Shock

Boy, was I wrong: I fully expected that Kerry would prevail. With the forces - sentimental, social and existential - arrayed against Bush, I just couldn't see how he could pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Like so many, we stayed up late watching the returns. Now I'm just exhausted, and glad it's over.

I feel for Kerry, and many of his supporters; it's got to be terribly disappointing to have invested so much, and have had such high (and seemingly justified) hopes. Although overall his policies never impressed me, I'm actually in the minority who found Kerry kinda likeable, and I certainly respect some aspects of his record. I do find the penchant of many partisans seemingly to hate the opposing candidate - vs. passionately opposing the policies and animating ideas, with a little righteous venom - to be distasteful, and a waste of energy (cue to a commenter to tell me that hatred, and worse, is justified in the case of so-and-so).

Someone asked me if I was "happy" with the result. I said, "No ... but less unhappy than I might have been." I've never been pleased with the choices we have in presidential elections - in my book it's always a choice between bad and worse, reckoned according to a hazy calculus. But, then again, my "personal metaphysics" entails a fairly tragic view of things. So it goes ...