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.

My wife and I went and volunteered for three hours today doing phone banking for the Democratic party. I was sure it wouldn’t make much of a difference, but I wanted to see what was up at the campaign HQ and talking to Democratic voters was fun (we called people on a list of strong supporters of Erskine Bowles). Most people weren’t home, but all of the ones that were had already voted. All of them. I was amazed. A lot of them had taken advantage of early voting.

So I went out and voted before work this morning. It was the most exciting vote I ever cast.

Someone posted this note on the bulletin board over the mailboxes where I live. When I walked by 15 minutes later, it had been removed.

I got spam yesterday from the pro-life organization National Right to Life. They sent multiple emails to an address that only appears in the whois database. Wonder who told them that was a good idea?

I don’t really need to type up a long endorsement. Anybody who follows this site knows that I’ve been opposed to President Bush since he announced that he was running for President. Since he was elected, we’ve learned that the reality is even worse than the promises made during the 2000 campaign. What I’m surprised to learn is that I’m enthusiastic about voting for John Kerry. He’s not the ideal candidate, but my ideal candidate does not exist. A Kerry victory would be a beginning, not an end. This country and this planet need a lot of help.

For weeks now, I have been fairly certain that John Kerry was going to lose, but as of today, I feel certain that Kerry will win. The race is close enough now that the late breaking undecideds (who have historically abandoned the incumbent) will throw the race to Kerry. I also bank on the fact that the people least likely to be represented in polls are most likely to vote for Kerry. My prediction is that Kerry will wind up with more than 300 electoral votes. I hope I’m not wrong.

A group calling itself Internet Veterans for Truth has created a clearinghouse for all the downloadable Internet video you might want to see.