Yes, I’m awake at like 5:30 a.m., which is highly unusual for me. President Bush is going to keep his job. Things haven’t yet shaken out in the electoral college, but Bush is leading by something like 3 million votes in the popular vote, and it sure looks to me like there are no formulas for a John Kerry victory. Even if things look close for Kerry after all the votes are counted, can he really mount a legal challenge when he’s been thoroughly trounced in the popular vote? Even if he can, I don’t think he should. The American people have chosen Bush, and all that’s left is to deal with it.

I’m sure there will be tons of recrimination and analysis that explain exactly why Bush has won, but one number stands out to me as I think about Bush’s win, and that’s the number of people who voted. The Democrats were predicting upwards of 118 million voters. The Republicans were predicting 104 to 108 million. It’s closer to the number that the Republicans projected. In other words, the Democrats were undone by the same thing that everybody hoping for significant change is undone by, the false hope that people who don’t normally vote would rise up and make their voices heard. It never seems to work that way, does it?

The most important question for me, and I suspect, perhaps, you, is what to do with my life in light of the fact that I’m going to have to accept another four years of the most awful President in my lifetime, and perhaps the most awful President in anybody’s lifetime. I’ll post my thoughts on that later, but the bottom line is that I’m feeling like obsessively following politics and current events is a truly miserable use of my time.