--AFP
Posted on 11/08/2004 6:35:00 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
NEW YORK—The Democrats suffering a potent post-election hangover of bewilderment and despair have sought but found little relief in morning-after messages of defiance at President George W. Bush’s reelection.
The seasoned Democrats are hardly strangers to being out-maneuvered or out-gunned by the Republican election machine.
But the heartache John Kerry’s defeat inflicted on his supporters was especially crippling given the belief that, this time around, they had more than held their own in a particularly bitter campaign.
“We’ll admit to being heartbroken. It’s a dark day,” said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn, the political action committee for the pro-Kerry grassroots lobby group MoveOn.org.
“I’m devastated,” said Kurt Mangel, a Democrat in his 40s, who became actively involved for the first time in this election, campaigning for months in his home state of Pennsylvania.
“There’s no anger; I just feel heartbroken,” Mangel said. “I don’t fear so much for myself, because I can go to Canada, but for my country and this 200-and-some-year-old dream that has worked so magnificently.”
With leaked early exit polls suggesting a Kerry win, the Democrats began election night on a high, only to end up being dealt a triple body blow: Bush won, he won with a majority of the popular vote, and the Republicans strengthened their control of both houses of Congress.
“Every Democrat I talk to is deflated right now,” said Ricardo Peña, 30, who spent months canvassing for Kerry in Ohio, which proved to be the election’s pivotal state.
“People that I know have called to see how I’m doing. They know it was a hard one to swallow,” he said.
“This isn’t just a disappointing election result,” wrote Josh Marshall, editor of the left-of-center political weblog Talkingpointsmemo.com. “The consequences of what happened last night are too great.”
Meanwhile, outspoken filmmaker Michael Moore, who made the Bush-bashing documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, urged despondent Democrats “not to slit your wrists” over the result of Tuesday’s vote.
The general sense of despair has been matched by an element of disbelief, especially among those who were more anti-Bush than pro-Kerry and who felt that the situation in Iraq would prove to be the President’s undoing.
“It’s been a very strange two days,” said Bill Dobbs, a spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, which organized the largest anti-Iraq war rally on the eve of the Republican convention in New York in August.
“It does take a while to absorb this election, because people were very emotionally invested in it and a lot of people are very unhappy,” Dobbs said.
Amid the hand-wringing were notes of defiance, as some sought to put a brave face on a somewhat uncertain future.
“Many of you have e-mailed to ask me what you can do,” said Markos Moulitsas, who runs the top left-wing blog, Daily Kos.
“If you oppose Bush, now isn’t the time to feel sorry for yourself,” he wrote. “Now is the time to get to work.”
Kim Brinster, manager of the gay and lesbian Oscar Wilde bookstore in New York, professed to being upset but not entirely surprised by the vote, which was marked by an unexpectedly high turnout from the evangelical community in rural areas.
“It’s desperately sad and disheartening,” Brinster said. “In New York, I think we’re more progressive in working toward a world that accepts diversity in all senses of the word, and it’s depressing to realize the rest of country is not with us in that.”
Some called for a radical rethink of the Democratic policies, saying that Kerry’s defeat, after so much effort had been expended, raised key questions that the party could no longer afford to ignore.
Andrei Cherny, a former director of speechwriting for Kerry, said the Democrats needed to think about how to respond to Americans’ moral and spiritual yearnings, and how to broaden their national security vision beyond a critique of the Republican foreign policy.
“If we sweep this debate under the rug, four years from now, another set of people around another conference table will be struggling with the same issues we did,” Cherny wrote in a New York Times commentary.
“And America cannot afford the same result,” he added.
--AFP
No, No, No !! I don't want them to "get over it" too soon. All the pain and suffering they inflicted on our President and his supporters, LET THEM SUFFER AWHILE.
find it amazing that the dems were so shocked by the results. As it turned out, with the exception of ARG (a dem pollster) and Zogby (need I say more) the pre-election polls turned out to be pretty accurate.
Kerry was never a head in the polls. Never.
It was no surprise.
I love the smell of defeated liberals in the morning....well, maybe not...but i love to hear that they are heartbroken...boo hooo
The Capt.
It is in fact THEY who ware the bigoted and intolerant. They do not tolerate Christians, Evangelicals, Catholics,..
Hey dim-o-RATS --- Enough already! --- STFU!
Zell Miller and his fellow old time democrats can rescue what's left of the party after the rat haters of America go to Canada, Mexico, France, Syria, or Iran.
Poor babies. Maybe they can get the crooked trial lawyers and the corrupt national labor union officials to provide crying towels.
No. They were taught it was bad for their self esteem
Because they don't want to MoveOn.org.
It's been going on since Nov. 3. They're convinced they have concrete evidence of voter fraud, yet none of them have ever posted one single bit of evidence. The video they linked to was absolutely hilarious. It was supposed to be a video of voter intimidation at a mostly black precinct in Ohio. What was the intimidation? Two terrified white guys who weighed about 140 lbs a piece with cell phones. At no time on the video did either of these guys even attempt to talk to anyone. They stood around writing something on a clipboard and talking on their cell phones. It was laughable. And this video was supposed to be proof of GOP voter intimidation. They're out of their minds over there, but I have to admit it's very entertaining.
They're basing most of their hopes on the early exit polling. They feel that proves that Kerry really won and that Rove had the fix in. Even CNN has said when they saw the early polling numbers they scratched their heads and refused to report them because they obviously weren't right. I mean they had Kerry winning South Carolina for God's sake. Are you kidding me?
I felt the same way, but took a glimmer of satisfaction that he never got greater than 50%. Also, one has to consider that FR was just getting going; Rush was around, but he was no match for the pro-Willy MSM all by himself.
Has there been any sort of public statement yet from the "Jersey Girls"? After all the effort they went through to "get" Bush, I'm really interested to see what their take on the election results are.
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