[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

Well, that was unexpected and I have no explanation. Ohio is within the polling margin of error, so I'm disappointed but not shocked. The 5% margin in Florida is surprising. Possibly I should have been paying attention to Gallup. The interesting question for me, right now, is how the pollsters failed to catch a chunk of Bush voters, cause Florida wasn't even close. And Zogby's not gonna have quite as many clients next cycle. Ah, the perils of being a celebrity pollster. Then again, I seem to have made similar mistakes.

(t.rev, this is your cue to tell me that polls aren't worth buckets of warm spit, and you will be correct.)

I suspect that when the votes are all counted, we'll have a clear winner, which is good. Also, the Redskins predictive effect is now gone, which is a small comfort. Other than that, well, I'll give Bush a clean slate and we'll see what happens over the course of the next year. But let's be real -- he's likely to lose me with the first Supreme Court appointment. Unless it's Posner, which I could possibly get used to.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

What, then, are the fair expectations? How do I judge the next four years?

Things I do not expect of Bush:

• Peace in Iraq. Not because I think he's incapable of it, but because I think it's an incredibly difficult problem. I wouldn't have expected Kerry to make Iraq work either.

Things I am willing to judge him on:

• North Korea. He needs to make progress. I define that as North Korea reducing the number of nuclear weapons on hand. He said he could do this with his approach, and he needs to follow through.
• Iran. See above. If Iran gets nukes in the next four years, I'll count that against Bush.
• High school graduation rates. They need to be better, over the next four years, than they were during -- let's be fair, let's say Clinton's second term.
• Homes. 7 million new, occupied homes within the next four years. It's part of his platform.
• No new draft.
• Reduction in terrorism. More US citizens died in terrorist attacks in 2003 than died in 2004. On the other hand, fewer people overall died in terrorist attacks in 2003 than in 2002. I'm gonna use two numbers as the benchmark, as reported by the State Department -- overall deaths and overall number of people wounded.
• Deficit halved by 2008. Again, it's part of his platform.
• Men on Mars. This is kinda cheaty of me, but hell, he promised and I'd like to see it.

What am I missing? I'm trying to keep it to things he's said he could do and things that are reasonable to expect. And are any of these unfair?

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

Regarding new directions, I recommend to you David Neiwert, who remembers that the American progressive movement started both inside and outside the cities.

But we have terminology issues here. At present, progressive is used as a substitute for liberal. I'm not entirely sure that's accurate, considering that Teddy Roosevelt wound up a progressive in the end. My personal current bet is that within ten years we'll have a moderate party and a conservative party. I hedge this by saying that I don't think civil liberties are a liberal or a conservative issue -- see also William Weld and (odd fellow traveller, here) Bob Barr. I think there's a small chance that neither of these parties will be the Democratic Party. It's possible that one of them will be progressive.

Mostly, though, I'm recommending David's post because it's nice to have a sense of history.