Fever dream

Last night I went to bed about 11:30 pm in San Francisco, listening to NPR coverage for as long as I could stand. Little happened after 11 p.m. California time; aside from waiting for states like Nevada, the closeness of Ohio was clearly not going to be resolved anytime soon.

About 2:20 a.m. I woke up to the noise of conversation outside. I could only hear occasional words, and what sounded like drunken sobbing. After listening for a few minutes I realized I was hearing several people on their way home from an election coverage-watching party, people who were dismayed about the state of things. They needed to process before they got into their cars or walked home. Judging from the little I could hear of their conversation, it was clear they had reason to be unhappy, but I couldn't quite tell what it was. The clearest thing that came through was the sound of a woman crying heavily. They hung around outside the house for fifteen or twenty minutes, processing. The woman kept crying.

It was a surreal experience to lie in bed and listen to that. I was torn between leaning out the window and telling them to pack it in, and going out there and commiserating with them.

When I got up this morning, it was still being said that Ohio might be disputed, but only a couple hours later as I drove to work, it was clear everything was over and Kerry was about to concede.

Here are a few points of analysis I have, written before reading any other analysis, really.

Who will lead the Democrats?

Kerry looked like a reasonably strong candidate. A moderate liberal, a war hero, a long record of public service, no skeletons in his closet (though that didn't stop the "Swift Boat Veterans" et al. from making things up), and a rich wife. He wasn't as colorful as Dean, but I felt much more comfortable with Kerry, who was certainly more colorful than, say, Gephardt, whom I looked upon as being another pale Mondale type. Whatever his weaknesses -- and those will be discussed ad infinitum in the next months -- Kerry looked like a winner compared to Bush. And yet he was obviously no Clinton -- for better, and mostly for worse.

So who's up next? The only person the party is really excited by is Barack Obama, and it's too soon for him. Hillary Clinton is a logical choice, but I don't relish the degree of hatred and divisiveness she would provoke from the Republicans, who hate her out of all proportion. That only leaves Edwards, and unless he has strengths and charisma he has been hiding in favor of Kerry, he doesn't excite me too much either.

The problem with Iowa

This year the Iowa caucuses were effective in puncturing Dean's candidacy and raising up Kerry and Edwards. And people said Iowa Democrats tend toward liberal candidates, somewhat to the consternation of DNC types. And yet Kerry lost Iowa, it turns out, 50% to 49%, or by about 13,000 votes. My question is, why the fuck are the Democrats so dependent on Iowa in the first place? I think they need to make a conscious decision to negate the primacy of the Iowa caucuses and take it back to New Hampshire. (Of course, Kerry only won New Hampshire by 1%, or 10,000 votes. But the tradition is there. They can't just pick a new state.)

The Gavin Newsom factor

Last Feburary, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom mad history by permitting 14,000 gay couples to get married in the city -- a decision that was later overturned, but not before it electrified the Republican base, which responded with 11 anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives around the country -- all of which won. Since "moral issues" turned out to be so important to a strategically large -- surprisingly so -- evengelical turnout, can it be said that the fright the Christian Right received in the spring came back to haunt the Democrats in the fall?

That's not to say I think it was a mistake to marry all those lesbian and gay couples. Every step forward for justice and human rights is the right thing. It's never a mistake. We have to take our lumps and keep pushing forward. But this is also a reminder that no matter what we think is the right thing in massachusetts or California, it's likely to scare the shit out of people in the Midwest (not to mention the South, which as far as I'm concerned is simply lost to history for decades to come).

This raises the specter of that broad, broad red stripe up the middle of the country. As a book title had it this year, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Why do people in the Midwest and the Plains consistently vote against their own economic interests year after year after year? Because they're scared, says conventional wisdom. They're frightened by change.

I would put it more strongly, and I'll bet they would, too. It's not just fear, it's disgust. Cultural conservatives feel deep disgust at homosexuality, atheism, and other bogeymen; this visceral reaction is what drives them to the polls, it's what drives the rage expressed on talk radio, it's what keeps the whole culture of right-wing conservatism alive. And I don't know what to do about it. As someone who's done his personal best to expand the envelope of what can be talked about, especially with regards to sex, I have no regrets about "rampant _____" (insert right-wing bogeyman here). I wish people would simply grow up and become more accepting. They just aren't doing it as quickly as I want them to.

That's all I'm saying for now. I have to get back to work.