Election Notes

Update: - Senator John McCain offered an elegant, genuinely heartfelt, concession speech. 

-- Gov. Sarah Palin voting:

Mark Steyn comments:

I like this picture of Sarah Palin voting. Heavy on the Caribou, light on the Barbie. She didn't need to be dunked in RNC bling. And the more the campaign went on and the more she wiggled free of her minders, the better she sounded. If you've got organic style, you shouldn't be shoehorned into generic campaign issue. If the night goes the way it seems to be heading, the differences between the Governor and the campaign will be one of the most interesting parts of the GOP post-mortem.

-- Kay Hagin beat Elizabeth Dole in the North Carolina race for U.S. Senator.  Number of pro-life women in the next Senate?  Zero.  (Fact noted by Ramesh Ponnuru)

  -- California Gay Marriage advocates (re: Proposition 8) employ religious hatred in video of Mormons ransacking the home of a same-sex California couple.  In so doing, they achieve a new low-- vile in the extreme.  Anyone half awake should realize that homosexual activists are not noted for tolerance.

-- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) loves the "Fairness Doctrine" that would choke conservative talk radio.  Here's the video.  Jonah Goldberg thinks Schumer's comments (that equate regulating pronography with regulating conservative radio) utterly moronic.

-- I am not sure if voter fraud will loom as a post-election issue or not.  But if so, I think Mark Levin is right to contend:

I think it's time we had a special unit of federal prosecutors who become expert in nothing but election fraud and focus on nothing but investigating and prosecuting election fraud.  We cannot allow any group or political party to brazenly and systematically undermine our democratic system anymore — and that includes fraudulent registration, fraudulent voting, and fraudulent (intimidating) lawsuits.  This must become a top priority now.  This kind of thuggery in Philadelphia must no longer be tolerated.

-- Early election day movie snatches to inspire the troops posted at National Review's Corner:  here, here, here, plus Patton 

-- Kathryn Jean Lopez (election night, 10:07 PM) offers this perspective to conservative troops:

If what everyone thinks may happen happens tonight, I am so optimistic about our great nation, the United States of America, as Sarah Palin might put it. We are about to have a tough few years — and I'm nervous about a lot of issues, where we'll be in the hands of one-party domination in Washington, a party that has positioned itself radically wrong on some key issues (like life and  not supporting our troops' commander in Iraq). But this is an opportunity, too, an opportunity for our movement, the conservative movement, to reaccess, to return to its roots, to study and renew. And to whip the Republican party into shape. It's going to be tough. But the Right is up for it. 

I'm so sorry we're here. But we appear to be. So we'll buck up, build up, and fight on.

-- Jonah Goldberg's respect for both Obama and McCain (election night, 10:38 PM):

Look, I expect to be one of the most severe critics of the Obama administration and the Democrats generally in the years ahead (though I sincerely hope I won't find that necessary). But Obama ran a brilliant race and he should be congratulated for it. Moreover, during the debate over the financial crisis, Obama said that a president should be able to do more than one thing at a time. Well, I think we members of the loyal opposition should be able to make distinctions simultaneously. It is a wonderful thing to have the first African-American president. It is a wonderful thing that in a country where feelings are so intense that power can be transferred so peacefully. Let us hope that the Obama his most dedicated — and most sensible! —  fans see turns out to be the real Obama. Let us hope that Obama succeeds and becomes a great president, for all the right reasons.

As for John McCain, he is an American hero and arguably the best candidate we could have fielded. I will in the days to come offer no small amount of criticism about his campaign. But where his campaign may have lacked qualities that would have helped it win, the candidate never lacked for honor and integrity. Thank you John McCain for your sacrifice, commitment, and honor.

God bless America, and may He guide Obama to be the best president possible.