If Kerry doesn’t concede by mid-morning, he can only be thinking and being advised one thing: that the Democratic party needs to keep its only centripetal force and organizing principle going….that the Republicans can only rule by illegitimate means. The we-was-robbed-in-2000 zietgeist generated record fundraising, high-visibility support, and provided an emotional core for the Democratic party that it had been missing since Watergate.
It is a victory of historical proportions for Bush. Decisive control of the House and Senate and a popular majority of 3.5 million that even Michael Moore must notice. Kerry is an experienced politician – he doesn’t want to be President in that environment even if every provisional ballot in Ohio was accepted and went 100% Kerry – which it can’t of course.
A failure to concede by this morning can only mean the Dems, lacking anything to rally around for the next four years, want to keep the victim-magic going and will hang on long enough to create the auro of “another stolen election” for their base.