You know how you can know something is going to happen but be totally unprepared for it? When I woke up this morning to discover that we might need to wait ELEVEN DAYS for the provisional ballots to be counted in Ohio, a little part of me curled up and died. This despite all my oh-so-world-weary joking yesterday about how we'll know who won sometime in 2006. I just can't stand it.
That said, Kerry: don't concede. The White House is going to tear you to pieces for it, make you look petty and ugly and mean - don't back down. You know they wouldn't. In fact, take a page from the Rove playbook, ignore the attacks and the insults, adopt a maddening attitude of "I am just right! So I don't even need to respond to your ridiculous arguments!" and stay on message: Wait Until All Votes Are Counted. Just say it over and over again and ignore all the other crap.
Don't concede. I was chastising myself earlier because I realized I was hoping that widespread vote fraud would be uncovered. This seemed mean-spirited and anti-democratic, to hope that people had been disenfranchised for my political convenience. Then I realized that I hope it will be uncovered because I AM SURE THAT IT HAPPENED, sure like a tin-foil hat. Those eleven days might give you time to prove some of it, you never know.
Whatever happens, anyway, it's clear there's some work to do: GOP Congress and Senate and, I'm sorry to say, likely White House, as many as four Supreme Court appointments coming up in the near future, all eleven Bigots for One Man and One Woman amendments passed with double-digit margins, fuck fuck fuck. I know everyone is tired and demoralized, but now's the time to try to figure out why this country is sliding towards the dark side and work to turn it around. We're still about half the voting citizenry, you know.
Posted by hilatron at November 3, 2004 08:05 AM