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Nov. 3rd, 2004 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grinninfoole1) Today, I drove two hours to Nashua, NH to volunteer for Kerry. I stood around holding signs for a few hours. Then, I drove home. I'd like to think I made a difference. Probably only made myself feel better. Except for a few at the precinct 5 polling station, I saw no Bush activists, and I saw a lot more Kerry signs around town. (Most of the volunteers were from Massachusetts. :)
2) The Daily Show's election night special was amazingly cool. I officially like Bill Weld. I would much rather he were still governor than Romney. Favorite line: "Right now, in Iraq, people are asking: you invaded to bring us this?"
3) I suspect that Bush is winning. I am sad, depressed even, about this. I really don't understand how someone who has, over four years, so patently demonstrated his unsuitability for the office can command such loyalty from so many voters. With a turnout perhaps 10% higher than last time, which means that many are moved to act because of dissatisfaction with the state of the nation, how can so many still be rallying in support of Bush? I shan't bother to list his failures, which are numerous and should be obvious to all. How many more dead Americans will it take? (We're over 4,000 and counting.) How much of an economic collapse will it take? (We've had three years of heavy stimulus, and we're only eking by.) How many more international crises must be bungled? (What will Bush do when Iran or North Korea confront us?) I suspect that most Americans won't notice it for years, but Bush's re-election means, I think, the end of our status as a great nation and world power within the next four years. (Yes, we'll have the best weapons, but we'll be too broke to use them.)
4) M was just sharing with me that all of her GED students that support Bush do so because he is "strong". Apparently, the latest bin Laden video has convinced them that they need such a leader to protect them from al Qaeda, and they don't feel Kerry (the combat veteran) will do that as well as Bush (the draft dodger.) That bin Laden is still at large after three years does not, it seems, impress them as evidence that Bush is all hat and no cattle. Somewhere, Benito Mussolini is grinning smugly.
2) The Daily Show's election night special was amazingly cool. I officially like Bill Weld. I would much rather he were still governor than Romney. Favorite line: "Right now, in Iraq, people are asking: you invaded to bring us this?"
3) I suspect that Bush is winning. I am sad, depressed even, about this. I really don't understand how someone who has, over four years, so patently demonstrated his unsuitability for the office can command such loyalty from so many voters. With a turnout perhaps 10% higher than last time, which means that many are moved to act because of dissatisfaction with the state of the nation, how can so many still be rallying in support of Bush? I shan't bother to list his failures, which are numerous and should be obvious to all. How many more dead Americans will it take? (We're over 4,000 and counting.) How much of an economic collapse will it take? (We've had three years of heavy stimulus, and we're only eking by.) How many more international crises must be bungled? (What will Bush do when Iran or North Korea confront us?) I suspect that most Americans won't notice it for years, but Bush's re-election means, I think, the end of our status as a great nation and world power within the next four years. (Yes, we'll have the best weapons, but we'll be too broke to use them.)
4) M was just sharing with me that all of her GED students that support Bush do so because he is "strong". Apparently, the latest bin Laden video has convinced them that they need such a leader to protect them from al Qaeda, and they don't feel Kerry (the combat veteran) will do that as well as Bush (the draft dodger.) That bin Laden is still at large after three years does not, it seems, impress them as evidence that Bush is all hat and no cattle. Somewhere, Benito Mussolini is grinning smugly.
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Date: 2004-11-03 01:54 am (UTC)I did not vote for Bush (or Kerry), but I suspect future historians will be amazed at how lackluster Kerry's campaign was, even if he manages to pull it out. Against a competent opponent, Bush would have been crushed. Kerry didn't really run that great of a race: he reminded me an awful lot of Bob Dole in 1996, with far too much time spent preaching to the choir who was going to vote for him anyway. There were also a few times that the Kerry campaign was offered a chance to hit Bush really hard, and they didn't take it.
It also didn't help that a good deal of Kerry's campaign appeared to be "I am not George Bush." That's great, but who the heck is he?
One big thing that hurt Kerry very hard with veterans was his activism post-war. Lots of vets do remember that Kerry was a war hero (though I was disturbed by the number of people who seemed to buy claims about Kerry's war record that were, as near as I could tell, not only false but really blatantly so), but they also remember things like him flinging his medals (or were they his medals, since he still seems to have his?) back at a protest.
One achievement Kerry can point to: New Hampshire switched from red to blue. You can congratulate yourself on your effort, since it was sucessful.
If it's any consolation to you, Republicans were similarly bemoaning how the American people could actually elect an illegitimate President when Clinton won reelection. I'm hoping that we don't see a repeat of the whole impeachment fiasco..although, IMHO, there are grounds for impeaching Bush that are much better than the ones they impeached Clinton for (there were also grounds for impeaching Clinton that were way better than what they did impeach him for, but that's another story). Of course, you need a majority of the House to impeach a President.
Also, the fat lady has not yet sung. It looks like Bush is going to win to me, but you never know. And it could be that some of the projections will be flat wrong.
My one hope here is that, if Bush wins, he doesn't win Ohio, because if he does, there will be a controversy similar to that in 2000, and we do not need another disputed election. Like the result or not, I do think it's good if it's decisive, especially since that might make the losers stop and think "hey, what are we doing wrong?"
Of course, there's also the chance that Kerry will win the electoral vote and Bush will have a big win in the popular (it looks like the vote turnout massively increased in the red states, perhaps among people who are not aware how the Electoral College works), in which case I'll be entertained by the 180 degree turns of the two major party's positions on the Electoral College.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-04 11:21 am (UTC)I used to feel comfortable sharing America with religious people. Now, I see ardent Christians as a threat to our nation, not merely because of their attack on other people's liberties, but because they honestly believe that, as Jon Stewart put it, 'two dudes kissing is a bigger problem than the botched war on terror.'
Kerry could have run away with this election if he wasn't such a wet blanket, and I may vent my spleen in vindictive constituent letters in the months ahead until I feel better. (Republicans take note: run a non-crazy candidate and you can pick up senate seats here in MA. Perhaps Bill Weld should try again.)
And, while he didn't win the majority in 92, I miss Clinton's presidency. I still have real problems with his tenure in office (about his support of the drug war and his tepid environmental record), but I miss the possibilities that he opened up in his presidency. The national discourse was more diverse, and the range of possibilities for our nation was wider, and the REAL issues we face (over-population and environmental degredation leading to our extinction) were on the table. Now, thanks to Bush's incompetence and inability to imagine a world that isn't us versus them, we've got a 'war on terror' dominating people's thinking, and a brand new 'them' getting more firmly fixed in people's heads. (I'm doing it too, except for me the 'them' in question are Christians like Bush, and it's just as damaging as demonizing muslims.)
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Date: 2004-11-07 03:37 pm (UTC)