Election postmortem

The blackboxvoting.org types annoy me. To make the case that fraud and/or recount malfunctions would turn the election, you would have to say that not only were 3.5 million votes incorrectly credited to Bush, but that no votes were incorrectly credited to Kerry. The truth is that Bush delivered a message that a majority of the American voters preferred to Kerry's message.

Part of the problem was the Anybody But Bushers (me included). I don't know that Kerry defined a vision that was distinctly different than Bush's. Granted, that may have been a vision of denying rights to gays and outlawing abortions (if abortions are outlawed, then will only outlaws have abortions?), but that's what made the difference.

The Republicans did the Dems a favor by chopping off Daschle. This (plus Gephardt's retirement) gives the Dems a chance for fresh blood in Congress.

During Bush's acceptance speech, I dropped a number of f-bombs. Clearly, a president who squandered 90% approval ratings for political advantage isn't all that interested in reaching across the aisle, unless it's to bitch-slap the opposition.

No more northeastern senators for the nomination. That hasn't worked since before Nixon. Look to the southern governors (all 4 of them). A governorship is an excellent place to gain executive experience. And, quite frankly, the Dems are woefully short of leaders who can relate or appear to relate to average Americans.

So much for Kerry's whim that he could win the contest without the South.

One element of the vote that completely perplexed me is the contingent of people who felt Bush got us into the Iraq mess, so he should be the one to get us out of it. In corporate America, you get fired and replaced for major snafus.

At least it's all on the Republicans now. No more blaming Clinton.