America, Conor O'Clery: Sometimes it doesn't pay to be an insider. On election day, secret exit poll data was made available to a consortium of major networks and to the Associated Press, which sold it on to some major newspapers. The deal was that none of the information would be used before polls started to close at 7 p.m. on the east coast of the United States. Sometime after midday, the consortium received the first batch of polls, which showed John Kerry leading in almost every contested state.
Almost simultaneously, the data leaked and word of a probable Kerry victory flashed around the media and political world. It reached the bloggers who run newsy web sites.
At 1.45 p.m. the pro-Kerry Talking Points Memo reported on its site, "First exit polls close, but encouraging". At 2.03 p.m. Daily Kos reported Kerry leading in Florida and Ohio. At 2.20 p.m. the Drudge Report flashed: "Election 2004 has been rocked with first wave of exit poll which show Kerry competitive in key states."
On Wall Street stocks began a steep decline as traders got the news. At 3.15 p.m. Slate informed its internet readers, "Kerry Leads" and reported the Democrat up two points in Florida and Ohio. Some mainstream media then joined in.
Just before 3.30 p.m., the Wall Street Journal web site reported that early exit-polling data gave Kerry a lead in key states, though it questioned its validity. At 4.15 p.m. Wonkette reported Kerry drawing away in Ohio by five points and holding a one-point lead in Florida. At 5.33 p.m. the highly-respected Zogby Poll predicted Kerry would win the electoral vote by 311 to 213. At 6 p.m. Daily Kos reported Kerry ahead by two points in Ohio and Florida, with the caveat "grain of salt and all that..."
At 6.17 p.m. the story burst into the mainstream media when Reuters reported a strong Kerry lead, citing data on web sites, though also urging caution. US newspapers began to prepare big spreads on how Kerry had pulled it off. At Bush-Cheney headquarters in Washington there was near-panic.
In Boston the mood was positively giddy. By the time John Kerry finished his traditional election-day lunch of neck clams, sole, mashed potatoes and dark ale in Boston's Union Oyster House, his staff were making preparations for the transition. They drew up talking points for what aides should tell reporters asking why Kerry had won, headed by his performance in the three debates.
Kerry spent that afternoon in a Westin Hotel suite from where he gave television interviews by satellite to swing states, and was told about the exit polls at 7.30 p.m., just as the first results started coming in. At that time Slate was still giving Kerry a two-point lead in Ohio and Florida. By then Drudge had pulled back, with a new headline: "Enough of the Media Exits. Let's Count the People's Votes".
But at 9.10 p.m. Wonkette reported that Kerry's margin was widening in Ohio, though Florida was tied. But 45 minutes later it reported: "Not 50/50 in Florida, White House very confident."
As the evening wore on, the euphoria in the Kerry camp subsided. By midnight it had turned to black despair. In the end Bush took Florida and Ohio, and the election, and the inquests began as to what had screwed up the polls.
It seems that in early voting there may have been more women than men, distorting the exit poll results as women leaned towards Kerry, and more members of minorities who voted Democrat. The exit polls were in fact not all that wrong, protested their compilers, Lenski and Mitofski.
They fell within a margin of error of plus or minus five points, they said, and were used without full analysis.
The pollsters had even called the networks to warn them they didn't think some of the results were accurate. But once they leaked, the pro-Kerry partisans and many in the media believed them, because they desperately wanted to.
Four years ago the networks were deeply embarrassed by making early calls on Florida, based on exit polling that they later had to rescind. This time they took no chances, despite some needling from bloggers such as Instapundit, which at 11.37 p.m. on Tuesday asked: "What's the matter networks? Afraid to call Florida this time around? Et tu, Fox? It's okay. I understand. I'll call it for you. Bush wins it. He's ahead by 4.2 per cent with 93.5 per cent counted."
Two minutes later ABC News called Florida for Bush, followed by CBS. At 12.41 a.m. on Wednesday, Fox News became the first to call Ohio for George Bush, based on the calculation that Kerry could not overtake the president's 130,000 lead with the remaining uncounted ballots.
CBS was about to follow suit but hesitated for another hour. Presenter Dan Rather, still smarting from his 2000 nightmare, declared at 1.30 a.m. that having got Florida wrong before, this time "we would rather be last than wrong."
But no one, not even Fox, called the election that long night, though Karl Rove, Bush's strategist, telephoned an executive at Fox just after 2 a.m. to say that Bush would win New Mexico, which would have pushed the president over the top. At 4 a.m., while Ohio counting was still going on, Bush almost declared victory, but the Democrats were not ready to concede.
Next morning Kerry decided he couldn't win Ohio and called the president to congratulate him, over the objections of John Edwards who did not want to do anything that might damage his future ambitions - like getting the nomination in 2008.
Senators John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are being touted widely as front runners in the 2008 US election but many Democrats are not so sure. The North Carolina senator is now associated with a failed ticket and the New York senator is still a polarising figure.
Kerry himself didn't close the door on running again but realistically he is out. Any Democratic candidate will want Barack Obama, the brilliant new African American senator from Illinois, on his ticket.
On the Republican side, there is some speculation that Dick Cheney will stand down in a couple of years, and Senator John McCain or Condoleezza Rice will become vice president - and the next Republican candidate. Former New York mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, who did some harsh Kerry bashing for Bush, is also said to be thinking of a run for the White House. An obvious choice is Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he can't run, because he wasn't born in America.
Now an apology. In this space on February 21st last, I made a prediction that President Bush would be beaten, adding: "You read it here first". This was based on my observation during the primaries that Democrats were fired up as never before by their desire to oust Bush from the White House. I was right in that.
More Democrats than ever voted on Tuesday - five million more than Bush got in 2000. But I did not foresee Republicans too would be energised as never before, and turn out in even greater numbers.
So I was wrong. Sorry about that. I wasn't alone. Jimmy Breslin declared in his Newsday column in May that Kerry would sweep home. That was three months after my prediction. At least I got it wrong first!