Kerry is going to concede, and I agree with Ann Althouse and Glenn Reynolds that this is the right thing to do and reflects well on him. The damage from the 2000 election wasn’t caused so much by the uncertainty of the recounts and legal challenges as by Al Gore’s encouragement of shrill and combative behavior among his supporters, which set the stage for much of the hyperpartisan divisiveness that we have experienced since then. The country will be better off for Senator Kerry’s mature restraint in the face of personal bad news.
BTW, I’m not gloating over Kerry’s defeat. I’m relieved that Bush won, but the shoe could easily have been on the other foot. For quite a few hours yesterday it looked like Bush was going to lose, and I did a lot of thinking about the prospects of an upcoming Kerry administration. It didn’t feel good but I was resigned to it, and I imagine that’s how Kerry’s supporters feel today. I wish them all the best, and hope that the election outcome will be revealed by time to have been the best outcome for all of us.
So does this mean that Alec Baldwin will finally be moving to France?
While I express the same sentiments as Jonathan to the overwhelming majority of the loyal opposition, I continue to hold out hope that there will be some destructive riots in the Malibu-Beverly Hills areas, with Hollywood’s best and brightest torching their own homes and upending their own limousines in protest.
And if anyone who swore they’d move to London or Paris if Bush was re-elected needs a ride to Logan Airport, I am available.
Seriously, I am amazed. I actually thought Kerry was going to squeak in. I even made a bet on it. Oh well.
And here we are. Teflon George, cool and happy, gets a classy concession from his opponent.
Living in New England, it kinda feels like the day after the World Series. What just happened ?
You beat me Jonathon, I was going to post this on my own blog (and maybe I will later), but you posted this and now its more appropriate here.
I don’t think it is overstating the issue to say that John Kerry’s timely, classy concession has saved the American election system. By not shouting fraud, “Stolen Election,” “We’ll sue to victory,” or some other screed to stretch this out to the casting of the Electoral College votes or stringing this through the courts, John Kerry has saved us from a second consecutive election surrounded by scandal and the stench of possible illegitimacy.
As a by-product he also quells his more … ahem … vocal party-mates and legitimates Bush’s presidency and drives home that he was ELECTED and not SELECTED!
Thank goodness!
At last our long dark nightmare is over.
Now we can get started on our shorter, not-quite-so-dark nightmare.
Yeah, doom and gloom in my office as well. I agree, no need to gloat, just be thankful it wasn’t what it could have been.
I’m listening to Kerry in my office; yes, this is good. At least for the time (and maybe permanently), I can forgive him for the nastiness & pettiness of his words of the last thirty years.
This is what we, the nation, needed – and he seems willing to offer a resolution neither bitter nor partisan. Of course, it is ridiculously sentimental (do we need to hear of those kids with their piggybanks giving money to this billionaire), but at least it was looking forward, not backward. Most of all – it means the election is decided by votes and not judges, settled the day after and not months later.
I generally can’t really gloat since I bet $50 on Kerry. (I know, I know…could have been worse…).
I will of course make an exception for the occasional Michael Moore loonies. (“So the liberal nation re-elected the fictitious President. How does that work for you ?”)