I Told You So

Bravo to the Winner! I've never been happier! Cheers to Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter, on winning his first Gold Glove.

Oh ... as for that other race. Well, let me just say it: I was right. I told you so. I know, I know, the Electoral College votes are not complete yet. But it's all over.

I do think that my reasoning for predicting Bush the winner over 7 months ago was also correct. I suggested back then that Bush's fundamentalist religious base would be fortified and that it would play a crucial role in his victory. The President clearly retained that constituency and strengthened its support.

Some people were saying that the youth vote would offset that fundamentalist base. But the youth vote was stable at 17%, contrary to predictions that it would usher in Kerry Nation. In the end, though exit poll voters named the economy (20%), terrorism (19%), and Iraq (15%) as important issues, the issue of"Moral Values" (22%) polled the highest. And 80% of those who chose"Moral Values" as the issue of the day, voted for Bush. These are not people with secular humanist moral frameworks. They are overwhelmingly religious voters.

This strategy was decisive for the Bush Electoral victory, the brainchild of Karl Rove, who, surprise, surprise, has a history of running gay-baiting campaigns, going all the way back to Bush's gubernatorial race in Texas. Interestingly, same-sex marriage bans were approved in 11 states. Two of these states (Michigan and Oregon) went to Kerry. But the other nine (Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Utah) went to Bush. Such ballot questions brought out the fundamentalist vote. One might say that they were designed to do so.

And in that crucial Ohio race—the state that is still technically in contention, but that will put the President over the top—the anti-gay marriage amendment was the most extreme proposed measure in the country. Not only does the approved amendment bar same-sex marriage; it bars even unions that"approximate marriage." The amendment passed in Ohio; exit polls show that 67% of those who voted to approve this ban also voted for George W. Bush. Those who cared most about the economy, by contrast, voted for Kerry.

The President, with a Republican House, and a firmer Republican majority in the Senate, is on his way. He's won a 51% majority of the votes cast and is in the process of squeaking out an Electoral College victory. He is also a social conservative who has disowned fiscal responsibility, a free-wheeling big spender, who has yet to veto a single bill, and who will extend the welfare state domestically and abroad, as he continues to forge a nation-building crusade to bring"democracy" to the Middle East. At the expense of American taxpayers and American lives. All in the name of a"War on Terror" that has been damaged seriously by his Iraq adventure.

In other words: Everything today is pretty much as it was yesterday.

God help us.