I Am Undone

I am undone, my happiness destroyed, we have yet Hillary with us.

I woke up this morning peeved that I'd been suckered. People told me Hillary was going to lose, I was delighted. She didn't lose. I am destroyed. But I wasn't really suckered. The polls were wrong. All the polls. That's not the same as being suckered. That means there was a mistake. And the mistake probably wasn't in the measurement of sentiment, of candidate preference, but was only in the prediction of turnout.

This is an argument made by Jay Cost, a pretty cerebral guy who looks at numbers. He examined the exit polls and to the question: When did you make up your mind? the answers were that for thirty days prior to the election the movement was towards Obama, the last three days the numbers stabilized, and in the last 24 hours those finally at that late date making up their minds broke evenly between Obama and Hillary. So there was no great Hillary resurgence, all Hillary actually did was just staunch the bleeding. Obama was genuinely ahead, the polls were right, but the Hillary supporters voted and the Obama supporters didn't, at least not in proportion to their inclination.

So the election was determined by turnout. You can't get more conventional than that. The candidate that can get his supporters to the polls wins. The Hillary campaign did that. --It is interesting to me though that I don't see evidence that it was because their organization was so much superior. It probably was marginally better, but I get the strong sense that it's just that the Hillary supporters were more committed. They were voting for something comparatively specific, the Obama supporters were just enraptured by vapors.

I should remember my initial thoughts. My first concern was that Romney be defeated in the first two states. My reasoning was that I didn't want to see a man buy himself the momentum that would lead to the nomination. That momentum has been stopped. I got what I wanted. I still powerfully dislike the guy and would prefer to see him disappear, but I think now that in terms of democratic process I've got what I should most want, a pretty even fight. He has the advantage of personal fortune, but that's something we accept in our process and in every other sense now things are equal, there's no bought-and-paid-for momentum. Each candidate has to still campaign.

I think the same is true for the Democrats. I so dislike the Clintons that I really wanted Hillary destroyed. It didn't happen, but then I'm not a Democrat. It's not really my business what those silly people do. They still want her in the race, ugh, but that's their business. At least now there is the possibility of a fight. That's immensely more than anyone would have anticipated just two months ago.

So, all-in-all, as a man who esteems the democratic process, I guess I have to be pleased. There will be no coronation in either party, there will be struggle, and struggle clarifies things. That's good, so I guess I'm just tickled pink. Bummer.