24 Hours Later

Bush won.

I found out as soon as the news broke. I woke up at 10, checked out CNN.com, and found that it was still a dead heat, with Ohio becoming the deciding state. "Oh great," I thought, "Another Florida." The debacle last election was still being contested even today, and the thought of having to go through another four years of that was almost as disheartening of the fact that my candidate lost. Then a funny thing happened. I checked out Fox News, who had early on called Ohio for Bush. They had a headline I had never expected.

"Kerry Concedes."

What? It's over? I was just getting ready for a good week at least of vote contesting. All those people who filed lawsuits are probably kicking themselves now. Oh well. Kerry conceded, and I'm sure that he wouldn't have done it unless he was sure he didn't have a chance. I have to admit, I don't see why Ohio wan't being called for anyone by CNN. It had a larger difference than some of the other states that had already been called one way or the other. I think they were just holding out until everything was settled, not wanting to make a pre-emptive call.

I've made no secret that I don't like Bush's presidency. I think that he's destroyed America in the eye of the World. I think the war in Iraq was a mistake, and I'm disheartened that now no one will make Bush own up to it. Honestly, that was the only issue that I felt strongly about. I know different people who feel very strongly about certain moral or domestic issues. I don't, really. Honestly, I respect their opinions, I really do, I just have over the past few weeks gotten tired of people who have opinions about things they really don't know about. I've met people on both sides of the fence with this problem, and I suppose the point of a campaign is to simplify complex issues into simple black and white coinflips for voter processing. And really, the Bush administration has been working on this since 2001. The Axis of Evil, himself being sent to do God's will, drawing definative lines between people, places, ideas. I think it's a little bit scary that (A) they believe they have the right to do this all unchallenged, and (B) they HAVE gotten away with this mostly uncontested. I remember watching the Daily Show, when Zell Miller was speaking at the Republican National Convention, berating the Democrats for questioning the President, which Jon Stewart then paraphrased with "How dare the Democratic party field a candidate; And during an election year!" I've seen similar sentiments expressed by far to many people. I have to admit, when the Daily Show hinted they may postpone the elections indefinitely, I only partially dismissed it as a joke, and I'm still not ruling it out for an October surprise in '08.

Gah. I need to calm down. Bush really isn't that bad a guy. The country didn't blow up over the past four years (except for that one time, but I'm not dumb enough to blame him for that). I may not agree with him, but I'm not the first time to note that there are much worse candidates for presidency. In the mean time, I've started preparing for the 2008 election: Jeb Bush vs Hilary Clinton. O_O!