Family Vote Wins It

Yesterday the American people voted decisively to re-elect President Bush.

It was suppose to be among the closest races in our history.

But the pundits and pollsters were wrong. The exit polls were really wrong.

So, what happened?

On the face of it, the media elites did not factor in the strong Christian vote.

For all the hoopla we have been hearing from the media about new voters, cell phone voters and young voters, the evidence suggests they never materialized.

Yet conservative Christians turned out in droves. They turned out because they are worried about the cultural re-engineering in America. They like Bush. They didnt trust John Kerry.

Last night, MSNBC reported that 21 percent of Americans said moral issues were the biggest factor in their decision more than those who said the economy or the war on terror. How come we never saw this discussed in any polls before Election Day?

Clearly the media werent including the Christian vote because it didnt fit their agenda.

Heres my take on 2004 on some key points:

Vietnam and the POWs Were Critical

How the Democratic Party thought it could elect the most liberal senator in the country - from Massachusetts, no less - to the White House boggles the mind.

How arrogant it must be to think we would elect this man who, along with Jane Fonda, was one of the leaders of the pro-Viet Cong anti-war movement.

This arrogance was compounded by the fact that the media tried to portray Kerry as a war hero.

But this all failed when former POWs last summer had the guts to stand up and accuse Kerry of betraying them and the country.

When a single TV commercial aired making these claims, Kerrys lead in the polls evaporated, and he never regained it.

'Stolen Honor' Steals the Show

When Kerry and his allies threatened to take Sinclair Broadcast Groups FCC licenses if the network aired the documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, they were telegraphing to the world how much they feared the American people might see it.

This documentary by the courageous award-winning journalist Carlton Sherwood was not political propaganda as its detractors said. It was a factual account of what Kerry did during his anti-war days and how that behavior affected American POWs and the war.

Though under incredible pressure from every angle, from everything the Kerry campaign could throw at it, Sinclair did air a few minutes of the 43-minute documentary as part of a program. But the American public was deprived of most of the information in the documentary.

At that point NewsMax stepped into the breach. We decided that the publics right to know overrode the intimidation tactics of the P.C. thought police.

In the end, NewsMax decided to air Stolen Honor. Last weekend, we aired the documentary several dozen times across the nation, including 10 showings on PAX-TV alone. PAX reaches almost 100 million American homes. We estimate that more than 5 million Americans saw Stolen Honor.

Kudos to Giuliani, McCain, Pataki

Though I dont always agree with Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, I must commend them for their staunch efforts on behalf of President Bush.

They worked tirelessly on behalf of the presidents re-election, and they deserve tremendous praise.

Also, Gov. George Pataki helped make New Yorks GOP convention a stunning success. It was a defining moment in the campaign, and Pataki played a key role. Like Giuliani and McCain, he worked in overdrive for Bush, and no doubt he will be a contender in 2008.

Ed Koch Cant Be Underestimated

In the days before the election, Ed Koch wrote on NewsMax: On November 3, when President George W. Bush awakens to read the final election results, I believe he may say to himself: Thanks to the Jewish community, I won. They will never have cause to regret their confidence in me.

This has turned out to be true. I would add only that the president also should say to himself, Thank you, Ed Koch, for making it happen.

As we all know, Koch is the former mayor of New York City (some say he never really left office) and one of the nations most prominent Democrats. He is also a proud Jewish American.

Way back in 2003 Koch came out strongly to endorse President Bush. His support never wavered.

In South Florida, where Jews constitute a significant part of the population, Koch made numerous appearances endorsing Bush. And he and Giuliani teamed up to do a radio ad that endorsed Bush.

It worked. Most Jews still voted for Kerry, but in lower numbers than they did in 2000. I believe that shift contributed to Bushs significant victory in Florida this time.

Schwarzenegger Disappointing

No doubt Arnold Schwarzeneggers appearance in Columbus, Ohio, during the closing days of the campaign helped Bush. But I doubt it gave him his margin of victory there.

NewsMax has been reporting for months that Schwarzenegger was trying to distance himself from the president.

Compared to Rudy, McCain and Pataki, the Terminator was MIA.

Arnold could have used his star power in many ways for the president, with a few more visits to Ohio and Pennsylvania and perhaps a TV ad endorsing him.

But like most celebrities, he has an inflated sense of his own importance.

Republicans need to remember this election when theres talk of changing the 22nd Amendment.

$2 Billion Media War

NewsMax Magazine hit the nail on the head with our June cover story, The Media War on Bush.

We estimated that the major liberal media would give Kerry favorable news coverage and commentary worth an estimated $2 billion.

When one considers how the media are still working overtime for Kerry with networks such as ABC, CBS and CNN still not having called the election for Bush we may have to revise that figure upward.

My friend Alfonso Landa, whose noted father was an FDR insider, told me this week that he was amazed how well Bush had been doing despite the constant drubbing he had received from the media for several years now.

I believe the American people voted not only to reject Kerry on Tuesday, they also voted to reject the media elites.

The media, which had invested so much in the hate politics of Michael Moore and the outright bias exemplified by Dan Rather and CBS, received the publics verdict yesterday.

Dick Morris Hits the Bulls-Eye

As many pundits and pollsters claimed that the election was just too close to call, for weeks now Dick Morris was the only one putting his reputation on the line predicting a victory by Bush.

As election polls were closing after 7 p.m., Dick and I discussed the exit polls, which were depressing, to say the least. They showed a blowout victory for Kerry, winning every swing state with the possible exception of West Virginia.

As it turned out, they were all wrong. But Dick Morris was the first to pick up on it, as we chronicled last night exclusively for NewsMax readers.

Shortly after results started coming in from Indiana and Kentucky, I received an urgent call from Dick. Somethings wrong with the exit polls, he said.

Bush is doing much better than he did in 2000.

Morris said if the trend continued, the exit polls would be way off.

As more states flowed in, the trend continued to hold up. Morris noted that Bush was even doing 6 points better in Kerrys Massachusetts than he did in 2000.

At about 11 p.m., when Pennsylvania results showed Bush losing, but not so badly, Morris called me to say: Bush will carry Ohio. He will win. We can go with it.

NewsMax was the first to break the news, thanks to Dick Morris.

I believe Dick is the best political strategist of our time. He is also good with the numbers, as last night demonstrated to me.

Hillary in 2008

The dust has not even settled on this election, and the buzz is Sen. Hillary Clintons 2008 run.

Theres little question shell make a bid for the White House in four years.

All I can say is that Hillary is no Kerry.

Jackson has been holding rallies in Ohio in recent days to draw attention to the vote, and another critic plans to ask the state Supreme Court this week to decide the validity of the election.

Ohio essentially decided the outcome of the presidential race, with Kerry giving up after unofficial results showed Bush with a 136,000-vote lead in the state.

n a resounding, coast-to-coast rejection of gay marriage, voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments Tuesday limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

The amendments won, often by huge margins, in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Utah and Oregon - the one state where gay-rights activists hoped to prevail.

The bans won by a margin of 3 to 1 in Kentucky and Georgia, 3 to 2 in Ohio, and 6 to 1 in Mississippi.

"This issue does not deeply divide America," said conservative activist Gary Bauer. "The country overwhelmingly rejects same-sex marriage, and our hope is that both politicians and activist judges will read these results and take them to heart."

The Ohio measure, considered the broadest of the 11 because it barred any legal status that "intends to approximate marriage," gathered equal support from men and women, blacks and whites.

In Georgia, Ohio and Mississippi, gay-rights activists were considering court challenges to the newly approved amendments. But supporters of the bans were jubilant.

"I've said all along that this crossed party lines, color lines and socioeconomic lines," said Sadie Fields of the Georgia Christian Coalition. "The people in this state realized that we're talking about the future of our country here."

Conservatives had expected all along that the amendments would prevail in at least 10 of the states, thus demonstrating widespread public disapproval of court rulings in favor of gay couples. National and local gay-rights groups campaigned vigorously in Oregon, where polls had showed a close race, but they failed to prevent a sweep.

"That certainly is disappointing news that many Kentucky voters would think it's appropriate to write discrimination into our constitution," said Beth Wilson of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. "People get harmed when their relationships are not respected, and this means that relationships won't be respected."

None of the 11 states allow gay marriage now, though officials in Portland, Ore., married more than 3,000 same-sex couples last year before a judge halted the practice.

Supporters of the amendments contend the measures are needed as an extra guard against state court rulings like the one in Massachusetts a year ago that legalized same-sex marriage there.

But according to the Associated Press, the focus soon turned to the future when Teresa announced, "Whoever's up in '08 will not be running against the president, which is a blessing."

And there's plenty more where that came from.

If Deaniacs want to pull out all the stops, look for them to counter with an incident from Ickes' early days when the volatile Clintonista physically bit a political rival a la Mike Tyson.

New York City public relations executive James Vlasto remembers the Ickes chomp well.

He was working with the short-fused operative on a 1973 mayoral campaign when Ickes got into a knockdown fight with the campaign manager. "I tried to break it up," he said, but Ickes bit him on the leg."

"It was not a soft bite, either," Vlasto recalled a few years ago. He said he poured some vodka on the wound and drank the rest.

Though Ickes has mellowed somewhat with age, his temper remains legendary - a character flaw that Deaniacs could exploit to great effect.

"Better a screamer than a biter to head up the party," one observer told NewsMax. "Do the Democrats really want their chairman to have to wear a muzzle?"

In a movie that's being described as "the feel-good al-Qaida date flick of 2005," Bush-hating actor Sean Penn will star as a suicidal hijacker who tries to crash a commercial airliner into Bush's official residence, the White House.