Four More Years
It looks like Bush is gearing up to declare victory, but Kerry hasn’t yet conceeded. According to the sites I’ve read, Bush won by a margin of well over 3 million votes in the popular election. Ohio is still arguably in dispute, with a very slim margin for Bush at the moment.
As much as I can’t stand the thought of having four more years of Bush, I hope Kerry conceeds soon. Bush clearly has the popular vote, and if Kerry manages to wrangle the electoral collage despite that then he will be doing the exact same thing Bush did to Gore four years ago. I disagreed with that then and I’ll disagree with it now. The people have clearly spoken, and their choice should hold (even if I do think they’ve made an enourmous mistake).
Though, I still think it would be pretty cool if neither of them got the electoral college and it went to Congress. It’s unlikely, but that would give us the possibility of Bush in the presidency and Edwards in the vice presidency. I would find that so amusing. :)
In other disturbing news, eleven states just passed state constitutional ammendments banning gay marriage (with many of them also effectively extending the ban to civil unions). Not only did the ammendments pass, they passed with a large majority in most cases. And this is on top of the fact that 27 other states have statutes banning gay marriage, as well as the federal Defense of Marriage Act. It makes me sick.
While I definitely believe that our elected officials should be chosen by the people, I do not believe that the rights of an individual should be restricted by the people in this way. I hope this isn’t an indication that the federal constitutional ammendment may pass. Hopefully these issues will be fought out in the courts, and hopefully next round of elections we’ll finally pick some people who defend the rights of the people.