Before you get confused about the diary title, let me explain.
Four years ago today, I wrote a diary titled We're Already Winning in Florida!
The diary made it to the top of the Recommended list. Even Kos himself recommended the diary. Based on a single Washington Post article about the apparent disparity in GOTV between the Bush and Kerry campaigns in Florida, I foolishly proclaimed that we were on the path to victory. TocqueDeville rightly called me out in the comments, and was troll-rated for speaking the truth.
And so today, I make amends for jinxing the election and offer a cautionary tale for the rest of us in this final week. If you'd like to spread this message to the DailyKos community, then please Recommend this diary.
Here is the sum total of my diary from Oct. 29th, 2004. Feel free to cringe:
GREAT NEWS from the Washington Post. GOTV is kicking ass:
There are no statewide totals of early voters, and votes will not be counted until polls close on Election Day. But some counties have made numbers available, and Democrats appear to be considerably outstripping Republicans in turnout -- significantly, in the belt of counties across the state's midsection, from St. Petersburg to Orlando, the prime battleground for swing voters.
In Orange County, home to Orlando with a 5 percent Democratic edge in registration, 50,839 early votes had been cast by Friday morning -- 48 percent of them Democrats and 33 percent Republicans. In Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg, where Republicans have a slight edge in registration, Democrats have a slight edge in early voters. In heavily Democratic Broward County, almost 130,000 votes were cast, with no party breakdown; and in Miami-Dade, almost 180,000.
48-33 in prime battleground territory, folks.
Mindy Tucker Fletcher, a GOP strategist, said the Democratic advantage in early voters is irrelevant because Republicans have a bigger advantage in absentee ballots.
But Colleen Murphy, a Republican official in Orange County, posted an alarmist message on the party's Web site about the intensity and numbers of Democrats casting early ballots there.
"I want to tell you, it's been a culture shock," she wrote. "If you don't get yourselves out of your routines and your comfort zones and do what is necessary to support the president between now and November 2, I'm afraid we're all in for a little culture shock that will last beyond the next four years."
And check out this beautiful anecdote:
Knocking on doors in the upscale Pebble Creek neighborhood in northern Hillsborough County, two ACT canvassers found Wednesday that well over half their target audience had voted. One woman answered her door wearing an "I voted early" sticker, flashed a thumbs-up and said, simply, "Yes!"
Republicans began an intensive canvass Thursday night, with swarms of volunteers deployed to GOP precincts. Matt Strength, who chairs the University of South Florida's College Republican chapter, knocked on more than two dozen doors in a precinct that voted 68 percent for Bush in 2000 and where the GOP hopes to get 72 percent this year. Only four voters were home, and all promised to vote, but none had voted early. "I went three times and the lines were too long," one woman said.
Bush, as we know, went on to win Florida by 5 percentage points. I don't think my diary alone caused the loss, but the mindset that led me to write the diary (and that led so many Kossacks, Kos included) to recommend it may have played a role.
We got complacent. We didn't leave it all on the road. We read misleading GOTV stories in the WaPo and NY Times and we looked at polling sites like Electoral-Vote.com, who on November 1st, 2004 gave us this map:
And we blew it. So while FiveThirtyEight.com tells us that Obama has a 96% chance of winning, while Electoral-Vote.com says Obama will win 364 electoral votes, and while we all have inspiring anecdotal evidence Nov. 4th might be a huge success, don't believe the hype.
Don't make the same mistake I did.
The history of the 2008 election has yet to be written. And it is our job to write it. Now let's all get out there and do our part.
Update [2008-10-29 19:11:35 by existenz]: Rec list, awesome! Much thanks to all those who remember my 2004 diary and have offered me forgiveness. This is a cathartic moment for me, after having this on my shoulders for four years.
As a Rec list bonus, here is a campaign video I put together summing up this wild year we have had. If you like "Mr. November" by The National, you'll love it!