KERRY THE MINORITY-VOTE PRESIDENT

There are already a lot of reasons to think a Kerry presidency would be a disaster.

Kerry has called the Iraq war a mistake, yet refused to withdraw. He is likely to become a hostage to his own most famous remark, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Kerry calls for more diplomacy and yet insults our allies. If he does stay in Iraq he will have to work with a man his campaign advisor Joe Lockhart dismissed as a puppet.

His compulsive pandering has led him to forswear tax hikes on Americans earning under $200,000, yet he has also promised an expansive health care plan, promised not to cut Social Security benefits, and promised to grow the military. Unless gridlock with a Republican Congress prevents him from fulfilling these promises, Kerry will balloon the deficit even more than Bush did. And Kerry has no plan to deal with the Social Security crisis.

Kerry's disdain for his Republican opponents does not bode well for his ability to work with a probably Republican Congress.

The anybody-but-Bush rationale that holds the Democrats together at president would disappear once Bush was gone, leaving Kerry little real support.

Terrorists and Islamofascists worldwide would celebrate a Kerry win as a victory over their most hated enemy, George W. Bush. "If [international terrorists] succeed [in seeing Bush defeated], they would celebrate a victory against America and the anti-terror coalition, and this could lead to more acts of international terrorism," warned Russian President Putin. Meanwhile, millions of partiotic Americans despise Kerry for "stealing the honor" of Vietnam veterans and would probably withhold from Kerry the automatic loyalty most presidents receive.

Now, add another reason to worry about a Kerry presidency: Kerry will probably be elected with a minority of the popular vote.

Why? Look at the RealClearPolitics' (national) poll of polls. Bush has held a consistent lead since late August. It was at its largest in September, and at its narrowest after the first debate. Now it seems to be holding at around 3%. Polls are sometimes collectively wrong, but if they're right, Bush will win the popular vote by a wider margin than Gore did in 2000.

But the national polls don't matter for the outcome of the election. What matters is the electoral college. RealClearPolitics' electoral college projection is especially interesting this morning. Bush leads 234 to 228. 270 electoral votes are needed to win. Six states are in play.

Let's assume that Kerry takes Ohio. In that case, Bush must win Florida. He probably will. If so, Bush needs Wisconsin, Minnesota, or New Hampshire and New Mexico. On balance, Bush is the likelier winner. But the polls suggest a Kerry victory in the electoral college is very possible.

If Kerry wins the electoral college by the skin of his teeth but loses the popular vote by 3%, it shouldn't affect his mandate. The president is not elected by popular vote in this country, but by the electoral college. It's in the constitution.

The electoral college is counter-intuitive, but there's actually a good reason for it: candidates must have a geographically dispersed base to win. America is fortunate not to be afflicted with the capital-versus-provinces animosities that haunt Argentina, Russia, and many other countries. We are a multi-polar country, with one financial capital (New York), another political capital (Washington, DC), still a different cultural capital (Los Angeles/Hollywood, like it or not), a technology capital (San Francisco/Silicon Valley), an academic capital (Boston/Cambridge), an energy-industry capital (Houston) and so on. We owe this in part to the electoral college, which gives our leaders an incentive to spread the wealth. Democrats can't rack up 90% majorities in the urban Northeast to offset losing everything else. Republicans can't ignore the rest of the country and just super-mobilize the South.

For all that is said about Red America and Blue America, it could be much worse. Each major candidate this year will probably win at least one-quarter to one-third of the vote in every state.

That said, we could change the constitution if we wanted to, and elect the president by popular vote. We haven't done so. Rules is rules.

Unfortunately, the Democrats were poor losers in 2000 and have sneered for four years that Gore really won. They have turned the electoral college into an issue. And it will be very hard for Republicans to resist the logic of "turnabout is fair play."