Democrats in post-poll denial

AFP via Manila Times ^ | 11-8-04

[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

[andy58-in-nh]

I have never seen such division after a election.

Proof that you reap what you sow. Many Democrats insisted on fueling their campaign on Bush Hatred rather than on ideas. Is it any wonder that after their loss they are left with only hatred?

[Piquaboy]

Then they talk about what a mean campaign Bush ran.

[MeekOneGOP]

Poor lil 'RATS.

"My heart bleeds for you" .....

NOT !!
Bwahahahahahaaaa!

[andy58-in-nh]

Then they talk about what a mean campaign Bush ran.

Naturally. It's a perfect case of "projection" - the psychological practice of assigning one's own behavior to the actions of others. And further proof that Liberalism is a pathology.

[speedy]

Thanks again -- I thought these would have dried up by now. Looks like the proverbial bottomless pit. This really does bode well for 2006 -- I'm not at all sure a lot of these loonies will be emotionally capable of going through another election. They should try North Korea. Your candidate will get elected every time out, guaranteed. No nasty surprises, no post-election suicide watches.

[najida]

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

[Not A Snowbird]

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.

Speaking of... where is Kerry? I haven't heard a peep out of him or the Ketchup Queen since his concession speech.