As I predicted, it looks like a fairly convincing victory for Bush.
But many of the networks are still labelling it “too close to call”, pointing to the slim 140,000-vote margin in Ohio for Bush that, if eradicated, could theoretically swing the election to Kerry.
Frankly, I think Ohio is still the big story because the major media networks want it to be the big story. That’s where they sent all their reporters, so that’s where they’re expecting the story. Plenty of other states have even slimmer margins and have been declared for one candidate or the other.
Bush won the popular vote convincingly this time, unlike four years ago. And he’s leading in the three states that the networks have yet to call, including the all-crucial Ohio. Very soon, Kerry’s going to come under a lot of pressure to concede. This isn’t Florida in 2000, no matter how much people were expecting it to be. This is a solid victory and Kerry should be gracious enough to admit it.
The Bush victory was pretty expected, and I don’t have much to say about it that a million other bloggers haven’t already said. Personally, I think the more telling stories were some of the direct ballot questions, particularly the issue of gay marriage. 11 states have banned gay marriage by passing constitutional amendments to disallow it. This is a serious step back for human rights in the United States, and it’s extremely sad that so many people have turned out in droves to deny even the possibility of granting rights to a minority that are already enjoyed by the majority.
I could say much more about this election, but I’m posting manually since blogger seems to be down (perhaps overloaded with election blogging?) so I’ll leave it at that… for now. More to come.