Nice guys finish last.
Nov. 3rd, 2004 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque_bkI'm glad I got the chance to find out who John Kerry is, to support him, and to vote for him. I'm proud that I can say my state gave him our 55 votes. I'm proud of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
keladryb, malograntum, bowdlerized, idlerat, isiscolo, and everyone else I know online and offline who got out there and fought like postmen (neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor twisted ankles...). I'm glad that more people than four years ago woke up and got involved. I'm glad that more people voted for Kerry yesterday than voted for Bush in 2000.
I'm glad the Kerry camp didn't choose to prolong the inevitable in Ohio. There was no reason to think that counting all the provisional ballots would have helped; the gap was already too wide. 51% of the voters wanted Bush; that's a fact, and it's a place to start. If the voters could not get what they wanted, as they didn't in 2000, that would be a place to end. Two elections in a row stolen by litigation would have been enough to break my spirit, regardless of which party benefited.
I see that some people are disappointed in Kerry for not fighting harder [ie, refusing to concede Ohio], but I never expected him to. I think he would have been wrong to do so, and I think he knew that too, and that's why he didn't do it. As I've been saying all along, he's a good man and an honest man, and I think he was more interested in a fair election than in winning an election. I also think he knew that it would only have hurt his party, which is in dire straits as it is.
It was low for the RNC to go after Tom Daschle, but I can't say I'm sorry he was defeated. He's been a weak leader for the Democrats, and they need to turn it around now. They need to take a hard look at what went wrong, and figure out how to fix it. I think they can and will. Daschle's out, Obama's in, and that gives me hope.
The next two-to-four years are going to be hard for social liberals and fiscal conservatives. I don't see any reason to think Bush won't continue to fight against gay rights, and to spend irresponsibly, driving us deeper into debt.
But since its inception, this country has been on a progressive path, and though this is a step back, I believe that in the big picture, we'll continue in that direction. If we were on a path of steady conservatism, people wouldn't BE nervous enough about gays to want to deny them the right to marriage. It's a panicked backlash against where this country is, inexorably, going. And I believe that in the end, they'll find that it was too little, too late.
Right now, we need to keep fighting. Let's figure out how to flip the Senate in '06 -- if Bush is gonna be appointing Supreme Court justices, we need a force that will moderate his hand. As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
slippyslope put it, we are not a tiny cowering few. This race was close, and there are still more potential voters to be reached.
After Ted Kennedy's failed bid for the Presidency, he remained a fierce liberal voice in the Senate. From everything I've heard, Kerry's staying in the Senate too.
From the Boston Herald:
The Democratic source said Bush called Kerry a worthy, tough and honorable opponent. Kerry told Bush the country was too divided, the source said, and Bush agreed.
"We really have to do something about it," Kerry said according to the Democratic official.
keladryb, malograntum, bowdlerized, idlerat, isiscolo, and everyone else I know online and offline who got out there and fought like postmen (neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor twisted ankles...). I'm glad that more people than four years ago woke up and got involved. I'm glad that more people voted for Kerry yesterday than voted for Bush in 2000.I'm glad the Kerry camp didn't choose to prolong the inevitable in Ohio. There was no reason to think that counting all the provisional ballots would have helped; the gap was already too wide. 51% of the voters wanted Bush; that's a fact, and it's a place to start. If the voters could not get what they wanted, as they didn't in 2000, that would be a place to end. Two elections in a row stolen by litigation would have been enough to break my spirit, regardless of which party benefited.
I see that some people are disappointed in Kerry for not fighting harder [ie, refusing to concede Ohio], but I never expected him to. I think he would have been wrong to do so, and I think he knew that too, and that's why he didn't do it. As I've been saying all along, he's a good man and an honest man, and I think he was more interested in a fair election than in winning an election. I also think he knew that it would only have hurt his party, which is in dire straits as it is.
It was low for the RNC to go after Tom Daschle, but I can't say I'm sorry he was defeated. He's been a weak leader for the Democrats, and they need to turn it around now. They need to take a hard look at what went wrong, and figure out how to fix it. I think they can and will. Daschle's out, Obama's in, and that gives me hope.
The next two-to-four years are going to be hard for social liberals and fiscal conservatives. I don't see any reason to think Bush won't continue to fight against gay rights, and to spend irresponsibly, driving us deeper into debt.
But since its inception, this country has been on a progressive path, and though this is a step back, I believe that in the big picture, we'll continue in that direction. If we were on a path of steady conservatism, people wouldn't BE nervous enough about gays to want to deny them the right to marriage. It's a panicked backlash against where this country is, inexorably, going. And I believe that in the end, they'll find that it was too little, too late.
Right now, we need to keep fighting. Let's figure out how to flip the Senate in '06 -- if Bush is gonna be appointing Supreme Court justices, we need a force that will moderate his hand. As
slippyslope put it, we are not a tiny cowering few. This race was close, and there are still more potential voters to be reached.After Ted Kennedy's failed bid for the Presidency, he remained a fierce liberal voice in the Senate. From everything I've heard, Kerry's staying in the Senate too.
From the Boston Herald:
The Democratic source said Bush called Kerry a worthy, tough and honorable opponent. Kerry told Bush the country was too divided, the source said, and Bush agreed.
"We really have to do something about it," Kerry said according to the Democratic official.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2004-11-03 11:18 am (UTC)Why would it be "low" for one party to field a candidate against the other party in a Senate election? I mean, isn't it the name of the game?
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Date: 2004-11-03 11:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 11:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 11:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 03:23 pm (UTC)By the way, I appreciate your restraint in public posts today. I'm sure you're feeling pretty good, and it's kind of you not to rub it in.
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Date: 2004-11-03 06:35 pm (UTC)As for restraint....I feel a lot like the one Boston fan in a New York subway the day after the Sox took the pennant, and I don't fancy the asskicking I would get. I need to celebrate, but I understand the need to mourn and chill out, too. In other words, no problem. :-)
:::hugs:::
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Date: 2004-11-03 09:16 pm (UTC)And boy, this side *is* packed! All I can say at the moment is that I hope the Dems aren't dumb enough to nominate Hilary, because if she were to win... I would be extraordinarily surprised.
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Date: 2004-11-03 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 12:16 pm (UTC)That so many of those people equate "moral issues" with deciding whom should love whom and making reproduction a matter of government.
Maybe I can't quite get behind the cheering "keep on fighting" attitude right now because Dick Cheney doesn't have to hold a community fundraiser for a transplant, hundreds of local National Guards soldiers don't know if they'll be sent overseas for the holidays or remain at home... I just don't know.
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Date: 2004-11-03 04:19 pm (UTC)Of course, right now things at the ground level are very bad. Maybe I'm taking it philosophically because this isn't the worst thing that's happened to me this year.
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Date: 2004-11-03 06:42 pm (UTC)I've been thinking quite a bit about this parallel, so it's good to see someone else identify it, too. When things get crazy, or change starts coming at you hard and heavy, it's a natural reaction to retreat into what you know best (after the breakup with my ex and his gender change, for instance, I found myself cooking more and more of the things my mother used to fix at home, which I think was my way of mentally retreating to a place that had always been safe, warm and predictable.) Many people, especially those least equipped with the wherewithal to float on the rising sea of change, are retreating into familiar religious backgrounds, but with a ferocity they'd never had previously. There's an understandable yearning for some way to stop the freefall and right yourself--to find stability and to progress, or at least to keep your head above water.
The downside of this, as we see it in practice both here (in many evangelicals), and in the Middle East (in the form of radical Islamists), is that the desire for stability/clarity often results in the religious tradition of choice being seen as the only true/legitimate lifestyle, an assumption that necessarily breeds intolerance and casts those unlike us as the enemy or 'other' who is causing the root problems and who must therefore be fought and exterminated or otherwise triumphed over in order for a good life to be achieved.
This is not a blanket putdown of the religious; after all, even secular systems have come up with their own versions of 'we're the true chosen'; you need look no further than Hitler's Nazis. But my personal experience is that the truly religious, of whatever persuasion, live their beliefs in peaceful, constructive lives and are also confident enough in God and their fellow humans to grant that others also seek--and find--the divine... but often through a variety of paths, just as one can scale a mountain by following more than one route.
So it seems curious to me, though certainly sad--and often tragic--that evangelical Christians and fundamentalist Muslims, who share so much in terms of motivations, should identify each other as an enemy standing in the way of their ongoing struggle to survive.
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Date: 2004-11-03 07:37 pm (UTC)I certainly understand this viewpoint, and it's a fair one. OTOH, the core beliefs of many of the world's religions do, in fact, make their truths mutually exclusive from many others. Truly believing in one of these really does require believing that others are wrong. (Unless you go with the idea that for me, there's one God, while for person X, there's no God, and person Y has many gods, but that gets into difficult philosophical questions about the nature of truth.)
That said, it does not excuse a lot of the attitudes that too often follow from these beliefs. It does not mean that people who believe their religion is right to the exclusion of others are "chosen" or better. It does not give them the right to force their religion, be it the beliefs, practices, or restrictions thereof, on those who do not believe it.
I think that my own religious beliefs are true -- if I didn't, it wouldn't say much for my "belief." I think that my religion is the best one out there -- why would I believe it otherwise? I do think that my religious belief is any more valid than anyone else's (or their lack thereof). My religion tells me how I must behave; it doesn't tell me that I must make everyone else behave this way. This is where fundamentalism goes wrong, IMO.
(I expect this wasn't at all what you meant. Sorry to go off on this point.)
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Date: 2004-11-03 09:31 pm (UTC)I agree that most people accept this as fact. However, I think in many cases it's the bureaucracy that grows up around a religious prophet (rather than the prophet/leader him/herself) that ends up making such pronouncements. I personally see less of this tendency in the prophets themselves. St. Peter, for example, after a dispute about which ethnic group was spiritually superior, had a vision that revealed to him that 'God is no respecter of persons.' Granted, since many people believe their path is 'the one' to the exclusion of all others, we have to deal with the (negative) consequences of this assumption.
That said, it does not excuse a lot of the attitudes that too often follow from these beliefs. It does not mean that people who believe their religion is right to the exclusion of others are "chosen" or better. It does not give them the right to force their religion, be it the beliefs, practices, or restrictions thereof, on those who do not believe it.
Oh, I absolutely agree. I had no intention of playing apologist for them. It's sad, as well as counterproductive, that they can't afford others the religious liberty they claim for themselves.
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Date: 2004-11-03 09:36 pm (UTC)It's possible to proselytize by persuasion rather than force. It's also possible to wish for everyone to come to your right conclusion, but to believe that to force them is meaningless -- that they have to search their hearts and find it on their own.
That's what I truly don't understand. If you force a person to live without sin, then what has been gained? Without temptation, does virtue exist?
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Date: 2004-11-04 08:24 am (UTC)There will be some religious groups that can function in a society of multiple religions, and there are some that just can't. That's why it's vital that the state at least is secular - you can't be killing people, for example, even if it's in the name of God, and if your doctrine demands it, well that's just to bad. That's why the merging of the church and state is so scary. -_-
Usually shifts in religion come about because of social problems - what's causing this one? Is it really the reaction of confused peole who can't understand progress? If so, how do we frame progressive chance as non-threatening? I realize that there has to be compromise, but it's a depressing sort of impasse. They've got this massive, if slightly warped, theological infrastructure - we've got, "hey, let's be nice"? It's not like *we're* about to convert to their way of thinking. Where's middle ground?
Feh. Sorry to blab on about this AGAIN...
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Date: 2004-11-04 10:25 am (UTC)Well... I have to say I think it is. Polling indicates that Bush voters voted on "moral issues" above everything else, including the economy. Even people who lost their jobs due to Bush's policies still voted for him because they want him to ban gay marriage. I mean... what else is there to say about it? It's shocking to me, but there it is.
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Date: 2004-11-03 09:30 pm (UTC)What's interesting, too, is that you don't have to be a religious fundamentalist to acquire that mindset -- all you have to be is scared. People are scared now, and they're calling Bush the devil, and his followers evil demons who want to destroy everything we hold dear. I understand the temptation to think that way, but... no. It's the same style of oversimplification that Bush used against Kerry, appealing to the worst, most divisive instincts in the people. Kerry didn't do that, and I don't know whether he would have done better or worse if he had.
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Date: 2004-11-03 09:36 pm (UTC)And to be susceptible to the lure of simplistic logic, I think.
People are scared now, and they're calling Bush the devil, and his followers evil demons who want to destroy everything we hold dear. I understand the temptation to think that way, but... no. It's the same style of oversimplification that Bush used against Kerry...
Excellent point.
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Date: 2004-11-04 04:51 am (UTC)I'm glad some people have finally pointed it out in that fashion and I hope the fundamentalists would or could see this as well. I have to admit as the day wore on, I found myself grieving more for those who felt personally smacked by the anti-gay marriage amendments than the election itself. I don't know how to predict the outcome of such a conflict either. I don't know if tolerance is more generational, regional, gender-based or what... but I think that's got to be discovered.
I was also talking to K who noted the way the map was split along blue/red lines goes back to the civil war.
Maybe I'm taking it philosophically because this isn't the worst thing that's happened to me this year.
Yeah, it does tend to put things into perspective. Maybe that's why I'm having a hard time looking into the long term because everything seems to change so drastically week to week.
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Date: 2004-11-04 09:58 am (UTC)I agree. Things have changed so much in the last 60 years that when people look back hundreds of years from now, it will look like the tidal wave that it truly is. It's just hard to see the crest from here. And (while I'm not going to look it up myself) I have to wonder if half the country's voters ever did or would have voted against fighting/military occupation in Korea? Vietnam? The Persian Gulf? I think things have already changed dramatically.
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Date: 2004-11-03 01:56 pm (UTC)I can see that. The reason I'm disappointed he conceded today is not because I wanted a raucous replay of 2000, but because he and Edwards vowed to make sure every vote was heard. And not waiting until the absentee (in Florida) or the provisional (in Iowa) is breaking that promise, and more than that, disrespectful to those whose votes are in those piles. Absentee ballots, especially, are usually made up from our troops, and not counting them is akin to telling them we don't care what they think about how their country is run we just want them to go fight for it and shut up.
And yeah, I do know most military folks are Republican. Like I said, it's about respecting people's votes, no matter who they were for. It's the principle of the thing.
But yeah, I can understand why he would do it for the good of the party. I just wish he hadn't.
The next two-to-four years are going to be hard for social liberals and fiscal conservatives. I don't see any reason to think Bush won't continue to fight against gay rights, and to spend irresponsibly, driving us deeper into debt.
Totally agree.
I wish I shared your optimism about our long-term progressive march, but right now, after seeing how the votes shook out yesterday, I don't know that I can.
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Date: 2004-11-03 03:36 pm (UTC)I admit it's a bit frustrating to see Kerry, as usual, put between a rock and a hard place. He can't make a move in either direction without moderates frowning at him on one side, or liberals storming angrily out of the party on the other -- sometimes both at once. That's the story of the whole campaign.
Conservatives are in their present position because they're better at staying unified. Liberals are all over the map. I'm not sure how to change that.
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Date: 2004-11-03 04:48 pm (UTC)It's funny, because right here my brain inserted: it would have behooved *both* sides to announce that with only 150,000 or so votes as the difference, Ohio was such an extraordinary situation. And so as not to repeat the errors of 2000, both sides would back off and let the Ohioan people count them all.
That's not to say I don't agree with the rest of what you said, just that I think there were two ways to approach the problem. I'd have felt better about both sides had they taken the path I was suggesting, but I get why Kerry didn't.
Oh well.
Conservatives are in their present position because they're better at staying unified.
I think they're beginning to have some fissures, and a second term of Bush's extremism might exacerbate that. (I hope.) Because Bush is NOT conservative, he's a radical, and there are many within his party who are just beginning to realize that.
That said, the Democratic Party has a LOT of work to do in its own camp. Like figure out how to label THEMSELVES, instead of allowing the radcial right to label them.
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Date: 2004-11-03 05:26 pm (UTC)I agree. One problem is that I think a lot of Republican office-holders are afraid to criticize Bush. Take John McCain for example -- you can't tell me he likes Bush, or endorsed him happily. I believe he endorsed him to avoid the GOP cutting his funding the next time he's up for re-election. Nonetheless, he could still be moderate Republicans' best hope for taking back their party.
I wonder how Arnold Schwarzeneger will ultimately play into this; he's pretty moderate too (pro-choice, pro-gay rights), has shown willingness to criticize Bush, obviously has enough independent popularity that he doesn't need to toe the party line, and I'm sure aspires to be more influential than he is.
That said, the Democratic Party has a LOT of work to do in its own camp. Like figure out how to label THEMSELVES, instead of allowing the radcial right to label them.
Man, you're not kidding. We hear the word "progressive" a lot here in Berkeley; I'd expect to hear it a lot more around the country in the future.
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Date: 2004-11-03 05:13 pm (UTC)I see that some people are disappointed in Kerry for not fighting harder, but I never expected him to. I think he would have been wrong to do so, and I think he knew that too, and that's why he didn't do it.
I think it's impossible to 'fight harder' when it comes to campaigns; we've been seeing it here in Uruguay for the past 100 years. When people make up their minds, that's it, there's no changing it.
It took us 170 years of conservative governments and a very serious economical crisis during which A LOT of people had absolutely nothing to eat to realise that maybe we should give the other guys a chance.
It's just a matter of time.
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Date: 2004-11-03 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 06:06 pm (UTC)In the hypothesis that what happened today hadn't actually happened, Would provisional ballots be able to make any difference? Because in our elections, they usually don't, but the US has more people, which means more votes, so maybe it could have worked?
I think I'm the one being confusing. Sorry.
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Date: 2004-11-03 07:16 pm (UTC)Earlier in the evening, it had seemed like the margin in Ohio might be less than it actually turned out to be. If the margin had been smaller, it would have made sense and I would have supported Kerry in refusing to concede.
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Date: 2004-11-03 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 09:35 pm (UTC)Overall, I was more disappointed today than I thought I'd be, even though I wasn't that surprised. :-/ As I said in the previous thread, I voted for Kerry (as did everyone in my family), but expected Bush to win in the end, including here in Ohio, and was braced for that outcome--if nothing else, continuity is predicatable. (In our own county, Bush won 60-40, although nearby Cleveland voted for Kerry by an even larger margin.)
I'd also realized already that "moral issues" would be a key factor in the election, and expected that most if not all of the gay-marriage amendments would pass, although I had some hopes that the one here in Ohio migbht fail (since even the Republican governor and attorney general came out against it).
Still, I can't help being glad that the margin was enough to avoid a messy legal battle--I did not want to see Ohio become the Florida of 2004.
***
Eo, thank you very much for your wise and measured words; they were well spoken, and echo many of my own thoughts. I really don't know what the future holds; we can only wait and hope, and (at least some of us) pray. I only hope that whatever happens, I will be able to play my own role in seeing it through.
p@,
Glenn
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Date: 2004-11-03 09:49 pm (UTC)My good friend
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Date: 2004-11-04 07:49 pm (UTC)This is indeed largely the case (rural vs. urban), although there are some extra nuances as well. Kerry did well specifically in the post-industrial cities of northern Ohio--Toledo, Cleveland, Warren, Youngstown--that have large minority populations and/or strong blue-collar backgrounds, but not quite as well further south in Columbus or in Cinnicinati (which has a reputation for being socially more conservative). Bush did very well in rural areas overall, but lost out in some of the rural counties along the eastern border with Pennsylvania and West Virginia, which are very depressed economically. Overall, as in the country as a whole, traditional regional political patterns held strong, and even sharpened.
If I'd understood what the effect of the gay marriage amendments was going to be, I probably wouldn't have let myself get quite so hopeful for a Kerry win. If anything specific "cost him the election", it was that conservatives turned out in droves to vote against gay marriage, and voted for Bush while they were at it.
I agree with this completely; I was amazed at the backlash sparked elsewhere by the events in Massachusetts and San Francisco, and I think that while this was not the only key factor in deciding the election (there were others as well), it was definitely an important one.
p@,
Glenn
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Date: 2004-11-04 07:59 pm (UTC)p@,
Glenn
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Date: 2004-11-03 10:03 pm (UTC)I understand where it comes from, but... no. We need clear-eyed thinkers, now more than ever.
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Date: 2004-11-03 11:02 pm (UTC)(not practicing what I preach)
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Date: 2004-11-04 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-03 10:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-04 03:41 pm (UTC)