Election Day

The day is finally here, and it couldn't come soon enough. I've still got a really good feeling about this election. I still think Bush will have enough of a popular and electoral vote margin by tonight that Kerry will look silly if he mounts a legal challenge. Of course, that may not stop Kerry from hauling out the lawyers. Looking silly doesn't seem to bother him too much.

For as long as I've felt confident about a Bush win in this election, I've struggled to put a finger on the source of that confidence. This paragraph, from a source of Jim Geraghty at National Review's "The Kerry Spot," encapsulates it about as well as I ever could.

“Bush will win, pretty decisively… Maybe, worst case scenario, it's 51-49 [percent]. But everyone has looked at how the voters will decide too cerebrally. You walk into that voting booth, you pull the curtain behind you, and you’re alone. It’s the centerpiece of our democratic process, and voters take that responsibility seriously. It’s almost a religious experience, a sacred rite. And they’re going to go with who’s going to keep them safe. Who’s been tested. It’s an emotional, gut reaction.”

That's it. All these polls that are calling it such a close race… this is why they're off base. Because you can't poll people when they're alone in that voting booth. And when people are alone in there, Kerry is going to become a much less viable option. When some pollster calls them while they're sitting in their living room eating beef macaroni and listening to Dan Rather, Kerry seems OK. But for people who take this stuff as seriously as they should, when the weight of the world is on their shoulders, they're going to go with the safe choice.

I've never been too good at making predictions, and maybe I'll be eating a big serving of crow in this space tomorrow. But I think it's going to be big for Bush. I think he'll outperform the polls by about 4-5 percent for a convincing popular vote victory. And my current guess on the electoral college has Bush winning Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Hawaii… for an Electoral College win of 300-238.

Please God… let it be so.