55,554,114 (48% total) Americans told Bush "you are wrong", according to Jack, however 59,108,395 (51% total) told Kerry "we're just fine as we are; we don't want fundemental change in the country, and we don't need to write checks to get our 'allies' to side with us, to run home with our tail between our legs". (voting tabulations courtesy CNN.com)
If you followed the political news, polls, forecasts, and the pundits as extensively as I did over the last 6 months, last night would not have been a surprise. I put together an electoral result map from this information, and followed the election (ALL of it) overnight, and there was not one surprise in regards to how the returns came about. (Three words: exit polls suck) The only "surprise", rather comparing it to the slower kid falling behind the rest of the group, was Ohio, slow because of the counting and the record voter turnout, causing people to still be in line and voting until 1AM PST/4 PM EST. Bush got the lead from the get go in that state, and never looked back.
Bush may not be the most popular, and has not made the appropriate or popular choices in some instances. I am a supporter, but I also am a logical person. I don't agree with everything that the man has done, but between the "lesser of the two evils", Bush, as was said previous, has that characteristic to be a leader that Kerry does not. He also is a man that will say what needs to be said, and know what he means by it, not say what he think he should say, and later have to explain what he means.
I think that he was awesome in the hours and day post 9/11, and kept America standing after that horrendous act. Like it or not, he was the right man for the job. I also think that he was playing things very close to the heart due to the upcoming election on numerous things, most importantly the Iraq action and the borders. I see things becoming more stronger and more forceful now that this is behind him, without fear of backlash in the polls. I also see this as a better term, since he doesn't have the Florida-imposed "asterisk" over his head, and the words "he stole the election" can be put to bed. He won, fair and square this time around in the popular AND electoral vote, and no math, fuzzy, new or whatever, would change anything dramtically in Ohio. It's time to move on and see where we can go in the next 4 years. Now that this is behind us, and things are in swing now, we can focus on more important things at home...I'm optimistic, but I'm also logical. Nothing will be overnight, so give it some time.
On behalf of Kerry, I obviously did not like/support him during this campaign, but I gained respect for him as a man for realizing that the numbers were working against him in Ohio, and decided to call it a day and let things progress, instead of keeping the country in "legal limbo" for the next weeks to come. I wish him nothing but the best in the future.
Overall, as it has over the last 200+ years, the system itself worked once again, whether you like the outcome or not. I'm glad that our process of democracy has prevailed.
As far as 2008, even though they won't admit it now, the presidential race is going to line up as Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) challenging Rudolph Giuliani (R). The Democractic party is down for the count; unless Bush and the House/Senate Republicans do some extreme damage over the next 4 years, I see Giuliani prevailing with a spread of 10.
) but I watched a CBC news special that interviewed a large demographic of Americans and the only reason they could say they would vote for Kerry was to get W. out of office, they couldn't give a supportive reason as to Kerry the man or Kerry the platform but rather just "get W. out!" which brought me to the conclusion sometimes it's better to stick with the devil you know as opposed to the devil you don't know..... but that's just my 2-bits as a Canuck
As long as we're adults and not slinging monkey poo at each other, I don't see why we can't have a civilized and adult conversation about matters like this. We've discussed everything from Ernie Ball's passing to the Boston Red Sox, why leave this out? It's better than the lame a** "HeY, cHeCk OuT mY wEbSiTe d00d" or "Shark Talez is cool, Christina rox!" crap that gets posted here.
