Election post mortem

Post-mortem is an appropriate title since I feel a bit lifeless today.


To Americans,
Thomas Jefferson said, "People tend to get the kind of government they deserve."

This is certainly true today. I never figured we were quite so bad as to deserve 8 years of Bush. But I guess I was wrong.

I hope we're smart enough to learn something from this ordeal.

**

To conservatives,
Many of you have spent the last two and a half years suggesting that anyone who disagrees with the president is unpatriotic or an America hater or anti-troops. So before you go on demanding that we all unite behind the president because "we are all Americans," save your breath. Yesterday, we were immoral liberals and you can't go from that to "real Americans" in a single day.

Some of us aren't quite so receptive to the "shut up and conform" message. Try treating us as patriotic Americans who happen to disagree with the man who is president, not as terrorist appeaser scum or opponents of "God in the White House." If you treat us respectfully, we might even listen.

**

To people who voted for smaller parties,
Feel good that you voted your conscience, that you voted for the person you thought the best candidate. If you're wavering, consider this. Most Kerry supporters voted for the lesser of two evils and they still got stuck with the worse evil anyway.

**

To Kerry supporters
As Harry Truman said, "When given the choice between a real Republican and a Democrat who acts like a Republican, Americans will choose the real Republican every time." John Kerry was not a moderate Republican, but he campaigned as one. Republican Colin Powell probably would've been more at ease in a Kerry administration.

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To the anti-Ralph crowd,
Will you stop blaming Nader now? Your energy would always have been better off convincing Naderites that Kerry was a good candidate rather than insulting Nader supporters and smearing their candidate. You were never going to convince Naderites by getting in their face and screaming that they were helping elect George W. Bush, no matter how much you believed it. To quote the line in the movie The American President, some of you "need to work on your people skills."

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To Democrats in general,
How did you nominate John Kerry? Like I've said before, I know lots of Democrats but I don't know a single one for whom Kerry was their first choice among all the primary candidates. I know lots of Deaniacs, some Edwards and Clark supporters, even a few who liked Kucinich. But I don't know anyone who preferred Kerry last December or January. Yet, you Democrats SETTLED for Kerry over a candidate like Dean who actually appealed to progressives rather than spit on them. Many of you berated any left-of-center voter who wouldn't SETTLE for Gore last time or who wouldn't SETTLE for Kerry this time. The men you settled for lost both times. Do you notice a trend here?

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To elected Democrats and party head honchos
Instead of spending the next four years sniveling about Ralph Nader, maybe you can look in the mirror and figure out how your candidates lost twice to a man as unimpressive as George W. Bush. Maybe you will notice that while Bush didn't give his base of supporters everything they wanted, he didn't totally take them for granted.

Instead of whining about the past while the Bush administration expands its radical agenda, like you Democrats did in the two years following 9/11, maybe you can demand your fellow party members in Congress to hold the administration accountable like the respectable opposition this country deserves.

I won't hold my breath that any of this will happen, but I can hope.

**

To everyone,
Tragic as it is to say, there can be no doubt American voters wanted Bush. Unlike in 2000, Bush had not only a plurality (more than anyone else) of the vote, but a majority (more than everyone else put together) of the vote. No excuses about Katherine Harris or hanging chads or the US Supreme Court this time.

Anyone tempted to blame flukes or controversies or whatever should remember this: nearly 58.5 million Americans voted for President Bush, already knowing what he's done to the country. That was not an accident. It means that 58.5 million Americans more or less support the president's agenda. There can be no getting around it. Bush won more or less fair and square.

This time, sadly enough, we deserve him.