Kennedy

RETURN TO THE END of the Gulf War, when we did not go to Baghdad. The wave was taking us there, but we stepped off. To go on would have offended our coalition partners, and contradicted our original plans. So we stopped short. Stepped off history's rolling breaker. Have regretted it ever since.

Which takes us back to spring 1945, another time we stepped off the wave instead of riding it in. The Allied armies were pushing into Germany. Churchill begged the high command not to stop short; to move forward and take Berlin. He saw the Cold War coming.

THE COLUMBIA IS LOST, but what remains are all the things that make us human: our grief, our sympathy for the families of the astronauts and the larger family of NASA--and our darker impulses as well. It never takes long for shallow souls to use such an event to promote their own agendas. Already we hear some voices clamoring to blame Congress or the Bush administration for denying NASA adequate funding, while others are saying we should just get blunderbuss government out of all this and privatize space exploration completely.

REPRESENTATIVE BOB EHRLICH hesitated for months before announcing his candidacy for governor of Maryland. And with good reason. To run he would have to risk a safe seat in Congress to challenge Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1. His name recognition was low, and early polls showed Townsend with a whopping 26 point lead. Sympathetic local talk-radio hosts speculated that while Ehrlich would be the GOP's best candidate, he still had little chance of beating even a weak candidate like Townsend in this solidly Democratic state.

THIS AFTERNOON DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe put out an alarming statement:

"We have seen 'anonymous' fliers displayed in predominantly African American communities in Baltimore, MD, with an incorrect Election Day date, warning voters to make sure their parking tickets are paid, their rent is not overdue, and they take care of any outstanding warrants before they go vote.

"A spokesman for the Maryland Republican candidate for Governor Bob Ehrlich was quoted saying their campaign plans include deploying off-duty police officers as poll watchers on Election Day.

"In Hidalgo

Editor's Note: We'll be posting election analysis all afternoon and all night as returns come in. Be sure to check back often.

--JVL

WHEN A TV TALKING HEAD appears on tonight's midterm election coverage and insists the key factor in the outcome is turnout, turn him off, pronto. He's telling you nothing peculiar to this year's election, only citing something that always applies to all elections. Or if you're told that some obscure House race in Indiana is the bellwether contest in the entire election, forget it.

FORTY YEARS AGO this month, President John F. Kennedy was locked in a test of wills with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev over missiles in Cuba. Memorialized in both film and print, the Cuban missile crisis has come to be the ultimate symbol of presidential resolve and courage. In the 1974 movie "The Missiles of October" and the more recent "Thirteen Days," starring Kevin Costner, JFK is portrayed as a resolute and unflinching commander in chief.