WATCH FOR DANIEL DREZNER on ABC World News Tonight in a little while.

TIM BLAIR has your post-election news roundup. And don’t miss this photo feature!

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES IS UP: Just in time for dinner!

HERE’S MORE on the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in by an Arab terrorist. And Dutch blog PeakTalk has more here, and here.

HEH.

LEX GIBSON thinks that Democrats should embrace federalism.

PROF. MIKE RAPPAPORT nominates Chief Justice Michael McConnell.

I’m still standing by my candidate, Eugene Volokh.

UPDATE: Volokh endorses McConnell — and has a list of other candidates. That’s not stopping me, though, anymore than Lileks’ coyness about his Senate run . . . .

FELLOW ANNOYING LIBERTARIAN RANDY BARNETT offers some advice to social conservatives.

It’s good advice. But hell, the advice I’m giving to the Democrats is good advice, too. Will either group take it?

UPDATE: Related thoughts here, including a triple-violation of “Wolcott’s rule.” Wolcott has rules?

ANOTHER UPDATE: More advice here:

It only takes a 3% swing to lose the executive.

Bold is good when you have a mandate. But bold must be in programs that are likely to have positive MEASUREABLE results.

Other wise you sow the seeds of your next defeat.

Remember the middle. It is where you win and lose elections.

Indeed.

IT’S NOW 286-252, as Bush has won Iowa. Perspective, from the Boston Globe:

The Democrats’ defeat in Iowa reflects a larger problem for them in the Midwest and across the political map.

Along with Wisconsin and Minnesota, Iowa and its seven electoral votes are part of the once-Democratic Upper Midwest that is growing more conservative with each presidential election. Kerry won Minnesota by just 3 percentage points, Wisconsin by a single point.

In addition, Michigan and Pennsylvania went Democratic by 3 percentage points or less and Bush won Ohio despite its economic miseries.

Democrats hope to cultivate the Southwest as a fertile substitute for Midwest losses, but Bush narrowed Democratic advantages among Hispanics in the region.

I just don’t think Hollywood, Dan Rather, Mark Halperin, and George Soros provide enough of a base. Rather than rethinking, though, I suspect that the Democrats will deploy the media troops again, in an effort to “Nixon” Bush, and perhaps some of his more prominent supporters — Arnold Schwarzenegger, perhaps, or some other prominent Republican.

UPDATE: A reader notes that the popular-vote gap has widened, too: 52-47, or 56,783,329 to 52,120,230, for a difference over 4.5 million votes.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yahoo seems to be updating their site, and the numbers keep changing, so far in Bush’s favor. Meanwhile reader Dave Cole sends this email:

On Tuesday, a majority of the American electorate took a look at their party and asked, “Who are these people?” Who are George Soros, Michael Moore, Tim Robbins, Susan Sontag, Teresa Heinz Kerry and all these other self-anointed spokespersons for everything good and true? And what does a party that is dominated by a loose coalition of the coastal intelligentsia, billionaires with too much spare time, the trial lawyers’ association, the Hollywood Actors’ Guild, rock stars and unionized labor have in common with what’s quaintly known as Middle America? The majority’s answers were (a) not us; and (b) not a whole lot.

Growing up in Topeka, Kansas (where my dad still lives), and now living in Denver, this is pretty much what my friends and associates are thinking, too. What I’m hearing from the Democrats is that middle America voted on moral values, which I take to be code for “they are a bunch of ignorant, bible thumping sheep”. There seems to be a lot of hand wringing over how they could have better conveyed their message to the Midwest, and an arrogance that if they had, Kerry would have won in a landslide. What the Democrats don’t understand is that yes, we do understand your message, and we reject it.

I don’t think the Democrats are ready to accept that, yet. Related thoughts here:

The Democratic Party–my party–has finally become nothing more than the party of cognitive dissonance. That is why, like Zell Miller and a large fraction of usually Democratic middle America, I backed the other side on this one. . . .

Mainstream media bragged of being able to boost the Dems by 15 percent (do you remember Newsweek saying that?). The “blogosphere” has been crowing that MSM failed to do so (for which the blogs also claim responsibility), but I don’t agree. I think the MSM actually succeeded in bringing the Dems a 10 to 15 point boost in the election (and maybe more). Before the media spin machine started systematically slamming Bush 18 months ago, he was favored at around 66% in the polls. 66% minus 15% is…well…the 51% margin Bush was re-elected by. Thing is, even the thinly veiled support of most major media outlets wasn’t enough to put Kerry in the White House. The Democratic party has completely, utterly, undeniably marginalized itself. The Dems no longer have a national party. All it takes is one look at the electoral map to illustrate that. The so-called “Purple Map” may make them feel better, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. A party that can only win in the Northeast and Left Coast is not a national party anymore. A party that manages to lose by 3 percent even with a huge boost from blatantly partisan favorable media coverage is on its deathbed politically.

I’m afraid that’s right and — since I’m not a Republican and don’t share Karl Rove’s ambition to do to the Democrats what Tony Blair has done to the Tories — I’m not happy about it. But I think “self-marginalized” is about right.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Doh. The first paragraph in the email quoted above is from an editorial in yesterday’s Wall St. Journal. That wasn’t clear to me from the original email. I’d provide a link, but it’s on the pay side.

And William Schneider emails: “That Yahoo map has NY at only 3% reporting, which would account for Bush’s “new” lead over Kerry.” Using Mozilla, I wasn’t getting the popup with state data, but I opened it up in another browser and he’s right. Weird. I don’t know why Yahoo is so far behind, but this CNN page seems more up to date and shows Bush 3.5 million ahead.

WEB OF INFLUENCE: Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell have an article in Foreign Policy looking at blogs and foreign affairs.

If that interests you, you might also enjoy The Diplomad, a group-blog by foreign service officers. (Right now there are some interesting observations on how the election is playing within the State Department).

Those who have read Keith Laumer, as I know many InstaPundit readers have, will find the tone familiar, somehow. . . .

NOVELIST ROGER SIMON RESPONDS TO JANE SMILEY’S SCREED on the idiocy of American voters:

The mind of a good fantasist must make those stories vivid. And to do that you have to live in those stories, believe your vision and live it like an actor. Contradictory ideas are to some extent not allowed because they would vitiate the drama, leaving only a lifeless essay.

That means the novelist (myself included) must be something of an hysteric when writing. You are inventing your own private reality. That is what Ms. Smiley has done in her article.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Speaking of fantasy, Smiley has her Civil War history backwards, too:

According to Smiley:

The worst civilian massacre in American history took place in Lawrence, Kan., in 1862—Quantrill’s raid. The red forces, known then as the slave-power, pulled 265 unarmed men from their beds on a Sunday morning and slaughtered them in front of their wives and children.

Now, if history hasn’t completely reversed itself recently, wasn’t William Clarke Quantrill a Confederate raider?

According to PBS, the strongly pro-Union stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas, had 183 (again, social promotion does not help math skills) of their predominately Republican citizenry slaughtered by pro-slavery Democrats. These same Democrats, of course, went on to found the original Ku Klux Klan.

Of course, we are the party revelling in the “ignorance in America” so I guess she didn’t think we’d notice her attempts to play fast and loose with the facts…

Truly an embarrassment for Smiley — and for Slate.

HOWARD KURTZ is reading the post-election tea leaves. And John Ellis has thoughts on why Kerry lost — and how he could have won.

THIS ARTICLE BY JANE SMILEY in Slate is getting a lot of attention. Jessica Harbour suspects a cruel plot to discredit novelists who talk about politics. (We need a plot for that?) The Belmont Club summarizes it this way: “One of the several ways to parse this argument is to take it on its own terms. In this account, the bulk of Ms. Smiley’s enemies consist of a single, undifferentiated mass of red staters with the bestial appetites and intelligence of retarded slugs. . . . As a model of simplification it is unexampled. Nothing could be clearer; nothing more proof against refutation.”

I suggest that Ms. Smiley read James Lileks’ response to the “undifferentiated mass of red staters” school of argument.

And she should also buy Lileks’ new book! But then, so should everyone.

UPDATE: Interesting observation from the comments at The Belmont Club:

If Kerry had won, the war would undoubtedly be repudiated in the press everywhere. But now that Bush has won, it has been decided that he won on other issues like gay marriage and abortion.

Indeed.

I MEANT TO NOTE BOBBY JINDAL’S ELECTION in Louisiana, but forgot in all the other events. But what’s most interesting now is the reaction from Indian newspapers:

Bobby Jindal Mirrors the Immigrant Aspiration — New Kerala

Jindal in Congress, History in Tow — Hindustan Times

A Coming of Age for Indian Americans — Economic Times India

There are a lot more along these lines. Meanwhile, although I missed this earlier, Power Line put up a big post on Jindal’s election from a U.S. perspective.

ELECTIONS AND THE NEW MEDIA: My TechCentralStation column is up.

AUSTIN BAY LOOKS AT THE ELECTIONS AND THE WAR ON TERROR: The elections of 2008, 2012, and 2016, that is. “As for the 2020 campaign—we should have a good feel for the War on Terror in that campaign by 2015 or so.”

He continues: “The re-election of George W. Bush bodes well for peace in 2020. A John Kerry victory would have cost us an additional two years of blood, toil, sweat, and tears -—the two years it would take the Kerry Administration to discover that the Bush Administration’s strategy in the War on Terror is the right one.”

Read the whole thing. I guess there’s still room for Hillary Clinton to become “the most uncompromising wartime president in the history of the United States.”

FOOL’S GOLD AND EVANGELICALS: Geitner Simmons notes that Garry Wills is talking through his hat on the election results. (“In other words, he has set aside the very argument he made in his 1990 book — recognizing the long-standing significance of social traditionalists as an obvious aspect of American political life — for the sake of maintaining solidarity with Kerry supporters.”) Can’t say I’m surprised.

BASEBALL CRANK (hey, he knows statistics!) says that 65% of new voters went for Bush. Interesting.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh emails that it should be “65% of new and switching voters” above. It’s late here, I’m about to go to bed, and I’m too tired to check this, but since (1) it’s three hours earlier for Eugene; and (2) regardless of the time zone, he’s Eugene Volokh and I’m not, he’s probably right about that.

I AGREE WITH DANIEL DREZNER: Lots of people are going to be reading Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.

I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know if he has the right answer — from the Amazon blurb I’d say not — but at least he’s asking the right questions.

UPDATE: Or maybe not. I had forgotten — until reader Angie Schultz reminded me of it — Josh Chafetz’s savage panning of this book in The New York Times.

I WROTE A COLUMN on space warfare a few weeks ago, and now DefenseTech notes that the Pentagon is increasingly worried about satellite vulnerabilities:

Aviation Week quotes a “nightmare” that the country’s top military space officer sometimes shares with his colleagues: “A phone call from the White House asking, ‘What happened to our satellite? And what are you doing about it?’ With few exceptions, today’s response will be the same as a former Cincspace [Command-in-Chief of Space Operations] gave the Vice President several years ago: ‘We don’t know, and there’s not much we can do.”‘

Everyone agrees that the first step to satellite defense is to get some sort of sense of what’s happening in orbit. But the job of setting up this “Space Situational Awareness” has been bogged down in the bureaucratic muck.

This is the kind of thing — important, but with no deadline — that tends to get insufficient attention until it’s too late. I hope it gets more attention.

FELLOW ANNOYING LIBERTARIAN DAVID BERNSTEIN notes that we seem to be popping up everywhere.

NOW, SEE, THIS POST-ELECTION RALLY IN SAN FRANCISCO isn’t laying a good foundation for a Democratic comeback.

The Democrats are going to have to distance themselves from stuff like this, if they want to carry swing states.

UPDATE: A reader sends this quote, allegedy from Napoleon: “when your enemy is making a very serious mistake, don’t be impolite and disturb him.”

Well, yeah, but while I don’t feel especially good about that guy with the sign, he’s not actually my enemy. And certainly the Democrats overall aren’t. I’d much rather see the Democratic Party as a viable and sensible competitor to the Republicans than as a marginalized regional party based around some safe congressional seats in urban areas. And that’s where it’s headed, I’m afraid, if stuff like this catches on.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Not in the same league as the above, but this Joan Baez minstrel show doesn’t bode well.

THE BBC ASKED AMERICANS WHO VOTED FOR BUSH to explain their reasons and it makes for interesting reading.

ADVICE TO FELLOW DEMOCRATS, from The Backseat Philosopher:

Many Democrats think that our patience and understanding are our weakness. “We don’t know how to fight like the Republicans,” we all told ourselves after Florida 2000. “We have to be more like them: tougher, meaner.” “We have to energize our base more.”

Actually, no. Our error is that we Democrats actually are far less understanding than we think we are. Our version of understanding the other side is to look at them from a psychological point of view while being completely unwilling to take their arguments seriously. “Well, he can’t help himself, he’s a right-wing religious zealot, so of course he’s going to think like that.” “Republicans who never served in war are hypocrites to send young men to die. ” “Republicans are homophobes, probably because they can’t deal with their secret desires.” Anything but actually listening and responding to the arguments being made.

And when I say ‘responding,’ I don’t just mean ‘coming up with the best counterargument and pushing it.’ Sometimes responding to an argument means finding the merit in it and possibly changing one’s position. That is part of growth, right?

Read the whole thing, which is quite perceptive.

BOIFROMTROY HAS MULTIPLE POSTS ON “MORAL VALUES” and exit polling. I have to confess that this bit is my favorite: “me and my gay husband will NEVER get an abortion!” One of his commenters has an important observation, too:

I suspect IF the MSM asked what people meant when they answered “moral values”, it was more than just gay marriage. It wouldn’t supprise me if they includes “moral” in the sense of personal and public integrity….knowing where one stood.

He also has more on exit polling here, and Dianne Feinstein’s spitting match with gay groups.