Last Wednesday marked a difficult day for many of us. Tuesday night was a close and painful loss, and it certainly made me pretty depressed. I know that there are many of us across the country who feel helpless, frustrated and scared for our country. I can't even seriously think about the next four years right now.
It would be very easy for us to admit defeat, roll over and let today's victors walk all over us. It would be easy to become disgusted with the political process and with our nation as a whole. It would be even easier to become disengaged and not participate in our democracy. But we must not do this.
Rather than become depressed, we must look at the good that came out of the election. First, more Americans voted Tuesday than in any election since 1968. Whether we agree with their opinions or not, that is quite a statistic and says a lot for our democracy. The greatest voter mobilization effort in our nation's history was successful, and 60 percent of Americans went to the polls. That doesn't sound like a whole lot of people, but compared to our history, it is.
Many of you are now wondering what it says about our country if, with more Americans voting than ever before, we still elected George W. Bush. The fact is that, once again Bush was elected by a narrow majority of the country. Essentially, he won by 130,000 votes in Ohio, out of more than 115 million votes cast in the country. That's less than .1 percent.
On the other hand, our campaign, in which I know many of you were involved, got more Democrats to the polls then ever before. We got the youth involved in politics once again. We garnered almost 56 million votes. We brought millions of people out to vote who had never done so before. We showed the world that, despite what he says and does, Bush does not speak for the whole country. We did outstandingly. They did a little bit better.
As my dad told me last Wednesday morning, "You supported a candidate and did your best. There's a lot to be said for that." There really is a lot to be said for doing what we all have for the past months. Back when Kerry won the nomination, when the Bush-Cheney team announced multi-million dollar attack ads, we began mobilizing. We didn't stop until the election, and along the way we helped to unite our party like never before.
Let's keep that momentum going. Let's not only concentrate on the Presidency; let's support candidates up and down the ticket. Let's be happy for people like Melissa Bean, a progressive from Illinois, who just got elected to the U.S. House. Marty Walz, another progressive, got 75 percent of the vote to win a seat in the Massachusetts House. Barack Obama is now a senator from Illinois, and Ken Salazar defeated beer mogul Pete Coors in Colorado. Montana (Montana!) now has a Democratic Governor. Democracy for America helped defeat Republicans across the board.
There were many more similar victories, but to count them all would take forever. Parts of the election really sucked. But other parts set the undertone for the future. After the Republicans lost overwhelmingly to LBJ in 1964, their party began an effort to build support from the bottom up. They began writing books about their philosophies, forming think tanks and talking about what it meant to be a Republican. We have begun a similar process. The men and women elected will set us up for real change in the future.
I look to people like 34-year-old Rep. Harold Ford of Tennessee, who I heard speak at the Kerry rally, to lead us in the future. I expect our party to do some soul-searching in the coming weeks and months, which might not be such a bad thing. I'm confident that once we really find out what it means to be a Democrat, we'll be able to make real change in this country.
In the meantime, we must not stop fighting. We must continue to challenge Bush whenever he tries to push forward dangerous and damaging legislation, as I'm sure he will. It may not be a fun fight, and it may not be easy, but it is necessary. We will lay the groundwork for the future so that, when we look back in a few years, we will see Nov. 2, 2004 as the night in which we lost the White House but put into place the leaders of the future. We must continue the work we've done this summer. We must continue to sign petitions, march in the streets, unite our party and support those who will support us.
We must give up a night out once or twice a year in exchange for a membership in the ACLU, Planned Parenthood or the Sierra Club. When we get e-mails from MoveOn, we must do what they ask rather than reading them and deleting them. We should write to Sens. Kerry and Edwards, thanking them for the time and effort they've put into this campaign and most of all, for their vision.
We must try to convince our family and friends to see the light, even if they will not listen to us. We must even run for office ourselves.
We cannot stop until we've brought the people of this country the things they deserve. As Dr. King once said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." We know the things in which we believe matter. Even though we may not be in the majority right now, we must continue to work so that one day we can show the world the true power of
democracy.
I was lucky enough to see activist/musician Carole King perform last week. One of her lyrics said, "If you lead/I will follow."
Working together, we will be the future leaders of this country. I have faith in, and love, all of you. We have lost, but we are not defeated.
Mickey Leibner is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major.
