Well, Europe must be looking at the US with it's metaphorical jaw dropped to the floor. I realize that many are talking about Ohio - and there were some dirty tricks there, including misleading butterfly ballets (AGAIN!), voter challenges and dirty mailings. It will be close in the end, but I'm not optimistic. I do hope there is a recount. I'm actually more depressed by Bush's 3,500,000 lead in the popular vote. I thought that the election would be close, but I didn't think that the Republicans would beat the Democrats so badly on the ground. As you know, I have been working hard for some of the progressive grassroots groups, and they have been working extremely hard. The difference is that we couldn't work directly with the Kerry campaign. Unfortunately, the main motivator for getting conservative Republican voters out to vote were the 11 state referendums on banning gay marriage. THEY ALL PASSED (including Michigan and Ohio), and 8 of these measures also ban civil unions. The Republicans have waged the most hate-filled and divisive campaign I've ever seen, and they have convinced their base to vote for them on "moral issues." Indeed, 23% of Ohio voters named "moral issues" as the top reason for voting, and this group went overwhelmingly for Bush. In the state with the worst economy in the nation, this was a successful and hateful diversion. Can you say "Jews in Germany, 1934?"
More disappointingly, while voter turnout was high it frankly wasn't high enough. Polls showed that Kerry would win with voters 18 - 29 by about 25 - 30%. Yet in the end there was only a slight increase in their numbers from 2000. Thus while the Dems were expecting an overall turnout of 118,000,000 - 120,000,000, in the end the turnout was $112,700,000. It angers me at how stupid our young people are - when Bush finds he can't get anymore troops to fight Iraq and wants to invade another country and finally institutes that draft he denies is in the planning, maybe then they will decide to vote.
But the most distressing trend here is the lack of a Democratic/progressive message in the entire South and most of the Midwest. Bush's popular advantage comes because Kerry simply didn't campaign in these areas, and Bush won them by overwhelming numbers. According to one analysis, the Democrats are conceding 173 electoral votes in these areas. Unfortunately, it seems like the Democrats don't have the infrustructure or ground game in these areas to get their message out - express their "values." Thus the Republicans do it for them. One of the commentators on ABC described the Republican system as "Amway-like," an amazing allusion to Mr DeVos - who by the way is a major funder to the religious right. Of course, the Democratic policies would be MUCH BETTER for these people, but they no longer vote on their self interest - they vote on their values. Unless the Democrats find a way to get their message out to people in these areas, we will continue the march toward theocracy.
Finally, the news about Congress is horrible, with the Republicans now probably having 55 Senators and also an advantage of 32 in the House. In the last Congress, 41 of the 51 Republicans had a 100% voting record with the Christian Coalition, while another 7 had an 80% voting record. (See www.theocracywatch.org.) Now they will add another 4 Senators, all very far right (and gay-baters all!), while the Democrats lose their leader, Tom Daschle. People say that the Republicans introduced the Gay Marriage Amendment only for political purposes. I say don't believe them.