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Wednesday, November 3, 2004
It Could Have Been a Lot Worse

Whew. President Bush won a popular majority and enough of an electoral vote margin to avoid at least most of the lawsuits that were prepared. The turnout was excellent, and kudos go especially to the people of Ohio. It rained there all day, but they turned out, and in many cases they stood in very long lines. Some were still waiting after midnight, having been in line several hours earlier, before the polls closed.

I'm relieved, but not much inclined to gloat. I think we're up a political creek. At least we have a paddle.

For the record, I was up late, until about 3:00 a.m., watching election reports. This means nothing; I already knew I was a political junkie. But my father, who is not, was also up about that late, and he's not a junkie. Could this suggest that a certain sector of the populace cared more about this election than some others in the past? Perhaps that made a difference.

Also for the record, I only yelled at the television once during the evening's coverage. That was when some Big Media Acronym talking heads were grousing about the "extremely nasty" campaign, as if it were the Republicans' fault. I'm actually not sure the level of nastiness was any higher than it has been in other presidential campaigns I remember - and I have read that a bunch of campaigns I don't remember got very nasty indeed.


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