Four More Years
Posted November 3rd, 2004 @ 04:08pm by Erik J. Barzeski
If John Kerry had won yesterday, I was fearful of all of the "ha ha, you lost" IMs, emails, and comments I'd get. I had already prepared a response which included things like "I didn't lose: I voted for the guy I wanted to vote for, and nothing prevented me from doing so."
I will not be gloating. I didn't "win" anything, and I didn't "beat" anyone either. The election is what it is and was what it was. It's over now. Thank goodness. I never thought I'd be so happy to see eight car commercials per hour.
Take away what you can from this: that you can't trust exit polls, that the "clear favorite" isn't, and that the people whose man didn't get elected have to find a way to exist for another four years. Good luck. I'll need some luck, too: the guy I voted for won, but that doesn't mean I agree with him on some big issues. So, good luck to everyone.
Donate Life
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 4:31pm #
I hope if Kerry won no one would gloat but... focus in a positive way to get the country less divided and gloating could only hurt.
It will be a long four years... a troubling four years... especially if the President and the part really do believe they have a mandate. Now lets just hope the president can make good on the promise he made the first go around, a uniter not a divider.
*bleck*
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 4:36pm #
Shrub won with 51% - that's what they're calling the mandate: the majority. Even Clinton never got a majority.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 5:06pm #
Yes, Erik, now it's over, and apparently the majority of the people in your country wanted those four more years. I sincerely hope that the next four years will not be the same as the past four years. The US have gone through some serious trouble and have also brought lots of trouble to the rest of the world. Maybe things will turn out fine after all. Maybe the international community will help you clean up the Iraq mess. Hopefully we won't see the US going through another war, hopefully we can all learn to accept each other again and just get along.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 5:14pm #
Just curious, are Carey's political beliefs similar to yours? If not, do you two debate them a lot or ever get into arguments over them?
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 5:22pm #
Ralph, you're not allowing for the possibility that some people support the war. I think the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq are fine. So do lots of other people.
Kyle, I'm not answering that one. None of your business how Carey feels, nor my place to tell you.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 6:19pm #
it is just too bad that we have a president that does not represent more than half of the country. I would be happy with a president, either conservative or liberal that the country can agree on.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 6:29pm #
Dumb thing to say Danny. He got 51% of the vote. The country voted and "agreed" through our election process.
Sez you.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 6:38pm #
Erik, I'm "not allowing for this possibility" because at least in the case of Iraq, it was not the US's business to answer that question. This was an invasion that is not justifiable by any means - ask some Iraquis and you will get a different answer, I guess 😉
This is an entirely different issue with Afghanistan. Moreover, the only thing I said is that we should hope that we won't see another war. I can accept different points of view, but you just cannot be so ignorant to tell me that a war in general is a good thing that must be supported.
BTW, nice redesign of your site.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 7:08pm #
I disagree; I don't think I ever heard anyone call a narrow majority a mandate.
I also don't believe that a 2% points victory is something that one should hang their hat on... a nearly an equal share of the citizens disagree with the polices set forth... again a victory not a mandate... a victory that didn't carry one state from the northeastern, the industrial Midwest or the west cost... a mandate should have a broad spectrum of support. [rant]So where did the shrub, as you so elegantly called the president, win? For one the southeast, where the GOP handed out flyers telling citizens Kerry first priority would to ban the bible and take away every single gun they own. Funny, Kerry was never born again, he never turned his back on his faith.[/rant]
Bush won... in a close tightly contested race, period. I could just as easily call it dumb luck as one could call it a mandate. Winning by two percentage points, popular vote, and how many electoral votes and calling that a mandate is close to gloating one could get... and who cares if Clinton ever received more than 50% of the vote? He was our president, and a good one at that... his only real mistake... getting some lip service from Monica in the Oval Office... as a result the GOP handcuffed him from tending to some very large and important issues thats facing the nation today...
But I also agree, what Carey believes has nothing to do with your site.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 7:12pm #
"it is just too bad that we have a president that does not represent more than half of the country. I would be happy with a president, either conservative or liberal that the country can agree on."
- ?? This is the first president since 1988 to have more than 50% of the popular vote! Even Bill Clinton did not have more than 50% in either of his two terms. It does not make for good debate if everyone agrees. I think the last country where the president/prime minister got 99.9% of the vote was in Iraq! Now is that the kind of leader you want?
In Europe you don't many leaders there get over 50% of the vote either when you have 3 to 15 different parties running for the office either.
I agree it would be nice to have everyone get a long and for the most part, most Americans do agree on most issues. The bad thing is that we only hear the most vocal people on the left and the right. They are not majority of Americans! Most people are in the middle and are more worried about taking care of their families then worrying about whats going on in politics.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 7:20pm #
Oh I should clear one thing up... yes yes a mandate does exist if you something poll is just over 50% as in the votes of 11 states last night mandated the state define what marriage is. That is a mandate. However I'm taking more of the ideal of a political mandate... where the elected official should and feels they have the power they can do anything they want because the people have faith in them. For such an instance to occur I believe you must have a vast majority and not a simple majority. Oh I should clear one thing up... yes yes a mandate does exist if you something poll is just over 50% as in the votes of 11 states last night mandated the state define what marriage is. That is a mandate. However I'm taking more of the ideal of a political mandate... where the elected official should and feels they have the power they can do anything they want because the people have faith in them. For such an instance to occur I believe you must have a vast majority and not a simple majority. That is something the President obviously doesn't have. I mean if you where to tell me a few days before the election the incumbent had a 2% lead in the polls I doubt you would argue he very little political capital to spend.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 7:30pm #
I think it will be interesting to see what Bush does with this second term. There are many skeptics, myself included, that wonder if he can fix the problems this country has. While I personally did not want the man to win, I will remain cautiously optimistic.
But I will agree with everyone that I'm glad there are no more political ads...
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 7:34pm #
I have a better question for the day. The nation in it current federalist state formed in 1781 had a population much smaller than that of California (33,871,648) today. How can it be a much small population in 1781 had leaders like Franklin, Washigton, Adams, Jefferson and countless more. How is in this day in age we ended up with Bush and Kerry? Okay maybe that would have a better question two or three days ago.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 7:40pm #
"Fix the problems this country has" is too vague and, I'm sorry, far too high a standard against which to hold or judge anyone. No single person can fix all of this country's problems. How long has being gay and everything it entails been a "problem" for this country to solve? Decades now. How long has "bad people want to do bad things to us" (crime, terrorism, war) been a problem? As long as we've been here.
If the people who voted for Kerry seriously want to "heal" and help the country, being the sniping name-calling pricks they've been for the past six months is not the way to go. I don't mean "support Bush" - that's silly - but I do mean having an intelligent discourse and not simply reverting to name-calling and whining.
Posted 03 Nov 2004 at 11:15pm #
The biggest problem I have is that the Republicans swept even more seats in the Senate. I didn't want Bush to win, but I was at least hoping we'd get the Senate back to a Democratic majority. Bush will also most likely have the opportunity to appoint at least one, if not several, Supreme Court justices. Having a Republican House, Senate, and President who has yet to veto a single bill sent to him, and then the possibility of further stacking the Supreme Court to the right wing of the political spectrum is a disconcerting thought.
That aside, I see one alarming issue that needs to be worked out now: electronic voting. I'm surprised that this has barely been covered by the media at all. I find it difficult to place any faith at all in results coming from states like Ohio where Diebold blackbox audit-less voting machines are being used (whose CEO promised to do everything to hand Ohio's electoral votes to Bush). Seeing as how the entire election seemingly hinged on that one state... well, go figure. Both the GOP and the Dems are notoriously dirty come election time, so why we allow a system to be used that has so much potential for abuse and fraud is beyond comprehension.
Posted 04 Nov 2004 at 3:59am #
It's a shame what happened on Tuesday and the first words out of my mouth were "Oh, shit!", I simply couldn't belive it. You have shot yourself in the ass whether you realised it or not.
Posted 04 Nov 2004 at 9:42am #
A majority of folks must have thought that electing Kerry would have been the equivalent of using a shotgun over that of a bb gun.
This country has a very simple rule: majority rules. The majority elected Bush, the majority says gays can't get "married" and so on. Right or wrong (in general or on any given issue), that's the rule right now.
Posted 04 Nov 2004 at 12:35pm #
Yes and no. This country was actually set up to try to counter majority/mob rule with the system of checks and balances that we have. The gay issue, for example, would go to the courts who could very well decide that the majority is wrong and that no, it cannot set the rule. Of course, if we have all three branches slamming to the hard right we're in a bit of trouble as far as checks and balances are concerned.
Posted 04 Nov 2004 at 1:27pm #
Uh, Brian, the majority elects all three of those, and they in turn choose members of the courts. I understand what you're trying to get at, but you're going a bit too far in twisting what I've said.
Furthermore, this country was not set up to counter majority/mob rule, it was set up to counter kingly rule. Autocratic rule. Despotic, absolute, "divine right" rule. This country was set up to enable majority rule.
Posted 04 Nov 2004 at 7:27pm #
Generally there would be enough oppositional members of Congress who would in turn force the President to make more moderate selections. The way things are right now, he will face little meaningful opposition to his appointees. I don't see how I'm "twisting" anything either. You brought up the gay issue, I mentioned that this issue has little to do with what the majority of this country wants and everything to do with what the courts say, who should have nothing to do with the majority but rather with reason and the Constitution.
Again, yes and no. James Madison, Federalist #10, talks about factions: "By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." To summarize, very reason that we have a republic, a representative democracy, and not a direct democracy was to prevent one single majority faction from imposing on the rights of other citizens. Yes, of course a fundamental principle of democracy is "majority rule," but that principle ends right at the point at which the "majority" thinks it has the right to curtail the rights of others. This country was not set up to counter majority rule in and of itself, but to counter it in such a way that its obvious dangers are minimized and to prevent uneducated mob rule.
Posted 04 Nov 2004 at 10:17pm #
The majority of the country voted for Republicans this time around. Judges are placed by the people in power, and those people are elected by "the people." Majority rules. You can't twist my words to say that majority rules will always guarantee a balance of power when you simply define "balance" as "Democrat vs. Republican." The balance is "the President can't make up any law he wants without getting the approval of Congress." That balance still exists today.
The dangers are minimized. To say that the country was set up to minimize "majority rules" is simply wrong, and I pointed this out. You can't change your mind two posts later and claim victory by saying "yes and no." You said "no" before.
Posted 08 Nov 2004 at 9:29pm #
This election was pretty sad and anticlimactic. I think that the vast majority of the nation knows deep down that no matter who won of those two -- we all lose.