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SNIPPETS, our daily collection of short items and comments, is here.

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Answers to last week's "Current Question" are here. The new "Current Question" is here, in the right-hand column.

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NEW AUDIO COMMENTARY TODAY:  "What have we become?" 

To listen, go here.

TUESDAY,  NOVEMBER 4,  2008

12:18 A.M.   The president-elect has given an eloquent and literate acceptance speech, for which he should be praised.  Now the easy part is over.  The hard part starts tomorrow morning.

11:45 P.M.   Fox is predicting a Democratic pickup of about 25 seats in the House, which has to be described as impressive.  In the Senate, though, the Democrats have, thus far, only picked up five seats.  Several races are still out, but it seems unlikely that the Democrats will pick up the nine seats needed to have a filibuster-proof majority.

Disgracefully, though, Al Franken is doing well in Minnesota against a a fine Republican senator, Norm Coleman, in part because a third-party candidate seems to be taking votes from Coleman.  Reports say the Coleman people are very concerned.  The idea of Al Franken in the Senate should be embarrassing, but apparently not this year.  All the major Democratic papers endorsed Coleman.

11:43 P.M.   John Murtha has been reelected in western Pennsylvania, an area he openly called racist.  I have no idea what those voters were thinking.  Maybe they should pay attention.

11:31 P.M.   John McCain has just delivered a classy, elegant concession speech worthy of the character of the man.  He went out with style.  Sarah Palin did not speak, but McCain's reference to her got the biggest applause of his address.  We will hear from her.  This campaign is over.

11:15 P.M.   The Democratic celebrations have begun.  We wish the new president well, and hope he serves the country with distinction.  We will applaud him when we think he's right, and respectfully oppose him when we think he's wrong.  That is the role of the responsbile citizen. 

11:02 P.M.   All networks are calling the election for Obama. 

10:57 P.M.   Polls close on the West Coast within minutes.  Once California is called, and it will be for Obama, the networks will start making it official, and I'd imagine there will be a concession announcement.  We fought the good fight.  We still fight to keep those opposition numbers down in the Senate and House.  Never give up. 

10:45 P.M.   Fox calls Virginia for Obama. 

10:23 P.M.  Both CNN and Fox are reporting that senior McCain aides concede there is no path to victory for the Arizona senator.  This is not a great shock. 

NOTE AT 10:14 P.M.  Just wanted to point out that some of the irresponsible journalist bravado that we saw in the last day or so, suggesting that some networks would call the race by 8 p.m. ET, has faded away.  Although it is clear that Obama will win, barring some real upset in a western state, the race overall seems to be closer than many had predicted.  And the Senate results thus far show Democrats picking up only four seats.  So all is not bleak.  Stay with it.

10:07 P.M.   Well, what do you know, Fox has just pulled back on its report that Roger Wicker has kept his seat in Mississippi.  They're calling it too close to call.  Also too close to call is the Senate race in Louisiana, where Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu is in some trouble.  If she loses, that would be the only Democratic turnover of the night.  Very close. 

10:03 P.M.   Roger Wicker, the incumbent Republican senator from Mississippi, has held on to his seat, eliminating a serious Democratic challenge.  As the hours go on, the chances of the Dems reaching 60 in the Senate, are slipping away.

9:59 P.M.  There seems to be, as they say, a lull in the fighting.  No key decisions have been made for a while.  We are awaiting decisions in key states like Virginia, Florida, and Missouri.  But McCain would have to win all of them, plus pick up some unlikely states, to pull a surprise.  It doesn't seem to be happening.  In Senate races, we're looking at Minnesota, where incumbent Republican Norm Coleman is trying to hold off comedian, and ridiculous candidate Al Franken.  We're also looking at Georgia, where incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss is in a tough race, but seems to be hanging on.  Iowa has just been called for Obama, which was expected.

BULLETIN AT 9:24 P.M.   Fox has just called Ohio for Obama.  No Republican has ever been elected while losing Ohio.  The chances of McCain pulling an upset tonight are now extremely bleak.  The issue is how large Obama's victory will be, how big a "mandate" he can claim.  The other issue tonight, of course, is the Senate.  Will the Democrats reach 60 seats, a filibuster-proof majority?  That may be the biggest suspense story of the election.   

9:06 P.M.   Democrats just gained another seat in the Senate - Tom Udall has won the seat left open by the retirement of Pete Dominici, a Republican.  The Dems have now picked up four seats in the Senate.

8:56 P.M.   Michael Barone just noted very high WPE's in Virginia.  WPE stands for Within Precinct Error.  It's the difference between the exit poll result and the actual vote.  As in the primaries, the WPE's generally show much higher exit poll results for Obama than actual votes.  That may not mean much in the end, but at least it makes us feel a bit better.

8:42 P.M.   CNN again scanned the crowd at the Obama victory party in Grant Park, Chicago.  Every face was young.  This is an entertainment event.  The centrifuges are still spinning in Iran.

8:40 P.M.   Fox calls Georgia for McCain. 

8:31 P.M.   Fox has just called Pennsylvania for Obama, a huge defeat for McCain.  The McCain campaign put enormous effort into Pennsylvania, but the state has a large African-American population, and a large population of affluent, "educated" voters who are going Democratic.

8:28 P.M.   Fox just called the New Hampshire Senate race for Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, defeating incumbent Republican John Sununu.

8:22 P.M.   Several news organizations are calling Pennsylvania for Obama, but others are holding back.  The fact is that there are very few actual returns in from Pennsylvania.  Michael Barone just reported that, thus far tonight, there have been precincts where the exit polls have Obama eleven points higher than the actual returns.

8:09 P.M.   Fox just called the Kentucky Senate race for Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell.  But Fox also just called the North Carolina Senate race for Demcorat Kay Hagan, who defeated Elizabeth Dole.  North Carolina is a major turnover for the Dems.  Kentucky is a major hold for the GOP.

7:53 P.M.   Bill Kristol, at Fox, notes that the early actual returns - not exit polls - seem to be confirming the pre-election polls.  However, Brit Hume notes that it doesn't look like the kind of early blowout that some had predicted.  The key states where polls have closed are still too close to call.  A number of important states close at 8 p.m. ET, about seven minutes from now.

7:39 P.M.   Polls in Virginia and Indiana are closed, but the states are too close to call.  However, early indications in both, as analyzed by Michael Barone, are less than favorable for Senator McCain.

7:30 P.M.   Polls are closing in North Carolina and Ohio, both critical. 

7:25 P.M.   CNN just showed crowds rushing into the Obama "victory" party in Grant Park in Chicago.  It looked like an American Idol celebration, not a political event.  In certain respects, a bit disturbing.  We're electing a president.  I hope they know it.

7:10 P.M.   Again, no surprise.  The Dems picked up a Senate seat in Virginia - former Governor Mark Warner. 

7:01 P.M.:  No surprise.  Fox called Vermont for Obama, Kentucky for McCain.

WE'RE NOW STARTING, AT ABOUT 6:50 P.M. ET., OUR UNINTERRUPTED ELECTION COVERAGE.  STAY WITH US.

UPDATE AT 6:25 P.M. ET:  Early reports of exit polls, by Fox and CNN, show very strong support for Obama.  However, a caution:  The exit polls in 2004 were way off, and there is a body of evidence to suggest that Obama supporters are more likely to participate in these polls than McCain supporters.  I think we can wait for the real results, which won't be long in coming.

NO SHAME

Posted at 6:09 p.m. ET

They just keep coming.   They're collectible.  We warned last night about the kind of journalism to expect today.  We haven't been disappointed.  But this blog by the certifiable nutbag Christiane Amanpour, of CNN, one of the most biased reporters in the trade today, has got to be eligible for some kind of prize.  I hate to use a cliché, but you really can't make this up:

NEW YORK — Finding myself in New York City this U.S. election Day, I saw scenes that reminded me of the first democratic elections I covered in Afghanistan in 2004, or Iraq in 2005.

Scenes that reminded me of the historic election in South Africa in 1994 when a black man, Nelson Mandela, was elected president thus ending generations of white minority rule known as apartheid.

Yes, I checked.  I quoted that accurately.  That's what she wrote - comparing the United States, with more than two centuries of peaceful, democratic elections, to third-world countries. 

Or 1998 in Iran when women and young people turned out en masse to elect the first ever reform president, the moderate cleric Mohammad Khatami.

Moderate?  Did she say moderate?  Well, I guess Albert Speer was moderate compared with Adolph Hitler.  Maybe that's the example she had in mind.

And that’s what I saw this morning in New York City as the polls opened. As I rode my son to school by bike, we passed a public school-turned voting center that made us gasp.

Oh, come on.  Please.  Readers, she did say that.  She had to inform us that she rode her son by bike.  No carbon footprint there.  Just a clean, green bike.  That line has got to be worth an invitation to Al Gore's next birthday party.

Oh, by the way, in New York City you have to ride bikes in the street, never on the sidewalk.  So this brilliant chunk of parenthood was riding her son on her bike, and watching the polling places, rather than the traffic.  Another mother-of-the-year.

Remember, the U.S. is never known for its high voter turnouts.

We do quite a bit better, Christiane, than the dictatorships you seem never to mind.  This "international correspondent" is Iranian, a leftist, and a flack for Arab causes.  She's judging us?

Everywhere you look the mood smacks of history…almost a foregone conclusion. Even New York City’s right-wing leading tabloids, are calling it for Obama.

In fact, only one leading tabloid is right wing, or conservative, as we prefer to say.  That's the New York Post.  The other "right-wing" tabloid she's apparently referencing is the Daily News, which endorsed Obama.  Apparently she never noticed.  Must have been watching the polling places.

Meantime cable and broadcast TV networks can barely contain themselves: Newspaper articles quote news executives all but saying they will be able to call the election as soon as polls close early evening.

Barely contain themselves?  This is the way she describes her "colleagues"?  I guess we've been right about this crowd all along.  Thanks, Christiane, for your honesty about that, if about nothing else. 

And the big finish:

No election has electrified the U.S. like this since 1968. But the whole world wishes it could cast a vote in this one. Whatever happens, this U.S. election will change the world. Stay tuned.

Notice she says 1968.  Apparently, in her self-written history book there was no 1980.  Reagan?  Who was Reagan?  Could he have possibly been as important as Eugene McCarthy? 

I'm always amused when reporters bring up 1968, as a kind of nostalgic act.  It was the year, after all, of the worst journalistic scandal of modern American history - the misreporting of the Tet offensive, which mislead the American people into thinking we were losing, and led to our ultimate tragedy in Vietnam.

This blog exposes Amanpour for exactly who she is.  The sad fact is that there are clones of this woman throughout journalism, which is why we may suffer another tragedy before coming to our senses.

November 4, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 4:53 P.M. ET:  From Fox News:  Some last minute campaigning for US Senate hopeful Al Franken...Who spent most of Monday campaigning alongside Senator Hillary Clinton.The two attended an event in Duluth, Minnesota aimed at encouraging people to get out and vote.The former presidential candidate told voters... if they voted to send Al Franken to the White House, the country would see the type of change they want.

COMMENT:  Utterly sickening.  In the end, Hillary will do anything.  Al Franken is a sick joke, a man who has written vile things about women, a preacher of leftist hate.  And there's Hillary, right beside him, building up political credits for the future.  And she calls herself a feminist, a word that has lost all meaning.

UPDATE AT 3:20 P.M. ET:  The only trend we're seeing is heavy voting throughout the country, which was expected.  There are isolated reports of dirty tricks, irregularities and missing ballots, but so far we haven't seen any major pattern of voter fraud.  We stress "so far."

THE CHILLING EFFECT

Posted at 2:46 p.m. ET

Boy, they don't wait long, do they?  Although he represents a good chunk of the broadcast industry as a senator from New York, Chuck Schumer is already on the warpath on behalf of the so-called "fairness doctrine," which would regulate the political content of over-the-air broadcasting.  Liberals are also going totalitarian in their support of a union measure that would deny workers the right to a secret ballot in union-organizing elections.  Nice, huh?  We the people. 

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday defended the so-called Fairness Doctrine in an interview on Fox News, saying, “I think we should all be fair and balanced, don’t you?”

Schumer’s comments echo other Democrats’ views on reviving the Fairness Doctrine, which would require radio stations to balance conservative hosts with liberal ones.

Asked if he is a supporter of telling radio stations what content they should have, Schumer used the fair and balanced line, claiming that critics of the Fairness Doctrine are being inconsistent.

“The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. I am for that… But you can’t say government hands off in one area to a commercial enterprise but you are allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent.”

So pornography and political content are to be treated the same?  Hmm.  What about murder and double parking?  They're both violations of the law, correct?  See that guy in the Toyota, double parked?  Life sentence.  Lock him up.

He also defended “card check” legislation, claiming there is a strong need to allow workers a private ballot to register their votes on whether to organize a union.  Schumer said “there has to be some counter” to the leverage businesses have, claiming “employers have every leg up on people who want to organize and that’s why union workers have gone down from about 25 percent to 6 percent [in the private sector].”

Under "card check" there would be no secret ballot.  Great for democracy, isn't it? 

Don't think it stops there.  I wouldn't be shocked if there are assaults on democracy in other areas, like the internet.  There are initiatives under way at the UN to regulate internet content, and some countries already do it.  But we want "civil" speech, don't we?  We don't want "hate" speech, do we?  Get ready for those arguments.

This is coming from the left wing of the Democratic Party, and these are angry folks.

Now please go out and vote.  That's the first step in fighting back.

November 4, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 2:19 P.M. ET:  Last-minute polls have now been published.  All show Obama in the lead.  The largest lead is reported by Zogby - 11 points, 54-43.  The smallest, two points, 50-48, comes from one of two releases, (Tarrance) by Battleground.  The other Battleground report (Lake) has Obama leading by five, 52-47.  Rasmussen has Obama up by six, 52-46. 

UPDATE AT 10:48 A.M. ET: 

(CNN) – John McCain and his aides are still banking on a come-from-behind victory Tuesday, but the GOP's most famous political strategist has already called the race for Barack Obama.

Karl Rove, the man widely credited with engineering President Bush's two successful White House bids, is predicting the Illinois senator will take the White House in an Electoral College landslide, winning 338 votes to John McCain's 200. That would be the largest Electoral College victory since 1996, when Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole in a 379-159 rout.

COMMENT: Maybe. Maybe not.  But let's not forget that McCain's fortunes began to slide dramatically after the financial meltdown, even though much of the cause of that meltdown - the subprime mortgage scandal - could be traced to Democratic policies.  The voters punish the party in the White House.

UPDATE AT 10:01 A.M. ET:  From AP: 

Voting problems surfaced in several areas early Tuesday as people turned out in droves as balloting commenced along the Eastern Seaboard and in mid-Atlantic states.

Voters needed to use paper ballots because of problems with electronic voting machines in some New Jersey precincts. And in New York, Board of Elections spokeswoman Valerie Vazquez-Rivera said many people began lining up as early as 4 a.m. at some polling places to avoid long lines, leading to erroneous reports that some sites were not opening on time.

Poll worker John Ritch in Chappaqua, N.Y., said: ''By 7:30 this morning, we had as many as we had at noon in 2004.''

UPDATE AT 9:44 A.M. ET:  From Amanda Carpenter at Townhall.com:   GOP Election Board members have been tossed out of polling stations in at least half a dozen polling stations in Philadelphia because of their party status.  A Pennsylvania judge previously ruled that court-appointed poll watchers could be NOT removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, but that is exactly what is happening.  It is the duty of election board workers to monitor and guard the integrity of the voting process.

COMMENT:  I suspect there'll be a lot more stories like this in big cities today.  We'll keep watch.

NOTE AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  A question to consider today.  If Obama is elected, who will be the new U.S. senator from Illinois, replacing him?  I'd imagine that Obama himself will do the picking of the man or woman to finish his term, which expires in January, 2011. 

There is speculation that Rahm Emanuel, the fiery Dem congressman from Chicago, will be tapped to be White House chief of staff, effectively taking him out of the running for senator.  There may something cynical in that move, as it clears the way for...Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.  African-American power groups would almost certainly demand that Obama be replaced with another African-American, and the Jackson pick would pay off political debts.  It would also enrage many whites, who see the young Jackson as representing the old racialist wing of the movement. 
   

NOTE AT 8:49 A.M. ET:  We cautioned last night about the kind of journalism to expect today.  Here is a particularly disgraceful example:

BERLIN (AP) -- The world was riveted by the election drama unfolding Tuesday in the United States, inspired by the hope embodied by Barack Obama or simply relieved that -- whoever wins -- an administration that spawned Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay was coming to an end.

From Berlin's Brandenburg Gate to the small town of Obama, Japan, the globe geared up to celebrate a fresh start for America after eight wearisome years of George W. Bush.

That's a news story?  it must be, because it isn't labeled "analysis" or "commentary."  It's presented as news.

So, we're told that "the world" was riveted by something.  We should always dismiss stories that tell us that the "world" is doing this or that.  What world is that?  Did the reporter interview the entire world?  It reminds me of Alan Jay Lerner's complaint about lyricists who tell us, in their songs, about "hearts" doing things.  My heart did this, my heart did that.  Hearts really don't do much expect pump, and attack us.

This is awful journalism.  It further erodes whatever is left of the credibility of the press.  We can't count on them anymore.  We just can't.   

THE FINAL OUTRAGE

Posted at 7:44 a.m. ET

All right, I know that sounds like the title of one of those 1970s thrillers, but it fits.  It was perhaps inevitable that the media would give us one final outrage on this election day.  They always come through, don't they?

One of the great stories of the 2004 election was the wild inaccuracy of the exit polls.  You'd think the press would have learned.  But the press rarely learns anything.  So we have this, as reported by The New York Times:

At least one broadcast network and one Web site said Monday that they could foresee signaling to viewers early Tuesday evening which candidate appeared to have won the presidency, despite the unreliability of some early exit polls in the last presidential election.

Unreliability?  Hey, what kind of a word is that in today's journalism?  It's just another point of view.  Right?

A senior vice president of CBS News, Paul Friedman, said the prospects for Barack Obama or John McCain meeting the minimum threshold of electoral votes could be clear as soon as 8 p.m. — before polls in even New York and Rhode Island close, let alone those in Texas and California. At such a moment, determined from a combination of polling data and samples of actual votes, the network could share its preliminary projection with viewers, Mr. Friedman said.

“We could know Virginia at 7,” he said. “We could know Indiana before 8. We could know Florida at 8. We could know Pennsylvania at 8. We could know the whole story of the election with those results. We can’t be in this position of hiding our heads in the sand when the story is obvious.”

Everyone knows that one effect of that kind of reporting is to discourage people from voting - especially people on the losing side. 

How long has this campaign been going on?  Two years?  Can't "journalists" wait a few more hours to tell us who won, and keep the election process relatively pure?  I guess not.

“When a candidate gets 270 electoral votes, they’re the next president,” said Sheldon Gawiser, director of elections for NBC News. “If some states are still voting, it’s an unfortunate circumstance, that’s what it is. The founding fathers never expected us to count the votes fast.”

The patriotism.  The statesmanship.  Damn those founding daddies.  What did they know?

When the loser concedes, then we'll know.

November 4, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 6:47 A.M. ET:  The final IBD/TIPP poll, published overnight, has Obama up eight, when undecideds are allocated.  This was the most accurate poll in 2004, and its findings are pretty consistent, this year, with other polls.

Early voting from those little New Hampshire towns that vote first is heavily Obama, even in places carried by Bush in 2004. 

MONDAY,  NOVEMBER  3,  2008

UPDATE AT 8:56 P.M. ET:  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A report has cleared Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of ethics violations in the firing of her public safety commissioner.  Released Monday, the report says there is no probable cause to believe Palin or any other state official violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with the firing. The report was prepared by Timothy Petumenos, an independent counsel for the Alaska Personnel Board.

COMMENT:  Thanks for telling us, now that her reputation has been pretty well trashed on this issue.  Let's see who apologizes. 

ELECTION EVE

Posted at 7:41 p.m. ET

I recall the feeling on election eve, 1980, when I was preparing to cast the first vote of my lifetime for a Republican presidential nominee - Ronald Reagan.  For those of us who made the journey to the Reagan Revolution, the vote was not that difficult, or traumatic.  As we said at the time, we had not left the Democratic Party.  The party had left us. 

We vote again tomorrow.  I will vote McCain/Palin.  The times are too important, too threatening, for the nation to be left in the hands of an inexperienced man about whom we know too little.

You'll see a lot of print in the next day or two, and hear the talking heads burn calories with their mouths.  Ignore 98 percent of it.  Transformational election?  Maybe.  Yes, if Obama is elected he'll make racial history.  But words like "transformational" are best left to the judgment of historians twenty or forty years down the line.  There are very few transformational elections. 

Change?  There's always change with a new president.  Often, it's more style than substance.  If it's Obama, we'll see what he really means by "change."  When he confronts his first international crisis, we'll see if that change is creative and positive, or catastrophic.

This campaign will be remembered.  Sadly, it will probably be remembered for the negatives.  It was a campaign remarkably lacking in substance or depth, given the great issues at hand.  It was a campaign truly built for the age of American Idol, not the age of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.  It was a campaign in which the attacks of 9/11 were rarely if ever mentioned.  They have been washed away by time, and it may well be that our vigilance as a people has been washed away as well.

The campaign will be remembered for one major thing - the almost complete collapse of the responsibility of the press.  The rights of the press are enshrined in the First Amendment, one of the great constructions and pieces of writing in political history.  Those rights are there because the founders, in their great wisdom, understood that a republic cannot function without an informed electorate.  The press has always been an imperfect servant of that ideal.  In this campaign it has betrayed the very premise of its existence.  It may pay a price for its betrayal.  The nation will almost certainly pay a price.

Urgent Agenda will start our election coverage tomorrow morning, with reports on turnout.  We'll be on until the results are known.  We'll go light on the long articles tomorrow, replacing them with brief reports on what is happening.  Please be with us.  And do vote.  You never know.

November 3, 2008.      Permalink          

BULLETIN AT 3:35 P.M. ET:  The IBD/TIPP poll, the most accurate in 2004, has just been posted for today.  It has Obama up five, 48-43, a gain of three points since yesterday.  But, strangely, Obama is still under 50 percent, with nine percent undecided.

COMMENT:  McCain's only realistic hope, if one trusts in polls, is that the IBD/TIPP poll is accurate, and that those undecideds break heavily in his favor.  IBD/TIPP will publish a final result late tonight.

UPDATE AT 3:04 P.M. ET:   Two new polls are out.  Fox has Obama up seven, 50-43, a gain of four since the last Fox poll about four days ago.  Marist has Obama up nine.

COMMENT:  Further evidence that it's Obama, not McCain, who's gained in these final days.  I can't claim to understand it.  On the basis of what?  I suspect the voters are simply angry, and want to throw the party in power out.  There is a terrible immaturity about all this, given the problems the country faces.  (If you wish, listen to my audio commentary on that, here.)  

UPDATE AT 1:14 P.M. ET:  Here are the latest poll results:  Rasmussen shows Obama up six, 52-46.  Hotline has him up five, 50-45.  Battleground shows Obama leading by six, 50-44.  All polls released so far today show Obama with a minimum of 50 percent of the vote. 

COMMENT:  According to the polls, there is no last-minute surge toward McCain.  If anything, Obama has strengthened his position.  Now the key will be turnout.  The election is tomorrow.  Despite what the spin doctors tell us, it is not in the bag for anyone.  Only voters decide. 

UPDATE AT 8:15 A.M. ET:  The final Gallup poll shows Obama with an eleven-point lead among likely voters, 55-44.  That 55-percent figure is the strongest I've seen for Obama during the campaign.  At least four more polls will be published later today.

THE DAY BEFORE

Posted at 7:55 a.m. ET

You may have heard that there's an election tomorrow.  About 40 percent of the nation will be voters.  The other 60 percent will be pollsters.  I have never seen so many polls taken.  And I still have yet to meet anyone who's been surveyed. 

There are no current polls showing McCain ahead.  But there is a marked variance in the polling results, with Obama's lead ranging from 13 to 2 points.  Can McCain pull an upset?  Of course.  The only poll that really counts is the one on election day, and that depends on turnout.  If turnout predictions are off, anything is possible.  And remember, the poll that shows Obama only two points ahead, IBD/TIPP, was the most accurate poll in 2004.

I've seen very little journalism of significance this morning.  Writers have said what they've wanted to say.  The  Wall Street Journal, though, has an almost philosophical piece, chiding Obama on his candidacy:

Every vote for a nonincumbent Presidential candidate is in some sense a risk, given the power and complications of the job. But in both his lack of experience and the contradictions between his rhetoric and his agenda, Barack Obama presents a particular leap of hope. It is a sign of how fed up Americans are with Republicans that millions are ready to take that leap even in dangerous times.

Right over the cliff.

Mr. Obama has also understood the political moment better than his opponents in either party. In the primaries, he used his inexperience to advantage by offering himself as a liberal alternative to what seemed like an inevitable, and dispiriting, Clinton replay. He then turned around in the general election to project sober reassurance amid the financial crisis, which was the moment when his poll numbers began to climb above the margin of error against John McCain.

Of course, he didn't actually do anything, which isn't the greatest recommendation for the White House.

None of this changes the fact that voters still know remarkably little about a man who is less than four years out of the Illinois state Senate. While he has already written two autobiographies, there are significant gaps in Mr. Obama's political resume. The nature of his relationship with onetime friend and political contributor Tony Rezko, a convicted felon, or with radicals Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, not to mention Acorn, remains ambiguous or contradictory.

They were all early supporters or mentors, yet during this campaign Mr. Obama has eventually disavowed each one. This is perhaps testimony to a ruthless pragmatism, or maybe opportunism, but what do those relationships say about what he really believes? He is fortunate the media have been so incurious about them -- as opposed, say, to Sarah Palin's Wasilla church or Joe Wurzelbacher's plumbing business.

Ouch.  Mustn't be too harsh on one's journalistic brothers and sisters.

But for all his talk about reaching across the aisle, we can think of no major issue where he has disagreed with his party's dominant interest groups or broken with liberal orthodoxy. Not one.

Change we can't believe in.

If he is elected, Mr. Obama would immediately face the same kind of large, liberal Democratic majority on Capitol Hill that did so much to ruin Jimmy Carter and the first two years of the Clinton Presidency. Is there anything its liberal barons want that he'd oppose? He hasn't said so. On the contrary, Mr. Obama's voting record and agenda suggest that the "transformation" he may have in mind is a return to the pre-Reagan era of government expansion and liberal ascendancy.

And a weak or nonexistent foreign policy.  Remember Carter's?  Real human dynamo.

On national security, Mr. Obama is an even greater man of mystery. Perhaps once in office he will take the course of prudent realism. He can certainly sound hawkish when he wants to, advocating unilateral military strikes inside Pakistan and promising the kind of open-ended commitment to the Afghan conflict that he claims we can't afford or sustain in Iraq. Yet he ran irresponsibly against the surge in Iraq and now has his lucky stars to thank that Mr. McCain prevailed in that debate, so Mr. Obama would inherit a far more stable Middle East. His belief that diplomacy can stop Tehran's nuclear ambitions is also naive, and we suspect would be shown to be so early in his Administration with an Iranian nuclear declaration, if not a test.

Finally...

Perhaps this is the kind of leadership the American people want after the Presidential certitudes of the Bush years. Americans certainly are eager for fresh start, and it is typical of periods of economic panic that they may even be willing to reach for the kind of alluring but untested appeal that so marks Mr. Obama. Sometimes these gambles pay off, and sometimes they don't.

Quite a gamble.  The 9/11 hijackers could not have imagined this.

November 3, 2008.      Permalink          

UPDATE AT 6:43 A.M. ET:  Zogby has Obama up seven, 51-44, a gain of one.  Wall Street Journal/NBC has him up eight, 51-43.  Zogby comments that Obama could have a big day tomorrow.  It's hard to know whether to take Zogby's comments that seriously,  as his polls have been all over the map.  The fact is, though, that all polls have Obama in the lead.  His highest figure, 54 percent, is in the CBS poll, which has him up 13.  His lowest, 47 percent, is in both the IBD/TIPP and Fox polls, which have him up two and three, respectively.