I watched John Kerry give his concession speech. First off, I swear he looks “younger” than he has this whole election. Did he get some work done or was that all makeup? It was kind of creepy considering you’d at least expect those bags from the first debate to be a little more evident after so little sleep last night. At any rate, back to his speech. I think his speech went well. I’m very glad he had enough class to not drag this nation through another month long insanity like Al Gore did. The really odd thing was that I personally feel that John Kerry might have been tempted but would have shown the class not to but would have been pushed by his party to send these results to the courts. I’m glad he and his party did not. Also in his speech I applaud him for telling the nation it is time to heal. There has been too much hate being flung around. Too much name calling. Amen, Kerry, Amen. We need to lay our differances aside and we need to be one nation once more. Remember, United we stand, Divided we fall.

I remarked to my mother if he had ignored his party and supporters and all of their hate and had kept things like what he said in this speech going, things might have been different. If he had focused on truly improving the nation instead of casting blame and refusing to give any kind of truly helpful ideas things might have been different. I think a lot more of the swing voters at least would have thought more about him and felt more comfortable voting for him. This election could have gone a whole other way. My mother concurred. I think what killed him in this election was just the hate and mudslinging and his refusal to actually say something useful. You asked him about x and he’d just say why the President had done anything instead of giving you something real to go on as he should have.

President Bush’s speech also went over well in my eyes. He’s ready to get started on the next four years and he wants to take this nation, the whole nation with him. He spoke very well to the 55 million voters who went against him. I just hope they all listened to him, but I know some are just too filled with bad feelings. I’m sorry for this. Hopefully they will learn to accept him as their leader. They can’t cry this is an illegal presidency since he definately won a majority vote this time.

I am surprised by when the speeches were made. I’m not sure if I’m surprised though that they were so soon or so late… how’s that for funny? I definately didn’t think we’d have anything on Election night like we have had in recent years but I’m not so sure I thought we’d be done by so early on Wed. I do know I’m glad that things went so smoothly and peacefully this time. Especially with as disgusting as it was getting pre-Election day.

I do hope that John Kerry now spends his time in helping to bring some of his ideas he wouldn’t speak about to fruition. He claims to have ideas for improving our nation. Well by golly, speak them so maybe we can use them. Don’t hold them inside just so they can be “yours”.

I know people still wonder if Kerry should have held out. Personally I think Kerry looked at Ohio and then looked at Congress and decided it wasn’t worth it. In a recount Ohio might have slimmed that margin some for him. I guess theoretically in some of these close states he may have been able to sway things in a recount. But I’m sorry, look at how republican Congress has become. He’s a smart man realizing that even had he won the Presidential race that he’d have his hands virtually tied. That republican a Congress would never have worked easily with him. It would have been an uphill fight in 10 foot of snow barefoot for the next four years. We saw Congress fight President Clinton and I think it would be even wose this go round, had Kerry won.

Now I’m not so sure what this trifecta for the Republican party means. Are we turning towards being more conservative a nation? Or is it just the conservatives pulled out more voters who normally wouldn’t come out? Very interesting. I’m definately interested in seeing what the next four years brings to the table.

I can only hope that with the trifecta in place, this means that things can actually happen. Perhaps we can see a true working together from our nation leaders. Of course that’s my rose coloured glasses I’ve just slipped on for that dream! HA!

**Off Topic.. anyone else having trouble posting? I’ve had this saved for forever… it’s going with the original post stamp but anyway…**