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Election tales Of Projections, Rejections and Other Such StuffBy Rick Horowitz
Post-election musings from a semi-sleepless brain... Calling Dr. Bill, Calling Dr. Bill: The line of the night wasn't delivered on Election Night -- not even close. The line that best explained Tuesday evening (and Wednesday morning) was delivered nearly two years ago, on December 3, 2002, by one William Jefferson Clinton. "When people are insecure," Bill Clinton said, "they'd rather have someone strong and wrong, rather than weak and right." As a one-sentence diagnosis of the state of the body politic, you could hardly do better. Bill Clinton is a very wise man. Of course, if he'd kept his pants zipped, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The Unplugged Life: I may have been the only political junkie in the country who didn't know that John Kerry was well on his way to victory. While everyone else was bouncing around the internet on Tuesday afternoon, poring over the latest exit numbers and spreading the word about the Kerry tide in Ohio and Florida, I was my usual unconnected and oblivious self, watching actual Wisconsin voters lining up to cast actual Wisconsin votes. At two inner-city polling places in Milwaukee -- a middle school and an apartment complex -- all was calm and virtually problem-free, despite days of GOP bluster about tossing thousands of supposedly illegal voters off the rolls. It was distressing to see squads of volunteers deployed to protect the voting rights of ordinary American citizens. It was majestic to see squads of volunteers deployed to protect the voting rights of ordinary American citizens. And I never had to unlearn those Florida exit polls. The Not-Entirely-Unplugged Life: I did have the radio on briefly as I drove back from watching the watchers watch the watchers watch the officials watch the voters. In fact, I tuned in just in time to hear a pollster discussing one of his findings -- the single issue that people had said was the most important to them in casting their vote for president. The war in Iraq? The war on terror? The economy? Health care? "Moral values." And you knew. Flying Under the Radar: I'd had another radio on a few days earlier, in a hotel room in a distant suburb of Washington, D.C. I pulled in a station from not-so-distant West Virginia, and heard a commercial for a Christian bookstore. Among the titles available, the commercial said, were books that might help sort out the election choices looming just days ahead. Whether to support a candidate who had faith in people having control of their own lives, for instance -- or one who wanted big government to control everything. They never named names. They never had to. Even a Broken Clock is Right Twice a Day: From a column I wrote way back on March 18th: "There's no way in the world that Kerry's words will disappear, not until the videotape itself has turned to dust -- and by then they'll have made enough copies, in every conceivable format from memory stick to eight-track, to allow them to play it nonstop for the rest of time. Or at least until November 2nd." Which words were those, you wonder? Does the phrase "$87 billion" ring a bell? The Word for This is "Chutzpah": It's the morning after the night before, and John Kerry hasn't yet decided whether to fight on or call it a day. But helpful advice is only a click away. On my handy-dandy portable AM/FM, one of our local right-wing radio guys is urging Kerry to "do the right thing" and concede. It's time to put an end to the divisions, says our right-wing radio guy, who's been busy these last months ripping John Kerry's face off, questioning his integrity, ridiculing his courage. It's time, says our right-wing radio guy, for Kerry to start the healing. Why is it always the mugger, and not the victim, who's so willing to let bygones be bygones? Department of Lucky Timing: In the news on Wednesday: In Houston, a jury convicts a former Enron executive and four former Merrill Lynch officials of accounting fraud. And if they'd been convicted on Monday instead? It wouldn't have changed a thing. The Tune is Familiar: The headline stretches big and bold across the top of the front page: "BUSH PLEDGES TO BE PRESIDENT / FOR 'ONE NATION,' NOT ONE PARTY." There are certain newspapers I simply won't throw away, and this is one of them; it's a definite keeper. After all, coming after so much election-year anger and bitterness coast to coast, it's a welcome message, a reassuring message. There's a third line to the headline, too: "GORE, CONCEDING, URGES UNITY." Posted
11/4/04. Win or lose, your best bet for top-notch commentary is right
here at "Rick's"!
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Rick Horowitz
