Something Awful tackles the big questions: (not safe for work - quite crude - follow link at own risk) Childrens' Books All Grown Up

If the Democratic party fractures, can the Republican party be far behind? The Republican party has made itself over into a coalition of those-who-are-harmed-by-Democrats: evangelical Christians, conservatives, businessmen, rednecks, racists, etc. Offhand these groups have nothing in common except 1) a desire for power and 2) the desire to keep the Democrats out of power. If the Democrats self-destruct, goal 2 is automatically achieved. Can the Republican coalition last, or will each interest group's pursuit of power cause it to break up?

John Kerry's concession was probably the most important act of political courage since 1900 or so. It certainly surpasses Nixon's 1960 refusal-to-press, given how much more prepared the nation was this time for a Florida/2000-style recount. (And good politics too: in the unlikely event that in ten days the Ohio Secretary of State calls it for Kerry in light of the provisional ballots, Bush will be under pressure to concede or look worse than Kerry.) Can Bush offer Kerry something in return? How about Colin Powell's job? It happens frequently enough in parliamentary-type systems, and might help heal the division of the country.

I'm not really optimistic about the division-healing thing. There are two types of things Bush could give the Democrats -- symbolic and substantive concessions. Symbolic concessions will be identified as such and therefore valued at nothing. Substantive concessions would betray the Bush supporters who organized, volunteered, and got out the vote in record numbers because they believed it mattered; if they see Bush giving something substantive to the Democrats (say, two Supreme Court nominees) why should they ever come out again?

Perhaps a compromise can be worked out on the Supreme Court. For example, a deal could be brokered where four justices resign at once, and the President nominates one Democratic and three Republican picks, whom the Senate immediately confirms. The details would have to have been hammered out beforehand. I think that level of dealing is unlikely, however. I see it much more likely for Justices to resign individually, and the Democrats and Republicans playing out an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, each using a defect-first strategy. A long filibuster followed by a rule change? God, I hope not. But I predict that the cloture rule will be changed to a simple majority by the end of 2005. (The "nuclear option" of Senate filibuster rule changes.)

I was able to get a wide variety of radio stations on election night to listen to the election news. I had a FOX affiliate out of Portland and one out of Salt Lake City; KGO, an ABC affiliate out of the SF Bay Area (how's that for nice atmospherics?) and a CBS affiliate out of somewhere -- Seattle maybe, or Montana. We mainly listened to ABC.

This was my first exposure to Fox News. The Fox News people were pretty normal on election night, but the talk radio program they had on Wednesday around noon was stupid, hateful, and disgusting. I turned it off after less than a minute, because the caller was going on about how we ought to have sympathy for Kerry because he was married to Teresa. WTF?

I wonder if my California friends -- mostly liberals, living as they do in California -- think I'm that sort of conservative. I wonder why they would think so. What sort of a friend looks at you and sees Rush Limbaugh? (Alternatively: Michael Moore) No friend at all.

Here's a bunch of stuff I wanted to post last night but couldn't because the hotel I was at had a crappy internet setup. No particular order:

- If I watched more TV I would have more to blog about. Holy crap but that coverage was annoying

- Why couldn't they give margins when they were reporting on states? E.g., New Jersey? Also, why couldn't they give fractions of percentage points when giving margins? 49-50 could mean 49.4 to 49.5 or it could mean 48.6 to 51.4 -- the difference between a .1% margin and a 1.8% margin.

- CBS was smart not to call Ohio, because it made it possible for them
to call Nevada and/or NM for Bush without thereby calling the
election. Fox is unable to call NV without implying Bush

- I can die now, having seen everything: Dan Rather called himself a
conservative and CBC radio news called Ronald Reagan a centrist

- Bush is mathematically up in Ohio. I hope they don't wind up litigating it.

- Dan Rather wanted to make a big deal about the "fact" that the most
important issue was "moral issues", 32%. But there was also
terrorism, 19% and Iraq, 15%, (or reversed) and if you combine those
you get "Security", 34%. So their polling method basically sucked.

- If I were in Kerry's position I would do exactly the same thing - wait
until morning with a clearer picture.