Time to Punch Something

I'm glad Kerry conceded, though I'm rather upset at the outcome. I can't say I'm too surprised because the Republicans really had their act together and an amazingly effective attack machine against Kerry. Besides, Bush was an incumbent war president. It was an uphill battle anyway, what with the advantageous position of the Republican National Convention coming after the Democratic one, and Bush getting to close the debates last, and the whole Swift Boat thing (which Bush didn't sponsor, but which helped him). All the big Democratic punches, the convention and Fahrenheit 9/11, happened during the summer and the sentiment dissipated by October.

Fuck the "Anti-Bush." I wish that a pro-Kerry documentary could've been more widely accessible, as opposed to Fahrenheit 9/11, an anti-Bush tract. I saw "Going Upriver," a documentary about Kerry in Vietnam, and it was then that I believed in him. It was only the day before the election, and I saw how courageous and gracious he was as a 27-year old speaking before a Senate Committee. At 27 he made an impact like a meteor, his five minutes of airtime on the national news- five minutes on the news, mind you- riveting the nation, President Nixon, the FBI. 27, hm? What am I going to be doing in eight years? I thought to myself, watching that footage, "There goes the president of the United States."

I wish they'd count the absentee ballots and the provisional ballots. Right now I feel like my vote doesn't really matter, like my vote somehow wasn't "worth" as much as other votes because it was an absentee ballot, because it wasn't in a swing state. I want my vote to be just the same as everyone else's. I know they will count them, but it just seems like an afterthought and a joke right now. And in these four years, with everything that's happened, the states were still pretty much divided the same way as they were in 2000. How many people were actually informed voters, and how many people just voted the party line? The debates didn't seem to matter at all. Young people didn't make a difference after all. After all that we tried, we didn't change a single thing. But I'm glad it was at least a clean election. Thank God for that.