*Turnout Hurts Bush. Republicans could only win by suppressing turnout, countless pundits averred. Only a vote-discouraging weather system out of "The Day After Tomorrow" could possibly save Bush from the throngs eager to push him out of office. As it happened, Bush built a 1.4 million-strong grass-roots army in the battleground states that stoked turnout above and beyond what anyone imagined.
*Channeling Herbert Hoover. Democrats invoked his name frequently in discussing the economy. This line maintained some plausibility through sheer repetition during the campaign. Now it is more laughably absurd than ever. Gross domestic product growth has been 4 percent during the past year, higher than the post-World War II annual average. The unemployment rate is at 5.4 percent, historically low. The first monthly jobs report after the election heralded more than 300,000 new jobs created in October -- jobs that would have become part of a miraculous "Kerry recovery" should he have won on Nov. 2. The stock market is in a vigorous post-election rally that has it at a 3-1/2-year high. Hoover would be proud.
This just skims the surface of 2004 folly. Whatever happened, for instance, to that impending draft we heard so much about? But it's time to move on. We have a spanking-fresh 12 months ahead, in which the same people will likely be wrong again, but in entirely new and interesting ways. Happy New Year!