In my pre-election projection I got every state right except one, Wisconsin, which I picked for Bush:

Bush wins all his 2000 states except New Hampshire, and he adds New Mexico, Iowa, and Wisconsin to his column to win the electoral vote 296 - 242.

But hang on just a dern second . . . the latest unofficial tally shows Bush trailing in Wisconsin by less than twelve thousands votes out of some 2,992,390 votes cast. That's a margin of less than one half of one percent.

Sadly, I had not anticipated the depths to which the Democrats would sink to deny me the honor of a perfect prophecy. I'm talking about the Democrats' Wisconsin campaign of intimidation. It appears that Michael Pratt (who just happens to be the adult son of former Milwaukee Mayor Marvin Pratt) and Sowande Omokunde (who likes to go by the name Supreme Solar Allah and just happens to be the adult son of Wisconsin state senator Gwen Moore) were somehow involved in allegedly slashing the tires of 20 vans that Milwaukee Republicans had rented to ferry their voters to the polls. A Milwakee paper is reporting that:

Milwaukee police are thoroughly investigating the slashing of tires on election day of 20 cars and vans rented to the Republican Party to take voters to the polls. Opel E. Simmons III, veteran Democratic Party activist from Virginia, in town to work on Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign, has been arrested in connection with the incident, along with Sowande Omokunde, the son of state Sen. Gwen Moore, who was elected to Congress Tuesday. Both were released. Sources told the Journal Sentinel that police also plan to talk to Michael Pratt, the son of former Acting Milwaukee Mayor Marvin Pratt.

Do the math: You gotta figure each of those 20 vans could have made four trips per hour to the polls during the twelve hours the polls were open, with ten Bush voters aboard for each trip.

20 vans x 12 hours x 4 trips per hour x 10 voters per trip
=
9,600 disenfranchised Bush voters

That leaves Bush only a couple of thousand votes away from Victory in Wisconsin, and we haven't even started talking about the allegedly-late-arriving military absentee ballots that were probably thrown into the dumpster two minutes after the polls closed.

According to the Wisconsin State Election Board, the official Wisconsin results won't be known until "after the canvass is certified by December 1, 2004." Between now and then--and the sooner the better--we need to parachute a couple of divisions of Republican lawyers into Madison and fan them out into all the various county seats to secure the ballots, to file a few hundred lawsuits, and to do whatever else election lawyers do to ensure that John Kerry doesn't try to steal Wisconsin's ten electoral votes.

It's vital that all the votes in Wisconsin be counted, and there's something even more important at stake here: Dammit, I picked Wisconsin for Bush, and now Kerry's criminals are trying to unustly prevent me from being hailed as the most perfectly prescient political prophet. We can't let them get away with it. I've waited four years for this, and I can sure as hell wait another couple of months, or however long it takes, to guarantee that the people of Wisconsin are not denied their rightful voice in our electoral process.

Every vote must count. Every vote must be counted.

It's now after three o'clock in the morning on November 3rd.

Bush is leading in Ohio by more than 145,000 votes, with 99% of precincts reporting. That victory margin has been growing as the last votes trickle in. Abstentee ballots, a clear majority of which will go for Bush, have not yet been fully counted. Bush will win Ohio, and by winning Ohio, Bush will win the election. This is a practical certainty.

Ohio state election officials report that there are at most 175,000 provisional ballots. The actual number of provisional ballots is probably closer to 125,000. In the 2000 election, 90% of provisional ballots were deemed valid under Ohio law. (This time around, the validity of provisional ballots will be decided under federal law, which is more stringent than the Ohio law that was applicable to provisional ballots in the 2000 election.) Assuming for the sake of argument that in this election there really are 175,000 provisional Ohio ballots and all those provisional ballots are valid (an extraordinarily unlikely assumption), 83% of those provisional ballots would have to go for Kerry for him to overcome Bush's 140,000 vote lead. If, as is more likely, only 90% of the provisional ballots are valid, 92% of those ballots would have to have Kerry's name on them. If you add absentee ballots to the mix, Kerry would have to win virtually every valid provisional ballot. If there are only 125,000 provisional ballots, a Kerry victory is not only a practical impossibility, but also a mathematical impossibility.

In other words, as a practical reality, Kerry cannot win Ohio. Kerry cannot win this election.

A few minutes ago, the Kerry camp sent John Edwards bounding out to announce that they will fight to make sure that "every vote is counted" and that victory will be theirs if every vote is counted. In support of the Kerry fantasy and with the aid of interviews with left wing lawyers and "analysts," the MSM have been strenuously pretending that Kerry could receive enough votes from provisional ballots to change the Ohio result.

Why do the MSM continue this pretense?

Not because they believe that Kerry can actually win--that is a practical impossibility. They support the pretense because they wish to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Bush's victory.

Consider the evidence: Although Bush leads Kerry in Ohio by 145,000 votes out of 5.4 million votes cast, CBS, ABC, and AP are still refusing to "call" Ohio for Bush. By contrast, Kerry leads Bush in Pennsylvania by only 125,000 votes out of 5.6 million votes cast, yet the MSM "called" Kerry the winner in Pennsylvania several hours ago. Why do the MSM think Bush's win in Ohio more doubtful than Kerry's victory in Pennsylvania? Because generating doubt in Ohio is necessary to support the Kerry fantasy. Meanwhile, though they clearly now wish they hadn't, NBC did "call" Ohio for Bush earlier this evening, but NBC is now refusing to "call" Nevada for Bush, even though Bush leads Kerry in that state by 3% with 99% of the vote recorded. Several other states have been "called" on slimmer margins. But now NBC won't call Nevada because, having already projected Bush the winner in Ohio, NBC can't bring itself to acknowledge the clear Bush victory in Nevada because that would put him above the 269 electoral votes needed for victory. These shenanigans make it clear that the MSM's purpose is not to exercise caution to ensure the integrity of the election, but to try to continue for another four years the now habitual Democrat fantasy that "Bush stole the election."

Yes, the Dems with the help of the MSM can drag this out and keep Bush's certain re-election victory from becoming "official" for another ten days or so. But the truth is it's all over but the crying.

Will the Dems cry less ten days from now?

Somehow I don't think so.

I think Bush will win.
I hope Bush will win.
I pray Bush will win.
But what if Bush does not win?

---

A friend of mine, a yellow dog Democrat, likes to tell me that Bush will never be his president.

Swallowing my disgust, I always answer him emphatically, "I pray every night that Kerry will not win. But if Kerry does win, he will be my president."

If Kerry wins, and I pray he does not, he will be my president because our death struggle with Islamofascism trumps everything else. Unlike too many of our left-wing citizens (such as the gracious author of this comment) who would accept, hope for, and even work for an American defeat if it would aid the defeat of George Bush, I would find no consolation in a failed Kerry presidency.

If Kerry wins, and I pray he does not, I shall never seek consolation in the words "I told you so" because a failed Kerry presidency would mean that my beloved country's fight against the terrorists would also be a failure.

If Kerry wins, and I pray he does not, I will do everything in my meager power to encourage him to fight the terrorists vigorously.

If Kerry wins, and I pray he does not, I will do everything in my meager power to ensure that, insofar as our struggle against the terrorists is concerned, Kerry's presidency is not merely successful, but is magnificently successful.

If Kerry wins, and I pray he does not, if he will lead I will follow. No, I will not silently follow him off a cliff. But I will not try to drive him of a cliff, and I will not cheer if, despite my best efforts, he goes off a cliff on his own.

If Kerry wins, and I pray he does not, I will still criticize and oppose him openly and strongly on domestic issues. Yet even on domestic matters I will not join in any criticism that significantly weakens his capacity to lead this nation in war. As to his leadership in the war, before criticizing him, I will use my best judgment to determine whether my criticism is more likely to contribute to positive change in war policy or will simply publicly undermine his capacity to lead the nation in war. If the latter, I will moderate my criticism and seek a discrete way to offer it more effectively.

If Kerry wins, and I pray he does not, I shall never forget what matters most, my beloved country, this "last best hope":

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We . . . will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

---

Now please go vote for George Bush, and make this post the most irrelevant thing I've ever written in my entire life.