I sit here tonight in great sadness. I don't see how it is possible for there to be enough provisional ballots for us to take Ohio. I still hope, but I also see that we lost the popular vote by three million votes. I also can't figure out where all the voters went. Lines around the block and stories of record turnout seem to have vanished. There seems to be no explanation other than theft, except I honestly don't think the Republicans are that competent to steal this many votes.
So I ask myself: How?
This country is mired in lousy economic times and the government is running huge deficits. The price of a gallon of gasoline is sky high and our soldiers are dying in a ridiculous war started on a lie. The president is not personally popular, according to all polls, although after tonight perhaps I ought to throw all the polls out.
Certainly some of it is the cultural issues, but they cut both ways. Certainly 9/11 and a desire to support the troops played a role as well. But those are reasons to elect George Bush. We got our clocks cleaned in the congress as well. Two men of questionable sanity, Tom Coburn and Jim Bunning, won Senate races against sensible and mainstream candidates. South Dakota rejected the most powerful democrat in the Senate. Why?
I can only come to one conclusion. Most of the American public will not trust us under any circumstances. They would rather have an insane man in the Senate than a extremely conservative man with a D next to his name. They would rather have the worst president of the last hundred years than a war hero from Massachusetts with a D next to his name.
Why? Sure it's the culture wars, but that is only a small part of it. It started with Nixon, then went to Reagan, then to Newt Gingrich and Shrub himself. It is fifteen years of Rush Limbaugh constantly demonizing us on the radio. It is Fox News doing the same for the last eight. It is Ann Coulter, Ken Starr and the Arkansas Project, that made up everything they could about Bill Clinton until they could find one thing that was true. America simply decided that they could never trust us under any circumstances. We are no longer even Americans in their eyes--we are simply the "other." The liberal. The homosexual. The minority. The intellectual. Ones who are not welcome in their society.
How can we stop this? I simply don't know. Certainly not tonight. It wasn't Kerry they rejected, it was us. Those damned liberals.
It isn't Kerry's fault. They had a smear set up for every Democratic candidate. If it wasn't the swift-boat vets, it would have been trial lawyers. It would have been the angry man from New England with the homosexual agenda. The dull labor goon. Heck, it would have been the guy who believed Tawana Brawley. We know they are all lies, but our denials fall on deaf ears, because no one trusts us.
We need to find some way to rebuild the trust of the left in this country. Because otherwise it will all happen again in 2008.
I'm sorry for the tone of this, but I needed someone to talk to tonight. The wife went to bed long ago. I hope you understand, because now I think I will spend my time trying to avoid a long cry.