The Dish

MysteryPollster looks at the Columbus Dispatch’s old-fashioned mail-in poll. It’s a very big sample – close to 3,000 – and has a good track record. It shows the race an absolute dead-heat. But there’s a wrinkle:

One difference between the latest poll and the one published four weeks ago is the inclusion of more newly registered voters in the sample, whose names were in the latest available data from the secretary of state’s office. About 88 percent of the new voters – including those from Ohio’s largest counties – were among the potential poll participants. And which candidate did those new voters prefer? “These newbies now represent one in eight Ohio voters, and they support Kerry by nearly a 2-1 margin [65% to 34%].”

Uh-oh. There’s more:

Meanwhile, the poll contains troubling signs for Bush. Only 44 percent say things in the nation are headed in the right direction. Fewer than half approve of his handling of Iraq and the economy. And his overall approval rating is 49 percent, a measure that many political experts say represents a ceiling on his support Tuesday.

I’ve been asked to make a prediction. It’s so close you’d be a fool to do so now. So I’ll stick with my hunch back last March and say Kerry is going to win. I say that simply because Bush’s record is too poor to merit re-election. And I trust the American people to realize that. As soon as Kerry proved he was a viable alternative in the debates, he won.

STEYN THREATENS TO QUIT: If Kerry wins today, Mark Steyn has said he won’t wrote again for a while. Money quote:

Usually after making wild predictions I confidently toss my job on the line and say, if they don’t pan out, I’m outta here. I’ve done that a couple of times this campaign season – over Wes Clark (remember him?) – but it almost goes without saying in these circumstances. Were America to elect John Kerry president, it would be seen around the world as a repudiation not just of Bush and of Iraq but of the broader war. It would be a declaration by the people of American unexceptionalism – that they are a slightly butcher Belgium; they would be signing on to the wisdom of conventional transnationalism. Having failed to read correctly the mood of my own backyard, I could hardly continue to pass myself off as a plausible interpreter of the great geopolitical forces at play. Obviously that doesn’t bother a lot of chaps in this line of work – Sir Simon Jenkins, Robert ‘Mister Robert’ Fisk, etc., – and no doubt I could breeze through the next four years doing ketchup riffs on Teresa Heinz Kerry, but I feel a period of sober reflection far from the scene would be appropriate.

This, of course, is silly. If Kerry is elected, it will merely mean that Americans have chosen a different commander-in-chief to pursue an enemy that we all recognize still exists. And may I offer the sincere hope that anyone who can pen prose as elegant and as consistently hilarious as Mark Steyn should never quit journalism? He should continue to do so – but from a distance that allows him greater insight into the American psyche. Canada, perhaps? Or France?

With some last minute thoughts.

A HAWK FOR KERRY: A Brit who faced the wrath of his fellow Guardian readers for supporting the Iraq war says he’s now for Kerry.

ZOGBY: His penultimate poll basically gives the election to Kerry, barring Florida. He has a tie there.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Another conspicuous aspect of the tape is the absence of common Islamist themes that are relevant to the month of Ramadan, which for fundamentalists like bin Laden is the month of Jihad and martyrdom. Noticeably absent from the Al-Jazeera tape was his usual appearance with a weapon, and more importantly the absence of references to Jihad, martyrdom, the Koran, the Hadith (Islamic tradition), Crusaders, Jews, and the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad on the duty to wage Jihad against the infidels. For the followers of the Al-Qa’ida ideology, this speech sends a regressive and defeatist message of surrender, as seen in the move from solely using Jihad warfare to a mixed strategy of threats combined with truce offers and election deals.” – Yigal Carmon, president of MEMRI, on the latest OBL tape.

VOTER-SUPPRESSION: Using homophobia to suppress the black vote. It’s been going on in Michigan.

October 30 – Fox poll shows Bush up by 2. Headline: “Fox Poll: Bush Up By Two Points Over Kerry”
November 1 – Fox poll shows Kerry up by 2. Headline: “Fox National Poll: Voters Split.” You really can’t make this up. Well, as Neil Cavuto has opined, Osama was all but wearing a Kerry button.

David Bernstein calls this the “most depressing presidential election for a libertarian since 1972.” It is. The idea that freedom works – even when it advances ideas hostile to you – has been consigned to the margins of discourse. Kerry is a statist; Bush is a statist. Kerry hankers after liberal conformity in most areas; Bush has done more to sever the GOP from individual freedom at home than anyone since Goldwater. Money quote:

I find virtually nothing to admire about John Kerry. W. deserves credit for a certain steadfastness in the War on Terror, but his administration is suffused with the sort of hubris, sense of entitlement to power, and belief in the ameliorative powers of government action (in both the foreign and domestic realms) that one normally associates with the worst types of statists. And let’s not forget the Administration’s blatant lies about the cost of the Medicare law, and Karl Rove’s apparent plan to drive all well-educated, secular folks out of the party in exchange for the votes of the most ignorant elements of the fundamentalist community, a traditional Democratic stronghold.

Yes, depressing. But freedom will re-emerge. It’s just a dark day right now.

Here’s the full transcript. Basically: loony and vile.

The Republicans are at it again in Michigan. And Florida too. Ugh.

Glenn Reynolds seems to think that my criticism of the Iraq war is purely negative criticism. He cites my previous writing back in May that

There are also many valid criticisms of the occupation. But I have yet to read any cogent criticism that offers any better future plan than the one president Bush outlined Monday night. John Kerry’s plaintive cries to “internationalize” the transition are so vacuous they barely merit attention. The transition is already being run by the U.N.; very few countries have the military capacity to cooperate fully with the coalition, and few want to; quicker elections would be great, but very difficult to pull off on a national level before the end of the year. So what are Bush’s opponents proposing? More troops now? But wouldn’t that undercut the message of transferring sovereignty to the Iraqis? A sudden exit of all troops? But no one – apart from right-wing and leftwing extremists – thinks that’s a wise move. Giving a future Iraqi government a veto power over troop activities? Done, according to Blair. The truth is: Bush’s plan is about as good as we’re likely to get. And deposing a dictator after decades of brutal rule could never have led immediately to insta-democracy. . . .
What I’m saying, I guess, is that as long as the anti-war critics continue relentless negativism without any constructive alternative, they will soon lose the debate. Americans want to know how to move this war forward, not why we shouldn’t have started it in the first place. Right now, the president has the best plan for making this work. What does anyone else have?

Well, yes. I stand by every word. But things have moved on since then, haven’t they? The plan I outlined is now Kerry’s plan as well. (In fact, it’s closer to Kerry’s original plan than Bush’s.) And the insurgency has gained more traction and more manpower since May. And when we are facing an electoral decision six months later, criticism is anything but negative. My constructive point is that a new pro-war president will move things forward, and that the incumbent has proven himself incompetent. Time to hold someone accountable, I’d say. Glenn says he expected much worse. But did he expect no WMDs? Did he expect Colin Powell’s U.N. speech to be revealed as a tissue of untruths? Did he expect Abu Ghraib? Has Glenn ever fully come to terms with any of that? And the reason we all expected much worse from the invasion is that, in retrospect, we misread Saddam’s war-plan. He was far smarter than we were. We expected a brutal conventional battle. Saddam planned a strategic retreat and then an insurgent regrouping. And we were completely unprepared for it. The question is: why were we so unprepared? How were we out-foxed by a vicious old tyrant? And do we trust the same group of people to get it right this time? I don’t.

AS FOR MICKEY: It’s always pleasant to be dismissed as “excitable”. I do react to events instantly and with my emotions as well as my brain. And I reserve the right in blog-time to change my mind. But I have never been so excitable as to have argued last December that Kerry’s campaign was so execrably bad that he should withdraw from the race before the Iowa caucuses. Let’s roll the tape, shall we?

“Kerry Withdrawal Contest: In part for reasons described in the preceding item, Democratic Senator John Kerry, once proclaimed the frontrunner in the press, faces not just defeat but utter humiliation in the New Hampshire primary. Is he really going to soldier on to finish in the single digits and get clobbered by both Howard Dean and Wesley Clark, if not one or more other candidates? Shouldn’t he save his pride (and possible national political future, if only as a VP candidate) by withdrawing from the race before this harsh popular verdict is rendered? … But what can Kerry say that isn’t even more humiliating than seeing it through?” “I realize my wife Teresa needs me more than my country needs me”? That won’t cut it. “I’ve decided to take time out to learn the Web so I can compete in future campaigns” and “I’m entering rehab at an undisclosed location to recover from my vicious Ibogaine habit. I make no excuses” are too trendy. … Let’s harness the power of the Web and help Kerry adviser/speechwriter Robert Shrum with the dirty job that lies ahead for him. A copy of John Glenn: A Memoir to the reader who submits the best cover excuse that will let Sen. Kerry drop out of the presidential race before the voting actually starts while preserving his viability within the system. … Void where prohibited…

Would it have been possible last December 5 to have written something a) that “excitable” or b) that wrong? “Not just defeat but utter humiliation.” Hysteric, heal thyself.

Here’s a super-duper meta-analysis from Princeton of all the recent state polls, including all the parameters of turn-out, undecideds, etc etc. So it ends up with a statistical likelihood, not a prediction. Worth checking out. I should also add that Slate’s poll, leaning toward Bush, has this caveat:

Here is the math that matters: If all the states in which the data lean discernibly to either candidate vote as the polls suggest, the election will come down to Florida and Ohio. If Bush takes both, he wins. If Kerry takes either, he wins. We assess the probability in each state independently, and we assume that neither state’s turnout affects the other’s. Since the odds in each of the two states are approximately 50-50, with a tiny edge to Bush, the combined probability of Kerry winning the election is about 70 to 75 percent.

Check in for more updates.

Here’s a simple set of pleas for tomorrow from yours truly. Think about splitting your ticket. If you vote Kerry for president, vote Republican for the Congress (unless there’s a big reason not to in a specific case) and vice-versa. Both Bush and Kerry will be better presidents with a hostile Congress. In the eight states where constitutional amendments are aimed at removing all protections from gay couples, do not fall for the idea that the measures are aimed at “protecting” marriage. If that were the case, the amendments would not be so sweeping. They are designed entirely to strip a group of citizens of equality under the law, to deter gay people from having settled relationships, and to keep homosexuality stigmatized. And please also consider voting for relaxation of marijuana laws that deny people the right to harmless pleasure and, in many cases, important medical relief. Montana, Oregon, Alaska, and Massachusetts have important measures to this effect. Vote for them.

Well, I see no Bush endorsement. As such. His wisest words are the following, it seems to me:

If I could choose the person whose attitude toward the immediate foe was nearest to mine, I would pick Bush (and Blair). But if I departed from the strictly subjective, and then considered the ways in which this administration has bitched things up, and further imagined what might happen to a Democratic incumbent who was compelled to get real, I could see a case the other way.

Those are my feelings entirely. And in a pinch, because of the established fact of regime change in the only two countries where we had a realistic chance of regime change, I think Kerry is now the better bet. Notice the word: now. The job now is nation-building, alliance-mending, and a more focused attack on al Qaeda. If I had any remaining confidence in the Bush administration’s competence and candor in these three areas, I’d still back Bush. But, sad to say, I don’t. And what persuaded me of this was Bush himself in the debates. He had nothing substantive to say about his record, no actual defense of his war decisions. His campaign was entirely about Kerry, and an appeal to abstract notions of toughness. That’s what you do when you can’t really defend yourself. One more thought from Hitch:

It’s absurd for liberals to talk as if Kristallnacht is impending with Bush, and it’s unwise and indecent for Republicans to equate Kerry with capitulation. There’s no one to whom he can surrender, is there? I think that the nature of the jihadist enemy will decide things in the end.

Amen. Yes, it’s indecent to believe that Kerry would “surrender” to Jihadists, as indecent as the attacks on his war record in Vietnam. We all have the same enemy: the Jihadists. And it is not a surrender to them to adjust tactics to ensure their better defeat.

MARRIAGE STATS: An email on the high rates of dovorce in the Bible Belt:

I teach statistics at North Georgia College & State University. Just wanted to weigh in on the fact that Bible Belt states have higher divorce rates. If you read the article, you find that the divorce statistic has no relationship to religious beliefs. The best statistical predictor of marriage “success” (non-divorce) is getting married the first time after age 25 – 28 (varies depending upon the study). In the South, people get married younger. There is no information on whether this has anything to do with religion. Finally, the other predictors mentioned in the article are socioeconomic status, level of education and Catholicity of the population. Again, religion (pro-Catholic) does influence the marriage success in a positive way.
In sum, there is no provable connection between increased divorce and religion. It would be just as statistically persuasive to say that the warmer climate in the South leads to higher promuscuity rates (and thus to more divorce) because more people are able to show more skin more often. To say being Baptist causes more divorce is taking a second-order correlation and claiming first-order causation. Statistically, that’s a reach. It may be true, but I don’t see anything in this article to back it up.

More feedback on the Letters Page.