Brandon

He probably is. In any event, he's doing the right thing and for my part, he's earned a bit my respect.

A good, classy move. Thank you, Mr. Kerry, for not putting this country through the mess that Al Gore did.

But then, couldn't Republicans say the same things about Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania as you are saying about Ohio? The margins in those states are very close in favor of Kerry. In fact, unless the numbers have changed, the 140,000 lead Bush has in Ohio is greater than the lead Kerry has in any of those three states right now.

If that's true, then every one of the Senators who felt that way but still voted for that Iraq war authorization should be impeached and thrown out of office.

I think the big loser was Daschle as well. All of the others will probably land on their feet (though Edwards is also out of a job). Daschle's political career may be over. He'll have a very tough time ever winning an statewide election in such a conservative state again.

http://election.sos.state.oh.us/ProvBallots.htm

They just played a clip of the Ohio Secretary of State on Foxnews...he strongly implied that the number of provisional ballots is smaller than Bush's actual lead. In any case, if the Kerry camp is right in the number still outstanding (which is looking unlikely), Kerry would need about 80-90% of them to break his way, and I can't see that happening. If it does, I'd be pretty suspicious of it. That said, I have no problem with Kerry wanting to count them. I'd just be shocked if there are anywhere close to enough to turn the tide. In any case, the Democrats certainly do come out of this looking like gigantic hypocrites if they sue. They've been screaming about the popular vote for four years. Well, the one thing we are sure of is that Bush clearly won the popular vote last night by a much larger margin than Gore did in 2000.

Well, with NBC projecting it for Bush, I think the lead is likely to stand. They're going to be very conservative (witness the late Florida call) with their calls tonight and apparently they're sure Bush has won it. They're also saying that Republican counties in SW Ohio have yet to come in.

I don't think any results are in for Hawaii.

According to MSNBC, 88% of the vote is in from that county. Kerry is winning it overwhelmingly, but there may not be enough votes left for him to make up the difference, especially when there are Republican counties still outstanding as well.

But the Bush lead is still 140,000 votes. If there are 500,000 votes still out, Kerry would have to get 64% of those remaining to pull even. While its certainly possible that those areas could break by enough of a margin for him to win the state, its looking increasingly unlikely.

For whatever it is worth, Foxnews is projecting that Bush will win the state of Ohio, putting him at 266 EVs. If it holds, he has won re-election as Alaska will make it a 269-269 tie.

Well, I, for one, am still a bit nervous about Ohio. The margin is still pretty large at around 150,000, but as I understand it, there is still a very large Democratic county still out. The good news is that Bush's backup plan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and New Mexico, looks pretty good for him right now.

You can toss New Hampshire and New Mexico into that mix as well. Currently, Bush is winning in New Mexico and Wisconsin, both Gore states in 2000.

Well, in fairness, he might still be able to mount a comeback in Ohio. He's down about 5%, but less than 50% of the precincts are reporting. In Florida, unless Kerry mounts a monumental comeback, Bush will win that state as he's currently leading by almost 300,000 votes with nearly 90% of the precincts in.

77, actually. If he can hang on in Ohio and Florida, Bush will only need 30 EVs the rest of the way.

Its just a little last second psychological warfare. Bush knows that if he can get one last national TV appearance here looking very calm, very relaxed and very confident, he might just be able to convince voters out on the left coast that he's got this thing won and many liberals out there might stay home. If that happens, he might stand a much better chance in states like Oregon, Hawaii, and Washington.

Currently, Bush is up 57% to 42% with about 2.5 million votes counted.

Bush 51% Kerry 47.5% Bush 296 EVs Kerry 242 EVs. Bush retains all of his 2000 states except New Hampshire, while taking Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico from the Democrats.

Don't be suprised if this rain doesn't have an effect on the election. I live in Arkansas, and well, it came a friggin' monsoon today. I'm lucky to be sitting here typing this tonight. It took me nearly two hours to make a trip home tonight that usually takes 15 minutes, and I just got real lucky finding a road that wasn't under water. The flooding is terrible. One way or another, I will be voting tomorrow, but the water may be knee deep just off the highway on the road to my local voting precinct if it keeps this up. No BS. And this region is quite a bit higher than the surrounding area. Most of the land in a radius of about 50 miles is very low, flat land. I can only imagine that it'll be nearly impossible for some of those folks to vote.

As others have said, Flutie was basically a bandaid that masked the OL's struggles to a degree. But I also remember that he ran for his life on probably two thirds of the passing plays they called, contributing to his struggles late in '98 continuing through '99 and it was only his athleticism that kept the sack totals from being higher. The running game was pretty average during those years as well.

No, its no excuse to protect Bledsoe, its reality. As I stated earlier, I have no problems with a now 1-5 Bills team benching Bledsoe, but I have very little hope that it will make any difference for this team. The point I'm making is that the Bills have fielded an inept OL for nearly a decade and haven't done much of anything to upgrade it. The result? Every QB and every RB that they have put in the backfield in that time period has never managed any degree of long term consistency. Its not a coincidence.

I'm not concerned with what other teams have done. The problem is that poor Bills OL play basically ran Kelly out of the league in 1995 and 1996. Since that time, the Bills have never had any real consistency from year-to-year in either their rushing or passing attacks. Their OL is simply too weak to allow it. The front office has never bothered to correct it, with their only major addition being Mike Williams, who appears to be a borderline bust. Its been probably 10 years since I can honestly say that I think the Bills fielded an OL that was in the top 20 of the league. That's pathetic.

Of course, you are correct. The Bills have had a revolving door at QB since Kelly retired in 1996. At some point, you have to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe the QB position isn't the big problem with this team. No, I think the biggest issue the Bills have remains the one they've had for a decade, a pathetic excuse for an OL. The fact that they can't maintain much of a running game with two good Rbs should also be a red flag. But if the Bills feel it necessary to bench Bledsoe, so be it. They're 1-5, and they may as well go to Losman at this point and get him some playing experience. Unfortunately, I doubt the results will be any different.

One point I would like to make is that Henry has generally started slowly early in the season. He was averaging only 2.7 per carry through his first five games a year ago, then he only proceeded to post 1,096 rushing yards in the final 10 games of the year. 2002 was a similar story. While he had a great first game, he disappeared for the next month, before finishing very strong in the final 11 games. The point is, don't write him off just yet.