Peter Snow has gone over the edge 
The BBC has just started its election night coverage. Peter Snow, who does the whizzo information graphics, has been turning into a comic turn over a number of years. He’s finally gone over the top. On his interactive map, where states change colours and pop up and down, he had a giant, computer-generated Marine One (the presidential helicopter) land. I guess the idea is that when we know who has won, Peter’s CGI Marine One will land, the door will open, and out will step…
Mystery Pollster explains exit polls. Definitive.
The nature of the Kerry presidency
The two best things I’ve read recently about a Kerry presidency are Amy Sullivan on Political Animal and Mark Schmitt on The Decembrist.
Sullivan:
| So now, as it’s become trendy for liberal political types to predict that even if Kerry wins, he’ll be a sub-par president, I’m going to extend this unusual run of optimism even more. If elected, John Kerry will be a perfectly fine president. Maybe even better than that. He’ll have real and daunting challenges to deal with, there’s no question about it. This isn’t going to be an easy run for anyone. But why all the wailing about how horrible he’ll be? Some complain that he’s a micro-manager, he can’t make up his mind, he’ll never get anything done. Sound like anyone else you know… cough, cough, Bill Clinton? And although the Clinton-Gore legacy is somewhat rightly revered in Democratic circles, there were an awful lot of wasted opportunities during those eight years. Surely Kerry could manage to shepherd through at least as many far-reaching programs as they did. |
Schmitt:
| If Kerry wins, expectations will be low. And that’s a great thing. Because all that can be done for a few years is to make things less bad. As anyone who’s been reading The Decembrist knows, the early years of the Clinton administration were a formative experience for me. The sense of triumphalism in 1993 was ultimately a disaster. The White House didn’t understand the limits of what it could do, in the face of a completely intransigent Republican bloc, and more importantly, key Democratic constituencies had been led to expect such a transformation of government that they were all too quick to write Clinton off as a sellout when he couldn’t deliver. This all but forced Clinton to “triangulate” after 1994 — to try to build a new governing coalition around a very dubious set of deals with the Republican majority and swing voters. This saved his hide but did not create a long-term basis for governing. |
| Kerry will not make this mistake, and the Democratic and independent constituencies that will come together to make his victory will retain their skeptical, no-illusions unity for some period into the next year. The memory of Bush-DeLayism will be so fresh (and will probably remain alive in the House) that the old infighting between DLC Democrats and labor Democrats, or between deficit-fearing “Rubinomics” and invest-in-America liberalism might be quiescent. This is a big deal. If Kerry can manage these conflicts, and if he can free up just a few Republicans who are willing to deal with him on an honest basis, then he can govern the country succesfully. Whether he can do that is as big a worry for me as the election outcome itself, but I believe the conditions are in place. |