Marshall Manson offers some timely advice to the supporters of whoever happens to lose the election today:
Challenging the legitimacy of an election is a serious thing to do. And with occasional exceptions, charges of fraud are almost always overblown and based on unreliable, anecdotal data.
Over the last few years, too many on both sides have gotten far too obsessed with lawyers, challenges, and allegations of impropriety. Perhaps it’s a result of the hangover from the Florida mess in 2000. But I hope that folks on both sides will act like adults this year and behave with a little grace. If your man loses — and one of them is sure to do so — don’t loosely accuse the other side of stealing it.
Whoever wins, he won’t be the worst President in history. Somehow, the republic will survive. Let’s keep things in perspective tonight as the results come in, and keep a tight rein on our worst instincts.
Agreed.
I fully expect Barack Obama to win tonight and, while I don’t agree with much of what he stands for and will likely be back here in a few months vehemently opposing everything he does during his first 100 days in office, he will be the President, and I’ll accept that.
If the right knows what’s good for it, they will to.
Somewhere along the way, this country lost the idea of what the British call the loyal opposition. The fact that you oppose someone politically doesn’t mean you have to hate them, or demonize them, or believe the most bizarre conspiracy theories about them. Barry Goldwater and John F. Kennedy were friends. Ronald Reagan seldom considered his political adversaries to be enemies, even if the sentiment wasn’t always returned.
It’s not that way today. For some supporters of John McCain, Barack Obama isn’t just a rival, he’s an enemy who will sell America out to socialism or radical Islam, or both in some bizarre ideological combination. For some supporters of Barack Obama, Republicans are conspiring to steal the vote.
It’s time we stopped that nonsense. You don’t have to agree with whoever the next President is, and you don’t have to hate them either.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:12 am
[...] posted at Below The Beltway This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, [...]
November 4th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Thank you. That definitely needed to be said, and I wish more people would adopt your attitude.
I am a D with lots of cross-party friends. We talk, debate, rant and rave, and make fun of each other, but at the end of the day, we respect each other for having differing views and the willingness to voice them. And that is how it should be.
November 4th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Possibly a sign of psychological mal-adjustment of segments of our population. Most things are not all or nothing, absolutely good or absolutely evil, and the sky seldom falls. Many people I know think that nothing much will change regardless of who’s elected, which is probably correct. Some think the world will end, almost literally, if their guy loses.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I guess I don’t dispute your points, but Doug, by endorsing these comments you’ve managed to adopt the posture of moral relativism that for too long has been characteristic of the far Left. “Over the last few years, too many on both sides have gotten far too obsessed with lawyers, challenges, and allegations of impropriety.” Really? Who on the right has done it? To be sure, Republicans have fielded attorneys to protect their electoral victories — I have been and am one of them — but when have they only been “allegations” of impropriety? Isn’t ACORN engaging in voter-registration fraud, a predicate act to voter fraud? Do Republicans do that? If they did, I would be among those first in line to prosecute them, but the only thing that is “anecdotal” is the notion that everybody does it. Were Republicans seeking to exclude the votes of a whole cohort of voters?
I don’t know whether this election will be close, or not. I do know that I personally WITNESSED ballot Democrat stuffing in Cleveland in 2004, and if it is close, serious questions might be raised if there is hard evidence of wrong-doing.
That it will be a case of Democrats reaping what they have sowed may be ironic, but it is certainly nothing to celebrate. Nor does it insulate them from responsibility or criticism if there is evidence of wrongdoing.
Neither is it a matter of hate. As the estimable Peggy Noonan once observed about the Great Prevaricator, “We don’t hate him; we hold him in contempt. There’s a difference.” Indeed, I would even posit that there is much more to have held in contempt about Bill Clinton than Barry. After all, the former had actually accomplished something, even if I disagree with his goals. Obama is a cipher, a tabula rasa into which even some normally conservative commentators — see the aforementioned Noonan — pour their deepest hopes. He is a skilled rhetorician whose speeches appeal to unity, even while he dismisses with contempt those who disagree with him. He is a con man. And it is a sad fact that too many Americans may be too stupid to recognize that fact.
November 4th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
James,
I’ll be watching very closely as tonight unfolds. If things start going heavily for Obama, then I expect certain elements of the right, especially elements of the righty-blogosphere to start talking about voter fraud just as much as the MoveOn.org crowd did.
There are other examples of the demonization, though, such as the people who keep bringing up false stories about Obama not being an American citizen, or him being a Muslim, or that he was born in Kenya. We know all these things are untrue.
November 5th, 2008 at 7:53 am
[...] of the aisle that likes to grumble and complain in times like this. To them, I commend this blog post from Below the Beltway that urges us to and reminds of the virtues of what used to be called [...]