Election 2004, Where Art Thou?

OK, so I know I'm a little behind on my Time and US News Weekly newsmagazines... I'm only a few weeks behind. Earlier this summer I was about 6 months behind. Which isn't too fun when everyone's writing about who will become the nominee, and you already know what happens on Election Day.

But I've noticed something, from both the Left and the Right in these weeklies. The Republicans gloat and the Democrats whine. My message to you all: you're both wrong... get over it!

To the Republicans:

You did not win a mandate. Thanks to the stupidity of the Electoral College, Mr. Bush won re-election by 119,000 votes in the state of Ohio. That's it. That, my dear sirs, is no mandate. Clinton had a mandate, Roosevelt had a mandate. Reagan clearly had a mandate. This is no mandate. And it is very sad.

You were running the re-election campaign of a sitting war President for god's sake! And it's an eternal war to boot. He had raised more money and spent more money than any political candidate, ever! Bush had the power of the Right Wing Conspiratorial Smear Machine, trying to do to Kerry what they did to McGovern in 1988. You had the benefit of an extended Democratic nomination process that tore the candidates on the left to bits. Bush could wait until September to start spending federal money while Kerry had to start in July.

You would like a mandate. But you do not have one. You won the popular vote, 51% to 48. You could have, and should have, done much much better.

To the Democrats:

You did better than anyone could ever have anticipated. You were up against a sitting war President and almost beat him, losing only by about 3% of the popular vote. You probably get the idea: everything I said up there, applies only in reverse down here.

A Republican majority has been set in quasi-stone. The good thing about this: people eventually get sick of one-party control, and the pendulum will swing the other way. Bush is trying to push through things that normally couldn't make it, especially the Social Security reform and permanent, rich-biased tax cuts.

But keep in mind the Senate. Republicans still do not have a 60-seat super majority, something they need to push over the opposition party. So keep that in mind: do not sit there and take it!

Well, that's pretty much all the scolding I've got for the two major parties. One last bit of advice for all those lefties out there: this is not the end.