2000-11-08 - 4:41pm

On the internal soundtrack: "Panic", The Smiths

Well, wow.

This election is quite the nightmare. Around 8:30 last night, Poindexter was climbing the walls because they were predicting a Gore win. His father was unable to speak, he was so upset. I suggested they go for a boat ride to relax and get away from things and his mother said, "I can't. I'll throw myself overboard."

Then they took back Florida from Gore. So we had to stay up and watch, and had too much nervous energy so we did some cleaning. We finally gave up at 12:30am.

I dreamed about the election all night. Sometimes Gore won, sometimes Bush.

I was going to wait until the clock radio went off, at which point Howard would tell us what was happening. But at 5:30 Poindexter woke up to pee, and I couldn't take it anymore. I went down to the guest room and checked Fox News. They seemed to be predicting a Bush win, but were saying that Florida was still too close to call.

It's all so very, very weird. Gore's leading the popular vote by a slim margin. Bush appeared to win electorally in Florida, but the vote was too close so they had to recount. We won't find out 'til Thursday who won. The most amazing thing is that Gore made a concession phone call to Bush and then had to retract it!

I was pretty much prepared for the election to go either way, but Poindexter and his parents weren't. I can't even imagine what Gore and Bush must be going through. To lose this election by such a slim margin must be agonizing. I can hardly stand to think of how it will feel for the person who loses. All that time and money and effort, all for naught.

I have been reading a lot of pro-Gore and pro-Nader diaries and journals, and I'm struck by the fact that many of them seem to think that Republicans are evil. I mean, I knew they thought this, but to keep reading it over and over again is a little disconcerting.

I'd like to try to give a pro-Bush point of view. I did end up voting for Bush, because given how small the world has become and how many terrorist nuts there are out there, I'm not certain that a Libertarian president is a good idea. I voted for my Libertarian candidate for the House, though.

First let me say that I don't trust any politicians. They're all in it for their own weird interests and they're going to mismanage money and do stupid pointless things no matter how you look at it.

With that firmly in mind:

My reason for voting for Bush comes down to one basic idea: I believe that this country does best when the government stays out of things.

Of the two candidates, Bush was the one who appeared least likely to try to use the government to micromanage the lives of the citizens.

Bush may not have been the most ideal candidate, but he has repeatedly spoken of leaving more in the hands of the individual citizens and the free market. Gore, however, spoke often of the power of government to make decisions for people.

I agree with Democrats on many things in principle: equal rights for women, gays, minorities; that health care and prescription drugs and retirement money is important; that gun violence is a bad thing; I could go on and on.

The difference between me and a Democrat is that I do not believe that government is the answer to any of it. I believe that government causes at least as many problems as it solves. While social programs may indeed help some people, they also reduce everything to the lowest common denominator, which is grossly unfair to people who have worked hard to earn something better. And I don't believe it's the government's responsibility to babysit people and protect them from making their own mistakes.

That's it. Smaller government. And many of those millions who voted for Bush feel exactly the same way.

Contrary to the popular belief regarding Republican voters, I am not (and many other Republican voters are not) anti-women, anti-gay, racist, anti-environment, or trying to impose my religious beliefs on anyone. While people like that do tend to join the Republican Party and not the Democrats, it does not mean that everyone who votes Republican shares those characteristics.

If you want to criticize me for the way I voted, go right ahead. But criticize my belief that government is not the answer, or tell me that Gore is going to have a smaller government than Bush. Just don't make weird assumptions about how I feel about various subgroups of the population, or think I did it because Dubya's cute. For godsakes.

As for the alleged stupidity, I'm not worried. He has trouble articulating himself sometimes, and stumbles over his words, but so does my boss and he is, literally, a genius at what he does. I think that Dubya has two things in his favor: He's not afraid to admit when he doesn't know something, and he seems to be good at attracting intelligent, knowledgeable people to work for him and with him. Since it is not possible for a president to know every single little goddamn detail about every goddamn policy, it's more important that he be able to get good information and act on it than to be able to rattle off all the details at a moment's notice.

I couldn't tell you, offhand, the integral of sin x cos x, but I know where to look it up if I need to, and know how to use it once I get it. It would seem that Bush is the same way in his own field.

If Gore did get elected, nothing would make me happier than if Poindexter and I are right about him being a repressed queer and he came out of the closet while in office. That would be fantastic. I could put up with more government for 4 years to have an out-and-proud gay man as President.

Voting was fun. The ballot box got too full and we had to stand around while they emptied it. There's a lot of cameraderie at polling places. I wonder why that is. Too bad it can't be more like that at the grocery store.

There was a baby in line with its dad. Baby was maybe 6 months old. Wearing glasses. It boggled my mind. How do you determine the prescription for a baby that age? The baby just learned how to grab things and certainly can't talk. I'll have to find out about that.

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