The Sandspur

Issue date: 11/12/04 Section: Opinions

Media Credit: COLESGAZETTE.COM

On the morning of November 3, here on campus as well as across the nation, we awoke to a truly divided population. There were the cheering Republicans, ecstatic with their triumph, and the depressed liberals, wondering how to go on from here. In any group, although no one stated who they were for, you could easily tell. The Bush supporters were upbeat and excited, the Kerry supporters disillusioned and disappointed.

In many classrooms, the mood was somber. The professors may have expressed their reaction to the election results, and there may have been a class discussion on the topic. For many students on campus, this was the first year they were able to vote. Although some students were indifferent, the great majority was at least somewhat interested in the election, since they felt for the first time that they had a say in the results. For those that were for Kerry, hearing him concede was hard, and very upsetting.

In a CNN/USA Today presidential election outcome reaction poll, thirty three percent of the adults interviewed said that they were very pleased with the outcome of the election, while twenty percent said they were very upset. Some of these people in the very upset category seem to have taken Kerry's loss very personally. One man, apparently extremely distraught over the outcome of last week's election, climbed into the pit marking the spot in New York where the twin towers once stood, and shot himself. He left no note, but his colleagues said that he was a passionate opponent of the war in Iraq, and of George W. Bush. Although this is an extreme example of how much people were affected, it is incredible how seriously many people took this election.

Some Democrats felt a helplessness that they could not tip the elections either way, a complete sense of powerlessness. Although some protestors did take to the streets, most people reported feeling too numb to do much. More than ever, this election caused much frustration. "It just made me cry," Terry Mitchell, 54, an audiologist in Oakland, said of Mr. Bush's reelection. "I am sad that America is asleep at the wheel."
Supporters of Bush, on the other hand, felt relieved that the election process went on without major problems. After the disputed election of 2000, it was comforting to have Bush win the popular vote this time around. They now feel that having Bush in office is the right thing, and not just a one-time accident.

Now that the results are in, President Bush is faced with the challenge of picking up the pieces of a fractured nation. Readers of the Herald were asked to give suggestions of what the President can do to reunite the country. Suggestions ranged from getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, to Democrats compromising, to not doing anything at all. These responses served to indicate just how divided the nation really is. At a time like this, it is important that the President act quickly, before we end up in another Civil War!

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