They Think It's All Over

Baton Rouge

For John Kerry the game is up. Over the last twelve hours or so he's gone from hot favourite to strong contender to a man facing defeat. A few moments ago his running mate John Edwards emerged onto the stage in Boston to say the campaign would make sure every vote is counted. That's just the problem, the votes are being counted and Bush has more of them than Kerry. Not a huge amount more, but the President looks like taking the popular vote by millions rather than thousands.

Two of the five major news networks here (Fox, who were first, and NBC) called the key state of Ohio for Bush a good couple of hours ago and have spent the time since waiting for another state to drop into the red column to win him the election. The networks on the whole have been far too circumspect as they try to avoid a Florida 2000-style error, looking at the numbers it's almost unbelievable CBS, ABC and CNN haven't called Ohio for Bush too. I know they're just covering their backs but in any other year they'd have made the decision by now. The stuff about provisional ballots and possible litigation is all whistling in the dark from the Kerry camp as far as I can see. Ohio is nothing like as close as Florida was and there's little anecdotal evidence of any problems in voting in that state.

It looks unlikely Kerry will concede tonight but if he insists on prolonging the race he's only going to end up looking a bit silly. Fair enough fight for every vote, but there is no chance of him becoming President now. It's best for everyone if things come to a full conclusion as soon as possible.