dangerblog

Election Results

I was so excited and nervous about the election results on Tuesday. I kept refreshing my browser screen in between real work, hoping for new exit polls or any problems at the polls. Everything seemed to be going in Kerry's favor. High voter turnout. Early poll numbers were really encouraging. Then, as the polls started closing, the picture changed and suddenly, it didn't look so good for Kerry anymore. I was planning on staying up as late as I could, but that was when I was all excited about Kerry winning. I decided to go to bed around 10:30 and hope for a surprise. Which didn't come.

I tried to be optimistic in the morning about the provisional and absentee ballots, but with Kerry losing the popular vote by such a large margin, I didn't really think he had much of a shot. After he conceded the race to Bush, I was sad and depressed, and looked to the blogs of the world to see other's reactions. I saw everything from conspiracy theories to anger, consignment and occasionally, hope.

After reading all of that, I have come to kind of an optimistic place. Around 48% of the country disagrees at some level with some or all of the decisions that this administration has made. And I am betting they haven't stopped disagreeing just because the guy they voted for didn't win. We've got to band together now, even now that the election is over so that the next time a decision gets made that 48% of the country doesn't like, we are on the ground and ready.

That said, I don't know what the next step is. But I do know that I will still read all the political blogs regularly. I will still read Salon every day. And if the opportunity arises to make my voice heard, I am going to do it, now more than ever.

The Race Is On

After I spent a whole week doing very little other than working and sleeping, Dangerguy treated me to a wonderful evening last night. He took me out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, got us a nice little romantic table hidden away from all the hubbub of the restaurant and we talked and talked and talked. After dinner, the presidential debate had just started, and we listened to the start of the debate on the radio on the drive home and finished watching it on television when we got here. And when it was over, we went online and checked all the polls to see what the rest of the country (at least those with Internet addictions) thought and then we talked some more. It was such a fun night that I hated to go to sleep.

On the subject of the debate, I thought that Kerry probably won the debate, but I found myself wishing that Kerry would seize upon some of the openings that Bush gave him in his answers (and non-answers). I think Kerry has a lot to work with, but he's just not coming on as strong as he could be. Edwards seemed to be much more articulate and much more at ease when he was debating Cheney earlier in the week. I was pleasantly surprised, however, that Kerry was able to speak so personably to the audience. His aristocratic air wasn't completely gone, but he related to the audience very well, much better than I expected him to. Bush scared me a little in the beginning with some reasonably well-thought out answers, but when he started talking about internets(?) and green eye shades, he was back to the old Bush that we all know and make fun of.

I am really looking forward to seeing the media spin over the next couple of days. After a couple of months of boring campaign tit-for-tat, the presidential race is starting to be fun again!

Kerry Meetup

Well, today I decided to face the world of current events and attend my very first political rally. I went to the Kerry Meetup tonight, which is a pretty neat event. Apparently, all over the country, on the fourth Thursday of every month, democrats get together and have a little mini-rally at local establishments. I've never been to anything of the sort before, so I signed up and brought Dangerguy with me.

There were two meetups going on simultaneously, and unfortunately, we chose the wrong one (the coffeehouse rather than the bar) to go to first. There was a small contingent of folks there, and it was more of the disorganized, everyone-needs-to-volunteer type of meeting than we were anticipating. They said that in the other meeting, which was nearby, there was actually an agenda with speakers and stuff, so we took our free buttons and bumper stickers and headed over to the other meeting.

We got to the other meeting late, but they hadn't started yet. In fact, we were parking at the same time as one of the main speakers for the evening. Dangerguy and I got Red Bulls and sat down at pretty much the last table. They had a folk singer for entertainment until things got started, and I have to say, I think they should have gotten someone a little peppier to kick things off. Good thing we thought ahead and got those Red Bulls!

The majority of the speakers for the night were obviously not used to large crowds, did not have organized speech notes, and generally didn't even look like they had practiced. The main speaker of the evening was great though, and provided the most energy of the evening with her "Give President Bush the Pink Slip" rally in which she would call out a statistic like "3 million jobs lost" and the crowd would yell "You're fired!". It was the only point in the night where the room was focused on the event at hand and was really participating.

If you are interested in attending the next one of these in your city, I found out about it a kerry.meetup.com. There is another group that meets the first Wednesday of each month called Democracy For America that also has a meetup site. I haven't been to one of their meetings yet, but I may test it out this week to see how it compares to the Kerry group.

So was it as good as I hoped? Nope. Am I glad I went? Absolutely. And not just for my free button and bumper sticker. It's great to just get out of the house and get involved in the community, even if it is just as a spectator.

Avoiding the News

Everyday, the same crap is in the news. There is more violence in Iraq, a tit-for-tat little battle between the Kerry and Bush campaigns, an update on whichever music performer or sports star is in court on a given day, blah-blah-blah...

It's not that I don't care about the war in Iraq, or that I am not sincerely rooting for Kerry for president. I'm just tired of reading the same news stories over and over again. Oh, I read the headlines. I might even read the campaign-promise-of the-day. But given the option of reading funny personal blogs or dry, repetitive news stories, I'll risk being ignorant of the world for stories where tears squirt out the corners of my eyes.

I'm not going to click on Al-Sistani returns to Iraq, urges march on Najaf. That's not entertainment. Entertainment is Sheep pine for absent friends: official, which contains links to other such gems as Sheep like happy, smiley people: official and Ducks have regional accents: official. Now that's news.