November 13, 2004
Ex-pat Democrat on Kerry's concession
From an interview with Donna Ducarme of Democrats Abroad, in the November 5th issue of The Amsterdam Times:
Posted by bug to Politics at November 13, 2004 12:55 PM | TrackBackI'm physically wiped and sore all over and mentally tired. I'm so angry I can hardly breathe. Those of us who fought for Kerry are very disappointed and frightened that he lost. We're worried for the future of America. I'm so angry that he conceded before all the votes were counted.
My thing was to register all the voters we could possibly register; one of the reasons we got them registered is that we promised that their votes would matter and then he conceded before any of our votes had been counted. Kerry has created a problem amongst individual members but he's also cut us overseas voting activists off at the knees because not only will potential voters not believe Kerry anymore, they won't believe us.
I personally believe he has disenfranchised every overseas voter. We're all voting by post and, when he conceded, all of our ballots were still sitting there in the boxes waiting to be counted. It's a betrayal of a sort I've never experienced in my political life. We galvanized voters who'd not been involved in politics since the Vietnam years because they thought they could make a difference. Are we supposed to wait another thirty years before we rally those troops again and what happens to our country in the meantime?
I think the idea was that, at the time he conceded, even if every overseas ballot went to Kerry he still wouldn't win. At MyDD.com, LooterScibby argues that Kerry did the smart thing by pulling the rug out from under any "Kerry the sore loser" stories, clearing the way for a focus on voting problems and electoral reform.
I still dunno. I'm coming around to Looter's point of view, and I'll convert entirely if Kerry comes out swinging for electoral reform (since I'll then assume that was his strategy once the numbers he was given made it clear that, barring proof of fraud, he'd lost). But I also felt betrayed when he conceded, and strategery is all very well but if Kerry wants to go on in politics he's going to have to deal with that perception of betrayal.
Posted by: sennoma at November 13, 2004 10:31 PMI lean towards Looter's argument as well, both for the good of the Democratic party and really the country as a whole. That's assuming there was no fraud, of course, but that seems to be the case outside of the well-documented voter-registration fraud that went on.
It's a shame that trade-off had to be made, but I think in some way the feeling of "my vote didn't count" is illusiary anyway. It's not like if for some reason overseas votes were counted before locally-cast votes were tallied, overseas votes would somehow how counted while whatever county was last to send in their tallies suddenly wouldn't...
Posted by: Bug at November 14, 2004 11:08 AM