Election 2004: Countdown to Tears
It started with Florida.
I was looking closely at the county returns. Broward and Palm Beach weren’t in yet, so I checked out the more moderate and Republican areas. Then I compared the margins with the 2000 returns. Gore had done better in all of them in 2000 than Kerry was doing at the time. And I spoke up.
“Uh, guys, it looks like Kerry isn’t doing so well in Florida.”
Five minutes later CNN said the same thing. That Bush was doing better in most counties this time around. So I turned to Ohio, where Kerry had a slim lead.
Suddenly Bush was ahead. I looked at the counties, and Cuyahuga (Home of Cleveland) was barely reporting. At that point I began waiting for Cuyahuga’s returns to erase the Bush lead, which of course never happened.
Two thoughts:
1) We took Pennsylvania. We took Pennsylvania because I went there with Kate Hurwitz and campaigned in the rain.
2) My father voted for John Kerry. I cannot overstate the importance of this vote. A large part of me hopes that my arguing with him throughout the summer had something to do with it.
Okay, those were statements. So here’s a third thought:
3) The Democratic party is absolutely, absolutely fucked. This election is a complete disaster. Kerry is squeaking it out in states where he should have huge margins. The South is solid red, moreso than 2000. It looks like Daschle is toast. It’s time to rethink the party values, and rethink them fast. It’s also time to think about proportional representation.