From Washington Post Associate Managing Editor Robert Kaiser

2004 has proven to be a Republican year.

But trying to explain exactly how this happened will not be easy, because our best available tool for doing so, the exit polls taken this year by the Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, is broken. I’m not sure how this can be sorted out in the future, I assume we’ll have a good story about it in Thursday’s paper. Essentially, the problem is that the exit poll’s number don’t add up.

Here is one example of the problem. It’s a little complicated, so bear with me. The exit poll breaks down results by religion. It says that John Kerry did better than Al Gore did in 2000 among Protestants (43 percent for Kerry vs. 34 percent for Gore), Catholics (50 percent vs. 45), non-religious people (69 percent vs. 57) and those belonging to “other” religions (75 vs. 53). Only among Jews, a tiny fraction (three to four percent) of the electorate, did Bush do slightly better this time than last (22 percent of the Jewish vote in 2004, vs. 17 percent in 2000).

Since Protestants, Catholics, “other” and the non-religious constitute more than 96 percent of the population, these numbers suggest Kerry should have beaten Bush handily yesterday. But in fact, Bush won the popular vote by about 3.5 million votes, whereas Gore beat Bush in the popular vote by just .5 million last time. To say it another way, the exit poll claims that Kerry did a lot better than Bush with every major religious group in America, including the non-religious, yet he clearly lost the popular vote to Bush. Go figure.

I could cite a number of other such examples that I have found this morning by comparing the 2000 and 2004 exit polls. This makes me really nervous about some of the most interesting findings in the new exit poll—for example, the conclusion that “moral values” were more important to voters this year than terrorism, the war in Iraq or the state of the economy. Is that really plausible? I just don’t know. Similarly, I have to wonder about the finding that young people did not participate this time in substantially higher numbers than they did in 2000. The number of young voters did go up this year, the exit poll says, but only as much as the total number of voters went up, so their share of the electorate, about 17 percent, was the same this time as last.

I guess the cynic could ask, Is it the exit polls or the real polls that are broken?

It’s hard to look past the admitted bitterness I have against this president and his cronies who have proven that bald-faced lies and a denial of accountability are no impediments to gaining the backing of the majority of voters. Many Republicans can ignore such shortcomings and vote for the ideals of the current neo-conservative movement. And no matter what the other half of the country thinks, GOP voters frame the issues apart from neo-con tactics and from many of voters’ own religious philosophies to justify their vote. I believe many honestly think that their Christian philosophies of concern and compassion for the weak are not in conflict with this administration’s prejudice for the well-to-do. How so is a deep mystery to me. I can only judge by the conservatives I know. They are not bigoted, selfish or hypocritical, just misguided.

I’m confident that someone will explain to me why gay marriage, for example, portends the downfall of civilization. (Opposition to abortion I can at least understand.) I’m sure someone can explain how our long-term interests are served by laws making it easier to make money through exploitation and money manipulation rather than through work. I expect to be enlightened soon as to why the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots is good for our sons and daughters. I will no doubt soon learn why the killing of tens of thousands of innocents to avenge 3,000 deaths at the hands of what was three years ago a small band of terrorists is justified. And some foreign policy expert will enlighten me as to why the enmity of nearly one billion Muslims helps protect us.

During my brief travels abroad over the past four years, I found what many others have: The rest of the world hated Bush but not Americans. Now, expect anti-Americanism to increase. Before 9/11, we could say that we had no idea. But after the first reign of the GWB, the rest of the world can blame Bush squarely on us. It’s our vote that re-elected him, with eyes wide shut.

And what does the vote tell us?

First of all, turnout doesn’t necessarily help the Democrats or hurt the incumbent. Those rules are dead. Second, the youth vote still is largely missing in action. It increased, but still represents the same proportion as before. While exit polls showed the youth going for Kerry, I think further analysis will suggest, it’s still a philosophical 50-50 split. (Let’s face it, exit polls continue to lose credibility.) Dems can’t count on the youth in the next election.

“Moral values” is thought by some to be the trump card that won the election for Bush. I’m of two minds on this. If moral values won it for W, then either his Christian majority are hypocrites or the Dems just haven’t figured out how to sell their values. Again, abortion is the one exception. Though I’m pro-life, I think anti-abortionists have a credible moral case.

While I always thought Ronald Reagan’s greatest legacy to this country was that he made greed acceptable, I refuse to believe that is the foundation of the Bush vote. But I may be naïve. Still, I think the Dems haven’t figured out the philosophy of combining moral values and responsible government. Many think government doesn’t expedite, it impedes. It settles for bureaucracy instead of efficiency. The GOP has successfully painted government as apart from “us.” That there is blatant hypocrisy in the way the GOP uses government to advance its agenda is lost on voters. But the big question is: Do we really care about one another or is government manipulated solely to advance our individual agendas? Exit polls show (scroll down) almost a straight line correlation between higher incomes and GOP voters.

Would another Democratic candidate have won, or are Democratic values so out of step with a majority of Americans? No. After all, it was a 51-48% popular vote. But Dems still can’t articulate a clear policy, and Kerry was not particularly artful, to say the least. They are running scared. But in part that’s because they’ve neither developed the intellectual underpinnings for their values nor the strategic plan to implement them at all costs. I can’t think of another Democrat who would have been a clear winner.

Let’s face it, we lost ground last night. And about the worst thing we could do is look to the current Democratic leadership for guidance. In fact, I’m glad Tom Daschle lost. He’s the epitome of what’s wrong with Democratic party. No guts, no glory.

Don’t expect a healing over the next four years. The Supreme Court legacy of GWB is enough alone to keep wounds fresh for decades. The question is who can lead the re-birth of the Democratic party, or is it time to allow the old gal to die a graceful death and to start anew?

Update: A note of optimism from Kevin Drum.”

…[L]iberals need to continue building a long-term machine dedicated to changing popular opinion. And it’s hardly a herculean task: a switch of only 3 or 4 points in public opinion is a virtual landslide, and if we can pull it off it means that guys like George Bush can’t get elected anymore, even if they are the kind of people you’d like to have a beer with. It can be done.”

Our opponent has been a disaster. We outspent him. We thought we outhustled him. We lost ground.

What’s next?

NBC says this year the youth vote went for Kerry. But there were no greater part of the electorate than in 2000: 17%.

Very disappointing.

193 of 222 precincts in Farifax Co. counted
357,934 Ballots Cast:

John F. Kerry / John Edwards (D) 187,859
George W. Bush / Dick Cheney (R) 165,357

With 144 of 225 precincts of Fairfax Co., Va. counted:

John F. Kerry / John Edwards (D) 139,445
George W. Bush / Dick Cheney (R) 119,354

NBC has just called it for Bush. Well, my precinct did its part; too bad the rest of the state didn’t follow suit.

As mentioned earlier, my precinct went to Bush in 2000 by a 53-43% margin. Today, my precinct went to Kerry by 6 — votes! That doesn’t include the 240 absentee ballots.

Maybe that’s why they haven’t called Virginia yet, though NBC just called NC for Bush.

Turnout at the precinct was at least 83%, up 7% from 2000, with a stable voter registration, as it’s an older area with few new homes.

NBC4, the local Washington affiliate, says Va. is too close to call!

John Zogby predicted a couple of days ago a Kerry victory. As of 5:00 today he put some numbers to it.

Sadly, though no surprise, he’s calling the Old Dominion for Bush. But keep watching the numbers. It won’t be 7%.