Quotes of the Day

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George F. Will in The Wall Street Journal:

Never in this [election] marathon did Mr. Kerry himself do anything to change
the campaign's dynamics. He counted on events in Iraq, and on the power of his
party's unconcealed belief that Mr. Bush is an imbecile. But Democrats cannot
disguise from the country their bewilderment about how to appeal to a country
that is so backward, they think, that it finds Mr. Bush appealing.

Here's evidence of the phenomenon to which Will refers, from Washington Post columnist and devout liberal E.J. Dionne, in the Houston Chronicle:

Begin with the facts: A 51-48 percent victory is not a mandate. Even Democrats
have talked about their party being confined to an "enclave." Enclave? Blue
America includes the entire Northeast, all of the West Coast but for Alaska, and
much of the upper Midwest.

One wonders what Mr. Dionne would be calling a 51-48 win by Kerry. Something tells me it would rhyme with "historic mandate."

James K. Glassman, also in the Wall Street Journal:

The best advice I can give Europeans is: Live with it! President Bush is no
fluke, and there's no wishing him away. The good news is that Mr. Bush isn't
devious or unpredictable. He's entirely open and obvious. A major theme of his
campaign was that he does what he says.

This is from November 3 post by "Blue Marble" on a Democrat message board who, although probably not a European, needs to heed Glassman's advice:

. . . a lot more people are going to die because of 11/3/04 [than /11/01]. 11/3/04 is truly the day that will live infamy all around the world. I have lived 61 years, lost my parents and my sister plus many many pets and this is the darkest day of my life.

Oh, my goodness.

Mark Steyn, in The Spectator:

[J]ust to run through what happened: in the House of Representatives the
Republicans have picked up five seats; in the Senate they've picked up at
least three, maybe four, including David Vitter winning a Louisiana seat
that's been Democrat since post-Civil War reconstruction; it looks like
they've knocked off their chief obstructionist in the Democratic caucus.

And, oh yes, the most hated man in the world has become the first President since 1988 to win over 50 per cent of the popular vote.

In other words, it's the perfect hat trick: a Republican President, a Republican Senate and a Republican House have been re-elected for the first time since President McKinley and the GOP Congress of 1900.

. . .

The Democratic party have got themselves out of step with a huge chunk of the population. They'd probably do well in Belgium and much of southern England, but unfortunately neither of those jurisdictions is a US state. And, in the places which are, the party is increasingly uncompetitive. None of its issues resonates with rural America, and most of them -- abortion and race-baiting -- just sound stale: Selma, Alabam' is 40 years old, Roe vs Wade is 30 years old, and the scare talk about Bush's Supreme Court appointees just doesn't work. The party is intellectually exhausted and short of talent, which is how a vain, mediocre senator ended up with the nomination. There are still enough tribal Democrats to make it impossible for even the worst candidate to fall below 40 per cent, but they're so concentrated in New England, New York and California that the party can't break beyond that. Hence, the White House, Senate and House in Republican hands.