Blue State

The first call came at 8:20 Wednesday morning. "What the hell happened?" It was my brother, the Kerry Republican, trying to sort out how the electorate could have gotten it so wrong. One of the stats I relayed to him, one I found inconceivable (in the word of Vizzini) at the time, but which apparently proved as true as the other things that dwarf doubted, was that 97% of Republicans had voted for Bush. The 3% comprised my brother, the editors of The Economist, and some Knights of Columbus in Michigan. We bartered theories, felt each others' pain, and then went on with our day.

I was surprised at the equanimity I felt. Shouldn't I be tearing my hair (what little there is of it) and beating my (expansive) breast? I mean, it was bad enough that my candidate had lost. But the winner was a man I consider a plague on both our houses. A man who has defiled the values I hold most dear as an American. I had expected at this moment to feel a rage that could not be quelled. The previous Friday I had spoken of starting an underground revolt. I had anticipated rioting in Detroit, King's County, Chicago. Why wasn't Selma burning?

I made coffee.

To some degree, this is chronic loser syndrome. Having lived most of my life in Chicago, I've gotten used to losing. In my nearly 30 years of voting, the only victorious presidential candidate I've supported is Bill Clinton. And yet this time, I thought we had a chance. It would be tight, but the tide was turning. Polls said we could win Florida, but I never believed that. But I knew we had Pennsylvania. And Ohio. Surely Ohio. The previous night, the networks had taunted me, built up my confidence because of their wariness after 2000. Virginia, too close to call. Missouri, too close to call. Arkansas, too close to call. Had the cobwebs fallen away? Had America rubbed their collective eyes and said, "My God! What have I done!"

No. State by state, Dixie fell. But it was still okay. Red states were staying red, but blue states were staying blue. New Hampshire took her time to get her dress on, for a tiny state of 1.2 million souls, but finally fell for Kerry. Florida turned, but that was no surprise to me. Come on, Ohio. No Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio. And yet, when Ohio fell, I didn't go nuts. I didn't rant. I didn't curse. Which is shocking, because it takes so little to make me curse these days. I just turned off the TV. Once the first shudder of disgust and loss had passed, I turned it back on. Just in time to see John Edwards declare they would count every vote. Then off to bed.

Earlier this week - it seems so long, long ago - I wrote of my Pre-Election Anxiety Disorder. All I can imagine is that my pre-election jitters were so intense, that once the worst happened, I had no feelings left.

Side note: I had a conversation Wednesday evening with a friend of mine in which I ran through some of the Senate contests, who had won and why, and what I thought it meant. She was surprised at the information I had at my fingertips. What I told her is what I'll tell you: my PEAD was not limited to the presidency. I was obsessed. I had my nose in every race. I know why Lisa Murkowski was expected to lose and why she won. Is it any surprise that once I was freed of that tension, the actual results felt less crushing?

Then the emails started. Such an outpouring of grief! I do not mock it; I understand it. I especially feel the need to reach out to others of a similar mind when you feel that the rest of the country has tuned against you. Which is, quite frankly, what we feel. This election turned into "Deliverance:" a boatload of northern intellectuals got raped and shot at by southern conservatives. George Bush made us all squeal like a pig. We are suffering from our own little post traumatic stress disorder. A correspondent on one list summoned it up thus: "I'm glad we have this forum in which we can be together in spirit if not in person." (Another took it a step further: "I take solace in the knowledge that when the Civil War begins, I have a platoon to join.") At noon came the plea, "Will you offer a salve for our wounds any time soon?"

This is that salve.

I'm trying to remain positive about it all, contrary though it is to my nature. On one hand, we're no worse off than we were six months ago. Sure, we lost a few seats in Congress. Zell Miller was a Republican in everything but name, so it's really a total of three seats in the Senate. Florida was a tough loss, and hard fought, but it's hard to fight two Bushes at once. Trading Fritz Hollings for Jim DeMint in South Carolina is unfortunate, but as with Bob Graham in Florida and John Breaux in Louisiana, it's more the man than the seat that will be missed. The big news is the loss of Minority Leader Tom Daschle, but as Jon Stewart said on the Daily Show (I'm paraphrasing): It's uncertain what Tom Daschle will do next, but he's sure to be ineffective. Daschle has bent over backwards for the Bush agenda over the past four years. His "leadership" will surely not be missed.

On the other hand, of course, now that GB2 has nothing holding him back, we can expect him to run rampant over the Constitution. The most frightening prospect is what he might do to the Supreme Court. It has become apparent to me that the only people who hold Bush in higher disregard than the Dems are the Supremes. Sure, they put him in office four years ago. And yes, Fat Tony Scalia and Uncle Clarence Thomas are his lapdogs. But William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor - conservatives both - have been aching to retire for the past two years, and have held off just waiting for Bush to be voted out of office. At least that's what it looks like from here. Rehnquist isn't going to be able to wait much longer. So Bush is expected to have at least two, and possibly as many as four, opportunities to add justices to the Court, including a Chief Justice. (The Chief Justice has to be nominated and approved just like any other, even if he or she is already on the bench.) But moderate Republicans have already made it clear that they won't just roll over. Arlen Specter is expected to be the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he has warned the White House against trying to fill any upcoming Supreme Court vacancies with judges who would oppose abortion rights. The moderate senators of the Republican Main Street Partnership have issued a similar statement. Both of Ohio's Republican senators came out against that state's gay marriage initiative (which passed anyway, of course.) And Lincoln Chaffee, the Republican senator from Rhode Island, threatened to switch parties if Bush was re-elected. So we're not completely on our own.

Here are some other thoughts, in no particular order.

1) Stunning as the election results may be, on examination, they're not surprising. Red states went red, blue states went blue. Iowa's trend into the red is distressing (Come back into the light!) but not a huge shocker. For years it has been a state divided between the Democratic intelligentsia and the Republican "traditional values" folks. The same is true in Ohio, where the liberals of the cities are balanced by the conservatives of the suburbs and rural areas. The same, for many years, was true of Illinois, which has only recently become blue. Look at each seat the Republicans took, and you won't be surprised. Hell, it's more surprising that Tom Daschle ever got elected from South Dakota to begin with than it is that he lost this year.

2) We didn't do anything wrong. On reflection, the only way we could have won was with a more dynamic candidate. But where is that candidate? It's why the Dems are Obama-happy. He stands out. In this year's crop, Kerry was simply the least bland of the bland. Not including Sharpton, who is unelectable, and Dean, who I believe would have proven to be. We had the issues, we had the money, we had the get out the vote effort. We lost because the GOP matched us on get out the vote, and too many Americans are not well read, so they can't (won't?) follow the issues. People vote with their gut. But, as Shakespeare reminds us, "A man may smile and smile and be a villain."

3) We must stop running from ourselves. Kerry's biggest problem was that he was too (small "c") conservative. Q: "Is the war in Iraq a mistake?" Kerry: "No." Q: "Are you the biggest liberal in Congress?" Kerry: "No." Yes! Yes, we are liberals. Look it up. Liberal means generous. Liberal means forward-looking. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, liberal means: 1. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. 2. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded. 3. Tending to give freely; generous. Free from bigotry. Favoring reform. Tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others. Generous. That's what liberal means to me. And to most people who consider themselves liberal. We need to present ourselves in that way. We must stop letting those on the right define us. We must be active, not reactive. (And please, please, not "proactive.") Yes, I'm a liberal, because I believe in progress and reform and tolerance. These are the moral values which are the basis of the Democratic Party. Why are we afraid of having values? Why are we so afraid, period? "Yes, the war in Iraq is a mistake. It is morally insupportable. It is a horrible tragedy but at this time, the men and women who have died there have died in vain. We owe it to them to make sure that as few Americans continue to die there as possible." If you're going to lose anyway, you might as well take a stand.

4) The only people more upset about George Bush's re-election than us are traditional Republicans. Face it, in most of the red states (and blue states, for that matter), people are voting for the party, not the person. We can't win that game. But when The Economist supports Kerry, when American Conservative supports Kerry, when Pat Buchanan says Bush should be re-elected because the neo-cons need to be held responsible for the war in Iraq and its ultimate failure, there's trouble a brewin'. Right now, we are out of power. But we need to be able to reach out to those traditional Republicans - the McCains, the Lugars, the Chaffees - in order to survive the onslaught of the radical / religious right over the next four years. It's in the best interest of both parties to do so.

5) We need to figure out who we are. And we need to let people know. The old bromide holds now more than ever: All politics is local politics. There are plenty of Dems in those blue states. They know how their Republican friends and neighbors think more than we do. The Party needs to organize both from the bottom up and the top down. Why do the red states hate us? How can we change that? Most hate is based on fear and distrust. If they hate us because, once again from Jon Stewart, "dudes kissing trumps everything" - well, then there's nothing we can do. If they don't trust our economic policies, or our social policies, or because they believe that abortion is murder, then there's no reason to try to change their mind. We differ in opinion, and that's why there's more than one party. If they hate us because they think we're all a bunch of city slickers who have sex hanging from the chandeliers, well, we can lie about that. But seriously. If they hate us because we've been demonized by the other side, we can change that. But that requires personal contact. And a recognition that this is an effort that needs to happen constantly, not just every four years. And it needs to start now. In places like Iowa and Ohio, where we're not that far apart. And Nevada and New Mexico and Colorado, where we have a chance. And in Michigan and Wisconsin and Minnesota, which you'd better believe Republican strategists are targeting even as we speak.

6) After its long winter nap, the media seems to be starting to shake off some of the slumber that affected it even before 9/11. We can and should encourage that. And by "we," I mean we, individuals, groups of individuals, not counting on our elected officials to do that for us. No we cannot fight the media giants (although we can petition our representative in government to do that), but we can nudge and harass individual outlets into doing their job.

7) The best thing to come out of this election is increased involvement by the electorate. We can't let that drop. As long as we become politically active only every four years, we will never make any progress. One third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives will be up for election again in two years. Think how many atrocities this Administration can commit in that time. We (and by we I mean us and the Party) need to look ahead now to those races, and start organizing today to defeat who we can. Joe Hoeffel did very well against Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, even taking the lead in the vote tally at times during the evening. This run was seen as a "warm-up" for his race against Rick Santorum, a less popular and truly egregious senator, in 2006. What can we do to bring about a Hoeffel win? Who else do we want to target? This is how the other side thinks; we need to get in on their game.

Despite the way we may feel, none of our losses in the election were insurmountable. We keep hearing that George Bush got more votes than anyone who was ever elected president. You know who got the second most votes of anyone who ever ran for president? John Kerry. You know who got the third most votes of anyone who ever ran for president? Al Gore. Turnout was at a near-record high of almost 60%. Only 4 out of 10 eligible voters couldn't be bothered to show up for "the most important election of our lives." (TM everybody) Who didn't show up? As usual, the kids. For all the hoo-hah, the breakdown of voters across age ranges was about the same as in 2000. Even with the turnout, Murkowski beat Knowles in Alaska by 10,000 votes, in a state which hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in 30 years. Thune beat Daschle - the only incumbent of either party to lose - by 4600 votes. Castor lost to Martinez in Florida by 78,000, but that's out of more than 7 million votes cast, or little more than 1%. In Illinois, Alan Keyes received nearly 1.4 million votes, leading MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to observe, "These are the voters who wear tinfoil hats."

As you surely know, 22% of those who voted for Bush said their top issue was "moral values." Such as an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation which led to more than 10,000 civilian deaths, based on a fabric of lies and deception. Oh, I kid. Actually, these voters are opposed to homosexuality and favor school prayer and leaders with strong religious faith. Let's see, who else has those values? Oh that's right, Islamic Fundamentalists. Democratic leaders are now trying to figure out how they can extend their appeal to voters outside the cities and to those involved with religion. The sight of politicians kissing babies will soon be replaced by images of them kissing icons.

Ballot initiatives banning gay marriage passed in 11 states; in Mississippi, it received 92% of the vote. Initiatives banning interracial marriage would probably have passed in many of those states as well. One quarter of the voters in swing states are white evangelicals who voted for Bush by almost 3 to1. The only way to bring these voters to the Democratic Party is to ditch everything we believe in. But 30% of swing state voters are from cities over 50,000, and they went for Kerry by 2 to 1. Suburban voters supported Bush 54/45, and rural voters went for him by 57 to 42. We can reach out to these voters without pretending to be something we're not.