Tears came when I took the Kerry buttons off my jacket. I was dejected all day.
In the wee hours of that fateful morning, my beloved partner roused himself for a video residency teaching at a school for the blind.
Before we'd gone to bed, it looked bad, everywhere on TV were exultant Republicans.
"What am I going to do?" he said.
"You put the camera in their hands, let them feel the buttons, and point them in the direction of what you want them to see." I said.
For weeks I had to put aside the thought, which comes back to me now, of the Stygian stables Kerry would have inherited. Quagmires have a way of eating up Presidents, no matter who started the war. If it continued to go badly, Kerry, who was not that popular even among Democrats, would have been excoriated, day after day, by those same conservatives who defended Bush's lies.
So that, perhaps, is a blessing in disquise.
We put everything into winning, and it's Bush who is stuck with his catastrophic war and overwhelming deficits.
In Minnesota, in what's been called the largest registration drive in U.S. history, America Coming Together, together with other progressive organizations, brought 10,000 new voters to the polls.
What that meant, in my state, is, not only did our hard-won electoral votes go to Kerry, but a surprising upset and net increase of 13 Minnesota House seats reversed a conservative trend and has given the DFL new clout.
It took a decade for resistance to build an opposition to Vietnam. It took thirty years of suffrage to get women the vote. It took a hundred years before freed African Americans slaves were allowed to use a public drinking fountain designated for whites. We didn't win the presidency in the Vietnam era, either, but we stopped the war, and set the groundwork for Democratic control of Congress for the next thirty years.
I'm not with those who want to wallow in recriminations. Let those who support the war do soul searching.
We built an amazing grassroots network in lightening time. If we feel discouraged, individually- the organizations we've built are not. The National Resources Defense Council, one environmental group I subscribe to, has a million members.
At the Steelworkers Union, in Minneapolis, where I canvassed, our pep talk leader was thrilled with how coalition building has given his organization new ideas and new life.
Knowledge is power. The American people's decisions are only as good as the information they receive. The Republicans won because for the last thirty years they've been building a network of conservative think tanks and media outlets to broadcast their smear campaigns. They have captured AM radio, and now have a firm hold on TV. If you don't know what the Powell memo is, if you haven't seen the film Outfoxed, if you don't know the work of linguist George Lakoff...
Educate yourself.
Here's what we can each do during the next four years.
Join those online organizations that allow you to take action on the issues you care about.
Let your Congress people know that Bush has no mandate.
Turn off your TV. Be a squeaky wheel. Complain in writing, not to your friends, but to editors, company owners, advertisers.
Tune into Al Franken's radio show.
Get information. Hook up with other like minded people. Subscribe to progressive magazines like Mother Jones, Harper's, the Nation.
Start talking about values.
People have been regretting that we knocked off Howard Dean, who had momentmum, passion, and personality. Howard Dean hasn't let defeat stop him. He's full of energy. Read his book, You Have the Power.
And most of all, have fun. Garrison Keillor got it right in this essay. We live in an amazing society full of possibilities. Read poets. Hang out in art museums and little cafes. Go to Europe. Throw parties. Have intimate dinners with friends. Reach out to someone who is struggling. Teach someone to read. Laugh often.
We're flying blind now. I don't know where we are headed, exactly. Kierkegaard said that life can only be understood backwards, it has to be lived forwards. If we point ourselves in the direction of the things we love, those things will save us. Of that, I am certain.