I've resisted posting since Tuesday night, partly because Colorado was one of the bright spots and therefore I'm not totally devastated. And partly because I know from bitter experience that the period immediately following a disappointing loss can lead to bad decisions that have impacts on elections in the future. But having read a bit if the Kossack response to Tuesday's results, I have to chime in.
The 2004 presidential election was very close, as we thought it would be. The Senate elections were mostly held in Republican states and therefore they were longshots. We KNEW both of these things, although sometimes we didn't admit them. And here's one thing that can happen under these circumstances ...
... you can lose.
In fact, the very definition of a "close election" is one in which you lose about half the time. What happened Tuesday was not some meltdown in American democracy. Nor the end of the world. What happened was we lost a very close election. We got out-GOTV'ed by about a hundred thousand votes in one big state, Ohio. If we had done a little better there, we would have won. Simple as that.
We (liberals especially) often talk as if the other side just sits on their hands, waiting and hoping for the best. And that the fate of the nation rests on our efforts alone: If we are good and work hard, we win. If we lose, it must be because we are miserable failures. Liberals, STOP BLAMING YOURSELVES and your fellow warriors, such as John Kerry. You fought hard. You just got nosed out by the other side's equally hard-working and equally strategic organization in one state that we knew would be painfully close.
And on the Senate side, we lost a series of close races in places in which they had the built-in advantage. So be it.
I know, I know, it's going to be a rough few years. Lord knows, I have family members about to be shipped out to Iraq. I have many gay friends and I'm not Christian. It's going to be tough. But America has had miserable periods before. If we have another McCarthyite departure-from-reality (I think it's already begun) we'll just have to fight it. And endure.
Basically, all I wanted to say, as a fellow traveler and a devoted Kossack for over a year, is that winning and losing political campaigns is not about how good or bad a person you, or you opponents, are. Sometimes it's just how the dice is rolled. These things go in cycles. We lost a close election, but next time we'll have a different candidate, it will be a different world, and politics in America will have changed. Whether it will have changed in our favor (I think it will) only God knows. But for His sake and yours, and your wives, girlfriends, husbands, boyfriends, and especially your children, chill a little. Take a break.
We'll need you all to fight for us in the years to come.