I was struck by a Nixon quote I saw on NBC tonight. He said, in 1968, to a deeply divided America, that he would make it his top priority to reunite the country. It didn’t work out so well for him. I wonder if Bush will be any more successful in his similar promise.

On Iraq and 9/11

I still don’t know why the Democrats fell in line behind Bush on Iraq so easily. Why did they let him get away with his “dissent is un-patriotic” line? And c’mon, Sen. Kerry, how could you really have believed he would exercise his authority responsibly?

I think the Democrats voted the way they did as a political calculation. It didn’t work. Next time, try actually standing up for what you believe. Maybe the voters will then see you as an actual alternative, instead of just Republican-lite.

The Media

In 2006, I want to hear more about issues than polls. More about issues than who is ahead at the moment. And far more about issues than the partisan spin doctors.

Not one of the major networks did a good job. NPR did a good job. Heck, British sources provided better coverage of the isues than many American sources.

On Paniced Democrats

A lot of Democrats seem to have a “world is falling” mentality. Let’s put this in perspective:

• Nixon was initially elected partly on the basis of ending a war he had secretly helped to prolong, and we all know how his re-election campaign went. And a Democrat got us into that war.
• Not too many centuries ago, you didn’t lose an election. Rather, you lost the war, and all your men were killed, your women raped, children enslaved, and resources looted.
• We survived Watergate, Vietnam, Panama, etc. We can survive this.

On Daschle

He deserved to lose. He encouraged weakness among Democrats and had nothing but failed strategies as far as I can remember. He was clearly out-witted by Lott at just about every turn. Too bad the Democratic senators couldn’t manage to replace him sooner.

Gay Marriage

I am extremely sad that people are reducing tolerance and civil rights through constitutional amendments.

Unity

I think there is a slim chance that this will happen. The Democrats are rightly ticked about all the partison rancor, dirty tricks, and intentional divisiveness perpetrated by the Republicans and are not likely to just fall in line again.

Hmm… The Kerry campaign says “There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio.” Then why has does he concede the election to Bush?

Howard Dean has one of the most upbeat messages from any Democrat today. I guess the 2008 campaign starts today. Not that Dean will run himself, but he’s obviously not stopping everything.

So I’m watching and listening to the election results trickle in. Various members of the different parties are, of course, being interviewed. And they are all “optimistic” that they will win and say that they strongly believe they will win. Even in the same state.

Obviously they can’t both be right.

My question is: why are they still spinning? The polls are closed in the states they’re talking about! What is the point? Can’t anybody admit to any unease ever?

Four years ago, I listened to the election returns on the BBC world service and NPR. I also had a TV on in the background and occasionally watched it, but my primary source of information was BBC. This provided an interesting perspective — and in fact, proved to be more accurate than the American media that night.

This year, I again plan to listen to the BBC world service. If you want to listen, you can go to the world service page and find traditional frequencies near you or global shortwave frequencies. Note: in North America, try the Central America, North Africa, or West Europe feeds. You can also listen live via streaming radio.

I’ll probably also listen to NPR. On the TV, I’m going to have LinkTV’s global coverage going. And probably a little but of more mainstream networks here and there.

I’ll be glad to hear some viewpoints that I haven’t already been inundated with.

Update: I forgot to mention news.google.com, a great resource.

The latest Paul Graham essay is again food for thought. This time he advocates using hackers as a sort of warning system for preventing the destruction associated with the erosion of civil liberties.

This is an interesting commentary from Mark Shields of PBS.