What Happened Yesterday? The Underlying Panic and 'Comeback' (of which I was blissfully ignorant)

I own an Internet based business and I work from home. I make my own hours so I worked through Monday evening and into Tuesday morning excited about Election Day, feeling supremely confident with most of the pre-Halloween weekend polls showing President Bush up from 2-4 percent in most national polls.

I watched the first hours or so of Fox and Friends to get the first shots of people lining up at the polls. I was excited and confident. I finally went to bed, determined to wake up early in the afternoon and resume my vigil in front of the TV (I had already voted early in Texas last week).

I woke up and, its somewhat of a fog, can't remember everything, but in the background I heard something about early exit-polling was rumored to be favoring Kerry. But maybe I saw it somewhere here on freerepublic.com - I honestly can't remember. I went on Drudge and the headlines did indeed reflect that there was comfort in the Kerry camp over the early exit poll numbers. Yet - I saw a little thing somewhere that the numbers were suspect, that they were erroneously weighted with too many female voters.

"Oh, Ok, I thought". I was totally not panicked. This was about 2 PMish or so CST. I had not been listening to much else so I was not inundated with panic rumors that I understand from family around the country was emanating from conservative talk shows like Dennis Prager. My sister called me and she was sick to her stomach.

"Danny, what is going on! I am hearing these strange reports...", my sister calling from Los Angeles.

"Les, I have been on Freerepublic.com and I have heard something vague about exit polls but its been debunked. There is something about badly weighted polls and that they are not reliable and to ignore them."

She was calling from her cell phone and she was literally sickened and was so relieved to have me check on things for her as she was in her car. I told her to buck up and don't worry, that things were OK. I had no idea to be honest with you, of what was really going on. Ignorance can be bliss. But my ignorance and propensity on this momentous day to come straight to freerepublic.com and check 'what was going on' saved me the aggravation nd panic that my sister and so many people, i am finding out, went through throughout the afternoon.

Sis was relieved. She is my little sis and she really trusts me and I reassured her. Before I got off the phone with her I went back to Drudge and told her that Drudge had pulled the headline so it must not be important enough to worry about. Again, she breathed a sigh of relief.

I then showered and lunched, and answered some business email. I wanted to settle in for a long comfortable evening with no distraction.

I noticed right away as I started my TV watching (Fox News) that something was a little amiss with the Fox news staff demeanor. I shrugged it off. But it persisted to the point that at 7:30 PMish or so I called sis back and asked her if she noticed the somber mood on the panel.

I now am fascinated today to find out that the exit polling info spelled doom for Bush and all the punditry at FNC knew it as did Bush and his team. Its all unfolding now and I am almost laughing about how ignorantly blissful I was bopping around totally confident about Bush (which turns out was well founded), But this fascinates me. This is quite a story and I would love to hear your story:

Anyone want to share in this thread about this? I am truly fascinated. Did you all know there was bad emanations occurring? What was your attitude? Were you panicked and did you have a surge of hope like a major comeback win (ala Bosox beating the Yankees after being down 3-0). Were some of you like me, blissfully ignorant and are just finding out as the evening matured last night and through today what was going on in the background?

Well, seeing as you asked for something like this, I wrote an email narrative of election events up until early Wednesday morning, which I emailed to key relatives that would listen, but I'm positive I fouled up the details - so I would appreciate any comments to set the record right...

"It looks like it is in the bag. The only thing missing is a concession speech from a completely graceless candidate, and the integrity necessary for a profoundly biased mainstream media, Fox included, to broadcast the blatantly obvious. Bush is eminently gracious not to have come out by now and said "Look, I don't care if Kerry and his sycophantic press won't concede, the votes are in, I am the victor - and we will continue along the paths my administration has laid out." A concession would be asking too much from Kerry, who came waaaaaay too close to being President of a nation that I'm having a hard time recognizing anymore, seeing as he received 47% of the vote.

I was able to watch the drama of all this last night - because it has been day here in Shanghai - all through the election counting process. I have never seen anything like this - this has been one of the most outrageous displays of partisanship and outright cheating I've ever seen, by a supposedly neutral media - and Democratic election officials, in New Mexico particularly.

We cannot allow these people to ever gain power, because they have demonstrated by their attempts to STEAL power, that they should never ever gain it.

Let me start with the early calls from exit polling...

Early on, while polls were still open everywhere, the media started gleefully reporting on exit polling from key swing states, Florida, ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Michigan, among others. Florida and Ohio were critical to Bush's strategy. Based on zero votes counted - they started trumpeting that Kerry was significantly ahead in these completely unscientific exit polls. This served to demoralize our conservative base, and about 1pm - morale online at key conservative sites hit bottom. However, everybody urged everyone to get out and vote, since the only poll that counts is the counting of ballots. I turned in for the night, since it was 2am my time.

When I woke up, things had started to turn around somewhat, but the polls were still open. Florida and Ohio were still not looking too good, Pennsylvania was tanking, Minnesota looked pretty bad, and all the other states such as Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, Washington were still too early in the voting process.

We all were on the edge of our seats, as mainstream media started looking forward to a Kerry win with gleeful smiles on their faces. Meanwhile, the very few conservative commentators reported that Team Bush was still confident, and then Mrs. Cheney was interviewed, which calmed quite a few online posters down.

But the news got better after the polls closed, and actual vote counting started. All eyes focused on Florida, and I think that Kerry took an early lead in the count, but it was widely known that the first areas to report in were heavily Democratic. Meanwhile Ohio started counting too, and that was going neck and neck. If Bush lost either one - we were probably going to lose the election. Then the media started calling states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Maine, New Hampshire and others for Kerry - with no votes counted yet!!

But they did NOT do the same for battleground states that Bush had a clear lead in. This continued all through the night. Now certain states were not battleground states - they were known to be clearly Kerry - or cleary Bush. States such as New York, MD,IL, Mass, CT, Maine, VT were all known to be Kerry states, whereas the entire South was known to be Bush territory, except for FL. All the focus was on Florida, Ohio, PA, MN, NH, NV, WI, NM, OR, MI, Iowa, HI, and kind of in that order. I may have missed a few though.

Anyway, first up was Florida, and the pundits were all over the map on which way it would go - as the votes were counted. Bush then developed a small but significant lead - but whereas they would immediately call a state such as Pennsylvania for Kerry - as soon as any lead developed - they absolutely refused to do the same for Bush. They were obviously gritting through their teeth when calling out vote counts for Bush states - but they would not drop battleground states into Bush's column.

Along about midnight though, the vote tally for Florida indicated a virtual mathematical impossibility for Kerry to catch up to Bush - and STILL.. none of the media would call Florida for Bush. The anger online spread from coast to coast. Meanwhile the media was prattling on about all the Kerry states they were allocating, when vote count totals were still below 50%.

Finally...one of the outlets called Florida for Bush, but only a few followed. Eventually, the various networks were dragged kicking and screaming into allocating Florida to Bush - but some still are making noises about possible absentee ballots changing that. Good luck - absentee ballots always tilt Republican...

But then the focus shifted to Ohio - come on Ohio! Although Kerry might have led at a few points, Bush developed a small lead there too. The pundits, though, continued to hold out that key Democratic precincts hadn't reported in yet. So we all looked at the outstanding counties waiting to report - and there was only one major Democratic county around Cleveland, where Kerry could possible overcome a 100,000+ Bush lead. That county failed to make enough of a dent in Bush's lead, and the remaining counties were likely to go half and half - or leaned Bush. Then suddenly, the Democrats and media started talking about 150,000 outstanding "provisional" ballots, which were vaguely defined as having to be amended at the last moment because of some foulup in local candidate listings, I think.

All the hopes and dreams of the Democrats shifted to these provisional ballots - which they somehow thought could go so profoundly for Kerry that they could overcome a 134,000 Bush lead. When this sounded a little too desperate, CNN started talking about a quarter million of these provisional ballots. The Ohio secretary of state corrected that attempted pig flight, and said there were 150,000 of these MAX. It was then reported that a plane-load of Kerry lawyers had left Boston, bound for Ohio. Meanwhile the precincts continued to report in, Bush's lead dropping, then rising until at 89% of precincts reporting in - it was 134,000 or 160,000 - can't exactly remember....and STILL, none of the media would give it to Bush - all while they continued to allocate states with much less of a Kerry lead - to Kerry.

Then finally one of the mainstream media called Ohio for Bush - acceding to math and the absolutely obvious. Few followed suit - because what that would mean was that Bush had essentially won. Ohio would give him 269 electoral votes - which would be at least a tie - which would throw it into the House, where the GOP-controlled House would then decide the next President. There was one sticky wicket, though. One little elector from the GOP state of West Virginia had publicly stated before the election that he would vote for Kerry no matter how his state voted. Just what I like about Democrats, the hell with the voters...it's what THEY want that counts.

However, it was quickly established that the West Virginian legislature could recall the entire slate of electors, and put in new ones pledged to honor the state vote - which is the only job of an elector in the first place. But this would have made it a doubly sloppy Bush win - since it would require first this legality - then a House vote to elect Bush, giving all kinds of room for Democratic whining and carping about the election being "stolen".

No, Team Bush needed a clear win. Sitting at 269 electoral votes, all he needed was one more state to clearly and unequivocally win the election. Still waiting to give a final determinative count for either candidate, was NM, NV, OR, WI, PA, Iowa, and Hawaii. PA, WI, OR were called by the msm for Kerry, so focus then shifted to NV, NM, and Iowa. Bush was leading in all three, by 30,000 in New Mexico with 101% of the precincts reporting in. 101%...not a typo, go figure. But Richardson had publicly promised that he would deliver NM to the Kerry camp. Democracy, Democrat-style.

Then suddenly, Governor Richardson announced that a whole pile of uncounted ballots had been discovered - 28,000 of them, and wouldn't you know it - there was not a single Bush vote in that entire pile! I am not kidding. Fraud at its most blatant. Bush's lead dropped to 1000. But Richardson didn't steal enough, and Bush's lead regrew first to 6000, then to 14,000 - with 103% of the precincts reporting in(?). Nobody can figure out exactly what's going on in New Mexico, although it's pretty obvious what is being attempted in general terms. (New Mexico has a long history of this, in fact - they pulled one of these in 2000, and stole New Mexico from Bush during the last election - but Bush decided to ignore that and concentrate on stopping a Florida theft-attempt, since if he lost Florida, New Mexico wouldn't have mattered anyway).

Team Bush decided to look at a cleaner state to get its clear unequivocal win - and that would be either Iowa or Nevada, strangely enough. Nevada was reporting 100% count and Bush had a small but absolutely clear lead. The Kerry camp stated it was contesting the results...on the basis that they don't like them. So here is where we sit, at 6:39 am EST.You have CNN, CBS, ABC and the AP calling Nevada for Bush, but not calling Ohio for Bush. Meanwhile, you have NBC and Fox calling Ohio for Bush, but not calling Nevada for Bush.

Andrew Card from Team Bush decided to put an end to this charade, and stated a little while ago that Bush won the election with 286 electoral votes - which includes the electoral counts from NV, NM, and Iowa. He also stated that Bush got 3.5 million more votes than did Kerry, and that Bush had received the most votes of any Presidential candidate in history. Game Over. But the classless, graceless, integrity-less Kerry camp and Mainstream Media still refuse to concede. So be it. It's not up to them anyway. The voters have spoken."

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