One of the many post-mortems for the election
Kos (aka Markos Moulitsas), of Daily Kos fame, has written a post-election piece for The Guardian that’s well worth a read.
But that aside, this election shouldn’t even have been close. We have a president that has saddled the nation with record deficits and who has little clue on how to rein in spending. A president who inflicted upon the nation (and Iraq, and our allies) a costly and bloody war that should never have been waged. A president that has divided the country like none other, despite the unity we shared after 9/11. A president that has committed crimes against the environment, catered to his cronies at the expense of poor and middle class Americans, and turned virtually the entire world against our nation.
So how did Bush even get this far? By demonising an entire group of people — gays and lesbians. By cynical appeals to religion. By slandering a true war hero. And, most importantly, by scaring people. You see, terrorists would detonate a nuclear bomb in a major city if Kerry were elected. Only Bush can protect us.
And those efforts, as I have written before, were all aided and abetted by a well-oiled message machine the likes of which the American left is still unable to match.
