Kevin Drum analyzes the election

In what appears to me to be one of the careful analyses of the election, Drum reaches some very surprising and counterintuitive conclusions.

Based on this, my tentative conclusion is that the "moral values" vote is a red herring. It played no bigger a role this year than in 2000.

Terrorism played a bigger role, mostly by being a more important issue to a lot more people. Bush's actual level of support among people who based their vote primarily on world affairs increased only modestly.

And that good old mainstay the economy was the most important of all. Compared to 2000, fewer people personally think they're doing better but more people believe the economy is in good shape anyway. And Bush was overwhelmingly successful in convincing those people that his policies deserved the credit.

Strange, huh?

Bush's win can be blamed on the economy - an economy that was constantly denigrated by the old media and liberals, despite the fact that the numbers are very similar to some of Clinton's best years. The obvious question is how did "the people" reach this conclusion when the old media was constantly telling them the opposite?

Perhaps the internet is a more influential phenomenon than some would care to admit.