When Journalism Turns Personal

"-- Sarah Palin. Polling shows that she drove some voters away from Sen. McCain and to Barack Obama. Voters judged her to be too inexperienced to be president. Also, instead of appealing to independents, she became a polarizing figure. ALSO -- her persona highlighted McCain's age and health since she could have taken over. ALSO -- her selection killed the 'inexperience' argument against Obama."

At Hot Air, though, Ed Morrissey says Obama's win is less impressive than advertised:

"In 2004, Bush beat John Kerry by winning 62.04 million votes. In 2008, Obama won 62.443 million, a gain of only 400,000. In 2004, Kerry garnered 59.028 million votes; John McCain only got 55.386 million. That means this election saw 3.24 million fewer votes than four years ago. Far from being more energized, the nation appeared to be more apathetic . . .

"John McCain and the GOP didn't get their turnout in this race. They lost almost seven million voters from 2004, a rather stunning number . . . Did they stay home, or did significant numbers of them defect to Obama? I'm guessing the former. The GOP demoralized their base by acting like Democrats for too many years, and the winds of 'change' proved too dispiriting this time around . . .

"Bush is a particularly disliked incumbent. The Republican Party lost its soul when it launched its K Street Project, and the spendfest of 2001-6 only made that more clear. If the GOP wants to win 60 million votes in future national elections, it has to stand for something other than being Democrat Lite."

To heck with demographic analyses. Tina Brown has a more literary interpretation:

"This has been an election full of magic. White Magic that only the black man from everywhere and nowhere could perform. Even his adored grandmother dying on the eve of the victory had a mythic feeling of completion to it in a candidacy full of signs and symbols. Remember the three-point basketball shot when he played with the soldiers in Kuwait? It's as if Obama is the prince who lifts the curse in a fairy story, a curse that began eight years ago with an election wrenched away from the rightful winner and begetting as a consequence the wrathful visitation of tragedy and wars and hurricanes and economic collapse . . .

"Now can we please not risk any more catastrophes by letting this administration stick around? Just scrap the transition and let President Obama clean house right away like the Brits do at Number 10 Downing Street? In the country of my birth, the Prime Minister kisses the Queen's hand and he's in and the loser is on the way out with no time to make off with the silver."

So much for the constitutional niceties.