Brian ([info]navrins) wrote,
@ 2004-11-03 14:20:00
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Current mood:political
Current music:John Kerry's concession speech

More election reaction
I'm pleased that this election seems to have occurred without major problems - though still sort of waiting for the shoe to drop. After all the talk about misinformation aimed at reducing turnout in opposition areas, broken voting machines, easily hacked voting machines, paperless electronic voting machines, and other potential sources of fraud, nobody seems to be talking about them much today. (http://electoral-vote.com/ mentions that exit polls in Ohio seem to be noticeably different from the official results.)

I'm depressed that Bush seems to have won it. Four more years of this administration - bolstered by an enlarged Republican majority in Congress - will do immeasurable damage to America in many ways (about which I've ranted before and will not repeat just now). Not to mention the likely prospect of several new conservative members being appointed to the Supreme Court.

But what really makes me sick is the fact that the American people have endorsed the Bush Administration's actions of the last four years. Until now, one could look at what America has done and say, "Well, maybe it's just the government. Maybe the American people are better than that. They haven't really had a chance to do anything about it - maybe the 2002 elections were an aberration; people still in shock after the Sept. 11 attacks and giddy from winning in Afghanistan."

Well, now we've had a chance to do something. And we as a nation have definitively said that we support the actions this administration has taken in the last four years. The stupid, the vile, the unwise, and the evil - we support it all, even now. Refusing the International Criminal Court. Reckless tax cuts, especially for the wealthy and the dead. We support that. USA PATRIOT Act, spurning the UN, pre-emptively invading Iraq on flimsy intelligence with no plan for the aftermath. Inflating the national debt. Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Defense of Marriage Act and state constitutional amendments against gay marriage and civil unions. All of it. America supports it.

I don't know that I want to be a member of the group of people who support those things.

It's not that I think four more years in America under Bush will make my life unliveable. I'm male, straight, white, adequately well-off, and too old to be drafted. But I don't know if I can stand to be called one of those people who support all of those things America just said it supports. I don't know.


Listening to Kerry - unity? Unity on whose terms? Unity behind Bush's policies? No, thank you. Better a divided America than one united on the road to hell.

Okay, that was weird - I had two stations coming in on the radio for a minute. First it was something like the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack over Kerry - then it was two Kerrys speaking together, probably a few seconds separated though it was hard to tell.

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[info]alaria_lyon
2004-11-03 07:31 pm UTC (link)
And we as a nation have definitively said that we support the actions this administration has taken in the last four years.

52% to 48% isn't all that definitive to me. We are not united. I am going to take some pride in that. Not only that, but the Northeast corrider, was 56% to 44% not in favor of this administration. If I'm going to live in America, I'm in the right place.

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[info]zenala
2004-11-03 07:49 pm UTC (link)
Well, 52% is higher than any candidate has gotten in quite a few elections... And as it is, the majority of counties in the US are strongly one way or the other, so most people don't actually have to interact with people who disagree with them on a daily basis (which I suppose fuels some of the problems... plus people who are in the political minority in a certain place are forced to be either foam-at-the-mouth crazies or quietly hide from political conversation... I usually take the latter path, particularly in Ithaca)

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[info]cheshyre
2004-11-03 07:57 pm UTC (link)
Don't forget all the people eligible to vote who didn't, and thus supported the status quo.

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[info]navrins
2004-11-03 08:08 pm UTC (link)
I'm pretty sure that fewer than 52% of Muslims support terrorism - and how many Americans think of all Muslims as terrorists?

The numbers matter less than the outcome, I'm afraid. What the world will hear is, "Americans voted to re-elect President Bush."

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[info]alaria_lyon
2004-11-03 08:25 pm UTC (link)
and how many Americans think of all Muslims as terrorists

52%??

Read the BBC Opinions. The rest of the world sympathizes with the 48%.

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[info]navrins
2004-11-03 08:29 pm UTC (link)
I can't find BBC Opinions.

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[info]alaria_lyon
2004-11-03 08:34 pm UTC (link)
Here you go:

Have your say

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[info]msdirector
2004-11-03 08:13 pm UTC (link)
I agree! Bush was elected by a majority. But JUST a majority. WE the people are hardly all unified behind him. Half this country wants change. And will continue to work for it. And if we do, we will win. It's only if we give up, give in, separate ourselves from the system in which change can occur, that we will lose. Yes, there must be unity. Unity behind the system and working within that system to change things back. We can work together even if we don't agree. In fact, we have to in order to move the country back. There are not that many more of them than us. The balance can just as easily shift in our direction. And, just as in the initial formation of this country, it is the Northeast that will lead the way.

Don't give up! Don't let them win. Keep working for change and change will come.

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[info]cmouse
2004-11-03 07:37 pm UTC (link)
> (http://electoral-vote.com/ mentions that exit polls in Ohio seem to be noticeably different from the official results.)

They also have 59% of the population as female. Clearly something went wrong that had nothing to do with Bush or Kerry.

I wouldn't conclude that everyone who voted for Bush supports Bush. I'm completely blameing this on Kerry. I believe those (believable, I know) exit polls said that only 56% of people voting for Bush voted for Bush because they support Bush (as opposed to really not likeing Kerry). So only a quarter of the nation supports Bush.

Also, about 70% of Kerry voters didn't support Kerry, they voted against Bush. I think it all comes down to most Americans didn't support either canidate. I wish the democrats had run some... well... viable?

And I can't quote my statistics - I'm pretty sure they came from CNN.

(And I support refusing the International Criminal Court, am certaintly not opposed to tax cuts when accompanied by other sound economic policy (I'm waiting Mr. President). Everything else I don't support.)

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CNN exit polls
[info]treptoplax
2004-11-03 08:05 pm UTC (link)
link

There were a few oddities/curiosities; hard to say which are real and which are sampling problems.

54% of voters polled were female; 77% were white.

Non-high-school graduates split 50/50; Kerry took most of those with post-grad education, and Bush the majority of all intermediate education levels.

23% of gays voted for Bush.

55% of voters make more than $50k.

The only age group of which the majority voted for Kerry is under-30.

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[info]navrins
2004-11-03 08:11 pm UTC (link)
Agree with you on tax cuts. I deliberately mentioned *reckless* tax cuts. Some tax cuts are - reckful? good - under the right circumstances.

I've heard some arguments on the ICC that didn't seem unreasonable, but weren't enough to change my mind. What's your reason?

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[info]dpolicar
2004-11-03 08:02 pm UTC (link)
then it was two Kerrys speaking together, probably a few seconds separated though it was hard to tell.
He was probably just speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

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[info]navrins
2004-11-03 08:15 pm UTC (link)
That was sorta my thought.

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[info]hauntmeister
2004-11-03 08:14 pm UTC (link)
I would really be interested in seeing a county-by-county breakdown of difference of exit polls from final results, overlaid with an indication of the type of voting technology used in the county.

If the divergence appears most strongly in counties using Diebold machines, we might have something to complain about.

Humm. The mother of a friend of mine is a journalist down in Florida. I wonder if she'd be interested in some investigation.

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[info]navrins
2004-11-03 08:16 pm UTC (link)
That really, seriously should be done.

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[info]hauntmeister
2004-11-04 12:14 am UTC (link)
http://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/ has a good rant about how the early pro-Kerry exit polls turned into pro-Bush final results.

But only in Ohio, Florida, and New Mexico, the states using electronic voting machines without paper trails. In the states whose machines did keep paper trails, the initial pro-Kerry exit polls were were followed by pro-Kerry final outcomes.

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