Hightower Lowdown

Okay, my election projections were slightly off. I said that there would be the biggest turnout in many years, which there was; that there would be a tremendous mobilization of progressives, which there was; and that this would carry Kerry to victory, which—oops—it did not. In this case, two out of three is not good enough. Still, I come away from the election with mixed emotions (I'm told that mixed emotions are what you feel when your 16-year old daughter comes home from the prom sober, but with a Gideon Bible under her arm). On the one hand, assuming the electoral count holds, there's the depressing reality that we didn't win. Indeed, there's George W. strutting around with a Viagra-size smirk on his face and smugly saying, "Bring 'em on!"—by which he means bring on more neocon warmongering, a greedy corporate grab for our Social Security funds, Patriot Act II, a national sales tax, more assaults on our environment and...well, Four More Years of W. But on the other hand, we didn't lose. Yes, Kerry lost, but he was always the weak link in this big campaign. After all, there's not a populist bone in his lanky body, he was lackadaisical and lackluster on the campaign trail and he couldn't connect with America's working stiffs if he was handing out free Budweisers and Slim Jims. Yet, get this: Kerry still got nearly half of the popular vote! Fifty-five million people voted for him—more than any other presidential candidate in history...except, of course, for Bush. It was not the Kerry campaign or the moribund Democratic party that created this turnout. It was you grassroots agitators! Tens of thousands of volunteers, many of them getting politically involved for the first time or getting reinvolved after a long lapse, provided the energy, creativity and sheer will that propelled so many to the polls. Working through MoveOn, ACORN, SEIU, League of Pissed Off Voters, Voter Virgin, League of Conservation Voters and so many more determined groups, folks like you rallied 49 percent of voters to shout an emphatic "no" at the regime of King George the W— including 9 out of 10 African-American voters, 2 of 3 Latinos and nearly two-thirds of Asian- Americans, as well as strong majorities of people making under $50,000 a year, union families, young voters and first-time voters. The turnout of young people was especially heartening—it was up by nearly a fourth (4.6 million new voters) over the 2000 election. And in the top 10 battleground states, 64 percent of eligible young people voted! The grassroots were on fire with progressive activism in this campaign, and the fire will not be dampened even by four more awful years of Bush —indeed, it'll spread. As a result of people's efforts, the progressive force now has more skills, talent, connections, experience...and determination than ever. These people didn't "lose" ...and won't go away.

Moral values

The political pros and pundits, of course, instantly concocted a new conventional wisdom to explain what happened on November 2. ... [ read more ]