I sort of knew that it was over in Florida before Wednesday. Some Floridians I know, Republicans that despised the way Bush has conducted the war in Iraq and had previously sworn that they wouldn’t vote for him, couldn’t wrap their minds around the idea of a John Kerry as President of the United States. They had voted for Bush before I arrived and had a chance to try and talk them out of it. Another friend, a gay early-twenty-something also said that he was going to vote for Bush. I may have talked him out of it—I’ll never ask, so I’ll never know—but I was obviously trying to drain the ocean with a teaspoon. These people were like a bellwether of Bush’s victory; they didn’t like Bush but they really didn’t like Kerry. And they voted. With that news, I took everything I heard thereafter—the final Monday polls and the afternoon exit polling—with a grain of salt.
I was disappointed but not surprised at the final result. All of the Floridians I am talking about were bright folks; they fall into a separate category from the people I bemoaned in Karol’s comments. They are people who would have fired Bush if the Democrats had a better candidate. They wanted to vote FOR somebody, not AGAINST somebody and Kerry didn’t inspire them at all. I can only shrug my shoulders and wonder what might have been if Howard Dean had won. The voters uncomfortable with the President’s performance clearly didn’t want Bush-lite; not when they could just keep Extra Strength Bush. But I think they would have given much more consideration to an anti-Bush.
Anyway, here are some random notes on my Florida experience.