Tim Blair

Those Philly steak'n'cheese sandwiches must interfere with blood flow to the brain.

Except Bush's approval rating is now at 53%, Michael Moore's film is getting beaten at the box office by movies about fictional animals, and John Kerry's campaign can't get out of reverse.

I hope the Democrats keep thinking they've won, right up until the first of November. Boy will they have a hangover when they wake up.

Looks like they're starting early on the electoral self-delusion.

I was winning before I lost

Listen, the problem here, bigger that anything else is that the Dems have nominated a person that nobody - including the Dems themselves - is excited about. No matter how bad it goes for Bush, when a voter goes into an election booth to vote, he has to see the candidate as a president or he won't pull the lever. This has a 55%-45% decision for Bush written all over it, who will claim over 75% of the electorial college votes. All because a damaged Bush is running against a complete lightweight. Plus, the oldest rule in showbiz is never to put someone on the bill who will outshine the star. The Dems VP pick will just make this worse.

I am not happy with Bush over issues beyond Iraq - mostly domestic spending issues - but his challenger isn't even worth consideration.

The more they gloat now, the better. That'll let us gloat later on with a clear conscience, and make it all the sweeter.

Unfortunately, their confidence this early won't make Republican gloating that much easier -- it'll make their screams about another "stolen election" all the louder.

Just turn the music up louder, that's what I do.

I highly recommend, as gloating music, "In Gabriel's Garden" with Wynton Marsalis on trumpet.
It's several dozen short baroque pieces.
Roll down the window and let it rip.
Order. Beauty. Transcendence. Talent. Hard work.
Make the libs howl.

The Dems may think they have it won, but if the election was held today, Bush would (likely) win. Bush is up in the most recent Rasmussen daily tracker poll, in line with recent trends.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking_Poll.htm

I know they're going to delude themselves into believing the election was stolen. That's one of the things I'm planning to gloat about.

The most important reason for Bush to win AFAIAC is the degree to which the Dems will go batshit-insane. You think they're paranoid nutcases now, wait till they lose again. It will be glorious to behold. If Kerry is defeated, I predict a meltdown on the Left.

Unfortunately, I fear their meltdown would be accompanied by violence. I'd rather not put the country through that.

JEM, did you read Kristol's recent article on spending and the deficit?

You should. Barring another attack, deficit might come in around $435 billion, about 4% of gross??

I wish my debt were that little.

We have a surplus of $19 billion. Corp tax receipts up over 35%.

The Dems are setting up batteries of shock troops I mean lawyers, sorry, to try to steal back the election from Bush. When a reult is close in favor of Bush, They'll get a complaint filed and try to massage the votes to Kerry's favor.

A couple is out taking a drive in the country when they come upon traffic backed up and have to stop. After a short time a state policeman walks up to the window and they ask him what the problem is up ahead. He says that a tour bus full of lawyers has been involved in an accident and the bus has caught fire. The couple then ask if there is anything they can do. The policeman says yes, others have already been mobilizing and they've collected thirty gallons of gasoline.

I agree with Robert. The amount of sheer insanity that the democrats have shown in their unprecedented anti-bush rage is quite likely to spill into violence if and when he is re-elected. I won't be at all surprised to see scenes that make the LA riots look like a pillow fight.

Richard: I'll have to check that out. I like just about anything Baroque. (And it was, after all, music written for the aristocracy and the Church.)

yobbo and Robert, I agree the Left would go batsh*t crazy when (God willing)/if Bush won, with an ascending level of batsh*ttery depending on the margin of victory - but, who's going to lead an actual charge onto the streets?

The MoveOn crowd? Their style is more indignant letters to the editors.

College students? Not enough neo-SDS types to form a real rabble.

The teachers unions? They can barely stay awake in class, so I can't see them mustering the energy to throw a brick.

The media? What, and muss up their hair?

Minorities? They don't have a dog in this fight - the Angry Left is mainly a white phenomenon.

Sorry, but outside of some ANSWER types torching a few Starbucks in San Francisco, I don't see where they are going to get the number of rioters necessary to create major havoc.

yobbo said: "I won't be at all surprised to see scenes that make the LA riots look like a pillow fight"

I'll be surprised. These people are litigators and moaners. Not fighters. I'd expect lots of online moaning and lawsuits, little else.

Don't sweat it, yobbo. To quote Governor Arnold, the hard left in the US is a bunch of girlie-men. Their reaction to losing to Bush is more likely to BE a pillowfight than anything else.

Sad part is, the anti-gun left is still loony enough to try violence, forgetting that it is the right wingers who have the guns, and know how to use them. It could get real ugly, I'm afraid.

Damn it! I wish these uneducated dolts who make up the American press would take a class in basic civics, just once. Then maybe they'd learn that THERE IS NO "INNOCENT" PLEA IN OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM. He plead "not guilty". And yes, there is a difference. Courts do not find a defendant "innocent". Never. Not once. Not an option. They can find "not guilty", which means that the case against the defendant has not met the burden of proof.

A plea of "not guilty" is a refusal to admit in open court that the charges are true, a challenge to the prosecutor to "prove it". "Innocent" is just that, damn difficult to prove, and is not the issue before the court. The courts job it to determine whether guilt has been proved. "Not guilty" is not exoneration, exoneration is not available from the court.

There are those that can explain this better than I can, but I don't consider myself one of the "media elite". And I have no tolerance for those idiots who can't see the distinction.

Reporter Robert Weller has proven himself to be an unschooled moron. A fool. And I guarantee you that he considers himself one of the elite. Damn him and his like.

Sorry, but outside of some ANSWER types torching a few Starbucks in San Francisco, I don't see where they are going to get the number of rioters necessary to create major havoc.

With the media's propensity for making a group of 20 demonstrators appear as though it's a mass protest (especially if they're against Bush), a handful of ANSWER types and a few burning Starbucks may be all it takes to project an image of "nation-wide outrage about the stolen election". And nothing emboldens an angry (and otherwise lazy) Leftist more than seeing public displays of people who agree with him...

I guess in libtard land, this works, but they may want to look to the Great White North: This kind of gloating helped blow it for the Conservatives in Canada.

These are the salad days for Kerry--I'm sure that after the election is over, he'll sit down with former President Michael Dukakis and talk about the good ol' days of July 2004 for hours on end.

If I'm not mistaken the Greeks have had their fair share of Left wing terrorists(Uni lecturers included)Spain have lefty Basques.
Your right in that they won't take to the streets. Blowing up innocents with bombs is more their style.

President Michael Dukakis and talk about the good ol' days of July 2004 for hours on end.

Kerry: It was terrible, Mike, I hadn't been such a slaughter since I was in Vietnam.
Mike: You were in Vietnam?

Minor correction: Matthew Miller is a syndicated columnist, not an employee of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Perhaps more significantly, he worked for the Clinton administration, I think doing budget analyses.

He likes to pose as a moderate. In fact, he's the host of a show on NPR titled "Left, Right, and Center", he being the "Center". Really.

He isn't always wrong. From the reviews I have read, his book ("2 Percent Solution", or something like that) has some interesting ideas, but he is, like so many Clintonians, trapped by his own partisanship.

(Oh, and I should add that, despite the last names, we are not related.)

Sandy P-

Yes, I am aware of the actual deficit numbers and the need to not worry too much about budget deficit in coming out of a recession. But Bush's spending bills are scary out of control - Medicare prescription drugs, big education department increases, etc. It is not the spending I like to see, and fiscal conservatives would be far angrier if Iraq - and the Democrats complete abdication of foreign policy responsibility - were not going on. Not that these groups would vote democratic, they just wouldn't vote, hurting Republican turnout, which is the basis for how elections now work, convincing your voters to vote, not convincing non-supporters to support you.

With the Dems being so out there on this topic, that fear will bring Bush's voters out in big numbers, if Kerry were stronger he might stop that, but his party will kill him (he has said he would continue in Iraq). No one believes that
the Dems will ever let their president deal forcibly in foreign policy.