Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Election Day

Today Americans reaffirm their devotion to democracy by sending half of their population off to decide between bad and worse. I too did my part for the republic, insofar as one vote matters either way, and though it is easy to be cynical about the process I feel better having contributed.

The election will be very close, as everyone is saying, but if I had to guess I'd probably say that the president will be re-elected. This is not a statement of support for him personally or the Republican party as a whole, simply an estimation of what I believe will be the end result. I think that Senator Kerry's recent downturns may have come at a critical point, with little time to correct the course before Election Day.

In the end though, we'll just have to see. There is much hope that the election will be settled today, but even if that is so, the winner will not have recieved a mandate. Clearly, as has now become so often said, we are a 45-45 nation. Still, so long as the losing 45 is willing to wait four years and then try again, things are going to go pretty well.

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