Senator Robert Kennedy is dead.

I felt the same yesterday as I did the night I heard those words. I supported that campaign too. I had not realized until yesterday I had invested the same emotion in this campaign as I had in that one. I should not have come as such a shocked revelation to me as it did. The issues were a lot the same. The rhetoric was similar. To some extent, maybe a BIG extent, part of the reason for the loss was because of that war as much as this one. There are many other issues we need to look at. I will say that I am as proud of supporting this ticket as I have been of any I have ever supported. Bush has done two things. He united the Islamic world against us, he re-energized this old hippie.

Was there voter fraud? Yes, most probably. There always is. There are many people that feel that President Kennedy was the beneficiary of a stolen election. Was it the determining reason for this loss? I doubt it. It needs to be looked at and it needs to be pushed. I can think of only one reason to have these black boxes. To steal votes. Without some type of paper receipt as a check filed in a ballot box, it is too easy to steal. That MUST be one of our highest priorities now. It was however, the right thing for Senator Kerry to concede and continue to fight this after. Even if we could have proved some voter fraud, even in massive amounts, I doubt Senator Kerry could have had the type of power needed to govern after the size of the defeat. Another area that must be addressed is the lines. I am certain that caused us to lose votes. I do not know if we lost enough to make up the difference. I would think that we need to take Federal Elections away from state control. The voting booths number and the types of machines should be standardized nationwide.

We lost for our values, I believe that. Somehow men "married" or women in "unions" was more important for a large part of the population than being lied into a war. Abortion was and is another wedge issue. We have lost those that view abortion as murder, I do not know how we can get them back. Somehow stem cell research came to be equal to abortion. Then there is the issue of a religious war. The Christians against Islam. The Republicans obliquely defined it that way, we did not. The issues are deeper than that but that is an example. We may well have lost this election before it started. The Bush people very effectively used Morals as a wedge issue. It defined them vs us to many in the midsection of the country. We did that to ourselves in the early Democratic debates. I have friends that have been partners for 14 years. Those two women have formed a stronger partnership than many of my traditional partner unions. See, here I am muddling the water already, trying to use PC speech to explain myself. We need to be more plain spoken. The term marriage is a sacrament to many, a religious term. We should have been firmer that government should not be in the position to issue a religious license, but should offer rights licenses. Let the religions sanctify that union to a marriage. I do not know if there is anyway we could have framed this issue better than it was, but we effectively failed to get that point across.

The evangelicals beat us. Rove had every preacher Sunday talking about the godless Democrats. I doubt he sent them talking points but he worked them up so he did not have to send talking points. We had a President that is by far one of the worst ever, he has lied, he has cheated, he lost the traditional conservative endorsement of many papers, of many well known conservative thinkers. We somehow failed to capitalize on that.

When the issue of who should have been Vice President, I like many others thought the best way to heal the country was to get John McCain on this ticket. There is a story that Senator Kerry tried that. I know here though, that concept was trashed immediately. I just hope that those responses are not the reason that concept was squashed. That combination would have walked away with it. Even if John McCain turned him down there may have been other choices with a stronger Republican draw. Do not get me wrong I like and respect John Edwards. I do not think anyone could have worked harder for his ticket. Unfortunately he did not have the southern draw that a Senator from North Carolina should have.

Is it over? I do not know. Can we survive four more years? I do not know. Two things happened yesterday, little things to hold on too and to revive the willingness to fight. My lover came over and we held each other, we both cried a little. Then we went on the deck and she held me again on the lounge chair and I saw the sky was still blue. At least for the moment. Last night I talked to my daughter. She lives in one of those states. She got up at 5, dressed, knew her vote for Kerry would be offset by the hordes of red voters. She went anyway. She never did 5 well her whole life. I am very proud of her.

We were living in Buffalo. I was 10 years old and my Republican mother, who had voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964, took me with her to church to light a candle for Bobby Kennedy.