Some months ago I wrote an article outlining why I thought that it was important that the middle east solve their terrorist problem themselves.  Let me postulate one example reason why. Imagine this scenario: New York, Fall, 2008. A suicide bomber team has smuggled into the United States a crude 8 kiloton nuclear device. Assembled in lower New Jersey, the team rents a boat and brings it into New York harbor and sets it off. The destruction kills 47,000 people and destroys much of Manh...

Just for the record - stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons were never the principle reason for the coalition to remove Saddam from power. But the lack of these stockpiles is something those who have opposed the war have, in my view, cynically jumped onto to argue that the war was unjustified (as if those who were in favor of removing Saddam were losing sleep over mustard gas). Anyway, they are apparently starting to find some of this stuff. For whatever it's worth.

Bush 2000/Bush 2004 African-Americans: 8%/11% Whites: 54%/58% Hispanic: 41%/44% Married: 53%/56% Not Married: 38%/40% Union Members: 37%/40% Gays: 25%/23% Gun Owners: 61%/67% Protestants: 63%/59% Jewish: 19%/25% Catholics: 45%/52% Republicans: 91%/93% Democrats: 10%/11% Men: 51%/55% Women: 43%/48% 18-29 year olds: 46%/45% 30-44 year olds: 49%/53% 45-59 year olds: 49%/51% 60+ 47%/54%

Wallstreet Journal read Rob Steele writes some advice for the Demorats on how they can win the next election: Dear Democrats, While you think about how to do better next time, please stay true to your core values and feelings. Don't restrain your anger; part of your problem in this election was that you didn't put it out there enough. If other Americans understood how truly mad you are it would make more of an impression. You need to try harder to make them see that you're smarter a...

Controlling land is meaningless but it is still telling the way non city voters tend to vote. Courtesy of USA Today

So what we can learn from the exit polls? Well we can learn that there is a big difference between the typical Kerry supporter and the typical Bush supporter. It is the stark difference between the two that makes the nation so polarized. Consider these exit poll results: VOTE BY INCOME BUSH KERRY TOTAL 2004 2004 Less Than $50,000 (45%) 44% 55% $50,000 or More (55%) 56% 43% No surprise there.  Middle class ...

The call has been made. Bush has won the election. It was more decisive than anyone would have believed. Bush: 286 Electoral Votes to Kerry's 252. Bush also won 51% of the overall popular vote, a definite majority of the overall vote. What's also significant is that turn out was very high this year. More people voted this year than any previous election by a significant margin (about 115,000,000 votes).  Bush won by almost 4 million votes overall. For those who dislike the Republic...

FoxNews has just called Ohio to Bush. That essentially means it's over. Bush has won.

Everyone hopes that their game will win. But right now, no one knows. Exit polls won't be useful in any remotely close states until the end of the day (beware of anyone trying to toss around any exit polls in battle ground states until the end of the day - whether they be for Bush or Kerry). We'll keep this blog running throughout the day and see how things go. 5pm EST: Only a couple hours left until the polls close in a few states. At that point, we'll be able to start looking and seeing ...

Conventional wisdom says that high turn out means victory for Democrats. While it is possible Kerry may win still, I don't think the pollsters have adequately taken into account just how high the turn-out is amongst Bush voters. Today my wife and I voted. And unlike 4 years ago, the lines were long. Not only were they long but looking at the pages of marked off voters, even at 10am this morning, most registered voters on the pages I saw had already voted. Incredible. Never seen anything li...

With the election tomorrow it's time for predictions. Based on using The Political Machine's issue based predictions and looking at polling data and trends, this is what I'm concluding: Kerry victory with 306 electoral votes to Bush's 232.  This is a much clearer victory for Kerry than any of the polls and pundits are showing here. But then again, they don't have The Political Machine. So what do I base this on? The Iraq war isn't a positive for Bush but in fact a negative. ...

Here's a link to an interesting article where the writer puts his endorsement in a series of images.

If you lived in a house that had a rat "nuisance" you might tolerate it. But if one of your children died from a rat bite, you might be tempted to start going around killing all the rats in the house and getting rid of the rat holes. After 9/11, there were a lot of rat holes in the world. You don't worry so much about which rat bit your kid as getting rid of all the rats. The most obvious infestations were Taliban Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq. So goes the thinking in this article. Check i...

Well known blogger Andrew Sullivan has argued that a Kerry victory might be a good thing because it would force the Democrats to finally get serious about foreign affairs. That the war on terror would be a wake up call for them and their constituents about the ways of the real world. I think that's a dangerous assumption. Imagine if the election today was between George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter. Would you vote for Carter over Bush? Even given what we know about his first presidency? If n...

Terrorist Osama Bin Laden has ended speculation over whether he is alive or not with his new video that threatens more action against the United States.