I think living in the District for the last year has lulled me into a false sense of the mindset of this country. I mean, if you compare election results for the various states, you'll find that DC has the widest margin of support for Kerry: 90% support for Kerry vs. only 9% for Bush. Even Kerry's home state of Massachusetts has Kerry at 62% and Bush at 37%, certainly not a slim margin, but nowhere near that of DC. So yes, I live in heavily democratic, heavily anti-Bush area, for sure. When you drive around DC, you see anti-Bush propaganda on cars, on t-shirts, on sidewalks. When you talk to people in the streets, in bars, in the line at the grocery store, you realize that these are people that do not like what Bush has done for our country. And I guess I've felt at home because I tend to belong to that group.

But what is so disturbing is how obviously different this reality is from the rest of the United States. How quickly I've forgotten this fact. I mean before DC, I lived in Texas, and I remember how it was, (though I'm trying hard to forget.)

Now with the rest of the votes being counted in Ohio and Kerry honorably conceding his defeat, I'm left a little dazed at what just happened over the last six months, the money that was spent, the time and effort put into trying to set this country back on its feet. What has been different about these last several months is that I've managed to feel something I haven't felt in a while: Hope. I'm definitely going to miss that sense of optimism - that tingling feeling in my gut that things might change. Now I'm left feeling despair, not only because we have four more years of this president, but because I live in a country that voted for him.

So my question is this: how can I (and so many others who live in the Northeast and the Northwest be so out of touch with the rest of the country. How come when I look at that map of the United States on CNN, I see all that red? (And I don't just mean in the figurative sense.) Who are these people, these 'fellow countrymen,' and how can they not see that the last four years have been a terrible disaster.

The answer seems to be 'values.' Exit polls seem to suggest that people who voted for Bush did so because they agree with his 'values.' I guess they agree with irresponsible tax cuts, misguided wars, alienating other nations, and job loss. I guess they like watching capitalism destroy our democracy.

I'd like to be able to say something funny or clever here, but I'm just baffled. I do not get it. I do not understand.

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