November 3, 2004, 10:45 PM –

Well, the day went pretty much the way I thought it would. By mid-afternoon, Senator Kerry conceded the election to the President, and the President accepted.

The Senator was told by his lawyers that the only way to attack the Ohio returns was to take them apart challenge by challenge in order to bring the Kerry vote deficit down to a level to where the provisional ballots might make a difference or an automatic recount might be triggered. The Senator dropped the whole thing for the good of the country, especially during a time of war, he said.

Too bad, for despite being a so-so candidate, Kerry would have made a good President. Instead, we are now stuck with Bush with an arguable mandate from those they got to the polls to win the election.

In the end 59,000,000 people voted for Bush and 55,000,000 voted for Kerry. Not a bad total for the guy who lost. The Democrats did not do well in general, but things are not the shambles that some are making them out to be. They just have to figure a way to connect with Middle America, and while the conventional wisdom is that they have to get closer to the faith, that probably won’t work. It would sound phony. A better idea is to find another way to connect, something on a completely different level. How about honesty for a change? People kind of get a kick out of honesty.

I’m not sure you have to sit next to a guy in church to talk to him.

BN