Election results

Unless you live in a cave like Osama (and even maybe if you do), you would know that President Bush won re-election. My prediction that President Bush would win was close enough for guv-mint work although I got the percentages and EV wrong. I find interesting the fact that the President got 71% of the vote in Utah and Kerry only got a paltry 27%. Many people will point to this fact as proof that Utah is a one-party (Republican) state where dissent is not allowed. Of course, to them, the fact that Bush got only 9% of the vote in DC while Kerry got 90% doesn't mean exactly the same thing.

I was expecting the Democrats to contest this election, just like the last election, and for awhile, it seemed that my worse fears were realized. However, Senator Kerry decided to concede defeat and bring this election to a close. If Senator Kerry did this to spare the US another 2000 election nightmare, I am very thankful and greatly respect him for his decision. However, something down inside of me says that there are other reasons that he decided to do this. The first is that the Democrats told him that the American public would not stand for another 2000 election fiasco. Since Kerry lost the popular vote and the margin of victory in Ohio was so great, in order to avoid completely destroing whatever respect that the American public has with the Democrats and torpedo Senator Hillary's chances for president, he was told that no one would support him. The second is that the Swift Boat Veterans actually had info that he was given a dishonorable discharge from the military. Imagine what would happen if Senator Kerry had decided to contest the election in Ohio. Already a majority of the US public would not want this and would look down on this endeavour. Then, the Swiftie's start bombarding the airwaves with commercials showing that Senator John Kerry had received a dishonorable discharge from the military. Suddenly, Senator Kerry has gone from a presidential candidate who is trying to steal the election to a disgraced Vietnam War protestor who is trying to steal the election. The Democratic party would be destroyed. Regardless of the reason, Senator Kerry decided to call it quits and save everyone in the US from another prolonged election nightmare.

The anti-gay marriage amendment in Utah passed (Duh!) by only 66%. I had thought it would do better (>70%), but I guess with all the people who are involved in the arts in Utah, this was to be expected. It is interesting that more people voted for President Bush than the anti-gay marriage amendment, so there must be more closet gay Republicans in Utah than expected.

Everyone else that I thought would win did, except for the 2nd Congressional District race. The 2nd Congressional District contains large parts of Salt Lake City and it seems that the Republicans can't ever seem to field a decent candidate. As a result, the incumbent Democrat, Jim Matheson, was re-elected.