Well, he won! Thank goodness for that, I say, though I recognize that many others won't. For those who care, this election was unique in that there has NEVER been such an incredible turnout from evangelicals. I spoke to a Michigan state senator the other day who was absolutely blown away by the incredible turnout. The fact of the matter is that the Democrats turned out MORE than they thought they needed to win... and STILL got flattened. This election is going to be studied closely for years to come.

The thing to look for, I think, is this: Conservatives believe strongly in President Bush because of worldview. He represents a philosphical outlook that grades civic responsibilities more highly than civil rights. It believes that moral courage trumps weak diplomacy. Character counts, and posturing does not. True, there are plenty of areas to legitimately question the Bush Admninistration. However, that doesn't change the fact that more voters wanted strong convictions rather than changeable ideology.

One of my favorite authors, Alexandyr Solzhenitsyn (yes, I can spell it without looking... I know I'm a geek), spoke of the need for this kind of moral courage in an address to Harvard in 1971. I suggest you read the speech, which is all over the internet and is called A World Split Apart. It is one of my all-time favorite essays. Here are the key exerpts.

"We have placed too much hope in politics and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. It is trampled by the party mob in the East, by the commercial one in the West. This is the essence of the crisis: the split in the world is less terrifying than the similarity of the disease afflicting its main sections.
If, as claimed by humanism, man were born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to death, his task on earth evidently must be more spiritual: not a total engrossment in everyday life, not the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then their carefree consumption. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become above all an experience of moral growth: to leave life a better human being than one started it.
It is imperative to reappraise the scale of the usual human values; its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance should be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or to the availability of gasoline. Only by the voluntary nurturing in ourselves of freely accepted and serene self-restraint can mankind rise above the world stream of materialism."

Anyways, there's the thought for the day. Oh, and I should mention that I only got 3 states wrong in my predictions. I had Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Mexico wrong, but all other states correct. Also, I was the only person in my office (remember, it's an office DEDICATED to politics in Michigan) to correctly predict YES votes on both proposals on the Michigan ballot. I am WAY too good at this stuff. Help, I need a life!

Till next time.