Unsurprised therefore Unexcited

The day before the election I sent the following e-mail to Sam (who apparently writes under the alias of S.T. so strangers won't know that his real name is Samantha):

"Bush gets 300 electoral votes and a comfy margin in the popular count too.
That's all the obvious red states (213) plus Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Hawaii. I am not, however, dumb enough to either publish that or bet on it. On the other hand . . . if Kerry wins, the good news is that he won't be able to get anything past Congress. And Congress won't be able to get anything past the White House. There must be some bad news there, but I can't recall what it might be."

For a poll at the Cato Institute, I predicted 53 Republican Senators. I do this the way I used to kill a few minutes doing economic forecasting for the Journal and the Blue Chip bunch -- heroic assumptions plus informed guesswork.

Celebrating? At my age (fifty twelve) that means I might be allowed a third glass of wine. Under normal circumstances that might be a Souverain or Sebastiani chardonnay (cheap but good), but that sounds too girlie-manish for the moment. So does Pinot Noir. Maybe Kendall-Jackson Syrah? This is a much tougher decision than the vote.

I am bipartisan in the sense that I don't trust pols of any stripe. The Democrats simply failed to offer a serious presidential or vice presidential candidate this time, in my insufficiently humble view.