Bob's Place

Captain's Quarters contrasts the quiet dignity of the President with the raucous mean-spirit of the Democrats, and explains the outcome of the election. I disagree with one thing - I don't believe the Democrats have the maturity or grace to concede regardless of the data:

..............Races in Ohio get automatically reviewed under two scenarios. First, by statute, if the margin of victory does not exceed 0.25% of the overall votes cast for that race, a recount is automatically undertaken. The gap for President is much broader than that -- 2.44%, making a recount unnecessary. The second regulatory threshold is if the margin fails to exceed the number of provisional ballots cast, the provisional ballots must be reviewed and qualified ballots counted before the results are final. It looks like the latter case will automatically be invoked at this stage.

It doesn't matter anyway. The Kerry/Edwards campaign wanted to make the case that 250,000 provisional ballots remained, which was clearly an exaggeration. Assuming that absentee ballots, including those from the military, broke exactly even between the two candidates (and that would be a hell of an assumption for military ballots), the remaining provos would all have to be legal and almost every one of them would have to vote for John Kerry..............

UPDATE: I stand corrected IF they don't pull a Gore and retract it "snippily".