There is one class of voters that the pollsters have NOT been able to track. I call them the Cell Phone Kids. They are in the 18-24 year age bracket, many are away at school and they have cell phones. That means there is no sure way for the pollsters to reach them, if the cell phones are turned off. In several of the battle-ground states there is a surge of new registrations from this population of voters. I have a feeling in my old bones that this naive youngsters will fall heavily for the Kerry-nator's idealistic -sounding- bullshit. People who have ridden the planet around the sun a sufficient number of times understand that the Kerry-nator is a disaster, but do these youngsters understand? If Kerry gets a boost from new registrations he just may carry the day, the the usual polls have missed out on the key to it. We shall see. I do not plan to watch any of the returns tonight. For me it is homework and an hour of the sci-fi channel. When I wake up tomorrow I will know, but not tonight. Bob Kolker

In several of the battle-ground states there is a surge of new registrations from this population of voters. I have a feeling in my old bones that this naive youngsters will fall heavily for the Kerry-nator's idealistic -sounding- bullshit. People who have ridden the planet around the sun a sufficient number of times understand that the Kerry-nator is a disaster, but do these youngsters understand? If Kerry gets a boost from new registrations he just may carry the day, the the usual polls have missed out on the key to it. There's a fear out there that if Bush is reelected, there will be a return to the draft.  Never mind that the Republicans would kill themselves politically for decades to come if they reinstated the draft; political parties sometimes do show suicidal tendencies. If Kerry has an advantage in anything, it's that he's too weak-kneed to reinstate the draft, and that may be why the youngsters prefer him.

I do not plan to watch any of the returns tonight. For me it is homework and an hour of the sci-fi channel. When I wake up tomorrow I will know, but not tonight. Bob, whose homework are you doing? (as I suffer through watching the election returns with one eye...)

There's a fear out there that if Bush is reelected, there will be a return to the draft.  Never mind that the Republicans would kill themselves politically for decades to come if they reinstated the draft; political parties sometimes do show suicidal tendencies. That is a canard cooked up by the desparate Democrats. It will take a major blood letting done on us right here at home to revive the draft. Allocating more money to attract people into the military is what the Republicans will do. They will draft tax-dollars, not bodies. Bob Kolker

Bob, whose homework are you doing? Mine, of course. All my kids are grown up and my grandchildren live elsewhere. I am taking a course in Symplectic Manifolds and in the Physics of Biology (a graduate course). I get to take all these nifty graduate course for about 50 dollars per course per semester. Not for credit, of course, but who cares. The best way of avoiding Alzheimer's Disease is to keep the brains running hard. No pain, no gain. Bob Kolker

to the draft.  Never mind that the Republicans would kill themselves politically for decades to come if they reinstated the draft; political parties sometimes do show suicidal tendencies. That is a canard cooked up by the desparate Democrats. It will take a major blood letting done on us right here at home to revive the draft. Allocating more money to attract people into the military is what the Republicans will do. They will draft tax-dollars, not bodies. Good luck.  Short of Kolkerizing(TM) vast portions of the federal budget as should be done, money isn't going to be freed up to increase military spending, and the Repos aren't going to be raising taxes. According to -Newsweek-'s report on the full version of the Osama tape from last week, he talks about bleeding the U.S. economy (as opposed to major 9/11-_style_ attacks), such as in causing large federal deficits to continue. So far, that appears to be the U.S. MO, and may continue to be for years to come.