--AFP
Posted on 11/08/2004 6:35:00 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
NEW YORK—The Democrats suffering a potent post-election hangover of bewilderment and despair have sought but found little relief in morning-after messages of defiance at President George W. Bush’s reelection.
The seasoned Democrats are hardly strangers to being out-maneuvered or out-gunned by the Republican election machine.
But the heartache John Kerry’s defeat inflicted on his supporters was especially crippling given the belief that, this time around, they had more than held their own in a particularly bitter campaign.
“We’ll admit to being heartbroken. It’s a dark day,” said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn, the political action committee for the pro-Kerry grassroots lobby group MoveOn.org.
“I’m devastated,” said Kurt Mangel, a Democrat in his 40s, who became actively involved for the first time in this election, campaigning for months in his home state of Pennsylvania.
“There’s no anger; I just feel heartbroken,” Mangel said. “I don’t fear so much for myself, because I can go to Canada, but for my country and this 200-and-some-year-old dream that has worked so magnificently.”
With leaked early exit polls suggesting a Kerry win, the Democrats began election night on a high, only to end up being dealt a triple body blow: Bush won, he won with a majority of the popular vote, and the Republicans strengthened their control of both houses of Congress.
“Every Democrat I talk to is deflated right now,” said Ricardo Peña, 30, who spent months canvassing for Kerry in Ohio, which proved to be the election’s pivotal state.
“People that I know have called to see how I’m doing. They know it was a hard one to swallow,” he said.
“This isn’t just a disappointing election result,” wrote Josh Marshall, editor of the left-of-center political weblog Talkingpointsmemo.com. “The consequences of what happened last night are too great.”
Meanwhile, outspoken filmmaker Michael Moore, who made the Bush-bashing documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, urged despondent Democrats “not to slit your wrists” over the result of Tuesday’s vote.
The general sense of despair has been matched by an element of disbelief, especially among those who were more anti-Bush than pro-Kerry and who felt that the situation in Iraq would prove to be the President’s undoing.
“It’s been a very strange two days,” said Bill Dobbs, a spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, which organized the largest anti-Iraq war rally on the eve of the Republican convention in New York in August.
“It does take a while to absorb this election, because people were very emotionally invested in it and a lot of people are very unhappy,” Dobbs said.
Amid the hand-wringing were notes of defiance, as some sought to put a brave face on a somewhat uncertain future.
“Many of you have e-mailed to ask me what you can do,” said Markos Moulitsas, who runs the top left-wing blog, Daily Kos.
“If you oppose Bush, now isn’t the time to feel sorry for yourself,” he wrote. “Now is the time to get to work.”
Kim Brinster, manager of the gay and lesbian Oscar Wilde bookstore in New York, professed to being upset but not entirely surprised by the vote, which was marked by an unexpectedly high turnout from the evangelical community in rural areas.
“It’s desperately sad and disheartening,” Brinster said. “In New York, I think we’re more progressive in working toward a world that accepts diversity in all senses of the word, and it’s depressing to realize the rest of country is not with us in that.”
Some called for a radical rethink of the Democratic policies, saying that Kerry’s defeat, after so much effort had been expended, raised key questions that the party could no longer afford to ignore.
Andrei Cherny, a former director of speechwriting for Kerry, said the Democrats needed to think about how to respond to Americans’ moral and spiritual yearnings, and how to broaden their national security vision beyond a critique of the Republican foreign policy.
“If we sweep this debate under the rug, four years from now, another set of people around another conference table will be struggling with the same issues we did,” Cherny wrote in a New York Times commentary.
“And America cannot afford the same result,” he added.
--AFP
After klintoon won reelection in '96, I just switched off all news casts and eventually started listening to Rush again. I just forgot about it and went on with my life.
With leaked early exit polls suggesting a Kerry win, the Democrats began election night on a high, only to end up being dealt a triple body blow: Bush won, he won with a majority of the popular vote, and the Republicans strengthened their control of both houses of Congress.
___________________________________________________________"I actually did win the election, before I lost it"
John F. Kerry Nov. 3, 2004
These are the poor babies who have never been denied anything they wanted, sheltered by their parents' checks and a totally uniformity of ideas at their universities and workplaces. They don't deal well with adversity because they've never had any.
Schadenfreude!
"Yes. I wasn't surprised by the election results. Even on college campuses I saw plenty of Bush/Cheney signs. If I'd stayed in my New York bubble, I wouldn't have expected it. People on both coasts voted for Kerry. I think that's because of oceans. Ports are placed you get information from elsewhere. Boulder is beautiful, but it's landlocked." Laurie Anderson
You aren't educated unless you can get information from overseas via a port and anyone who lives elsewhere is really dumb. Has this woman ever heard of the internet?
Also, we must all work diligently in the coming months to convince “progressives” that the Democratic Party has let them down. They must abandon the party. Their only recourse is to join and work for the Green Party moving forward. I may even register as a Green Party member to swell their voter registration rolls. Divide and conquer.
Begin with putting all known “progressives” in your sphere of influence on the Green Party mail list from their website. Great fun. Start inundating them with information now.
Schadenfreude (( ping )).
The hits just keep on coming!
The Democratic Party could have been victors - if only they had nominated George W. Bush.
We need to let the Left believe everything their telling themselves. In response to an excuse for losing the election just say "you know, you're absolutely right about that. That's exactly what you guys need to work on for the next 4 years." In 2006 and 2008 it will be 2004 all over again.
Liberalism is a religion that leads to elitism. They have been done in by their own beliefs. It is sad but telling that they refuse to learn from their defeat. Now they will demand that we reach out to them, that is, we are to give credence to their ideas. As Arnold said, "Why should I listen to losers?" He is right. We the People have spoken. We should reach out and take the hands of those who recognize that they have bet on the wrong horse. For some, it will prove to be impossible to let go of their broken ideas and reach out. For some, they will hold dear but endure hoping that things will change for their better. For some, they will learn and recognize that the beliefs they held were unfounded and leave the fold. The diehards will become more shrilled and dangerous. Remember their religion is under attack.
States that have major ports get populated by people who retain their ties to their home countries (which are invariably anti-American) and don't assimilate, even over multiple generations. That's the problem. Thinking that states like that reflect America and what is best for it is just foolish.
I know there was speculation about exit polls being doctored for the Presidential race. Anyone ever see any exit poll results for a Senate race?
If the polls were slanted the demographics of the respondents, this would also be reflected in the Senate races leaning dem. If they were doctored later on the other hand...
Personally, I think it was doctored based upon where the takers were sent to get exit polls. The sharp contrast of urban vs. non-urban voting patterns have made exit polls useless. That is how/why they were wrong.
Yeah, I know how you felt. We were all disappointed. But we didn't rant and rave about fraud or threaten to move to another country. We looked at the facts, decided to move on to the next election, and were determined to win.
Spot on. They are in their own world of fantasy.
These people need to understand that Canada may not be so welcoming and easy to enter as they think. Socialist countries know they have to give out a lot of gooodies and they aren't so keen on admitting outsiders to share in the booty. I understand it takes about a year to get admitted to Canada.
It just said they needed to come up with an alternative. It didn't spell anything out. Why? Because they can't. Couldn't before the election, and can't now. If they spelled out their real agenda, they wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting it past the voters.
Still, I hope they decide they need to go further left and be more shrill. It's fun watching them dwindle into the distance.
With that said I would add a cautionary note. The further left they go the closer they get to the point where they see violence as their only alternative. Don't let up on your target practice.
I was actually never worried during the hullabaloo about the exit polls. I didn't really see the Kerry momentum in any of the polls I was seeing. He was close, but W was ahead, usually with big Pub areas left to go to the polls after work. I just couldn't imagine that the country would elect Kerry in the end. Plus, with Fla. heading easily toward Bush, I figured it would turn out OK.
So I went to bed about 9:00. I woke up at five and of course had to know what happened, so I turned on the Pat Gray show. He likes to play a song at the beginning of his show and that morning the song was: "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," so I was pretty sure we had won.
Justice: Now if anyone knows why this man and this country should not be joined as President and Union please speak up.
Activist: I know. Because he cheated.
Justice: Well, that changes everything. Will Senator Kerry please step up to be sworn in as President..
Are they so deluded as to think this is possible and that we would let them? Yep., they're DUh's for a reason.
The MSM was still trumpeting the exit polling when Bush was up like 118-29 or something like that. Granted, you can't tell so much from that because a lot of it was the south, but with him pretty much cruising in Florida, it was hard to predict it going against him.
Let's not forget the electoral vote drain to the south either.
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