Since I’m still somewhat dumbstruck, I’ll give you a roundup of some of the best stuff I’ve read from others about the Bush re-election.
Over at Stupid Evil Bastard, Les has some of the most practical consolation for Democrats and other progressives. As noted at the bottom of that article, ***Dave has some great advice on where we go from here and how to approach our continuing opposition to Bush — and make convincing arguments — without seeming like poor loosers. He explains some of the likely reasons that Bush won and Kerry lost — informative reading for anyone who has trouble understanding the other side’s perspective. Finally, there’s this informative popular vote map on Boing Boing, which does a much better job of showing how the country feels than the artificial Red vs. Blue distinctions imposed by the electoral college system.
To all that, I would only add an observation from The Young Turks radio program. During the rebroadcast I heard over the weekend (we don’t get it live in my area), one of the hosts noted that in 1965 most Americans probably supported the war in Viet Nam and the administration. By 1972, however, it was a whole diferent story.
Update: An excellent supplement to the popular vote map from Boing Boing that I mentioned is this one from USA Today, which breaks down the red/blue victories by county. Two things are immediately obvious from looking at this map and it’s year-2000 companion:
- All the same types of people in the same areas are voting for the same parties that they were in 2000. The difference, for the most part, is larger turnout rather than changed minds. Swing voters my hairy ass. This election was all about voter mobilization.
- The Democratic party needs to do some serious outreach work to connect with voters in rural areas, even in those states that the Dems think of as “theirs.” There has been an obvious disconnect here, especially when you consider that the Democrats really do have the policies and principles that are better in the long run for working-class, rural America. I have some thoughts on this — and on how little it really has to do with the Right’s version of “family values” — but I’ll save it for another post.
Update update: Some observant bloggers have pointed out why the USA Today county map is as deceptive as the state-based red/blue maps are. Here’s a cross between Boing Boing’s “purple” state map and USA Today’s county-based map. This should present a much more realistic picture of the vote spread across the country. For more insight into the proliferation of maps in the aftermath of the election, check out Mark Monmonier’s How to Lie with Maps.
