I just posted this on my new blog -- about my passion for voting this year.
http://ilpundit.blogspot.com/
I just voted. I've been waiting four years for this moment.
My entire professional career has been in the political arena, and I've grown accustomed to winning some, and losing some. Going into election day, 2000; I was actively arguing with my other Democratic friends that a Bush win would be good for us Illinois Democrats, because that would make 2002 a GOP Presidential off-year -- giving us a better chance to pick up the Governor's office in Illinois (which, incidentally, we did).
I was supporting Gore, of course, but not with a lot of passion. I wasn't impressed by George W. Bush, but I wasn't threatened by him either. I had other races on the local level that interested me a lot more.
I spent election night with some friends. We marveled at the closeness of the race. We watched in agony as Florida was called one way, and then another. We were blown away by the tie the next morning, shaking our heads, and gaming out the political steps that would surely follow.
I've been involved in recounts. I knew about discovery recounts, chads, and intent of the voter. As messy as it seemed, the recount in Florida really was going along normally.
I never really expected Gore to win the recount -- the person behind when the recount starts rarely wins. But I expected the recount to be fair.
I figured that even if Gore somehow won the recount, there were enough legal maneuvers remaining -- the Florida legislature naming their own slate of electors, for example -- that the matter would likely end up in the House of Representatives. I figured Bush would prevail there.
I was prepared for a Bush presidency.
Then came the U.S. Supreme Court, and Bush v Gore.
The courts intervention, and subsequent short-circuiting of the Constitutional process to award the election to Bush was the political equivalent of being raped. Democrats felt violated. Legal scholars felt violated. Vincent Bugliosi -- no whiny liberal, mind you -- called the decision a betrayal, and it was.
That decision was simply wrong. Not just because the Court had to violate its own long standing legal principal of leaving such matters to the states, but because it effectively stole the constitutional process away from giants like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, in favor of the cold political calculations of Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas.
Any true student of history, any true believer in the Constitution as the supreme law, was deeply offended by what the Supreme Court did. It wasn't partisan outrage, it was patriotic outrage.
It was also a disturbing omen. Just two years after the Clinton impeachment, the Democrats had watched the opposing party once again break the conventions of Constitutional principle in the pursuit of political power. It should have been more chilling. Instead, we were just stunned.
It forshadowed an all out assault on bipartisanship, and the Democratic party. Bush and the GOP rewarded Democratic attempts at compromise on tax cuts, 9/11, the Patriot Act, Homeland Security and the Iraq war resolution by calling us unpatriotic, and running ads against us in the 2002 campaign that compared us to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
It was as if FDR used the imagery of Hitler, Mussolini, and the Admiral Yamamoto against his opponents in the 1942 elections. In America, it should have been inexcusable.
People talk about Bush hatred. I don't hate Bush, I fear for my country and where it is being taken. I love my country deeply, and feel desperately that we must have change.
As I stood in the booth in the County Clerks office, looking at the names on the ballot, my hands literally started to shake. I was actually nervous.
I voted for Kerry, of course -- with passion.
Tomorrow at 6:00 am, the polls will open. I'll be walking a precinct in north-central Illinois. People will vote, and they will vote in droves.
And, God willing, the wrongs of 2000, and the intervening 4 years will be righted at long last.
I am optimistic.