Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Bush Will Win

Rich Galen

Friday October 29, 2004

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This won't take very long: President George W. Bush will be re-elected next Tuesday.

Dear Mr. Mullings:
Why are you doing this "Bush Wins" column today? Why don't you wait until Monday? That's what we would do if we thought Kerry were going to win.
Signed,
The Production Staff of "60 Minutes"
Oh, I don't know. Call it journalistic ethics.
But you're not a journalist as we are.
My point, exactly.

Here's what I think is likely to happen: Bush will win in enough states by a large enough margin (which is to say something north of the automatic-recount line) such that the Kerry camp would have to litigate and overturn the election-night outcomes in a number of states which might be mathematically achievable, but legally improbable and politically impossible.

Assuming no extremely weird changes over the weekend, we are heading into election day with the President at about 227 electoral votes and Senator Kerry at about 207.

The following states (with their electoral votes) are within the margin of error:
Florida (27)
Pennsylvania (21)
Ohio (20)
Iowa (7)
Wisconsin (10)
Minnesota (10)
New Mexico (5)

I know some polls have Michigan and New Jersey about even as well, but let's put those aside for this discussion.

Of that list, I suspect the President will win Florida (to take his total to 254), either Pennsylvania or Ohio (274), Wisconsin or Minnesota (284), Iowa (291) and New Mexico (296).

And it is very likely that he might win more than those, but as he only needs 270 electoral votes, that's plenty.

Let's assume the President wins New Mexico (or Iowa) AND Ohio AND Minnesota (or Wisconsin) by margins which are close but outside the automatic recount level which is typically one-half-of-one-percent.

That would mean that the Democrats would have to use legal challenges overturn the election in Ohio (or Pennsylvania) and at least one of the other two states.

Litigating one state is, as we learned in 2000, a torturous process. Litigating three states with the Presidency hanging in the balance - especially if the chances of going two-for-three is not very likely - would be potentially devastating to the process. It is very important that litigation not become the norm following Presidential elections.

As we move into the final weekend, no national poll has Kerry leading. The two edges are the LA Times which has it tied and Gallup which has Bush up five. But those polls are now four days old.

Among the more recent polls, the ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll has Bush +1 (a two-point shift to Bush overnight), and every other poll has Bush leading by two or three percentage points.

I know that means they are all within the all-important MARGIN OF ERROR, but that they all show Bush ahead is a fact the jury may take into consideration.

If the national polls all have Bush leading, it is not likely that the battleground states - taken as a whole - are much different.

If Senator Kerry is serious about improving America's standing in the world, he can help that cause by not putting the United States into the position of explaining to the world why, for the second time in four years, it does not know who its President will be.

Sometime in the morning hours of November 3, John Kerry seeing that the margins are outside any reasonable chance of reversal, will call off the legal challenges, pick up a phone, and call President Bush to congratulate him.

APOLOGY: The Catchy Caption of the Day in Wednesday's Mullings included a photo of Senator Kerry throwing a ball, as I wrote, "like a girl."

I got a ton of e-mails from readers of the female persuasion complaining that they were going to be held up to public scorn by males taunting them at softball games saying that they "throw like Kerry."

Mullings sincerely regrets the comparison.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the best polling site on the Internet, Real Clear Politics; a link to an interesting article about the problems that pollsters are facing, and the usual things.

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