Disappointed but not surprised.
I was not and am not a bush supporter. Regular readers know that I was not a strong kerry supporter either. For me, the one possible result worse then a kerry victory is the one that happened: a bush victory.
It does puzzle me that many thoughtful, well educated folks looked at the available evidence and chose to vote for bush. By any accounting I would choose bush has been a failure. But, for instance, Megan McCardle looked at a wide range of issues and came up bush. Yet, even after reading her long, thoughtful discussion I could not come to her conclusion. Rather it was still clear that the devil I knew was, indeed, the devil and needed to be cast out.
Did I have great expectations of kerry? No, not at all. Perhaps some modest improvements in protecting civil liberties; some effort to begin rebuilding international credibility for the US; possibly some improved fiscal responsibility; maybe more palatable supreme court nominees; hopefully some success in reducing the terrorist threat which, at least according to bush’s campaign messages, bush has failed miserably at achieving; and not much else.
The world is not going to end with bush’s election to a second term nor would electing kerry have been its salvation. Both kerry and bush were seeking leadership of the largest gang state on the planet. This is a position vested with far too much power and one that seems focused on maintaining or increasing the influence of the state and corporate special interests rather than the interests of the people.
Be it bush or had it been kerry there is a tremendous amount of work to be done over what will undoubtably be a long and difficult time to evolve human interactions and institutions to a place where the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of each human is fully respected by all other humans and our institutions.