Election Diary

Nov. 2, 7:00 A.M., the first of thirty-one hours that will end in Washington, fifty feet from the President of the United States.

When the polls open, the line of voters is longer than the school itself. There are hundreds of people here, some with kids, some in business attire, in all kinds and colors. They read and make polite conversation about everything except politics as they move slowly toward the front of the line, where young volunteer election workers check their names against registration rolls, hand them cards, then send them to yet another line, to wait for another volunteer to escort them to the voting machines.

I am a volunteer poll-watcher this day, standing behind the volunteers checking the registrations, thankfully doing one of the least necessary jobs ever created. The election judges and volunteers are conscientious, evenhanded, aware of the rules, and determined to enforce them fairly.

There are a few insect parts in the peanut butter, too. Five union guys in black shirts (symbolism alert!) are standing at school entrance, showing their support for John Kerry by surrounding the GOP literature table, arms crossed, feet apart, thug-style.

How persuasive.

8:45 A.M. A third of the registered voters on my list are already checked off.

I study the faces: patient, determined, kind, intelligent. I would trust nearly every one of them with my children. They all look smart enough to know something that I don’t. I will trust their decision, whatever it is.

12:30 P.M. Half the people on my list have voted. Lines gone; just a few people voting now. I opt to sneak off for some lunch and see what the exit polls say. As I leave, I see a cop car, but the union boys are gone now.

Must be one of those Repub voter intimidation tactics I’ve read about.

12:45 P.M. On my way home, I stop to vote. We’re using the new electronic touch-screen thingamabobs. Guy in the next booth has his granddaughter with him. He’s narrating all of his votes out loud. Before I even cast my votes, the guy right next to me has already cancelled them all out.

I hand the clerk a plastic card. “What happens to this now?” “Nothing. “Isn’t my vote on this?” “No, it’s in the machine. We throw the card away. Left unasked is why they need the plastic card. I conclude this has to be another one of life’s faith-based initiatives.

As I leave, I get a sticker that says “I voted / Yo vote. Odd, I seem to recall that you need to demonstrate a proficiency in English to be a citizen, and be a citizen to vote. My sticker should have said, “I think I voted.

1:15 P.M. I wolf down a bowl of my wife’s soup. Like everything else we eat, it’s neither Korean nor American but a blend of both. Beef stewed in a pressure cooker, kalbi style with chestnuts, garlic, and jujubes, now mixed with carrots and onions. Pick up screaming Katie, pat her back until she dozes off. Set her down gently in the car seat without waking her, and scoot off to check exit poll rumors.

It looks very bad. Kerry’s winning in Virginia. In freaking Virginia. From my home in Maryland, I can hear champagne bottles opening in Paris, Tehran, and Pyongyang (the big shots drink Hennessey there, so I hear). Echo of the distant uncorkings sounds like popcorn. Or a firing squad.

2:15 P.M. Back at the polls. Nobody else there. I call for instructions, and am told to go home and wait for 7:30, when I will go to another precinct to phone in final results. Limbaugh has lost his appeal for me, but I know he will have the info if there is any. It sound ominous. He’s doing a respectable but unconvincing job of disbelieving the exit polls. Hannity is panicked, which adds more pain to listening to a punk like Hannity. He exhorts them to get straight to the polls and vote. My guess is they already have.

I move from denial to acceptance and begin to steel myself for a wave of Iraqi refugees in two years.

5:30 P.M. Three hours later, I still can’t tear myself away from the panicky traffic at The Corner and KerrySpot. I realize I have a life in the next room, and that I’m ignoring it, but I’m afraid for them. Precinct leader-guy calls and asks me to show up at the place I just voted. I’m disspirited, but realizing it, I agree to go anyway.

7:30 P.M. I arrive at yet another polling place to cover for people who showed up after all. It’s another hour of my life wasted by the chaos of fundless and rudderless blue-state Repubs. They spent the whole day dealing with the union guys’ shenanigans.

I promise myself never to do this again unless I think the survival of world civilization depends on it.

8:00 P.M. Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes are looking despondent, but those exit polls aren’t looking very credible at this point. Their sample was 59% female. That’s about what they’d have gotten if they sent me to the polls when I was single and told me to get “a nice representative sample. Ever dutiful, I’d have sampled all of the nicer representatives, too.

Another thought–how many rural districts did they visit?

8:45 P.M. Fox has Virginia at 56% for Bush with most precincts reporting. Why aren’t they calling this state? Ditto S.C., N.C., and Miss. What gives? I’m not seeing the reason for the suspense. Kristol thinks the exit polls are wrong. So are Republican pollsters, via The Corner and KerrySpot. I’m still not buying it.

My wife asks me how it’s going. I tell her I have a bad feeling about it.

9:15 P.M. Exit polls were most definitely wrong in Virginia and Florida. Bush will take Va. By ten points; Florida appears to be headed his way, too. Al-ham-du-lillah.

Repubs are starting to predict a win in Ohio, but it looks very close. CNN has most of the urban precincts still out. Back to realclearpolitics.com with my question: Can Bush win without Ohio? The little window in the eight-ball says “signs say no. Meanwhile, Minn., Mich., and Pa. will stay blue. No upsets anywhere yet, except possibly New Hampshire and Wisc. Whoever wins, the nation is still divided. It’s all up to Ohio now.

9:40 P.M. The terrorist attack I had expected to happen didn’t. If not now, when? That would be The One I expected on the Metro some morning, The One that caused me to always ride in the last car, The One that made one of my friends at work literally ask me if the strange smell in the air might be nerve gas (umm, are you convulsing yet? Guess not, then.). The One that caused me to quietly, wordlessly go over my life insurance paperwork few weeks ago.

We’re still a wartime city, but reprieved for now. Are we Warsaw in 1938 or London in 1944?

Sometime Around Ten. Florida has been Bush by five all night. The nets call it. It’s a convincing win, but hardly a landslide.

November 3, Midnight. Wife trying to sleep; I’m pacing in front of the TV with a screaming Katie. Odds of sleep tonight, nil.

12:45 A.M. Katie briefly stops screaming. Did Fox just call Ohio for Bush? I carry the baby into the office, balancing the baby on my shoulder, and dial up CNN’s county-by-county tally. It sure looks close to me. A few minutes later, Brit Hume seems to have second thoughts. But then, NBC joins them. Is this it? Bush is at 269, which at worst means the House gives him the election. Not that anyone wants to go through something like that again.

1:15 A.M. My disbelief is sinking. Looks like Bush has it won; his lead in Ohio is holding. New Mexico and Iowa still out, still leaning toward Bush. He won’t take Wisc. or Hawaii.

The baby is finally asleep. I should be, too.

6:15 A.M. Bush wins N.M. He’s at 274.

I checking my site stats, then skip over to Chris’s blog to see how he’s taking it. Nothing but two other interesting (and, thankfully) Korea-related posts. Must still be in shock. I’m damn glad his guy didn’t win; I still feel terrible that Chris will be in such a funk over this. I realize I miss his blog from the days when it was about Korea. I long for the days when it will be again.

7:30 A.M. Very late leaving for work, but in this town, everyone will be (plus, my boss is understanding about the baby). Unlike me, a lot of them were political appointees whose jobs were at stake. I wonder how much a change of administration might have resembled this.

http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Vietimages/nva-tank.jpg

8:55 A.M. I crawl into the office with my breakfast–two hot dogs from the Somali lady who sets up her stand near the Metro stop. I won’t have time to eat them. Tom across the hall is telling me we have to go to a training course in the Ronald Reagan Building downtown. That’s where Bush has his supporters waiting around for his victory speech, whenever he gives it.

10:00 A.M. The course has its first break. Tom is a card-carrying Republican and is convinced we can con our way into the Bush speech. We easily find the location by following the trail of sparkly-looking teenagers, ambitious political moms, and security types. Take a few digital photos, get coffee, back to class.

My other two of my co-workers who are present are crestfallen. Having the course in this building, on this day of all days, is torture for them. I feel terrible for them. My sympathy is every bit as sincere as my relief from the outcome of the election itself.

Noon. Tom and I go hunting for the place to confront and penetrate the world’s tightest security. The new Ronald Reagan Building is gargantuan. We wander all over it, looking for a sympathetic and gullible, yet authoritative, face–someone with the juice to get us in. The first thing we learn is that the Secret Service guys are powerless. We need to find the Republican security guys. How is that? A political party with its own security? I’m never sure if that’s what they are, but they tell me they’ve been traveling with the President during the campaign. One of them says he wants to help but can’t. He looks like he’s about 22. He tells us to wait over there until his boss comes back.

1:15 We need to get into that room or get back to our course. Tom is great. He has the chutzpah of a Brooklyn cabbie, buttonholing everyone who looks like he has any authority. Those who do are telling everyone without a pass (us) to move back behind the rope line. It doesn’t stop Tom. He keeps trying. Finally, he’s onto a guy who makes a small exception for someone with no pass. It’s our opening: “I spent all day yesterday working for this. I did as much as anyone here. We are your supporters. We got you into this room. You have room for us. The security guy turns to the other security guy at the front of the line. “These two guys are OK.

We’re in. So are two other bigshots from the office, which is good, because it gives us some cover for when we miss most of the rest of the course.

1:25 Too damn short to see over everyone. I spot a second-floor balcony with room next to the railing.

2:00 Kerry comes on TV to concede. The audience watches from monitors. Bad sound system makes it impossible to understand most of it, but the audience applauds him several times, which is a good sign. I like what he says:

[I]n an American election, there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning we all wake up as Americans. That is the greatest privilege and the most remarkable good fortune that can come to us on Earth. With that gift also comes obligation. We are required now to work together for the good of our country. In the days ahead, we must find common cause. We must join in common effort, without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor. America is in need of unity and longing for a larger measure of compassion. . . . I pledge to do my part to try to bridge the partisan divide. I know this is a difficult time for my supporters, but I ask them, all of you, to join me in doing that. Now, more than ever, with our soldiers in harm’s way, we must stand together and succeed in Iraq and win the war on terror.

Yes, thank you from sparing us this litigated fiasco.

2:15 Can it be? It is! Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Norman Mineta, and . . . Don King? Yes, Don King . . . engaged in deep conversation with Mineta.

2:45 Watching the politicos in purple jackets pass out flags and signs, take them away from everyone, then pass them out again. Everyone is utterly confused.

From my superb vantage point above the stage, I can see pieces of tape on the carpet: “President,” “Laura Bush,” “Vice President,” “Cheney Family.

2:58 Cue the bad music on the bad sound system. Make up for bad sound with volume. A voice: “This is your two minute warning!” Screaming.

3:00 First out, Cheney and his family. Whoa. Who’s that woman with Mary Cheney with the short haircut? Give them credit for that one. You they’ll get calls from Falwell and Robertson. But it’s their family, and they can invite anyone they damn well please to be there for this moment.

3:01 And here he is. Cheney speaks first and introduces him. They’re fifty feet away and I can barely understand them. Guess I can watch it on C-SPAN later.

I’m thinking, “You won by three percent. Don’t be too cocky. At the same time, I want him to be firm on what matters–winning the war. He strikes just the right balance:

So today I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation. We have one country, one Constitution, and one future that binds us.

Had things gone the other way by the same narrow margin, we’d have a completely different post-mortem for all the same decisions by both campaigns. It may be political b.s., but that doesn’t stop it from being true or sincere.

4:15 Filter out of the auditorium

8:45 P.M. Katie sleeping for an instant. How is Chris dealing?

So, even though I was hoping that John Kerry would win the US presidential election, I have to wish Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rove, Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Rumsfeld good luck and pray that things work out, and know that that’s it, its over, and that as an American I have to do my best to contribute to this nation positively – and make the best of it.

I do have to say that I am very grateful to Mr. Bush for signing the NKHRA and I hope that the next four years will see this sea change mean that human rights in North Korea will be elevated to a higher priority in our dealings with it.

Love it, fear it, or both, this is part and parcel of Bush’s religious faith. I’m not a school prayer guy and I couldn’t care less if the couple next door were both women, but I appreciate that a part of Bush’s faith is a word he loves to (over)use: compassion. I think what he told Bob Woodward about his “visceral feeling” about North Korea’s concentration camps was sincere. We will soon find out if I’m right.

Thurs, Nov. 4, 10:45 A.M. All this talk about “healing our divided nation” has left me feeling syrupy and schmaltzy. What does any self-respecting cynic do when confronted with such a disturbing sense of harmony? I reach out for a fleck of the foam from Maureen Dowd’s lower lip:

Just listen to Dick (Oh, lordy, is this cuckoo clock still vice president?) Cheney, introducing the Man for his victory speech: “This has been a consequential presidency which has revitalized our economy and reasserted a confident American role in the world.” Well, it has revitalized the Halliburton segment of the economy, anyhow. And “confident” is not the first word that comes to mind for the foreign policy of a country that has alienated everyone except Fiji. . . . Vice continued, “Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love.” Only Dick Cheney can make “to serve and to guard” sound like “to rape and to pillage.”

Bet she also pricked her finger and voted with a drop of her own blood, Saddam-style. Nurse! Fifty milligrams of demerol! Stat! And have a look at that finger, too. I think it’s turning gangrenous.

Politics goes on, and the market for blather burgeons. But the rest of us will give our new government a chance to prove itself humbled but forthright in carrying out its vision. Not an easy balance to strike. Just remember why we put you there. Make us safe first.