Factor this

After five hours of sleep and multiple hits of caffeine, I’m rather punchy this afternoon and unable to say much more beyond what’s already been blogged about this amazing, historic, outrageously satisfying election. I’d particularly recommend MartiniPundit’s take on this election’s winners and losers.

What keeps me from going into the full version of the Geek Girl Happy Dance is the realization that this election should not have been this close, although Bush won by a more comfortable margin that I would have predicted. G.W. ran against a generally unappealing duo with scant accomplishments and off-the-charts liberal voting records. Minus the following factors, I might have been swigging Pepto Bismol rather than shiraz last night:

The Massachusetts Factor – As someone once pointed out, no Yankee Democrat has occupied the White House since JFK. New England/Ivy League culture is about as far away as you can get from the culture of middle-class America, and it saddled Kerry with an unbearable snoot factor that 10,000 John Edwardses could not counteract, which brings me to …

The John Edwards Factor – Ugh. Did anyone see Edwards’ little appearance before the Boston faithful early this morning? Someone call Disney World … I think the John Edwards Audio Animatronic® prototype for the "Hall of Presidents" escaped. That’s the only explanation for that robotic arm-pumping thing he was doing. Anyway … their attempt to draw Southern and female voters with a smarmy Ken doll tanked utterly.

The Vietnam Factor – Kerry had two problems here: those who didn’t give a rat’s butt about Vietnam and were unimpressed with his war-hero posturing … and those who still do give a rat’s butt about Vietnam and would like to have a word or two with Mr. Kerry.

The Flip-flop Factor – Excuse me, Mr. Kerry? Have you heard about this new invention called the Internet? It’s a vast storehouse of information where people not only can read what you’ve already said about an issue, they also can compare that to what you said today and then e-mail their friends about it. It’s an amazing thing, that Internet. You might want to check it out.

The Michael Moore Factor – Does anyone really like this guy? I mean, does he have friends? Just what was Jimmy Carter thinking in that sky box at the DNC? If I were Jimmy, I’d worry that Michael Moore would start flatulating uncontrollably and I’d be asphyxiated in five seconds flat.

The Teresa Factor – ‘Nuf said.