--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
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Fri Nov 5, 4:21 AM ET |
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Supporters react as they wait for results during the election night rally for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., in Boston, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004. Most Kerry supporters will get over their disappointment on their own, maybe sooner than they think, mental health experts say. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta) |
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Look at it this way. The economy will be helped for the next 4 years because all the bush-hating libs will be writing more books and producing more films than ever. Ain't capitalism wonderful! {sarcasm mode off}
BWAAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I find it amazing that the dems were so shocked by the results. As it turned out, with the exception of ARG (a dem pollster) and Zogby (need I say more) the pre-election polls turned out to be pretty accurate.
I know my lib co-worker only followed Zogby, even when I tried to point out that RCP would be better. She was WAY to optimistic and got burnt. Oh well!
Good Grief! Have these navel gazers NEVER suffered ANY loss or disappointment in their LIVES? Cripes, I don't remember a single article counseling me how to endure 8 YEARS of the Clinton administration. The general attitude was that we conservatives needed to SHUT UP and accept him. Now every article is full of pop-culture psycho-analysis to keep the entire democrat party from joining the choir invisible. Amazing.
What has happend to me personally is that my closest Uncle will no longer speak to me and a cousin's son told him that he is moving to Canada. I have never seen such division after a election.
In other words, send the liberal elite more money to waste on pushing an agenda the American people don't want. Maybe the liberals will wise up. But I doubt it.
Please, oh please, stay in that state of denial. I wonder if come 2006 they'll have learned anything?
I love it. The libs are lurching left already!!! This is great for 2008 (take that Oscar Wilde!!!).
I recommend they take up fatty foods, alligator wrestling, bungee jumping, Russian Roulette and Crack..
I hate to admit I looked over there, but at DU, the mood has shifted from suicidal rantings to manic psychosis. There's actually a large group of them that thinks Kerry is being quiet because he's been mounting a coup or something based on this black box voting fraud whatever.
I didn't read too much of the blathering, since I'm already due for a new glasses prescription and don't want to go totally blind before I can get an appointment, but they're all giddy and hollering about how Kerry won and he'll be inaugurated in January.
That place is a psychiatrist's wet dream.
What with one source in the above article
suggesting that the dems need to shore up their stances
on natl defense and moral values, it would appear
that he is calling for the dems to move toward the
right!!!!
Well, you know what they say: if you can't
beat em, join em!
"Ladies and gentlemen, it you look toward your
right, you will see the future. Thank you for
flying Republican Airlines."
MV
Our side lost in both 1992 and 1996 to Bill Clinton. While I'm sure all of us were disappointed we didn't react like these liberals are reacting. These spoiled brats have been handed everything they ever wanted and, now, when they finally can't have something they have a temper tantrum. It shows the difference between children and adults. The adults won last Tuesday.
The Democrats are living in a Nov. 1st delusion. They remain in denial about why they lost. I hope they stay there, so we'll keep winning and changing America for the better.
Cool, watching the other side melt down makes it all the more pleasurable.
I have a coworker who guaranteed Ketchup Boy would win. I wanted to bet him on it, but didn't feel right taking money from a sucker.
I doubt the libs will ever wise up, nor do I want them to. I want them to keep aligning themselves with Michael Moore and his ilk, to keep whining and blathering on. You know, I want them to be themselves, which, as we learned last Tuesday, is NOT the face of America.
The fools, hehe.
200,000 hits a day on the Cannukistan Immigration site, Buh Bye! No more blue states, yeah!
Note to the DemocRATic party: Zell Miller was right.
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