monday November 1st. I'll put margins below:

Bush: Strong - 213; Weak - 19; Total - 232
Kerry: Strong - 203; Weak - 103; Total - 306

Bush Narrow Margins

(Average lead for Bush of 5 polls)
Nevada: Bush +2.80%
Colorado: Bush +2.80%
New Mexico: Bush +0.75%

Kerry Narrow Margins

(Average deficit for Bush of 5 polls)
Hawaii: Bush -2.67%
Minnseota: Bush -1.25%
Iowa: Bush -1.80%
Wisconsin: Bush -4.00%
Florida: Bush -1.40%
Ohio: Bush -0.20%
Pennsylvania: Bush -4.20%
New Hampshire: Bush -4.00%

That George Bush Charm

Only just now discovered the image below:

Apparently it comes from a story in his old Yale yearbook...

Here's the context that I found it in, if you care to double-check the photo's veracity. The photo apparently broke in the LA Times back in August.