Reply #43: I agree with you except that in the past one branch

[m.standridge]

of the federal government has always been won or kept by the Demos in the aftermath of such election landslides (i.e., 1972, '84, and, to an extent, '88).
This time, it's all been lost, including the High courts.
It's all on the Executive, and Ohio is the only short-term shot we've got to keep some semblance of hope for democracy.
No one's ever had all three branches for more than 2 1/2 years.

Bush, if this proceeds, will have that for at least 6 years, and with unprecedented powers.
I'd concede that there's a distinct possibility that Kerry didn't win the Popular vote this time, because, for one thing, he might be less popular than Gore, and in different, more lightly populated areas, too.

But he hired an Electoral College specialist for his campaign this time, and the focus was Ohio and Florida. There are glitches and odds and ends in both of those states this time. It could be that Kerry won in the Electoral College. It wouldn't take but about 50-some-odd thousand votes changing hands in OH to turn it around in the Electoral College.
There are things, odds and ends, about some other states, too. Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arkansas. All of those states showed Kerry with leads in the pre-election period, at one time or another. And, even when Bush had a lead, he was in Pluralities in those states, nearly every time.
The one thing your argument does have going for it, is that the pre-election polls showed a lot of people were Undecided and that key states were back and forth, and were going to be close.
But I believe there was enough in Ohio, especially, to suggest that Kerry may have carried it narrowly, and Bush knew it.
And, look at it this way: if Kerry does edge out an Electoral win, it won't be any magic bullet for the Democrats, and because of what you've described: a lot of Democrats, en masse, unfortunately, are subjectable to media manipulation and can be swayed to vote wrongly or not vote. Kerry was allowing for that kind of thing with this Electoral College strategy.

And I think there's a good bit about Florida, but most of that won't be accessible for awhile...