From New York Newsday, 11/4/04:

In America, divided we stand

By Ellis Henican


The moment arrived with all the cheap drama of a Swift Boat ad.

This was down in Washington, well after midnight but before the sun
came up.

It was the moment of final proof, when no one could ever doubt again
what a divided land we live in.

Oh, no.

Not Bush and Kerry.

Not red states and blue.

All of that is old news.

America and New York.

From this exhausting election, we learn once and for always:

America is not New York, and the feeling is definitely mutual.

Honestly, could any two places be more different than these?

I did a little informal polling when I'd voted earlier in the day.

This was in lower Manhattan, which by no stretch of the imagination is
typical of America.

The results came in like this:

Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, Kerry and one skinny woman in a running
outfit who looked up at me and rolled her eyes as if to say:

"What? You think I could vote for Bush? Get away from me."

So I went down to Washington to watch the results come, and eventually
they did.

America, spread across the continent in all its red-state glory, is
now apparently convinced:

The war in Iraq is going splendidly.

Tax cuts belong to the rich.

A million missing jobs is nothing to get alarmed about.

Gay people don't need equal rights.

Legislators and police should decide if a woman is allowed to have an
abortion.

The best way to fight a war on terror is to inflame our enemies and
alienate our friends.

Our giant national surplus can be flipped into a gaping deficit, then
thoughtlessly billed to generations to come.

You know the list goes on.

America has spoken, its majority at least.

Loudly and clearly, I suppose.

Fifty-two percent of America - more than enough, in our majority
system - has voted for all of that.

New Yorkers, being clear-eyed people, beg to differ on every count.

The numbers do not lie:

As America was handing George W. Bush and ***** Cheney four more years
in office, New York was conspicuously holding its nose.

Statewide, Kerry got 58 percent of the vote, to Bush's 40 percent.

In the city, the New-York-is-not-America vote was even more lopsided
than that.

Kerry pulled almost three times as many city people as Bush.

Down in Washington, there was a gaggle of Bush campaign workers in the
atrium of the Reagan Building, growing ever more giddy and drunk.

Their candidate, who'd come back from voting in Texas, was up in the
residence at the White House with his family and campaign mastermind
Karl Rove.

Spreading out beyond them was the city of Official Washington, which
seemed to have almost no people at all.

The Congress members and their staffs were back in their districts.

Most federal workers had the election off.

The bars in Washington close early.

And there was almost no traffic on the streets.

A little after 2 a.m., the election clearly tilting Bush's way but not
quite sealed, I left a TV office across the street from the Capitol
and did not head immediately back to my hotel.

Before I went looking for a taxi, I took a little walk through the
desolate neighborhood.

Union Station was up the hill.

The Capitol building was lit up over here.

And the only actual people I ran across in a half-hour walking were a
couple of homeless guys and three evangelical Christians from
Cincinnati taking pictures of each other with the lit-up Capitol as a
backdrop.

"Bush," Charles Watkins told me when I asked who he'd voted for.

"You can tell he's a man of faith. He believes marriage is between a
man and woman. He doesn't like abortion."

"Bush" and "Bush," the two women with him said.

Ohio had already been called for Bush.

New York could have been called even before the first vote was cast.

I asked the three of them what they were doing out on the street so
late and so far from home.

They told me they were driving all night to New York.

They'd never been to Washington.

"We're part of a church group," the man said.

"We're meeting up with some other people at a church in the Times
Square section. We're just doing our part to spread the word."

They seemed like perfectly nice people.

But I'm sorry, this is more American division than I had bargained
for.

Bush and the Republicans running everything.

And missionaries on their way to New York.

_______________________________________________________

Harry

From New York Newsday, 11/4/04:
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/columnists/ny-nyhen044029614nov04,0,5193580.column

In America, divided we stand

By Ellis Henican


The moment arrived with all the cheap drama of a Swift Boat ad.

This was down in Washington, well after midnight but before the sun
came up.

It was the moment of final proof, when no one could ever doubt again
what a divided land we live in.

Oh, no.

Not Bush and Kerry.

Not red states and blue.

All of that is old news.

America and New York.

From this exhausting election, we learn once and for always:

America is not New York, and the feeling is definitely mutual.

Honestly, could any two places be more different than these?

I did a little informal polling when I'd voted earlier in the day.

This was in lower Manhattan, which by no stretch of the imagination is
typical of America.

The results came in like this:

Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, Kerry, Kerry and one skinny woman in a running
outfit who looked up at me and rolled her eyes as if to say:

"What? You think I could vote for Bush? Get away from me."

So I went down to Washington to watch the results come, and eventually
they did.

America, spread across the continent in all its red-state glory, is
now apparently convinced:

The war in Iraq is going splendidly.

Tax cuts belong to the rich.

A million missing jobs is nothing to get alarmed about.

Gay people don't need equal rights.

Legislators and police should decide if a woman is allowed to have an
abortion.

The best way to fight a war on terror is to inflame our enemies and
alienate our friends.

Our giant national surplus can be flipped into a gaping deficit, then
thoughtlessly billed to generations to come.

You know the list goes on.

America has spoken, its majority at least.

Loudly and clearly, I suppose.

Fifty-two percent of America - more than enough, in our majority
system - has voted for all of that.

New Yorkers, being clear-eyed people, beg to differ on every count.

The numbers do not lie:

As America was handing George W. Bush and ***** Cheney four more years
in office, New York was conspicuously holding its nose.

Statewide, Kerry got 58 percent of the vote, to Bush's 40 percent.

In the city, the New-York-is-not-America vote was even more lopsided
than that.

Kerry pulled almost three times as many city people as Bush.

Down in Washington, there was a gaggle of Bush campaign workers in the
atrium of the Reagan Building, growing ever more giddy and drunk.

Their candidate, who'd come back from voting in Texas, was up in the
residence at the White House with his family and campaign mastermind
Karl Rove.

Spreading out beyond them was the city of Official Washington, which
seemed to have almost no people at all.

The Congress members and their staffs were back in their districts.

Most federal workers had the election off.

The bars in Washington close early.

And there was almost no traffic on the streets.

A little after 2 a.m., the election clearly tilting Bush's way but not
quite sealed, I left a TV office across the street from the Capitol
and did not head immediately back to my hotel.

Before I went looking for a taxi, I took a little walk through the
desolate neighborhood.

Union Station was up the hill.

The Capitol building was lit up over here.

And the only actual people I ran across in a half-hour walking were a
couple of homeless guys and three evangelical Christians from
Cincinnati taking pictures of each other with the lit-up Capitol as a
backdrop.

"Bush," Charles Watkins told me when I asked who he'd voted for.

"You can tell he's a man of faith. He believes marriage is between a
man and woman. He doesn't like abortion."

"Bush" and "Bush," the two women with him said.

Ohio had already been called for Bush.

New York could have been called even before the first vote was cast.

I asked the three of them what they were doing out on the street so
late and so far from home.

They told me they were driving all night to New York.

They'd never been to Washington.

"We're part of a church group," the man said.

"We're meeting up with some other people at a church in the Times
Square section. We're just doing our part to spread the word."

They seemed like perfectly nice people.

But I'm sorry, this is more American division than I had bargained
for.

Bush and the Republicans running everything.

And missionaries on their way to New York.

_______________________________________________________

Harry