Liberals and true Conservatives everywhere, take heart: the turnout was still less than 60% of eligible voters. Even with a bare majority of 51.1%, only about 30% of all eligible voters chose Bush.
I can well believe that 30% of the American electorate is homophobic, in favor of school prayer, etc. That certainly doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to pander to them.
After the Deluge
So, two days after the deluge, the pundits conclude that the Kerry campaign – and the Democratic party – were sunk by bad assumptions about rural/exurban voters; the success of the Swift Boat veterans in discrediting Kerry as a war hero; and the intensity of opposition to gay marriage.
In other words, they couldn’t pull it off with the standard formula for success: a well-funded campaign and a decorated war hero/former prosecutor as the standard-bearer – not to mention the fact that the opposition’s candidate for Vice President has a gay daughter who wears a wedding ring.
Having “blown” yet another election that was theirs to lose, the Dems are already being quoted in the press about yet another exercise in self-flagellation: a Hillary Clinton candidacy in 2008.
What Is It About Mothers Named Andrea?
News flash to all my unmarried male friends: if you want kids, don’t marry an Andrea.
Youth Fizzles, “Morality” Rules, Nader Irrelevant
At 4:35 am ET, it looks like a Republican sweep of the Presidency, the House and the Senate.
The much-vaunted 18-29 vote turned out to be a dud for the Dems. Virtually all of the so-called “moral” propositions – from legalizing medical marijuana to prohibiting gay marriage – passed in favor of traditionalists.
Nader was irrelevant in all but one state, New Mexico, with 5 electoral votes. If NM goes for Bush, assuming he won Ohio, that would, at this hour, put him over the 270: a largely symbolic possibility, given the way the vote is looking in Nevada, which also has 5.
Election Day Blues
For whatever it’s worth: I’m voting for Libertarian candidate for President, Michael Badnarik, today.
This isn’t just a vote of conscience; yesterday, the Massachusetts Secretary of State Francis Galvin predicted that the Libertarian party (as well as the Greens) will lose its status as an official political party in Massachusetts. We need 3% of the votes cast to maintain this status, without which candidates will have a harder time being listed on ballots in the future.
The Evangelicals
In spite of their complaints about negative press, Evangelical Protestants have been getting a lot of deferential media attention this election season.
Yesterday, I happened to see both a recent documentary on the subject, as well as the last half hour or so of a famous 1940’s film about a Roman Catholic saint, “The Song of Bernadette”.
The Song of Bernadette won its star, Jennifer Jones, an Oscar for Best Actress. Ms. Jones’s performance was such a perfection of luminous piety that some members of the public castigated her when they discovered that in real life, she was not actually a nun but a wife and mother. This was further compounded by the announcement shortly after the Oscar ceremonies that she and her husband were filing for divorce.
Halloween
This is the big weekend: P&B’s anniversary today, Halloween tomorrow.
Tonight is a Samhain circle in E. Falmouth sponsored by a unique little shop, Green Goddess Herbals.
I attended last year, and thoroughly enjoyed the company, the ceremony, and the FOOD, oh my gosh, what a feast!
If memory serves, we had an extremely rare display of the Northern Lights on October 30 last year. On my way to mind the kids so P&B could go to dinner, I missed it, the roads between here and there being heavily treed and thus, effectively hiding the horizon.
This year, though, I did see the full moon turn orange-red in the partial lunar eclipse, on the same night that the Red Sox won the World Series after an incredible, unprecented 8-game winning streak.
Good omens, perhaps, for the holiday and for those major events soon to follow.
Electionin’
So much to write about, there is hardly mental space to digest it all.
Gardener’s Diary
Gone, gone, gone.
Why You Should Get A Million Dollars
Last night’s finale of the reality show “The Benefactor” was a dud.
Too bad, because host Mark Cuban is a high-energy, funny, interesting guy with some worthwhile opinions about what makes a business person successful.