Excitement and anxiety

I think the principal teller of who is going to turn out on election day has to do with excitement and anxiety over voting on that day.  By this, I mean two things, both excitement over voting itself, and excitment over the outcome.  And on both counts, we're going to win.  

I think this second point has been pretty well canvassed.  The party that is more excited about winning on election day draws out more voters.  And right now, we're winning that battle.  Kerry is turning in an excellent performance and the attacks are just deflecting off of him.  And the other side is anxious.  They're seeing Bush cudgelled repeatedly in print.  The facts are turning bad for him.  They speak of the coming election in dour terms, either unhappy about a second Bush term or anxious that there will not be one.

The first point is also in our favor.  We have, for the first time in a while, garnered a great deal of excitement about voting itself.  We want to step into the booth.  Some of us filled out our absentee ballots the day they arrived and sent them back.  This is good.  By contrast, conservatives with whom I've spoken are positively dreading walking into that booth on election day or have left their absentee ballots on a table in the kitchen, saying that they will get around to them later, when they feel better about the election.  In short, there is enough anxiety out there about pulling the lever itself that many conservatives will pull no lever at all.