100 Things About the Election, Part X

The continuing series of things I noticed during and after Election Day that I considered important. In no particular order...

76. By the way, it's now up to 60 million folks who voted for Bush. JesusLand keeps getting bigger.

77. One aside... I'm just guessing here, but as an amusement park, even JesusLand would have cooler rides than Canada.

78. Kevin Drum has interesting piece about Red v. Blue and how we ended up with these colors. This confirms my memory of the entire U.S. being colored Blue in 1984 when Reagan whooped up on Mondale. Of course, the networks may have been warning us that Mondale was, as we suspected, a Communist (that's a joke... we think). Drum leaves hanging the question of whether the networks will change back in 2008 and screw up the burgeoning political T-shirt industry.

79. The likely contenders in 2008 for the Democrats: Hillary Clinton (shudder), John Edwards, Wesley Clark, John Kerry, Al Gore (sorry -- I just really enjoyed typing that), Howard Dean, Evan Bayh, Bill Richardson, Ed Rendell, Mark Warner, Joe Lieberman. Hey, folks in New Hampshire and Iowa need to forewarned.

80. And on the GOP side in 2008, the leading contenders: John McCain, Rudy Guiliani, Bill Frist, Bill Owens (my pick), Jeb Bush (he could always take Veep), Condaleeza Rice, Tim Pawlenty, Mark Sanford, Chuck Hagel (ugh), George Pataki (double ugh), Elizabeth Dole, Arnold Schwarzeneggar (once we discover he was actually born in Brooklyn).

81. Wow. How did I miss this? A near-shrine to Kerry put up by one of his ex-girlfriends? You know, this is a freaking goldmine. That being said, I think all men should agree that this is a bad idea.

82. This hasn't received near-enough commentary, but Kerry's selection John Edwards personified his campaign. He basically selected Fallout Boy on the theory that it would be the best political choice... and Edwards turned out to have ZERO impact. Okay, the trial lawyers handed over the AMEX cards ona silver platter, but was Kerry really having trouble raising money? What's hysterical is that Edwards openly campaigned for the friggin' post, yet seemingly had no clue what to do once he got on the ticket.

Now, I'm less impressed by John Edwards than most people. I despise populist claptrap, and Edwards reeks of it. The guy basically oozes old-school liberal Democratic populism from his pores. But it's also wrapped up in a nice-looking New Democrat exterior that supposedly makes the ladies swoon (I like to give women more credit than that. Then again, explain Ben Affleck). In the end, Edwards just looks like a complete phony to me -- of course, that's coming from a Philly guy. But I know a lot of Southerners who agree with this assessment -- they think he doesn't sound like a real Southerner, more like an actor on TV playing a Southerner.

But Kerry chose Edwards for the political impact that the choice would have, and it registered a big fat donut. Maybe that's the best political parties can hope for in selecting a Veep -- I've told friends that the first job of a VP candidate is similar to a doctor ("first, do no harm."). But political candidates should conceiveably aim for some tangible result when selecting a potential VP, and Kerry got nothing when Gephardt might have brought in Missouri or Vilsack might have cemented Iowa. Instead, he got a prettyboy trial lawyer who had trouble beating out Scott Peterson for name recognition.

Beyond this, I think the choice also left a lot of informed swing voters wondering whether Kerry was serious about this election. With all the Democratic hoopla in Boston regarding how serious they were about national security, they opted to select for the VP a one-term Senator from North Carolina who was a complete cipher on national security issues. At least Kerry had 20 years of experience in the Senate... okay, always voting the wrong way on every foreign policy initiative in the Cold War and the Gulf War, but at least he could have learned from his errors. I think Dick Cheney's line about "Senator Gone" hit home with a lot of folks.

In the end, John Edwards is not the reason John Kerry lost. But he's definitely not the person who made the race close. And I say this from the position of someone who'd hype Edwards to the moon for 2008, just to avoid the terror of Hillary Clinton having a shot at the White House.

83. Charles Krauthammer is one of my favorite columnists, and his decision to take on the prevailing wisdom on the "moral values" election is terrific. Analogizing things back to the 1994 Congressional takeover and the media myth of the "angry white male" is even better.