Early Wednesday morning, when it became clear that Ohio was a lock for President Bush, I went into Boston to Copley Square, to the site of the John Kerry rally. What was to have been a raucous coronation looked more like a wake. Boylston Street, which had been a sea of noise for the World Series parade on Saturday was filled with small groups of Kerry supporters, shaking their heads speaking in hushed tones, trying to figure out where it all went wrong.
“It wasn’t supposed to end this way.” one college aged girl said to her friend. “He was supposed to win.” Both wore MoveOn.org buttons, leftover Deaniacs. The Newt Gingrich in me wanted to pull my jacket open and reveal my Bush-Cheney t-shirt. But like all good neo-cons, I asked myself the “What Would Reagan Do?” question and moved down the street.
Being a Republican in Massachusetts is like being a Red Sox fan in the Bronx. Election night was like that, only it was Game 7 of the ALCS and instead of spraying champagne, my conservative friends and I were sipping Lone Star beers, imported from Texas. The beer looked to be on hold as the early exit polls on Tuesday afternoon had me thinking about reserving a spot on the Tobin Bridge. Instead, I cursed Karl Rove’s strategy of pandering to the evangelicals.
Shows what I know. The newly registered voters I wrote about two weeks ago showed up in flocks. Only it wasn’t the young voters with cell phones who showed up at the polls, it was Bible toting families from fly-over country. For all the talk of the grassroots, 527 mobilization on the ground for the Democrats, the Republicans mobilized the Christian right and the Bush states ran redder than Curt Schilling’s sock.
This election proved something we all thought to be true: you can’t win on vitriol alone. Where do you go from here if you are the Democrats? Do you finally scrap the 1972 playbook? Do you make Bob Shrum stop running the single- wing while Rove and company are running the West Coast offense? It’s clear that Bill Clinton and his War Room had it figured out. Sunny optimism from a Southerner plus a move to the center equals eight years in the White House. Vitriol from a northerner sends you back to Sun Valley or Nantucket. You can’t win simply because your base hates the other guy.
It seems appropriate that the wedge issue that drove the far right to the polls was a firestorm that was ignited by the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Margaret Marshall. Marshall, who was initially appointed to the SJC by former Kerry senatorial opponent William Weld, wrote the majority opinion that paved the way for gay marriage in Massachusetts. Exit polls revealed that red state voters were deeply concerned about social issues such as gay marriage.
At 2 a.m. I was ready to go home, I’d heard enough of Sheryl Crow’s wailing, but we heard that Senator Edwards was getting ready to speak. We couldn’t pass up the chance to hear the man who was to deliver the south for Kerry. Talk about an uninspiring empty suit. At least Kerry would have done the double fist pump (complete with folded over Clinton-thumb point) and made some awkward Red Sox comeback references. Edwards looked like he couldn’t wait to get off the stage, and his remarks were met with halfhearted cheers from the crowd.
I know it’s hard to swallow that you lost to a simpleton who lacks intellectual curiosity, again, but suck it up and pull yourselves up off the mat like we did with the mid-term revolution in 1994. Most importantly, drop the intellectual elitism. Clinton knew it. You can’t look down your nose at half the country and expect them to vote for your guy. But hey, I’m the guy who thought college kids would turn out and that Rove’s strategy was a losing proposition. What do I know?