There's some very good post-election analysis on the Web, shining through the (380?) tons of muck and manure:

--Mark Hasty's very well-written argument that the Democrats just aren't speaking to religious voters:

Kerry didn’t lose because so many Republicans go to church. Kerry lost because not enough Democrats do. You can say what you want to about the sins of organized religion–and they are many–but you cannot deny its influence on America. And you can’t deny that it’s gaining more influence day by day.

Which means that, this Sunday, all across America, about 100 million adults will gather in their places of worship, where they will see their friends and neighbors, they’ll drink dreadful coffee and eat commercial baked goods, and they’ll be sitting around after services talking about what’s on their minds–the weather, the Green Bay Packers, what their kids are doing in school . . . and, of course, politics. 100 million Americans will do that this Sunday morning, and that’s a stingy estimate. (I’ll do you a favor and not use the “c” word, OK?)

Will your viewpoints be part of those discussions? You might be surprised by the number of churches at which they will–not all Christians are Republicans, any more than all secular persons are Democrats. But you know that, in the grand scheme of things, you’re losing the war for the loyalty of America’s Christians–and you cannot win national elections without them. Bear in mind, the last two Democratic presidents we’ve had were Southern Baptists–a denomination that ought to be officially credited with an assist for the 2000 and 2004 elections.

So, since there are so many of you out there who have said and are continuing to say that you would do anything to end the red-state stranglehold on national offices, I’ve got three words for you: Go to church. This Sunday and every Sunday you possibly can, from now until forever. It isn’t so much that politicking clergy threw this election to the Republicans; it’s that people who weren’t afraid to share either their faith or their religious views had this wonderful opportunity to bond with each other and reinforce their commonality on a weekly basis. There is no equivalent in the secular world to the kind of community created by worship. And you’re not going to create one in four years. You either use what’s in front of you, or you live in Red America for the foreseeable future. You either work with the institutions of society, or they work against you.

August Pollak concurs, but in a more fiery fashion:

Kerry was supposed to win. No, that doesn't mean there was vote fraud, or anything like that. But by any logical model, any analysis of Bush's record, all these signs pointed to Kerry defeating Bush.

And then they started telling people Kerry would ban the Bible.

Check the numbers: moderates swung for Kerry by ten points. Bush won because more hard-right conservatives voted than ever before. But Bush didn't suddenly get a massive increase in support for the war. Or for the economy. Or for education.

Moral values. 22% of the electorate claimed "moral values" as their prime reason to vote. Of those, 80% voted for Bush. 11 states passed anti-marriage bills, several of which full-on deny civil union and domestic partnership rights, in some cases even to straight couples. Two new virulently anti-gay and anti-abortion Senators have joined the Republican Party, and Barack Obama was challenged by a GOP-handpicked right-wing nutjob in Illinois. . .

Does this mean all Republicans are homophobic bigots? Of course not. But they control the party now. And the numbers can't be twisted to deny that, no matter how hard some warbloggers are going to try. Gay panic won Bush the White House. The God Hates Fags Party has been established, perhaps for a generation, and until "moderate Republicans" acknowledge who they're officially subversives of, they have no right whatsoever to tell Democrats how to organize their own party.

If there is one casualty of the blogosphere this week, it is the right for conservative warbloggers to ever use the term "the hateful left" again.

William Saletan in Slate says the Democrats are being overly complex in their messages:

Think about the simplicity of everything Bush says and does. He gives the same speech every time. His sentences are short and clear. "Government must do a few things and do them well," he says. True to his word, he has spent his political capital on a few big ideas: tax cuts, terrorism, Iraq. Even his electoral strategy tonight was powerfully simple: Win Florida, win Ohio, and nothing else matters. All those lesser states—Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire—don't matter if Bush reels in the big ones.

This is what so many people like about Bush's approach to terrorism. They forgive his marginal and not-so-marginal screw-ups, because they can see that fundamentally, he "gets it." They forgive his mismanagement of Iraq, because they see that his heart and will are in the right place. And while they may be unhappy about their economic circumstances, they don't hold that against him. What you and I see as unreflectiveness, they see as transparency. They trust him.

Now look at your candidate, John Kerry. What quality has he most lacked? Not courage—he proved that in Vietnam. Not will—he proved that in Iowa. Not brains—he proved that in the debates. What Kerry lacked was simplicity. Bush had one message; Kerry had dozens. Bush had one issue; Kerry had scores. Bush ended his sentences when you expected him to say more; Kerry went on and on, adding one prepositional phrase after another, until nobody could remember what he was talking about. Now Bush has two big states that mean everything, and Kerry has a bunch of little ones that add up to nothing.

Saletan goes on to give us a prescription for 2008:

Do what the Republicans did in 1998. Get simple. Find a compelling salesman and get him ready to run for president in 2008. Put aside your quibbles about preparation, stature, expertise, nuance, and all that other hyper-sophisticated garbage that caused you to nominate Kerry. You already have legions of people with preparation, stature, expertise, and nuance ready to staff the executive branch of the federal government. You don't need one of them to be president. You just need somebody to win the White House and appoint them to his administration. And that will require all the simplicity, salesmanship, and easygoing humanity they don't have.

The good news is, that person is already available. His name is John Edwards. If you have any doubt about his electability, just read the exit polls from the 2004 Democratic primaries. If you don't think he's ready to be president—if you don't think he has the right credentials, the right gravitas, the right subtlety of thought—ask yourself whether these are the same things you find wanting in George W. Bush. Because evidently a majority of the voting population of the United States doesn't share your concern. They seem to be attracted to a candidate with a simple message, a clear focus, and a human touch. You might want to consider their views, since they're the ones who will decide whether you're sitting here again four years from now, wondering what went wrong.

I agree with this -- Hillary Clinton shouldn't run. Not because she's a bad senator (which she isn't) or because she's "too liberal" (which she isn't), but because she's such a polarizing figure. Hard-core Republicans love to hate her (though I've never figured out exactly why), and she can't connect with enough people, spread widely enough across this country, to have a prayer of being elected President.

And Josh Marshall gives us a short-term pep talk, and suggests where we can go from here:

In some ways this would all be conceptually easier for Democrats to deal with if President Bush had managed a realignment of our politics in the post-9/11 world. But when I look at the results from last night what I see is that they are virtually identical to four years ago. Pretty much the same states going each way and a very close to even race -- though of course the president's 51% makes all the difference in the world. . .

Take time to feel the desolation and disappointment. But I remain confident that time is not on the side of the kind of values and politics that President Bush represents. It took conservatives two decades to build up the institutional muscle they have today. Though I was always nervous about the result, I thought we could win this election. But it was always naive to believe that that sort of institutional heft could be put together in 24 or 36 months.

President Bush and the Republicans now control the entire national government, even more surely now than they have over the last four years. They do so on the basis of garnering the votes of 51% or 52% of the population. But they will use that power as though there were no opposition at all. That needs to be countered.

Leave today for disappointment. Tomorrow, think over which of these various groups and organizations you think has made the best start toward what I've described above, go to their website, and give money or volunteer. After that, okay sure, take a few more days for disappointment, maybe a few more weeks. But this takes time. And you shouldn't lose heart. The same division in the country remains, the same stalemate. The other side just got the the ball a yard or two into our side of the field rather than the reverse. And we have to deal with the serious consequences of that. Tomorrow's the day to start.

Chris Allbritton brings us an interesting -- and kinda scary -- view from the Middle East:

I'm in Beirut now, and I've had a couple of people -- Lebanese and British -- tell me that the American people have validated the last three years, years which are seen as universally disastrous. Before, there was a distinction drawn between the American government and the American people. A few nights ago, one cabbie told me that he thinks American people are very nice, but the American government is "very bad." Now, as one of my friends said, "The American people are the problem."

This will translate into increased hostility against Americans, especially in the Middle East. (I'm in Beirut at the moment.) The American government is seen as hopelessly biased against Arabs and Palestinians, but now the American people are culpable as well. I long thought America's European allies would welcome her back into the family of nations if Kerry won. Instead, they will hold the American people in even greater contempt than they already do.

Antigeist has a couple of very interesting maps.

On the flipside, two maps showing how close the election actually was in each state.

Finally, here are two panoramic photographs of CNN's New York newsroom and "Election Analysis Center", taken around 11:30pm on election night:

Photo 1

Photo 2

(Can't get the thumbnails to work properly right now. I'll try to make it better.)

Comments

[tizzie]

Vidiot, I could not agree more with your statement re: Hillary. No way. There are too many people who despise her, and whether that is rational or not doesn't matter.

[Valerie]

Hilary will be put up to run, but she won't make it past the primary.

Again, I have to express my surprise at how naive you all were expecting that Kerry would win.

Of course, Bush won. This country is dominated by White Christians who think of Bush as their one true leader. He'll won a third term if he can change the law.

[Vidiot]

But the country isn't "dominated" by anyone in particular...this election was very close. Remember that it was 51%-49%. And remember that that's with a winner-take-all system in the states -- an actual red-blue map would look more like this one, as linked above. Most of the state-by-state voting was incredibly close as well.

[Jason Whong]

I didn't vote for Bush. I didn't vote for Kerry. I was hoping that my candidate would steal votes from Bush and get Kerry elected. It didn't work.

Here's the funny part. If you round to the nearest hundredth, Ralph Nader got 0.34 percent of the vote, and Michael Badnarik got 0.33 percent.

So why did Nader get all kinds of attention and mindshare that Badnarik didn't?

Bah.

As for the person who said that the election of Bush will increase international hostility against Americans... Ugh. There's no way to argue that either way. Either it will or it won't - either way it's in the future, and either way it's iffy over whether there's a causal link. (Just like violence on TV doesn't cause aggression.)