Lexington Green at Chicago Boyz puts it best:
We say that Britain has an unwritten Constitution and we here in the USA have a written Constitution. But there are unwritten elements to our public life which are of great importance. The concession speech at the end of an election is an important part of our "unwritten" Constitution.
The concession speech puts an end to the campaign and the mindset of the campaign. It reminds people that the campaign is not everything, that some things are more important even than the hoped for victory and the sadness of defeat, that democracy itself is the most important thing. Done correctly, the concession speech drains the bitterness and anger, it gets people to focus on the future. The candidate takes the failure on himself and, in that way, absolves his followers of responsibility for the defeat and allows them to go on their way with a feeling of closure.
I watched Kerry's concession speech. It was done with class. He struck the right notes. A gesture of regard for the victor, "the fight goes on" for Democrats, but unity is needed, and we should not have anger, etc., and we are all Americans and this is a great country and it is a privilege to be here. It was formulaic, but so are marriage vows. Language on such ceremonial occasions is supposed to be formulaic. Ceremonies are not "empty ritual" but are affirmations of our common life together, of continuity, and they are the glue that holds our immense, disparate society together.
There is a right way to do it. You hate like Hell when your guy has to be the one to do it, but you know it has to be done. To his credit, Kerry did it right.
The ritual was adhered to. The legitimacy of our democratic process was reaffirmed. The Republic remains secure.
God bless America.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 03, 2004 • Comments
Andrew Sullivan is understandably upset about what the election results portend for gay Americans. But even culturally conservative people and places are a lot more complicated than you might think. Dallas County just elected a lesbian Latina with a long federal law enforcement career to clean up our mess of a sheriff's department. Her Republican opponent, a department insider, tried to make an issue of her support by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which backs openly gay candidates. The tactic didn't work and it may even have backfired. (It certainly did in the Postrel household, where Lupe Valdez was the only Democrat to get our votes.)
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 03, 2004 • Comments
He lost the vice presidency and didn't help the ticket at all. He gave up his Senate seat, and it went to a Republican.
Most important, a study at Johns Hopkins shows that infection, not lack of oxygen, causes most cerebral palsy in premature babies--making it a lot harder to sue those ob-gyns for big bucks. Here's the NYT report.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 03, 2004 • Comments
RNC chairman Ed Gillespie in on ABC repeating the biggest exaggeration of the night--that this is the "most important election of my lifetime." I don't know how old Gillespie is, but I'm betting he's over 24.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 02, 2004 • Comments
Walter Olson is live blogging results on the tort-reform measures on eight state ballots, including Florida
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 02, 2004 • Comments
With Fox News saying the Carolinas are too close to call, things don't look too good for GWB.
Update: Sundry networks are now calling the Carolinas for Bush. But they shouldn't be close.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 02, 2004 • Comments
Steve and I went to vote at 9:30, figuring we'd avoid the pre-work rush. While the booths were steadily occupied, there was no line. We ran into one of our neighbors, who extended sympathies over our break-in. Though early voting was very heavy in Dallas, there are only a few places to vote early. Things seem pretty normal on election day, despite one of the most hotly contested congressional races in the country and a lot of Kerry voters who want to stick it to their Bush-loving neighbors in the Park Cities. We were voters 318 and 319 at our polling place. My pals at D Magazine's blog have similar reports of line-free voting.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 02, 2004 • Comments
With the notable exception of Fahrenheit 911, this year's many propaganda documentaries have been box office duds, reports today's WaPost. Meanwhile, those political bestsellers have a dirty little secret, reports Barnes & Noble chairman Leonard Riggio in an informative and entertaining NYT op-ed piece:
Informal polls taken by our store managers indicate that some 70 percent of our customers say they have no intention of reading these books; 15 percent say they will; and 15 percent are undecided. One Kansas City customer said, "I'm buying this book to show people where I stand." Another in New York said, "I'm buying this book because the author agrees with me."
I wonder if the authors care.
Maybe agit-prop movies should take a hint from book publishers and find a way to sell tickets that don't actually require you to sit through the picture--a new application of Fandango, perhaps.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 02, 2004 • Comments
One of the added bonuses of Tim Cavanaugh's devastating takedown of the molting "liberal hawks" is the link to Chuck Freund's September 2002 article arguing that "the U.S.'s actual intentions in Iraq may have very little--perhaps nothing--to do with the reasons that have been offered by the administration, either before the UN or in the domestic debate. The U.S. may actually be pursuing a strategy it is unwilling to articulate in public." Like everything Chuck writes, it's worth not only reading but rereading.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 01, 2004 • Comments
Here's an election quiz, courtesy of the NYT's John Tierney, whose comedy works include The Best-Case Scenario Handbook. Don't miss question 14.
Posted by Virginia Postrel on November 01, 2004 • Comments