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Bush's convention.. it was interesting. There was some limited violence, destruction of property, people marching in the park anyway, etc.. but the media *gasp* largely ignored it. What was interesting about the GOP convention was that Bush's speech sucked ass. It was the same old, same old - just like the State of the Union address in January. Voters overwhelmingly realized that he was a one-note president, and that they were getting tired of that same "fear.. fear.. fear.. fear.." note being hit over and over again. So his bounce was negligible - 3 or 4%.
Since his bounce was so small, Kerry stayed slightly ahead or tied in most nationwide polls. Bush's polling mostly improved in the Red States, which kinda screwed him over in some of the swing states. Tennessee, Missouri, Virginia, and North Carolina fell back into place after the convention. But Ohio and Florida stayed close.
The debates came and went. They were, in a word, boring. Kerry's strongest smackdown on Bush came when he clearly outlined how Bush initially opposed the DHS, and then the 9/11 Commission, and then the Commission's conclusions. Bush mumbled about these things being "the right thing to do," but the damage had been done.
Did I mention that F9/11 came-out on DVD around this time? Bush's numbers fell about 2% the following week, but they rebounded soon thereafter. Kerry's numbers, interestingly, didn't change much at all. But the numbers did change when the 1000th GI died in Iraq. Bush's approval rating got down to 41%! By mid-October, most polls had Kerry with a 3 or 4% lead over Bush.
Then came the nastiness. Bush dragging-out obscure votes from kerry's record in the Senate. He opposed this weapon system, this tank, this plane.. You couldn't live in a swing state and go 15 minutes without seeing these ads on TV. It was saturation advertising at its best/worst. And it worked. The numbers in the swing states tightened-up to a dead heat.
No Osama. No attacks. Oil did, however, peak at $53.14/barrel around October 20th. Americans noticed.
Election night was a nail-biter, but it wasn't nearly as bad a 2000. You couldn't spit in Florida without hitting one of Kerry's poll lawyers, but he still lost the state by about 30000 votes. And Kerry still lost Ohio.
Weird thing though. Kerry won New Hampshire by 2%! And then he brought West Virginia's 5EVs back into the blue; that was a close one, won by less than 1%. Iowa and Wisconsin shocked us, with Kerry winning both more easily than expected. And Pennsylvania and Michigan weren't as close as once thought; MI was won by 8%, PA by 6%. Sweet.
Still, Kerry would have to come-up with 1 more new electoral vote between the Mississippi river and the Left coast. That's when the shock of the evening came in: Colorado voters had approved the ballot measure to split their electoral votes proportionally, resulting in Bush getting 5 of Colorado's EVs.. and Kerry getting the other 4EVs. (you should've seen the look on Hannity's face.. hehe!). The GOP immediately issued a press release about challenging the Colorado measure in court, but that became moot about half an hour later, when it was revealed that Kerry had won Nevada's 5EVs by about 4%.
When that Nevada news came over the waves, pandemonium broke-out. Europeans dancing in the streets. Fireworks were set-off all around the world. A huge number of hungover citizens taking a sick day the following day at work. Fox News immediately setting-out to undermine the new president-elect (and they used the most unflattering photo of Kerry that they could find).
And the other great thing? People got to go to sleep before 5AM that night knowing who their next president would be.
Inauguration went-off without a hitch. There were homeland security officers everywhere, as OBL had released a new video in December warning Kerry that an attack was coming to D.c. "soon." Still, nothing happened.
That, and John Paul Stevens finally retired in June after more than 25 years on the bench.
It's good to be back. But January can't come soon enough again.
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