I went to put on my new sneakers this morning, the ones I bought with several weeks ago. They broke in two places, instantly. I took them out of the box, laced them up, and the sole on the left one blew out instantly. The eyelets on the right one ripped out of the shoe. Meanwhile, my P.O.S. army boots just entered their fourth or fifth year of honorable service. This is why I prefer boots to sneakers. They fit my feet, they last forever, and they look cool while doing so.
I’d like to make this into some sort of metaphor for the election, but I can’t.
, , and and I watched the returns until midnight. Then I took back to her car, we kissed sweetly, and she went home to Boston and I came home to my dormitory.
Election Results
I haven’t gone into detail on Ohio yet, but I see that in Iowa, Bush is ahead by about 15,000 votes. The total votes for Nader, Cobb, Peroutka and the other third-party candidates are around 12,000. So it’s unlikely to swing to Kerry. Nor is New Mexico. But if Kerry should win Ohio, that places him in the unenviable position of being President of a country where thirty states voted against him, with a hostile Congress to boot. Not good odds for a Democratic president: he’ll be fought tooth and nail on legislation; he will be villified for every security or intelligence failure, even by a has-been Bush appointee in the backwaters of some intelligence agency; the ongoing problems of the US military in Iraq will be laid at his feet as an example of his mismanagement. in essence, he will not be able to do anything without collecting a vast scrapbook of blame.
The Democrats are out of power. Winning Ohio winds up pitting the country against itself even more than it already is, and not just for a few more months, but for four more years. Republicans are apparently way better at holding grudges than Democrats.
And of course, there’s also the issue of where I live…. Here in northeastern Connecticut, Kerry carried my town by just eleven votes. did a lot better, living in a district that went for Kerry by 20,000 votes or so. So did Worcester. Amherst went to Kerry, 9,000 votes to 1,000 votes. Northampton chose Kerry by an 80% margin.
Time to get back to issues of school, poetry, writing and life. I have exams in a few weeks, and papers to grade, and a novel to write. Time to get to work.
