04nov2004:
Woke up feeling a little better. I've been in a blue funk the
last 36 hours at the thought of four more years of a bitterly divided
world. But this morning, just a little hope emerged.
Bush's win was at least decisive. Popular vote and more ECVs. The
American people got the president they wanted, and however I feel about it, it
was their decision that mattered. And to the rest of us - the 95% of the world
outside US borders - we should remember that the soaring, business-savvy, literate
world citizens of the East and West coasts just aren't really much of America. The real America is not the America the rest of us know.
America isn't really the suited hordes of Manhattan, the sophisticated
liberals in the northeast, the leafy squares of the Ivy League and the enlightened
progressives of California and the Pacific Northwest.
The bits that matter are in the middle, sealed off from the areas most
of the rest of us visit. It's essentially a third world nation with better supermarkets.
A country of good ol' boys, toe-tapping yahoos who go to church and carry guns,
not too smart, never thinking too deep, but loving their families, working hard,
worrying about their children's health, resenting the cheques they have to write
on tax day. They voted for what mattered to them, and that was their
right. Unlike the 'civilised thinkers' to the left and right, they have
children, make things, build communities instead of cities. It's certainly arguable
who's contributing more to humanity.
And in many elections - across much of Africa and Asia, even the EU (look
at ethnic Arabs in France, or Turks in Germany) - these citizens are the disenfranchised
ones. In America, they're the only ones who matter.
So this election was a triumph of democracy. One man one vote, and
one man got the result he wanted. That's worth celebrating, at least.
9.30am03nov2004: I've got it! The answer's simple.
Since all the blue states touch the northern border, why don't the democratic
states just become part of Canada instead? You've left an America united, and
cut off the Western seaboard too!!!
8am: So my call of Bush by a 3-4% margin was right,
even with five States yet to call and one in dispute. It just never felt like
Kerry was leading, somehow; none of the polls showing them neck-and-neck ever
seemed quite accurate. And now Bush is heading back to the White House, to cause
the world four more years of pain.
I take down the empty Bud bottles. And as I they fall into the garbage,
so does Hope. Americans, yesterday you let the world down.
3.00am: Starting to think it's all over. Ohio and
Florida not calling it, which means Kerry isn't winning; the row of Buds hasn't
eased the pain of thinking about four more years of scum. But... they'll get
the government they deserve. As befits my homage to American pursuits this evening,
I fall asleep on the sofa.
00:57am, 03Nov: Nailbiting stuff. Thousands of people
still waiting in line in Ohio, half an hour after polls close; nobody's calling
it. Overshadowing this is the appalling - no other word for it - shambles of
the BBC's coverage. David Dimbleby's just getting old; dithering and doddery.
Peter Snow's too excitable as he hops around maps of the USA. And the lack of
co-ordination between producers and camera crews on different sites is bloody
awful; there's a silence or a bad angle on every single cut. For this I pay my
license fee?!
Time for another Bud.
9.46pm: I feel myself becoming American.
Sprawled on the sofa, even lifting the remote seems an unfair effort.
I take a perverse pride in the neatness of the line of Budweister bottles on
the floor. My imaginary baseball cap has started to develop a curved bill. Comfortably
numb in my refinanced home, I think about what really matters: Junior's winning
streak in the Little League, keeping up with the Blue Cross payments, wondering
if the RV needs a polish, and whether to have apple pie for dinner tomorrow.
This would be a good life, with so little to worry about. A good life
indeed. I sigh as my European-ness returns to the forefront, and through a weak
Budweiser haze I re-acknowledge the complexity of the world.
But.... THE KERRY GUYS ARE LOOKING UNUSUALLY OPTIMISTIC!!! WHOOO HOOO!
8.30pm. A black hole in the UK schedules. Time zones
mean the dead afternoon of the US isn't big enough news to change normal UK TV,
so the options switch to the Internet to fill the gap until midnight. Hope I
have enough Bud to last. (Already on my 4th.) I really need a baseball cap around
now.
7pm. The excitement's cooking as quickly as my Southern-style
fries. Bush has just arrived back in the Rose Garden; Kerry's finishing
lunch at the Oyster in Boston, as the other JFK did some years back. The lawyers
are already fighting down in Florida, but I think that's a good sign: this election
is about real democracy, messy and inefficient, with both candidates actively
needing to think about how they can get someone to cast a vote in their favour.
A long night ahead for me.
02Nov2004 (evening): OK, I'm ready. Fries, chicken
dippers, and mayo are in the fridge with the Buds. I even found some of that
atomic-waste-yellow mustard in the squeezy plastic container. TV's in one corner,
broadband in the other, streaming ABC and plain BBC coming at me from the east
and west coasts (of my house.) First blood to Bush - a tiny hamlet in New Hampshire
declared hours ago, giving two extra to Bush over Kerry. Let's hope those 32
thought leaders aren't indicative.
02Nov2004: Game on. Today's the day a tiny number
of white people in Ohio will decide who has the right to push six billion people
around! I love American democracy. Zogby says it's Bush in Ohio and
Florida is the real swing state, but let's face it - with a Bush as governor
and the voting machines owned by a Republican company... Gore won Florida in
2000, but that neat trick of 'losing' thousands of black votes gave Bush his
paycheck, and the world's since down the pan. And a trick that works so well
will certainly happen again. So Ohio's where it's at.
My opinion: unfortunately, it's Bush - by a surprisingly large margin,
3-4% and winning Ohio. (How did that state get 20 ECVs, anyway? Is it really
that big?) Tomorrow, Wolfowitz and Cheney are whispering in his ear about Iran
and North Korea.... leading to an Iran invasion in 2006, a nuclear conflict on
the Korean peninsula in 2007, another Republican win in 2008 (possibly with Jeb),
and most of Asia and the Middle East a smoking hole in the ground by 2010. Yes,
it's really that bad. If Bush is back in the White House tomorrow, the only hope
for the world is China.
01Nov2004: America, let us love you again.
I understand that the people who voted for Bush last time didn't have the
knowledge to know better. That in a country so vast, with a hundred million people
who live hundreds of km from the coasts and whose only access to the world beyond
comes from one-minute-a-day TV segments, the 95% of people who don't live in
the USA seem very, very far away. That in a country where only one in five people
own a passport, there's simply no reason to even acknowledge the existence of
the rest of the planet - much less comprehend that American values might not
be universal, or that imposing those values by force might not be the right thing
to do. (The straight razor guy said it
better than I can.)
If I'd been born into that vast area between the coasts, gone through
K-12, consumed nothing but Hollywood and Fox all my life, thought Tijuana was
an exotic holiday - if I believed in the god theory and owned a gun - how would I vote
tomorrow? I'm not sure.
The point is that to these people, voting for Bush looks sensible.
Which is why tomorrow, I hope they'll find the strength to not do it.
To look at opinion polls like the one below (also
here) and try to understand why a right-leaning newspaper in a country Bush
regards as America's dearest friend still reports less than 20% support
for the incumbent.
I hope Americans can tomorrow summon the strength to vote for the world,
not just America. Americans, I know you feel unloved, in danger, under seige,
misunderstood. But remember this: The world is not anti-American. It is anti-Bush,
and that's all there is to it.
The pain this misguided little man has inflicted - on international relations,
on the world's economy, and as actual physical bloodshed - exceeds anything done
in democracy's name in the last sixty years. Bush acted as a focus for your anguish
post-911, but his neoconservative puppeteers are now using him to turn the USA
from a benevolent friend into a hated imperialist. Please, America, get wise
to it. As the world's most powerful nation, please vote as citizens
of the world. But whatever way your ballot leans, I'll be up all night
tomorrow, celebrating your great democracy in action.
I've got it all planned out. I'm trying to love America again.
I'm really, really trying.
My PC will be on, and I'll thank you for the hardware
and software you created that let me run a successful business. I'll be distributing photos around the room of all the
happy times I've spent in your nation. The soaring heights of the Rockies, the
majesty of the parks, the energy of the cities, the madness of Burning Man. I've got a crate of Bud in the fridge and I'll be cooking
homemade hamburgers and blueberry pie in your honour. I'll be looking at my bookshelf, and all the Hemingways
and Mailers and Wolfes that add real value to the world. I'll be hanging a Stars'n'Bars on the wall, and remembering
that whatever's going wrong right now, the founding principles of the USA are
decent and good.
And in the early hours of the 3rd, when the result becomes known in the
UK, I'll be hoping you made the decision that makes the world better. America, please do your duty to the world.
