CONCESSION

Why oh why did you concede John Kerry
I told you not to here on this blog
that you have neither read
nor been informed of the existence of

But whether I told you or not
you should have known not to concede
you're a fighter and a "good closer"
but under a little pressure
you shut down

why

the FBI now says they never gave
a terror warning to Warren County, Ohio
whose election officials barred reporters from the counting areas

why

and all the talking heads
say this story and others like it
would be pursued much harder
had you not conceded

will we ever know whether Ohio's 20
electorals
should be subtracted from Bush leaving him with 266
and added to you
giving you a winning total of 272

will you at least make a statement


OK...enough of that. I meant to do my election post-mortem the day after the election in this space, but I was sick. Literally. Diarrhea and nausea and exhaustion.

So here's a really capsulated version.

2004 Post Mortem

How could Kerry have lost?

-He won the debates
-He was endorsed by more papers and even papers that endorsed Bush last time
-Omens like the Redskins loss and the Red Sox win were in his favor
-There were no WMD, but thousands of Americans have been killed or wounded “looking” for them, not to mention the number of Iraqis killed or wounded
-And so on...

Oh, wait, here's a couple reasons why he "lost" (if he did in fact lose)...

1. He tried the “centrist”, triangulating position—i.e., supporting the war but not really.

2. Bush timed the war (or drug it out, as in the case of not “really” assaulting Fallujah until after election) to coincide with election, obviously knowing that no president has been turned out of office in wartime.

3. Kerry never really refuted Swift Boat attacks. Big mistake.


Kerry should have fought for Ohio in the courts. That’s the Democrats for you—they’ll fold as soon as the heat is on for fear of looking inappropriate. Republicans know that most people will forget any appearance of impropriety soon enough. So they fight dirty, tooth and nail. They expect behavior from others that they themselves would not provide for others.


So what now?