Well… I am pretty confident that Bush won, in Ohio at least. I was really hoping, really really hoping that Kerry would admit defeat tonight so that the election would not drag on and be taken into the courts of Ohio.

Suddenly the wisdom of Kerry's picking a trial attorney (one that could not bring any states into play) becomes apparent.

I am of the strong opinion that provisional ballots could serve to help Bush, not hurt him. I am sure that my sister wasn't the only Ohio Republican that was given a hard time and turned away from their polling place... and I have heard through various sources that many Ohio Republicans found their names mysteriously removed from the register after years of voting, not all that unlike what I was reading over at Blackfive, though he is not an Ohio resident.

Between the stories of massive numbers of questionable names registered by ACT and Acorn, thousands of voter registration cards in question, people being sent to the wrong precincts, and Republicans being told they were not registered, I think the provisional ballot will break more for Bush than Kerry, which is consistent with the statewide results at this point. When you consider that Kerry would need a projected 3/4 or more of all provisional ballots just to erode Bush's lead, it becomes pretty clear that Kerry would need almost all of the provisional ballots.

I understand that if you are in John Kerry's shoes, it is worth a shot... and he is entirely within his rights to want to see if the provisional ballots might give him that shot, however unlikely that may be.

If you are a Bush supporter, you have much to be happy about. As I see it, we are clearly winning. 100,000+ votes is nothing to sneeze at and I am much happier that we have the lead going into what looks like a week or more of challenges and questions about provisional ballots. More importantly, Bush has won the popular vote... by a LOT.

I know people will say that Bush only got 51-52% of the popular vote; but when you look at how many people voted yesterday, we see a clear mandate from the people - a clear decision. Yes it was close, but this does not mean we are divided, this means we were all enthused. We all did out best to rally our troops and commit to the democratic process. This election saw millions of new voters, and when all is said and done, our country is just split pretty evenly, with a slight majority Republican.

The American people made their voice heard and the American people have spoken. George W. Bush is going to be the next president, and if that means giving John Kerry and his hoards of lawyers a chance to check out the provisional ballots, I say good! There is no reason to think those provisional ballots will favor Kerry, I contend they could very well favor Bush.