Kerry's Message: We're 55 Million and We Approve

Yesterday, Senator Kerry conceded the race.

Two days ago, many Americans told exit pollers that one of the guiding issues in their decision to vote for President Bush is "moral values."

Some say that is code for abortion and gay rights.

I see it as code for something else: The stunning ability for the Bush team and its peripheral evangelical and right wing groups to distract people.

This may sound like sour grapes. While I am seriously disappointed that the Democratic ticket lost, I pay my compliments to the forces that re-elected Bush. I salute their skills, like I would salute a womanizer, who was able to rope-a-dope women into going with him. Bush didn't campaign on his accomplishments, for he has created more havoc than solutions. His minions, like the Swift Boat troublemakers, lied not only about Kerry's record, but sinfully destroyed his character. Additionally, conservative operative skillfully but cynically made sure inconsequential anti-gay marriage initiatives were on the ballots in eleven key states. My conclusion is that so long as people can base their vote upon the hatred of someone else's character or lifestyle, then they feel absolved from having to base their vote upon critical analysis of issues and platforms. One can base a vote for Bush on one's own disgust with homosexuals (and one's valid opposition to abortion) and never have to think twice about the best long-term strategy for Iraq or fiscal responsibility.

Still -- Bush wins.

And pundits wonder what Kerry and the Democrats may have done differently. They say we must talk about faith. Reach out to the middle. Become once again a national party. But I think that will be difficult. The issues important to the Democratic Party require something more than geography. Our stances are adopted by better-informed voters. "Moral issues" becomes code for "I can't base my vote on anything else because I haven't made the effort to read up on it." So "moral issues" voters get taken by the womanizer who makes them think about all the things they despise. The Ku Klux Klan had the same appeal. It attracted poor, frustrated whites who had nobody else but Negroes to kick and feel better than. I have seen it in the faces of people at the polls -- I was a poll checker two days ago -- at their satisfaction in knowing they would be stamping out even the prospect of legal homosexual union.

I will support the Democratic candidates in the next cycle of elections. And I have concluded that an equally important mission is to encourage people to improve their literacy and language skills. Those who were better informed and better educated overwhelmingly viewed Senator Kerry as a more capable world leader who understood that America's sense of mission could not be a square peg in the world's round hole.

In the cacophony of campaign ads funded by a bottomless pit of cash (including my own $25 smackers for Kerry), many voters took the bait that this election is all about:

• believing embittered Navy veterans who are still pissed off that Kerry protested Vietnam
  
• reproductive rights (you don't have them)
  
• gay marriage (it threatens your own family stability) (and frankly, I think this issue is all about people's discomfort in having to explain the idea to their children.)
  
• the treasonousness of disagreeing with a narcissict President who, biography tells us, has never much been accountability his entire life.
  

None of these much matter, policywise. That was Bush, Rove & Company's plan. Threw some red meat to the junkyard dog electorate so they could through the fence and continue constructing their master plan.

I am proud of my small, small part in trying to get Senator Kerry elected. I met hundreds of fellow volunteers and driven staffers here in Ohio that is great consolation to Kerry's defeat. We know each other and will work together again. In our defeat, we feel less alone. In our confusion over how distractions and lies can lay the foundation for victory (not ours), we feel alone in that frustration. We are among the 55 million who passionately approved of Kerry's message.