Opinion Mark SteynThe evening began in what's now the traditional manner. Just after lunch, word leaked out of the first exit polls, showing the Democrats way ahead. At 6 p.m. John Kerry was convinced he was the next president.
As the polls closed, the networks refused to call southern Republican bastions such as Virginia and the Carolinas because they had exit polls showing the Ketchup Kid ahead. Had those polls been correct, it would have been the most unlikely landslide in American history.
But they weren't correct: they were total bunk, and it seems not unlikely that they were gamed by political operatives. The only thing stopping me from calling for a fraud investigation is that I've begun rather to enjoy this new election night ritual.
At 7 p.m. Eastern time, the networks came on the air with their big specials and you could see the anchors and the pundits and the Democratic spinmeisters were all excited because they thought things were going their way and the Republicans were in big trouble; and by 9 p.m. nothing seemed to be going their way and they were all discombobulated; and by 1 a.m. nobody from the Democratic Party was returning their calls and the last three experts in the cable studios were muttering gloomily about the conservative tide in America.
Just to run through what happened: In the House of Representatives the Republicans have picked up at least five seats; in the Senate they've picked up four; they've knocked off the two most senior figures in the Democratic Party - their presidential candidate plus their Senate leader, Bush obstructionist Tom Daschle, who became the first party leader to lose his seat in over half a century. And, oh yes, the most hated man in the world won the electoral college, won the popular vote by four million, and, indeed, beat Ronald Reagan's 1984 record and now has the distinction of having won more votes than any political candidate in the history of the Republic.
How'd that happen? There was a big increase in turnout, adding something upwards of 15 million people to the polls. And we were assured by all the experts that an increase in turnout foreshadowed a Kerry landslide.
Why, everyone knows an increase in turnout must be that big youth vote we always hear about. Roused by Michael Moore documentaries, Puff Daddy's "Vote Or Die" drive, starry-eyed Howard Deaniacs, and elderly gentlemen such as Bruce Springsteen playing songs that were hits when their parents were courting, America's young would stampede to the polling booths to vote against a return of the draft and Bush's intolerance of gay marriage.
But, as always, the youth vote never showed up. Last year, I switched on the TV and saw some BBC documentary claiming that Bush was controlled by fanatical Christian fundamentalists who believe in the Rapture.
The youth vote is the left's equivalent of the Rapture: it may happen one day, but not on any schedule you want to put money on.
Instead, the swollen turnout - the biggest since 1968 - killed one more of the Michael Moore-left's cherished myths - that if only more people voted, the natural liberal progressive nature of the American people would manifest itself. Alas, even with the collapse of the third-party Ralph Nader vote, the "red" states - the Bush states - got a little bit redder, and the "blue" states - Kerry's - got quite a bit redder, too.
So the story of the election is yet another catastrophic night for the Democrats. The notion of a youth vote scared up by the Democrats to vote against an entirely mythical draft is essentially a spontaneous invention of the mutually deluding Democrat-media bubble. Out in the real world, meanwhile, 11 states voted for gay marriage bans by overwhelming margins. That may be unfortunate or in deplorable taste, but, if the national media ignores real constituencies in favour of fake ones, it's hardly surprising that the Democrats wind up, in the words of one operative, "depressed and bewildered".
On election day, I was driving through Vermont and found myself behind a car with a "Kerry/Edwards" sticker and an "Instead Of Being Born Again, Why Not Grow Up?" sticker. Fair enough, the feeling's mutual: the secular, coastal, libertine, Michael Mooronised Democratic Party has zero appeal to "born-again Christians".
The problem is the crude numbers: 40 per cent of Americans identify themselves as born-again Christians. So right there you've written off 40 per cent of the electorate. What have you got in return? The gay vote? Five per cent?
The Dems have a long-term problem: their vote is becoming more and more concentrated in a few enclaves on the Pacific coast and the Atlantic north of Washington, even as the population shifts to the south and the mountain states. In a broadly conservative country, on core cultural values - guns and God - the Democratic Party has got itself out of step with a huge chunk of the population.
That doesn't mean every Republican voter is a homophobic theocrat. Another significant sliver of their vote doesn't care much for the Holy Rollers but recognises that on the big issue - the war - the GOP is right.
The feisty Internet blogger, Michele Catalano, put it very well in her election day declaration: "I voted for George Bush. I am not a redneck. I do not spend my days watching cars race around a track while I drink cheap beer and slap my woman on the ass. I am not a bible thumper. In fact, I am an atheist. I am not a homophobe."
In their desperation, the Democrats have wound up damning Bush as stupid, bigoted and a bigger threat than Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. This is ridiculous. As Miss Catalano continues: "You will not be thrown in jail for the sole reason of being a liberal. Your child's public school will not suddenly turn into a centre for Christian brainwashing. Your favourite bookstore will not turn into puritan central."
She didn't add to that list of phony terrors my personal favourite, from that eminent political analyst Cameron Diaz: "Women have so much to lose. I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies. If you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote. But if you think that you have a right to your body," she told Oprah's viewers, "then you should vote."
Poor Cameron. The scary people won. She's just lost all rights to her body. Unlike Alec Baldwin, she can't even move to France. Her body was grounded in Terminal 4.
As long as Democrats prefer phantom enemies to real ones, they will be increasingly irrelevant.