(1) The red-state, blue-state pattern persists but the whole country shifted toward the Democrats;
(2) The youth vote was 18% of the electorate, up from 17% in 2004, as against young people being 22% of the population.
(3) The polls were pretty accurate.
And more, with good graphs.
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6 comments
November 5, 2008 at 8:06 am
kid bitzer
right. for instance:
r.i.p. bradley effect.
also possibly:
r.i.p. vietnam war hangovers.
that’s the last time a vietnam vet is going to run for president. slowly, we are getting over that national nightmare.
just in time for: who lost iraq! dolchstosse II!
even there, though, i think obama has a fair shot at being able to explain to the country that not only is withdrawal the right thing to do, but it was already the bush policy. i.e. every charge of ‘you surrendered in iraq!’ can be met with, ‘no; the bush administration agreed to timetables for withdrawal. if anyone surrendered, it was bush. we just speeded up the timetable a bit, at the request of the sovereign purple-thumbed iraq democracy’.
and honestly, on that and every other front, one of the priorities for obama has got to be:
telling the united states how badly bush has fucked it up, and making it clear why the hard choices ahead are his fault.
e.g., making it clear that every tax-hike is a bush tax-hike, because the man who spent the money is the one responsible for the tax.
November 5, 2008 at 8:09 am
kid bitzer
man, even for me that was an uncommonly incoherent post.
November 5, 2008 at 8:23 am
bw
what else happened? hundreds of thousands of people spilled into the streets all over the globe in spontaneous celebration. can anyone think of an american election that prompted this kind of response — even domestically?
that scene outside the white house was amazing. the last time i remember footage like this was the berlin wall coming down. is that hyperbolic?
also, the talking heads — at least on channels I watched — almost immediately put race to the fore (as did obama), after 2 years of skirting the issue (for dems) or exploiting racial tensions (for the bad guys). bush is speaking live right now praising generations of civil rights leaders.
what else happened? i made it through the night without hearing palin open her mouth. and then she slinked back to her hole in the great white north. good riddance!
do the historians have comments on how the term “history” played last night?
November 5, 2008 at 8:38 am
Matt Weiner
hundreds of thousands of people spilled into the streets all over the globe in spontaneous celebration
On my way back home from watching the returns with the Democratic party, all these people ran by me down the hill on the way downtown. Young people are excited. (In Vermont anyway.)
November 5, 2008 at 9:34 am
Fats Durston
dolchstosse II!
Don’t you mean Dolchstosse II: Electric Hootchie-Koo?
November 5, 2008 at 9:37 am
kid bitzer
i *did* mean that; that’s *exactly* what i meant.
i just somehow forgot to say it.
thank you.