Why Oh Why Ohio!

(Just really wanted to quote the Leonard Bernstein song there)

So this year the clutch state was Ohio, with hurricane-trashed Florida taking a backseat to the Buckeye State. Again, it came down to one state and one state only, making the rest of us feel a bit like the unwanted step-child of the American Election. And just as in 2000, that swinging state went to Bush. But a surprising thing happened this time around: all those lawyers and all those protesters itching and waiting to start litigating and shouting were superfluous. Kerry and Edwards, sucking it up like the men they probably are (and should have shown they were during the campaign), decided not to create another Florida debacle and conceded even before the provisional votes were tallied.

Now in reality Kerry had good reason to concede. Even if all the provisional ballots were counted as valid, and that was highly improbably, the overwhelming majority of them would have to go to Kerry in order for Ohio to be colored blue. While there was a chance, it was a slim slim chance and Kerry must have known this.

A lot of ink will be spilled about both how Bush won and how Kerry lost. In general, I think that Kerry lost this election rather than Bush winning it. The past 4 years of the Bush Administration have been filled with enough scandal and potential scandal to give a good number of Americans a wee bit of pause. The right candidate might have been able to take that pause and put it into good use. What we needed was someone to convince us that not only was Bush the wrong man for the job, but that he was the right man for it. While there may have been many areas in which Kerry failed, this was the biggest. It was not enough to vote against Bush, people needed to be energies to vote for Kerry. And judging from the return results, that just didn't happen in the numbers it needed to happen in.

However, my biggest concern about the election results was the outcome of the races for Congress. The Democrats not only most of their races, but they lost a very key player. Tom Daschle lost in South Dakota. That's right. The Senate Minority leader was voted out of office by his constituency. Granted it was a close race, but this is major pie in the face on Daschle and the Democratic party in general. One of the important aspects of our government as created by the Founding Fathers was the concept of checks and balances. No one person or group of people should have complete and ultimate governing power over the US. However, with Congress securely in Republican hands, a re-elected Republican president and a Supreme Court that is more Republican than Democrat (though yes, I know that in theory it's non-partisan) I foresee trouble. I would feel the same were Kerry to have won and the Dems in the majority in Congress. Sure control the Executive and Legislative branches allows for the party in power to pass its laws with efficacy, but do we really want either party to be able to pass whatever they want willy-nilly, totally unchecked? Of course this is all a major simplification of some very important issues, but I think that the essential argument is the same. We need more diversity in our government.

I'm not about to move to another country or start declaring that God has chosen our leader, as some are wont to do today. However, I am cautiously eager to see if Bush can really change any of the mistakes that were committed during his first term and if he realizes that while he may be in office, he still has to answer to the people who didn't vote for him since he's still their president.