SwiftVets.com

[sleeplessinseattle]

This is very funny and intriguing at the same time. Notice all the characters, Franken, and the politicos...interesting. And the impact on this election of the VERY BAD exit polls continues to be assessed and pondered.

LIBERALS (EVENTUALLY) DESPAIR.
Night Falls
by Ryan Lizza

Boston, Massachusetts

he expectations had gotten so out of control that, on Tuesday afternoon, we reporters gathered in the ballroom of the Fairmont Copley Plaza had already moved on to the second-, third-, and fourth-day stories. The exit polls seemed to show such a clear sweep of the battleground states for John Kerry that the news of his victory already seemed stale. What would the more solidly Republican Senate mean for Kerry's ambitious health care plan? Who would he appoint to replace ailing Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist? Most important, how could Kerry co-opt John McCain, a Republican frontrunner for the 2008 presidential election? Yep, it's true. We were already speculating about the dynamics of Kerry's reelection campaign. Some got to work on pieces about the transition. A newspaper reporter at a major daily polished an article about George W. Bush's concession speech. Now that we "knew" the winner, the whole campaign seemed so obvious. The Swift Boat attacks had come too early to do any real damage. The Clintonites added late in the campaign were geniuses. Karl Rove's base strategy was delusional.

A feedback loop between staffers and the media only reinforced the dangerously wrong conventional wisdom. Everywhere, Blackberries clicked and crackled as people beamed each other the addictive exit polls. With Kerry aides floating among the press corps, conversations evolved from "What are you hearing?" in the morning to "Are you moving to Washington?" in the afternoon. I compared notes with Jamie Rubin, a senior foreign policy adviser. He popped open a message on his PDA that showed two long columns of state abbreviations and numbers. The first line showed Kerry ahead by 17 points in one swing state. We agreed to swap any new numbers that came our way. The exit polls were like crack.

The mood among Kerry staffers was celebratory. VIP guests roamed the hotel lobby hugging and high-fiving. By the time Joe Lockhart briefed the press in the afternoon, the campaign had started to pivot toward a message that discouraged talk of litigation, recounts, or overtime of any sort. "We think the system has worked today," Lockhart said on Fox News. "There were thousands of lawyers deployed to make sure that no one tried to take unfair advantage, and, by and large, it's worked. I've seen very few reports of irregularities. ... There's not much going on." They were so confident that they were preemptively striking at any Republican legal efforts to steal Kerry's victory.



he mood shifted markedly in the early evening. There were sudden bouts of déjà-vu as aides realized that, in 2000, early exit polls had given Al Gore's high command the same false sense of optimism. "I can't believe I forgot," said one aide. It started to dawn on midlevel operatives that a Bush victory in Florida and Ohio would make all of Kerry's seemingly large margins in the smaller battlegrounds meaningless. "All we've done so far is hold the Gore states," said one Democratic strategist, echoing the newly realist tone. Aides to John Edwards experienced a particularly abrupt change in fortunes. Edwards had been doing last-minute interviews in Florida. When his plane took off for Boston, the political world was at its peak of pro-Kerry exit-poll hysteria. When he landed, everyone was coming down from their exit-poll high. "I can't take this. I have to get a drink," said one shaken Edwards adviser, watching CNN call states for Bush in the increasingly tense lobby bar.

At a certain point late in the evening, all signs of the Kerry campaign vanished. Many advisers deserted the Fairmont, with its swarming hordes of reporters, and retreated to the neighboring Westin, where much of Kerry's staff was ensconced. Our last official contact with the staff was around 12:30 Wednesday morning, when Mike McCurry and Lockhart cruised through the press filing center and made an unconvincing case that Kerry would carry Ohio. Soon, e-mails stopped being returned. There were no signs of the candidate himself. A reporter for The Washington Times on body-watch duty actually tiptoed close enough to Kerry's Beacon Hill mansion to catch a glimpse of the senator. "Mr. Kerry," he e-mailed other reporters, "with his unmistakable coif and profile, appeared in the window, clear as day. He passed back and forth and ducked down several times as if picking up papers off the floor. [I] watched him for several minutes but, alas, he has disappeared. There appears to be no more activity in that window."

The scene among supporters gathered for the victory celebration in front of the Boston Public Library was dreary. A light rain fell on the crowd. Many cameramen and producers, waiting around all day, had retreated underneath the scaffolding of the press riser for protection, an area that had taken on the look of a squatters' camp for the homeless. When the two giant TV screens flashed Tom Brokaw's visage at 1 a.m., the crowd collectively held its breath. "It's our projection that George W. Bush is the winner of the twenty electoral votes in Ohio," he said. The reaction was a spooky, almost total, silence. "We'll be back from Democracy Plaza," Brokaw said as he cut to commercial. A smattering of people yelled a short-lived and half-hearted chant of "********." Al Franken, the liberal comedian and radio host, looked dumbfounded. "****," he said. NBC's coverage was zapped off, and a black gospel choir stepped onto the stage. The soloist sang an eerie, beautiful version of "God Bless America." The crowd watched in frozen silence as rain drizzled down.

When the choir finished, CNN's Judy Woodruff appeared onscreen talking about Ohio. "Our analysts are saying that is not a comfortable enough margin to give them the confidence to call," she said. And, just like that, Kerry's dejected supporters became newly energized. "It's not over," said a volunteer to no one in particular.



ut it was. Whatever chance Kerry had to make up the 136,000-vote deficit in Ohio was dashed when his senior aides canvassed the county clerks' offices and learned that the provisional ballots upon which their hopes rested were dispersed across the state, not just in the Democratic counties. "There were only twenty-four thousand in Cuyahoga," a Democratic stronghold that went 67-33 for Kerry, campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said later. Kerry's senior staff met until 4 a.m., and many counseled him to continue on. But the hard data made the call easy. "We reconvened at eight in the morning. The due diligence was done. We got the numbers," über-adviser Bob Shrum told reporters. "Once we got [the provisional ballot numbers from] Mahoning [County]"--which went 63-37 for Kerry--"it became clear there would not be enough ballots that would be in his favor," said Cahill. By 10 a.m., Kerry had made the decision to concede.

On Wednesday, Kerry's concession speech at Boston's Faneuil Hall felt like a wake. The whole cast of the Kerry campaign sat on hard wooden folding chairs below a giant mural of the great Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster. Kerry's two daughters sobbed and hugged. Teresa Heinz looked oddly serene. (Did she ever really want to be first lady?) John Edwards sat at attention in the front row during Kerry's speech, making the practiced, conspicuous facial expressions of a politician who knows the camera may be shooting him at any given moment. His own short speech sounded like the kickoff to his 2008 presidential campaign. His mention of Kerry was almost perfunctory. But, lest anyone accuse him of being a disloyal Democrat, as Joe Lieberman was tagged in this year's primaries, aides say that Edwards was one of the diehards advising Kerry to take the most aggressive Ohio strategy available, even if it meant litigation. Ted Kennedy, who helped re-staff the Kerry campaign last November after a leadership purge, was shell-shocked. Afterward, he and Shrum embraced. This was probably the last presidential campaign for the two men, who have been best friends since Shrum wrote Kennedy's famous 1980 concession speech. Like Kennedy, Shrum, now zero for eight in presidential politics, seems destined to be remembered for concession, rather than victory, speeches. Also hugging were McCurry and Lockhart, the two Clinton-era political gladiators who tamed the Kerry press corps. Their timing was impeccable. They joined the campaign late enough not to be blamed if Kerry lost but early enough to have been credited had he won.

Like Al Gore in 2000, Kerry was at his best and most gracious in defeat. In the mural behind him, Webster is speaking on the Senate floor during his 1830 debate with Robert Hayne of South Carolina over slavery and states' rights and secession. "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" Webster famously proclaimed during the debate. The backdrop was a nice touch of symbolism on Kerry's part for a speech about bringing the country together. "In the days ahead, we must find common cause. We must join in common effort, without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor. America is in need of unity and longing for a larger measure of compassion." The Webster mural was also a reminder that, for all our bleating about how divided the country is, it's been a whole lot worse. (For those looking for even deeper metaphorical possibilities, Webster opposed the Mexican War and failed three times in his quest for the presidency.)

The speech over, Kerry's staff and family hugged and cried. Asked what she was going to do next, one of Kerry's exhausted senior aides seemed to sum up the general feeling: "I'm going to a bar and getting drunk."

Ryan Lizza is a senior editor at TNR.
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"We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." -- President Bush 2001

Thanks W, Swifties, POWs & brave soldiers everywhere fighting for America and for freedom

[The Balloon Artist]

[Guest]

REVENGE IS SO SWEET

[fastrock]

Made the sacrificed weekends at OSU, the many miles on my flat feet and the occasional abusive remark worthwhile. I took a vacation day on the 2nd to assist wife for election night party. I remember the glum faces on Brit Hume, Carl Cameron, Major G, etc.
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"It is never right to do wrong, even if sanctioned by law" Abe Lincoln
The Last True Cruiser
www.usslongbeach-assoc.org

[Kimmymac]

Quote: "The exit polls were like crack."

Well, I will have to take the reporters word for that. But, from what I here about crack, the high is cheap, intense, short lived, false-- and coming down is a real b*tch.

Ah, the sweet irony of the announcement of Bush's win of Ohio and the gospel choir singing "God Bless America" in the Kerry Kamp. What does the bible say about God's greatness will be proclaimed even at the table of His enemy?

Yes, God bless America, W is president. It is a shame that irony seems to utterly wasted on those people.
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The last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism; it is finicky liberal humanitarianism.--Martin Paretz

[SooZQ]

It struck me on election night that God and the Swifties had
delivered Kerry the defeat, but God had allowed a sort of 'double smack
down' via the exit polls. It was one thing to lose, but it was made all that much more painful to believe they "had it" and then the election turned.
A heartbreaking disappointment that no Swiftie could have controlled.
I see it as a gift from above.
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Really support the troops, send them a letter and care package! Visit:http://www.anysoldier.com

[sleeplessinseattle]

[PC]

[Digger]

Yeah. Just goes to show you that God does have a sense of humor. The trouble is that the Liberals don't get the joke.
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Hey swifty, I'm with you, Just watch you don't get "Kerry'd away in the propwash

Sgt. Maj. Seamus D.D. MacNemi R.M.C. Ret.

[Kimmymac]

Hard to get the joke, when you are the joke.
_________________
The last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism; it is finicky liberal humanitarianism.--Martin Paretz