November 2, 2004

The 2000 election was bad for me, I took it personally, but it was a mere glancing blow compared to the 2004 election, which hit me right in the kidneys.

I had supported Gore, but I had not been involved at all. For Kerry, I had worked for his primary campaign in New Hampshire one summer, and then worked in his DC headquarters during the general the next summer. I had been the co-head of my school's students for Kerry chapter (not that I did much), and had spent several weekends campaigning for him in Iowa and Wisconsin.

It did not seem possible that he could lose. I was aghast at how so many people could vote for him in the first place, but at least I could understand it. I could justify it as a great duping of the American public who had just enough time to hear what he said and not enough time to look at what he had done.

But after four years of his reign, how could people not see? How could people not recognize the damage he had done to so many people in this country, arguing that it was the fault of the poor that they were poor and that the environment was not in danger (and even if it was, what could anyone do about it?). He had limited research into life-saving cures, had cut funding for great safety net programs in order to fund his holy war and provide funding to religious groups as part of his "Faith-Based Initiatives" program. He had overseen a great widening of the division between rich and poor, black and white, and Democrat and Republican. How could people not see this, and how could they believe the lies of the Swift Boat "veterans" and the RNC?

Still, there was this calm I felt, throughout the fall, like being in the eye of a hurricane. It was a knot in my stomach and a bitter taste in my throat. But I pushed those doubts away. I reasoned them away. And I went to Wisconsin on Election Day ready to work and to await a sure (I told myself) victory.

Much of the time in Milwaukee that day was unproductive. Supposedly we were increasing turnout, but the lists were bad, and half the people had voted early, anyway. Indeed, my previous trips had been mostly going to Democrats' houses to try to convince them to vote early. Even though it was unproductive, though, the work in Milwaukee allowed me to think about the election only on a microscopic level: this door, this voter, this precinct. About a half hour before polls closed, I left and, with two friends who had also come up to Wisconsin to work, went to the bus station to head back home.

Before we even got on the bus, we started drinking. I bought a bottle of orange juice from a vending machine and mixed in some vanilla vodka my friend Laura had brought. We hardly spoke on the way back. Behind us on the bus, there was a group of Mennonites in dark dress. The presence of such religious folk seemed to be a bad omen.

And Bush won. And the war came.

With Kurt Vonnegut's death so recent, I feel it is proper to write: So it goes.