‘Tis well I remember election day four years ago. It was a very different election season. I had a strong gut confidence throughout the year that President Bush would win. It was inconceivable to me that John F. Kerry would prevail. During the afternoon of election day, exit polls were leaked, showing Kerry way ahead in crucial swing states. Before long, an analysis was circulated via NRO that explained why the sampling in these exit polls was completely cockeyed. Fine, I thought: let the Democrat nut-roots celebrate early and crash later on. Then, afternoon turned to evening and I turned on Fox News to hear what Brit Hume and his colleagues were saying. It was a shock to the system. They were not calling a winner or explicitly sharing who was ahead in the exit polls, but their demeanor spoke volumes. The conservatives were glum, and the discussion was along the lines of why Bush hadn’t done better, and why Kerry was doing so well. Juan Williams, one of the liberal voices of Fox, was strutting and preening. They didn’t have to come out and say it, but it was clear that they all thought that John F. Kerry was going to be the next president. Now, I got depressed. I figured that these guys had to know everything I knew and more, so they must be right.

Well, things started changing, of-course, as soon as actual results began coming in. The exit polls were indeed way off. Those moments of doubt then only made the eventual result even sweeter.

It was speculated that these exit polls had been leaked in order to dampen Republican enthusiasm and keep voters from coming out. I can’t say. But you could look at the entire recent run-up to the current election as being an enthusiasm-dampener for McCain voters. Every day, we’ve been told how improbable is the math that would enable McCain to win. The election experts on the networks allocated over 300 electoral college votes to Obama weeks ago. Why should we bother?

We should bother because we are the ones who decide. Not pollsters, not pundits, not comedians — not even Bruce Springsteen. Everything that’s been said, everything that’s been predicted, every analysis that has been pushed in our faces to this point is completely and utterly worthless today. All that matters is what we do when we go into the voting booth.

I saw George Stephanopoulus (Democratic operative turned impartial political expert, like so many others) this morning on ABC essentially explaining at what point during the campaign John McCain lost the election. With polls having just opened on the East Coast. Ignore him and weasels like him. Ignore everything you hear today that is designed to dismay and discourage you. If Rush Limbaugh himself should come on today and say, “It’s over,” ignore him too. If, on this very website, Yours Truly should start writing words of failure and concession, then ignore me as well (often an excellent practice, I’m told).

Trust no one. Just vote.

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