The surprise twist ending: it was all a crazy dream!

Contratulations, President Dean!

Via Pandagon.

It's been a long week, kids. I think I'm gonna close up shop early for the weekend.

Had to finish my weekly cartoon and write an essay for Slate--they asked me to contribute to one of their forum-type thingies. The result is here.

I've been at my desk since early this morning going back and forth between the two. Must turn off computer now.

More like nonexistent--it's a heavy deadline day, due to a screwy post-election schedule. I just didn't want to leave that last entry at the top. We've got to lick our wounds and dive back in. When they repeat, ad infinitum, that "nobody" voted for Kerry, keep in mind that 55,554,114 Americans actually did. That's a lot of nobodies. This is a setback, no doubt, but this ongoing debate over the future of our country isn't over by a long shot. As the man said, don't mourn, organize.

More later.

(...the man being Joe Hill, of course, though several readers have pointed out that Mother Jones is credited with this phrase as well.)

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Sorry--that's all I've really got for you right now.

Or maybe that should be 'mourning thoughts.' Not that I'm tossing in the towel just yet, but I'm also not oblivious to reality. The hell of it is, John Kerry actually ran a decent campaign. There are some things you can quibble with, but overall, I can't really Monday morning quarterback him. The Democrats actually seemed to have their act together. They were organized, outspoken, worked hard at GOTV efforts.

And yet. Here we are.

I don't really have the energy for a full post-mortem quite yet. Too little sleep for two nights running, and besides, I am of course not tossing in the towel just yet. But I do have one thought: those of you who "don't agree with Bush on social issues," but voted for him because you thought Kerry would somehow not be serious about the war, or maybe because you'll do a little bit better on your taxes under Bush--I'm afraid you may get the country you deserve, a country in which conservative fundamentalist Christians are calling the shots on abortion and civil liberties and gay rights and a lot of other things you probably care about, or at least should. But hey, you made your bargain. It's just too bad the rest of us--the 48% as of this writing, who voted for another, very different America--have to get dragged down with you.

Not that I am tossing in the towel just yet.

...TBogg is not sounding like an optimist this morning:

Four more years of American soldiers being used as cannon fodder.

Four more years of scientific decisions being made by people who believe in a ghost in the clouds.

Four more years of debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay off.

Four more years of racists and lunatics for judicial appointments

Four more years of looting the treasury and squandering it on corporate cronies.

Four more years of making enemies faster than we can kill them.

Four more years of fear and darkness and racism and hatred and stupidity and guns and bad country music.

I look at the big map and all of the red in flyover country and I feel like I've been locked in a room with the slow learners. We have become the country that pulls a dry cleaning bag over its head to play astronaut.

...projects Ohio "too close to call."

Fox and NBC have already called it for Bush.

...387,000 votes in Ohio yet to be counted, according to CNN.

120,000 provisional.

Margin is only 100,000.

It's too soon to call this election.

...for Iowa, no final tally until tomorrow, due to broken machines and "fatigue".

I'm going to bed. Have to get a cartoon out tomorrow, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have for blogging.

...there is no denying that this looks bad.

But if the media declare a Bush victory and if Kerry concedes "for the good of the country" and if we're staring down the long bleak prospect of another four years of Bush & Co., without even the prospect of re-election to hold them back...

Well, never forget the numbers. Never forget that if we who voted for sanity are in the minority, it is only by the barest margin. Do not let them turn a squeaker of a win into the myth of a landslide.

There are still hundreds of thousands of absentee and provisional ballots to be counted.

What Rove knows and Democrats are only now just learning is that the endgame in an election isn't the final tally; it's framing the narrative in how the final tally is counted.

There are still hundreds of thousands of absentee and provisional ballots to be counted.

Right this minute -- right now, go, seriously -- contact the national media, plus every media outlet in the close states that you can find -- and demand that they not call any results final until the results are actually final.

There are still hundreds of thousands of absentee and provisional ballots to be counted.

The perception that the uncounted votes aren't important could congeal in the next 24 hours.

Let's win the endgame this time.

FAIR's media contact list is here.

Newslink's complete media list, indexed by state, is here.

Ohio TV stations. Ohio newspapers. Ohio radio stations.

GOTV is done. Now let's Get Out The Media.

Don't blow this, Democrats. There's too much at stake.

As you undoubtedly recall, those are the immortal words of Diebold's Warren O'Dell in a fundraising letter sent to Republicans last year.

Well.

It's finally arrived--the day that defines the next four years. With any luck, we'll be giving George Bush his walking papers today--and with him, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rove, and the whole rotten crew.

I'll spare you the lecture on the importance of voting. If you're visiting this site, there's probably no need.

We've all been focused on this day for so long. Now, the waiting.

...I woke up this morning at 3 a.m. and thought, This is either Christmas morning or the day of a close friend's funeral. I've been awake since then, and I'm still not sure which.

Okay, sure, most every poll you can find has the race neck-and-neck, too close to call, insert your political cliche here...

...but 92% of Bill O'Reilly's viewers think Bush will win tomorrow.

Bob Kerrey, on Larry King Live (via Tapped):

KERREY: Well, I hope Marc's right. I hope it doesn't happen but my guess is and I don't have any influence over John Kerry and the DNC. My advice to him would be not to litigate.

KING: Not to litigate?

KERREY: Not to litigate. I mean, look, you've got an exceptionally difficult period in the history of mankind. I disagree with Marc on why it's troubled times. I think it's part troubled because of the way the Iraq War has been conducted but it is a troubled time, a difficult time and not to have a president of the United States inaugurated and a peaceful transition one way or the other (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
…

But I would prefer that I mean if it's a close -- if it's close and there's an opportunity to litigate, I would say to John Kerry don't litigate. Let Bush be the president.

Translation: if the Republicans manage to sow enough doubt and confusion, then for the good of the country, step aside and let Bush have another term.

Lord. I've been hoping that Democrats are ready to fight hard, if tomorrow and the days following turn into some sort of repeat of 2000, so I really hope Bob Kerrey's opinion is not representative. I mean, can you imagine a Republican giving his party's candidate this advice? If there's any unpleasantness, just give up and let Kerry win. Sure.

Charleston County election officials cautioned South Carolinians on Friday to steer clear of a fake letter that threatens the arrest of voters who have outstanding parking tickets or have failed to pay child support.

"I'm outraged," said Jill Miller, director of the Charleston County Board of Election and Voter Registration. "This is so bogus."

The one-page letter poses as a message from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The Rev. Joe Darby, vice president of the state NAACP chapter, said he received the letter at his home in Charleston. It had Columbia postmark with no return address.

He said the letter was an attempt to scare minorities from voting Tuesday because the author of the message assumes black people are in trouble with the law.

"This is old South Carolina politics," said Darby. "I don't think anybody will fall for this."

Story here (via TPM.)

According to a "new" translation of the bin Laden video that Fox News has come up with, bin Laden has taken sides and, yes, wants Kerry to win.

Just in case you missed this one:

WASHINGTON - The Army extended a Halliburton Co. troop support contract over the objections of a top contracting officer, even contending — and then withdrawing — a claim that U.S. forces faced an emergency if the company didn't get the extra work.

"I wrote directly on the document the weaknesses ... so that all could clearly see," contracting official Bunnatine Greenhouse wrote a top general this month in questioning the extended troop support contract in the Balkans.

Greenhouse has had problems with the $2 billion contract at least since January 2002, when she wrote, "There is little or no incentive for the contractor to reduce or keep cost down."