View From the Bushes

And so it ends... Fortunately my addiction to the process is much greater than my attachment to any party, and last night couldn't have gone better from a process standpoint. It had the underlying drama of the fatally flawed exit polls. It was close enough that no victor had been declared by the time I went to bed (though Bush was very solid by that time), but not so close that there was room for litigation.

Viscerally, the idea of Kerry and Edwards made me ill. But now that Bush has won, I'm realizing all of the other things that would have been nice about a Kerry victory. The gridlock (even more attractive
given how convincingly the Republicans preformed in the House and Senate), a new Secretary of Defense (I like Donald Rumsfeld okay, but his doctrine of fewer troops seems to have suffered some setbacks, and certainly it's hard to argue that Iraq couldn't use a fresh perspective), rollbacks to the DMCA and the Patriot Act, etc.

I have lots of co-workers who now feel that the world has come to an end. For myself, I don't think that presidents really have that big of an impact. As an example, I offer the 8 years of Clinton's presidency. Off the top of my head, I can't really think of some easily identifiable large event/issue/law/disaster which would have been different if we instead had 8 years of a Republican president (excepting the impeachment, but I don't think that's germane). The one difference I can think of this time around is the appointment of Supreme Court Judges. At this point it's impossible to imagine that Rehnquist will be around in 2009, so there's at least one appointee.

Lots of people consider this to be a conservative court. Now if by conservative they mean Republican, I may be able to grant that (mostly on the basis of Bush v. Gore), but if they're talking about culturally conservative or morally conservative, then I'd have to disagree. I have a hard time thinking of some core conservative issue that SCOTUS continues to rule in favor of. Course I could care less about the gay-marriage thing -- from my perspective legalization might take awhile, but I think it's inevitable. What I am mostly interested in is a stricter read of the Constitution. And I think a Bush appointee may be a better bet for that then a Kerry appointee, but in the final
analysis that doesn't seem to matter much either, since the only person possible of being sustained, has to be so lacking in opinion and spine that it's impossible to tell what he'll do.

Finally, I thought it was interesting to see Daschle get beat, but it makes sense. Last night was not a good night for the Democrats and Daschle has to share part of the blame. Kerry lost the presidency for his part, and hopefully Pelosi's day is coming (now that is a frightening woman), so it only makes sense that Daschle should get beat. Overall, I have to say this is the most fun I've had in months.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross