All our stories since November 4, 2004,
are listed on the Election 2004 page.

On the morning of Election Day we invited you to offer comments on your voting experience, on the election, or whatever.

Here we'll offer some comments we've received, along with a variety of more extended reflections that strike us as helpful in one way or another.   [11-3-04]

And if you have thoughts of your own, or from others, that you think would be helpful, please send them along!

Here's what we've received or found so far:

From our friends on the right:

But there's also

Please note:  These items do not all represent the thinking of your WebWeaver, and certainly are not a statement from the Witherspoon Society.  We are simply offering a variety of perspectives on questions that many of us will be pondering over the coming weeks.  Or years.

God has blessed America with a good, decent Christian president. Thank God, as well, that the Christian vote came out on the social issues of the day. As a Boston pundit put it....you can't mock and make fun of traditional Christians and their values anymore and hope to have your views carry the day. Will the left hear? I seriously doubt it. They are already descending into the madness of conspiracy theories. All I can say is, Thank God for His mighty blessings today!

Bodhan Igel
Charlottesville, VA

and from a right-wing critic whom we will protect with anonymity - but something you need to see, just this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And a wry bit of verse to lament the day:

The votes are cast, our public spoke,
and chose once more, a bitter joke.
I'm depressed to see this beguiled country
choose to end up despised and broke.

Gerald Bosacker

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A thought forwarded by Witherspoon Issues Analyst Gene TeSelle:

"This race was lost, if it was lost, because millions of religious single issue cult-like voters turned out to vote in red states for a man they have unyielding faith in, even if that man and his party are about to lead this country into an abyss. And the Democratic Party has built an electoral strategy around a base and geography that cannot compete with that cult at this time in our history."

Day after election, a reflection
by the Rev. Bill LeMosy, an interim ministry specialist living in Pleasant Hill, Iowa
[11-3-04]

On this day after the presidential election of 2004, I feel no ecstasy of victory, only the agony of defeat. And I know I'm not alone. A friend of thirty years wrote to me of his sense that we are regressing as a people and moving toward becoming a police state. Then he went on to say, "God is God, and though I may not live to see it, honesty will return to this land someday."

As for God being God, well, I suppose my friend is right. But today I'm in severe lament over the election of a mass murderer to the American presidency. This Presidential Jokester of a leader promises not just more of the same but, in my view, worse of the same. His election means unceasing arrogance before the nations (how can we lead the global community when we won't even let ourselves be part of it?). It means more "reform" of Medicare, Social Security and tort law, all to the aggrandizement of Republican coffers. His election means more guns and butter for transnational corporations, not to mention enhancement of their autocratic power. It means more and deadlier weapons systems, including depleted uranium bunker busters and the like, along with Star Wars madness. It means judicial hardhats on the Supreme Court who will threaten a woman's right to choose. It means death and maiming for Iraqis and all others unfortunate enough to come within the gun sights of Caesar Bush.

Okay, the world survived Reagan and Stalin and Hitler, and Dubya doesn't have the gumption to challenge any of them ... well, maybe Reagan. But Darfur and countless et ceteras howl for attention while the Bushies joust for American hegemony over the planet. Closer to home, thousands of poor folks right here in Des Moines drown in their own hopelessness. Into the moral vacuum of November 2004, Prophet Haggai speaks in chapter two: "I am with you, says the LORD of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear."

The oppressed and targeted ones, and I, need to hear that message. We need the sense that God ultimately rules even while the unjust rage. We need some manna in our wilderness. And baptismal water from a few rocks.

But after yesterday's debacle, it's a little harder for me to wrap my mind around this hope-faith, this affirmation that God remains in the world. I want to hold on to it, or better let it infuse my existence, but it feels like a holy fiction, a haze of the imagination that lingers only long enough for me to reach out, then vanishes with the slightest touch. 'Tis good to have a sense of spiritual discipline driving me back to the prophetic words and echoing the Emmanuel message and giving my fingers permission to moan into the keyboard.

No, the world has not ended. And I'm reminded of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury where he says of Dilsey and her fellow African-Americans, "They endured." We, too, will endure. To speak in personal terms, my halting trust of the Holy will work itself out as I connect with sisters and brothers along the journey (whom I have experienced as the most compelling voices of anything remotely Divine, to make a perhaps less than Reformed-orthodox statement). One more thing: I admit the election of Kerry would have barely inched our collective mindset toward just harmony amidst the human family. Whatever the "will of God" is in all this, I can't fathom. I can only dare to trust, not by feeling but by actions of writing and going on with going on, that somehow "God is working [God's] purpose out / As year succeeds to year." Not that I think "God" wants Bush in the White House, because I figure S/He's weeping galactic tears right now. But even under the shadow of Bush's high lies, crimes and misdemeanors, "God" remains. In the human haze, yes. But remains. Works. And, I hope, still plays.

Post-Concession Reflections
Robert L. Borosage

November 03, 2004

Borosage - a leader in the progressive movement - looks at the data about who voted and why. Although he won the popular vote, Borosage shows that President George W. Bush's base remains surprisingly narrow.

Seeing Red
Harold Meyerson, in The American Prospect

George Bush just won again by polarizing the country. The startling thing is that Dems did everything right. Despite clear evidence of failure in terms of jobs, security, Iraq, deficits, Bush used cultural warfare to squeak out the win. As the Democrats look to the future, they'll have to counter this dynamic, since four more years of failure may not make a difference.

Living Poor, Voting Rich
Nicholas Kristof, New York Times

The marriage of conservatism, Christianity and corporate money is not a pre-ordained ménage-a-trois . Jesus lifted up the poor and oppressed. Corporate consumerism trashes traditional values. Conserving power among the elite is anathema to a free market. Somehow, all these contradictions live within the GOP. And yet somehow they manage to get the poor and oppressed to vote for their oppressors. Fascinating.

The Good News
David Corn, The Nation

The news this morning about the (possible) Republican gains from the White House on down is downright depressing. But liberals should resist the impulse to retreat into a shared sense of alienation from the American populace. Despite the apparent victory for conservative values in congressional races and ballot initiatives, David Corn reminds us that the numbers show another outcome of this election -- nearly half of Americans rejected Bush's leadership, agenda and falsehoods.

Under your law we live, great God,
and by your will we govern ourselves.
Help us as good citizens
to respect neighbors whose views differ from ours,
so that without partisan anger,
we may work out issues that divide us,
and elect candidates to serve the common welfare;
through Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.

Copied from the Book of Common Worship of our Presbyterian Church (USA)
Thanks to Bruce Gillette, Wilmington, Delaware

Tuesday 02 November 2004

We stand at a crossroads for our nation. At issue is the fabric of American life. There is a perception that choosing the right leader is the most important thing. Surely that will matter, but even more crucial is our commitment to American values.

If you are thinking about voting twice, don't do it. If you are thinking of putting fear in the heart of your neighbor as he goes to cast his vote, think again. How we conduct this election will have more to do with the safety and security of our nation than who wins.

We have throughout our history held our free elections as a pillar of our democracy. Remove that pillar and you undermine all that is freedom. Even if this election is conducted fairly, the result will be disappointment for some. That is as it should be. The pain of that disappointment pales in comparison to the price we will pay should we fail to protect the integrity of the process itself.

When the Founders had concluded their work on the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin walked outside and seated himself on a public bench. A woman approached him and inquired, "Well, Dr. Franklin, what have you done for us?" Franklin quickly responded, "My dear lady, we have given to you a republic - if you can keep it." A quiet debate is being waged in the shadows of the country, once again, as to whether America is a republic or a democracy. It will be neither, if we fail to protect our right to vote.

Help your neighbor vote. Not just the one who agrees with you but the one who differs. Why? Because when this is over, that's the one you're really going to need the most.

Good luck to us.

All our stories since November 4, 2004,
are listed on the Election 2004 page.