Election night, November 2004. I live in Columbus, Ohio and I will never forget the length of the line I stood in to vote that day, chatting with my neighbors and then with the loyal poll workers, those sweet elderly people who come out every election. Kerry hadn't been my favorite candidate in the primary but I volunteered for the campaign, I hosted a house party fundraiser for the campaign and I voted for Kerry/Edwards and had high hopes that Bush would finally be unseated.
Then the reports of 'irregularities' started to come in. Down in my old neighborhood, at the Franklin Middle School polling place, they hadn't delivered enough voting machines. How odd! Surely they knew this election was going to have a record turn out? The day was chilly, misty and rainy with thousands of people standing in line to vote for many, many hours.
All week, we had been treated to the spectacle of a black secretary of state waging war against other black people's right to vote, his courtroom tactics foiled at the last minute. Ken Blackwell's record of shame in handling this election would come back to haunt him later on in his governor's race. We would not know the full details of this stolen election until months later. For quite some time, we were not even allowed to discuss the issue on this site. But we know now, and those of us who lived through it in Ohio knew by the next day, that the election had been compromised.
And that is why I am having real trouble with a John Edwards candidacy. One of the first diaries I wrote here on dKos was my reasoning for changing my party affiliation to the Green Party and this is why... Around 1:00 in the morning, I listened to John Edwards assuring supporters that the Kerry/Edwards campaign were not going to give up on the election until every vote was counted. I breathed a sigh of relief and went to bed, secure in my belief that this time the Democrats weren't going to lie down and be cheated. I went to bed. But the kids at Kenyon College were still standing on line to vote and they would be there until 3:00 a.m. Around 2:00 p.m. the next day, Kerry/Edwards folded. They gave up even as the initial protests of election irregularities started to surface, and believe me, people were screaming with fury by the morning of the next day. They gave up before the provisional votes, and the absentee votes, and the votes from Kenyon College had been counted.
At 2:00 p.m. Kerry/Edwards quit the election. At 2:01 I quit the Democratic Party. In the days after the election, it was the Green Party who would stand up and demand that the ballots be counted and recounted. I participated in the recount here in Franklin County. I remember well how the Kerry/Edwards campaign came late to the struggle, dragging their feet all the way. I also remember that when the House members of the CBC brought their challenge of the election to the Senate floor, it Senator Barbara Boxer who had the courage to stand with them so that the matter could be debated in the Senate. Where was John Edwards then?
Now, having lived through the pain of that election, just a few years ago, there are people who actually want me to believe that John Edwards is some sort of People's candidate. They think we will fall for ridiculous claims about his populism? They want to talk about his record in national elections? It's a record of shame and of caving into thuggish Republican intimidation tactics and illegal election stealing and I cry bullshit. A populist will stand with the people and fight for their right to vote and to have those votes counted. A peoples' candidate will not give up and leave the electorate to twist in the wind while we struggle on alone. If John Edwards is everything some of us say he is, he would have put some courage into his running mate and got him to contest the fixing of that election.
Why in the name of all that is sacred would we want to nominate someone we know will cave in a crooked election? We KNOW the Republicans plan to cheat. The USAgate scandal gives us important clues as to how they intend to do it. Why do so many of us feel so compelled to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?
In the months after election of 2004, I started to see signs of life in the Democratic Party. It seemed as though some Democrats had decided to resist the truly evil plans the Republicans have for our country. I am still a contributing Green, but I also support Democrats who show they have some backbone. John Edwards is not one of those candidates I will ever support. Been there. Done that. Choked on my own vomit the next day.