Bush! It was close but not enough that they could cheat.

NPR is reporting that throughout the red states exiting voters told pollsters that the major issue for them was "moral values." That suggests that gay marriage was a major concern that got a lot of people out to vote for Bush. Who'da thunk it.

I'm not feeling triumphant, although I was hoping Bush would win. It never occurred to me that gay marriage was an issue in voting for president. I feel sad that the country is so closely divided.

I am very bitter, though, toward the media. Their talk about journalistic ethics is a crock. They excuse partisan coverage with the claim that their job is to "hold those in power accountable," but that just won't wash.. CBS and the NYTimes deliverately targeted Bush and participated in October surprise strategies, aimed at meddling with politics. They should start running the "Yellow Kid" comics again.

As far as I'm concerned the role of the media is to report current news accurately, regardless of who it favors or hurts. That's the only ethical issue for journalists; Keep the editorial content out of the news pages.

Daschle got beat. I'm sure the $25.00 I sent Thune did the trick. I hope this will send a message to the Dems in the Senate about filibustering judicial nominees. They risk becoming irrelevant, especially if they keep working to make voter fraud easier and litigation to win close races. This isn't a case of wanting every vote to count. It's wanting illegal votes to count and absentee ballots from the military not to count. Ed Rendell should be ashamed. This is the kind of vote fixing that should have died with Richard J. Daley.

Resorting to lawsuits to determine election outcomes is playing with fire. They played that card in 2000 and then spent the next four years whining about the fact that it didn't work. They need to focus on restoring their credibility on Red State issues. Labor unions, ethnic minorities and gays is not a strategy with promise. Machine politics is not democracy. An educated and informed electorate should be the goal, not bloc voting like automatons.