It's been an insane 11 month ride and now there is nothing left to say or do. There is not another dollar to be spent, ad to air, or door upon which to knock. The time for debate and persuasion is over.
The frustrating part about elections is that so little of what happens is within our control. We are one in two hundred million. The outcome isn't up to us, it's up to everyone else. Astronaut Ken Mattingly described a similar feeling about his role in the Apollo program while narrating the amazing documentary For All Mankind:
This thing is too big for…hell, I don't even understand it. I'm not sure anyone understands the whole thing. All I can control is my part. I understand what I'm supposed to do, and (the copilot) understands what he needs to do.
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We are all counting on one another to do our jobs. All these other people are counting on me. You tell yourself that if it fails, it won't fail because of me. It won't fail because of me.
All you control is your own participation. It's a small part to play, but it's all you have. You can make sure that if your candidate fails, it wasn't because of you.
I voted with a very unhealthy mindset today. I am motivated mostly by anger and revenge. With no malice toward any specific person, and certainly not my right-leaning friends and family, I set out to inflict pain on every candidate with "Republican" after his or her name. This is not fair. There are perfectly competent Republican elected officials here in Monroe County and I had no good cause to vote against them.
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Unfortunately for them and the concept of fairness, I do not give a shit. This was my tiny effort at payback. Payback for eight years of being called a traitor, having my political ideology used as an epithet, and seeing the bullying stupidity of the talk radio hordes.
Payback for purged voter rolls, rigged voting machines, a bureaucracy and judiciary stuffed with sub-moronic partisan hacks, and a national political discourse eminating from the White House at approximately a fourth-grade level. Payback for the "permanent Republican majority" that guided our leaders' strategy in 2004. Payback for all the war dead, the deceit, the lies, and the trillions in debt that eight years of Republicanism wrought.
This is not an election as much as an emotional release. Some people down the ticket will inevitably be affected.
Sorry. You are not George W. Bush, but you gave us George W. Bush. Quit whining and accept responsibility for your party and its choices.
J. Dryden says:
Unhealthy, indeed, since Revenge Voting so often yields frightening results. A vote for Dubya was a Revenge Vote against Clinton. A vote for Nixon was a Revenge Vote against Johnson. A vote for Harding was a Revenge Vote against Wilson. A lot of people eventually wanted to take those votes back.
That being said: Fuck 'em. I voted my bile as well. (Well, that, and my fear. I will throw myself in front of a tank, Tiananmen-style, to prevent Palin's Veep-ship.)
beau says:
revenge is just one of roughly 5,000,000,000,000 (i rounded down) perfectly acceptable reasons to vote democrat this year.
other favorites include "wait, who's in charge at the moment? ok, the other team", "i just like saying "obama"- obama… obama… it's fun", and of course
"are you fuckin kidding me? her? in the whitehouse?".
David says:
It was anger, yes.
But it wasn't revenge.
It wasn't "you hurt me, so I'm going to hurt you." It was "Look what you've done to our country, fuckers. We're taking it back."
There are things we can fix…our national pride can become national pride instead of "in your face opposing viewpoints…we beat you." [To be honest, I think one of the things Reagan did right was to re-establish some pride in America's place in the world.]
But:
* It would be hard to really extract revenge from those that have dumbed down the level of discourse, and turned "liberal" into an epithet. Such efforts succeeded because some large segment of the population used them for commisseration…dumb people who bought on emotion were given "justification on reason", confirmed by authority. We can just try to restore things, without enacting revenge.
* I'm afraid that the last several years have so seriously leveraged our country, that one presidential term won't be able to fix the economic damage.
* I see dead people. And I do't see them coming back.
* We are finding that a large number of people (well, we'll see exactly how many, are hateful by nature (insert link to Prop 8 in CA, here).) That doesn't go away with an election.
* If Obama's elected, what sorts of checks and balances prevent W from rampant pillaging in his last months?
* I like cheese.
I'm tired. I'm so exhausted from waking up in the middle of the night for the last 2 weeks, fearful that something will prevent a return to rationality—voter fraud, civil unrest, I don't know.
I'm tired. And I'm just hoping that it's all over tomorrow.
Kulkuri says:
A year or two ago, I told one of my right-wing relatives that it is his party and up to him to fix it. Isn't the first step admitting that something is wrong?? By voting for anyone other than the party that has caused our problems will send them the message that something is wrong. Hopefully they will get the message and clean their shit up, but I won't hold my breath or anything else while waiting.
Amelia says:
Given your statements on the cost/benefit analysis of a single vote, I'm just delighted you got out at all.
That said, I'm going to let you know that I've encountered a bunch of those down-ticket folks, y'know, our friendly County Commissioners, and given that, I'm willing to say you didn't do anything to anyone who didn't deserve it by voting Dem in those races. Mark Stoops is a good guy.
Jude says:
I think at the very least it's good for the soul to actually vote FOR someone rather than "against Republicans". This the first time I can honestly declare that. Sad, I know. I know…
BK says:
Did you really vote *only* out of anger and revenge Ed? Having read your blog for literally years (I was looking for a review of Hendricks Gin 4 years ago to make sure I wasn't alone in my appreciation of a cucumber-infused gin) I feel I can comfortably say that given the beliefs you have espoused that your vote today was just as much, if not more, a vote based on your ideals.
I will echo, however, your concerns about how down-ticket conservatives will be affected. I have spoken with several who do everything short of apologizing for W. Many recognize what an abysmal failure his administration has been and many have told me they feel they 'deserve' what is going to happen today.