Post your random thoughts about the election here
 

A stream of consciousness (or what resembles consciousness on 3 hours sleep) set of random observations, part 1 (because I'm sure I'll have more later):

1. Bob Shrum--0 for life in presidental campaigns

2. I don't want to hear any pundit citing the popular vote win as significant this time unless they held the same opinion last time. Kerry didn't run to win the popular vote, or else he would have had organizations in the South, trying to lose 52-48 rather than 58-42.

3. I heard handwringing on one of the big 4 networks last night (CNN, FOX, NBC/MSNBC and ABC--CBS marginalized itself out of any crediability) about how it was a mistake for the Dems to run a northeast liberal in a national election. That may be so, but let's not forget that Kerry didn't get blown out the way Dukakis and Mondale (ok, he's northern, not northeastern) did. The Dems are going to have to look at three things: 1. Is it the message 2. Is it the messenger 3. Is it the way we try to sell the message and the messenger. Actually, it's a combo of all, but I'll let them try to figure it out.

4. Speaking of the coverage, I was impressed that all networks that mattered didn't move in lockstep in calling states. However, ABC and CNN's reluctance to call Ohio moved from the cautious to the ridiculous. Provisional ballots are cast because the person wasn't on the rolls to vote. 100% of them aren't going to be counted (I heard that it ranges from 7% to 20%), and even if they were, not all are going to go to Kerry. I know it makes no difference legally if the media outlets call it right, but were the situation reversed, I think it's safe to say that CNN would have called it for Kerry hours ago.

5. Tying to that, I didn't fault Kerry for waiting before conceeding, but it's getting time to get out of the fantasy land of thinking Ohio is still in play. Again, conceeding or claiming (as Martinez did in Florida's senate race) doesn't change the count, but it's good to put the matter to bed, especially after the 2000 race. After tying this and a few more, I heard Kerry will concede at noon central, and I hope he's as gracious as Gore was in 2000--Gore gave the best speech of his life that night.

6. Back to the message/messenger/delivery issue, Kerry focused too much on "I'm not the other guy" and didn't give voters concrete reasons to vote for him. "I have a plan" isn't a plan in and of itself, it's the beginning of a sentence that gives more information.

7. Biggest blunder in the campaign: Using the phrase "global test". The obvious would be "I voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it", but it was this slip of the tongue (I HOPE it wasn't calculated on the part of his campaign) that kept ringing in the ears of many.

8. Which is more likely in 2008: Republicans crack into the Gore/Kerry states and win some or Democrats pry away some of the Bush states? A couple of small states, maybe three, switched around this time, but by and large, the states stayed put. Something's got to give, I'd think.

9. Best observation by a pundit: Willie Brown on MSNBC said the ease of the Florida win would be attributed to Bush doing well among the Jewish voters. I hadn't thought of it, but it made perfect sense to me. Second best: Susan Estrich telling Brit Hume early in the evening that if the panel wanted, they could continue to ignore the exit polls, but if those polls were right, Kerry was going to win.

10. The race for 2008 starts today.

I glad that the worst election season I have ever seen is finally over. I would like to hope that a god deal of Republicans and Democrats are ashamed of how they acted, but I doubt it. All I know is the Republicans now have no reason not to do what they want, so they better not fuck up. (I say the previous line as a moderate who wants some good for this country)

Frankly, the only reason I favored Kerry more than Bush is that I thought we needed a change.


Here's to the hope for a good next 4 years.

He no longer has to worry about re-election, so it's really just a matter of, "Which country do we go after next?"

Put it on the tab.

I feel ill. I wasn't pro Kerry, I am anti-Bush. Bush did not win this election, Kerry lost. Damn shame. Let ignorance ring from the Divided States of America.

I know there are lots of people who wanted someone else to win, but what does it mean that Bush didn't win, Kerry lost? Bush won over 50% of the vote, which is a first for anyone (even Clinton) since 1988. He had more votes than anyone in the history of this country. He won more states, more counties, more square miles, more precincts, more everything than Kerry did. He won re-election with a rep. congress for the first time in over 100 years. He increased his margins in the house and senate in consecutive elections. The revolution is now the status quo and he is at the helm. It may suck, but its true.

Any Kerry woulda, coulda, shoulda doesn't change what happened. Bush won and won big. Sorry.

Excellent analysis from JosephSelf.

Shrum sure is a poor losing bastard.

Ohio should have been called long before it was. But didn't that Sec'y of State guy from there love the attention?

Bush went to Ohio on election day. Kerry sat in Boston. THAT'll keep the Democrats up at night.

Really? You would think, since Ohio was so important he would of campaigned there yesterday. Wait, I thought that he did do some final campaigning in Ohio or somewhere, im pretty sure that he didnt stop campaigning till late yesterday.

A few observations:

Last night while watching Bush basically win it (around 3 or 4 AM) one of my roommates (not one of the two I got to vote Lib) came out of his room and made a comment about it being rigged.

Today, in my school cafeteria, I overheard some student who looks like a stereotypical socialistic anarchist make a comment to a person he was speaking to that "Bush stole another election."

As I was eating lunch in the cafeteria, almost every TV was turned to Bush's acceptance speech. Some disgruntled guy, maybe about 45-50 or so, walks by, notices what's on, and then turns the TV off. A public TV in the cafeteria. It was clear that it was because he was so disgusted at hearing Bush speak. Perhaps he too thought the election was stolen?

In the center of the student center was a table with these socialist anarchist looking people (I say that too because I've seen them spread certain types of materials around campus) set up with lots of hand-made posters chiding Bush on various issues and Iraq with the use of very angry language. Along the front of the table was a giant piece of cardboard for people to write on it and express their outrage. Written were phrases like "Bush is gonna pay for this" and "Fuck you Bush."

As I walked back to my place I passed up some guy speaking with another person who said that he couldn't even fathom how outraged and disappointed he was.

---------

Maybe it's because I'm in Chicago, I dunno. John Kerry and President Bush both agree that America needs to be brought back together - that wounds need to be healed. But do people want their wounds to be healed? Do they want to compromise? Do they want to let go of their comforting anger? I don't see it.

Kerry was in Wisconsin at 8am and then he flew home to Massachusetts. He did TV interviews from his house for most of the day. Bush was in Texas in the morning to vote and then stopped at his Ohio campaign HQ to motivate the workers before returning to the White House. Did that last-minute motivation juice up the workers to get out the vote in the after-work evening rush?

The song "Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" keeps ringing through my ears.

And no, I do not want to compromise and will not seek a compromise with neo-conservatives who have decided to take separation of church and state and shit on it.

neo-conservative and has taken a shit on church and state? You must be brilliant enough to find some data to back up these bogus comments

Maybe they'll man the barricades. >snicker<

I know it doesnt matter...but I wonder if those people bothered to vote?

I'm in the middle of a project, and emailing with my client and his attorney to work out the details of an application. The two of them are gloating about Bush. I really want to complain, but... he's a client. That's not how you keep a client. Arrrgh.

I wouldn't say he won big. 51%/48% is pretty darn close. I think if Kerry had done a better job, he could have narrowed the margin.

Of course none of that matters now. Bush won and we have to deal with it. Republicans will take over most of the branches of the government and we will have to suffer the consequences. The country will have to adopt Christian morals regardless of their beliefs or backgrounds and just suck it up. This is great for those who share the same beliefs but not for those of us who don't. The majority of the country has spoken and the rest of us just have to go along with the herd.

Now that Bush has won, what monastery will George Soros be joining?

The thing is, they're going to toy with the system.

Things that have already been ruled upon (Roe vs. Wade) are subject to change, and that's not right.

If they aren't willing to let things stay the way they should, then how can the otherside compromise with them? It's all a power trip. They have a majority in ALL the major branches, so compromise isn't possible.

This is just something that should not be. The system was made to have checks and balances, and that's GONE. If you're republican with control in each major branch, then who's to stop you when you do something wrong? No one.

That is my whole problem with it all. There is no room for improvement and change. There will be no compromise. Take abortion, for example... you know how that will turn out. What are they gonna compromise on? "You can only have abortions in the case of incest or rape." Oh great.. yay. That's not a compromise at all. That's complete control saying, "Guess what? We don't have to compromise and there isn't much you can do about it."

Even if it was all democrats (I'm probably 80% dem, 20 repub) it would still be wrong because they do fucked up shit that needs to be in check by others.. I just don't see how the system can function like this.

Also with the whole gay marriage thing... I don't know what's WRONG with people, but you can't deny someone rights based on sexual preference. You can't argue that or justify it, it's fucking ignorant no matter how you look at it... I constantly compare it with how blacks/whites were segregated and the majority wanted that, yet no one says word one about it. Why are people so afraid to respond? Or better yet, lawful marriage between a black/white couple. Anyone care to tell which state that was in? Was that right?

From The Nation:

The biggest outrage imaginable occurred yesterday. Despite a lagging economy, an unpopular war in Iraq and unprecedented energy on the other side, Republicans actually increased their majorities in Congress and held the Presidency. How did this happen? A look at last night's exit polls reveal that Republicans effectively manipulated voter's anxieties about the threat from terrorism abroad and gay marriage at home to solidify their mandate.

Voters approved every one of the eleven initiatives banning gay marriage on state ballots. In Ohio, the strictest anti-gay marriage amendment ever proposed--banning even civil unions and possibly domestic partnership for straight couples--passed with 62 percent of the vote. Twenty-three percent of voters named "moral values" as the most important issue according to exit polls, well ahead of "Iraq" (13 percent) and "healthcare" (5 percent) and second only to "jobs/economy" by a point in a state decimated by outsourcing and lost manufacturing jobs. Of the moral values voters, 85 percent preferred President Bush. "The church is going to show up today," Phil Burress, chairman of the Ohio Campaign to Protect Marriage, told The New York Times yesterday. Burres said that social issues like the ban on gay marriage prompted groups like the Amish to vote for the first time. Solidifying Bush's support, the 17 percent of voters who ranked "terrorism" as the most important issue picked the president by a stunning 90-10 margin over Kerry.

These trends carried over into other crucial battleground states like Florida, where voters ranked "moral values" as second with 20 percent, behind only "terrorism" at 24 percent. Eighty percent supported Bush on moral values, and an even higher 87 percent on terrorism. These statistics show how the president won the Sunshine State.

In teetering swing states such as Arkansas, 33 percent of voters identified "moral values" as the crucial issue, while Democrats and independents joined in approving a ban on gay marriage by 75 percent.

Across the red states, moral values and terrorism often trumped the economy and Iraq, and far surpassed health care and education, as the most important issues for voters.

Republicans drove up turnout by hammering John Kerry as a gay-loving, terror- capitulating Massachusetts liberal who'd impose the social values of Boston and San Francisco on all of America. It worked. The party that favors passing a Constitutional amendment that would explicitly withdraw rights from a group of people for the first time in American history now has a stranglehold on "moral values." The party that failed to take actions that could have helped prevent 9/11 and strengthened Al- Qaeda by invading Iraq is the only one who can defend America from terrorism in the voters minds. In this party, ignorance is strength.

yay yay yay I'll drive

mostly opinion NOT data

Don't mean to get on semantics here, but that has nothing to do with the seperation of Church and State. It's wrong, yes, but it is not related to the first amendment. The first amendment states simply that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Banning gay marriage is not directed at any particular religion - there are gay Catholics, Jews, Lutherans, Buddhists, Atheists, Muslims, Satanists, and whatever else. If most people in the country are Mormon and think that drinking caffeine is wrong and they ban the drinking of caffeine, it is not a law stating people in America must be Mormon, but simply a law that reflects the wishes of a majority of Americans. It is not a persecution of your religion, but the side-effect of holding minority beliefs. It is no different than most people in America believing that drugs are wrong. I believe that a person should be able to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own home, so long as it's done responsibly. I don't think drugs should be any different from the way we treat alcohol. However, I have a roommate who believes that people who do drugs are typically bad people and immoral. Many people in America agree with him, thus, it is illegal. This is not his morality being pushed on me. This is the price I pay for having a minority opinion, and if I want to change it I need to work to convince other people that my minority opinion is right.

Hate to break it to you, but because something has been ruled on doesn't mean the ruling can't be changed - and that *IS* right. I only have to point to Plessy v. Ferguson to make that point. Or, of course, there is Marbury v. Madison - the decision that says if a law is found unconstitutional then it was always unconstitutional and was never a law.

This is a very good parallel for gay marriage, and an even better argument for the Libertarian method of handling marriage. Before the "problem" of interracial marriage arose, the government wasn't really involved in marriages. When interracial marriages began to be seen as a "problem," that's when the government started to give out "marriage licenses" - giving the government the ability to approve or deny the right of two people to enter into a contractual social agreement.

The government doesn't need to approve gay marriage. The government simply needs to get *out* of marriage altogether.

well...the responses i have encountered to this so far have centered on disbelief.
in most cases, inclduing my own, this worked its way out to anger....
for myself, it was a friends birthday last night so we got drunk and floated analyses and wondered what might be done.
and of course posted somewhere a drunken rant here--only one, so i feel like i did ok.

this is difficult.

for me, this was less about bush as president in himself than it was about the political power of conservative discourse. i did not see much in the way of policy difference that would have distinguished a bush from a kerry presidency.
what i was hoping to see was a repudiation of conservative discourse.

that this discourse shaped what looks like a significant vote for bush that was directly and explicitly for bush is still shocking (exit polling from ohio i think showing that something like 70% of the respondents who voted for bush voted on positive grounds,, that is for buish not against kerry--a percentage much higher than obtained for kerry).

what is clear from this so far:
as much as a dislike thier politics, the christian right has undertaken a powerful mobilization, something that i think most folk on the left had underestimated up to this election, frankly.
and i think that the power of television in framing issues--and particularly in framing bush (against all reason to my mind) has also been underestimated.
given what has been said about television in all this, that somehow its role could have still been underestimated seems amazing. but there we are. my general theory is that conservatvie discourse works better for those who derive a significant element of their sense of being knit into a wider world from television, particularly when that tv sits in the center of an isolated suburban house....this seems to be a factor that seperates urban fomr other spaces--the relative position of tv as information source.

the right has built an imposing media apparatus (think tanks, ideology production centres one and all---spokesmodels---the rove machine---the radio cadre--the conservative press)---they have alot of money and have figured out how to stream that money in an efficient manner (not earmarking funding for think tanks is huge--it sounds like it is not, but it is a really important innovation)

i see no vinidcation of bush or conservative discourse in this election--the results were really quite close--but you do get a fair idea of the reach and power of that discourse.
and that is frightening.
that is why i kept feeling like this election was like watching a friend set himself on fire and only being able to watch.
that is now the central enemy for progressive forces--who have not in general been thinking on the same level as the right has and who now find themsleves in a significant tactical hole because of it.

the advantages of this is that you might see a minor explosion of art and music emerging that will be expicitly political, explicitly anti-conservative. while i think that will be a fine thing (maybe fun to do as well), i do not think that it will operate to counter the right discourse machine. but it will be interesting to watch.

bush does not have much of a mandate if you look at the popular vote--but there is no need for him to worry about that because he wont stand for re-election.

What fascinates me was how quiet it all was.

I don't know any other way to say that, but I have a little story to illustrate it. After the election, I was discussing it with a group of fellows at the college. Now, I live in a very conservative area with more churches than you can shake a stick at on any given block. I'm not trying to say that it's a bad thing, just trying to tell it right. Anyway, over the course of the discussion, I learned that the area churches had gotten together and were driving their parish to the polls to take advantage of early voting. In fact, they were making a series of trips two weeks before November 2nd. I heard one preacher told his flock that President Bush wants to save babies and if you want to save babies too, you'll vote for President Bush. A story I've heard from two other independent sources since. I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I voted early, I was in the middle of a church group of about 150. Out of nearly 25,000 registered voters in my little hometown, over 14,000 voted early. I would imagine a substantial number came in through the churches.

I'm not disparaging the local churches or making excuses as to why the Republicans "really" won. I was just amazed that this kind of grassroots movement was happening and all right under my nose, as I knew not a thing about it.