{"id":61,"date":"2004-11-05T12:43:38","date_gmt":"2004-11-05T18:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2004\/11\/05\/he-truly-won\/"},"modified":"2006-02-15T12:44:38","modified_gmt":"2006-02-15T18:44:38","slug":"he-truly-won","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/11\/he-truly-won\/","title":{"rendered":"He truly won"},"content":{"rendered":"
Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock<\/font><\/h6>\n

Friday, November 5, 2004:<\/b> I don’t know my precise opinion on the presidential election today, except that we who think we are smart better think again. I resent those commentators who blame Kerry: no personality, poor campaigner, bad presentation, because, well, none of this is true enough to have cost him the election.<\/font><\/p>\n

At some point years ago — at age 47 (tomorrow) "years ago" and "not the other day" must be more persuasive — I more fully realized people were different and still could be effective in their field.<\/font><\/p>\n

Huh? Musicians and writers are not of a type, either wild or reclusive, petty or generous. Once I understood this (lesson realized when I was in the Stanford Band, 1977-80), I appreciated people more and relaxed some about first and succeeding impressions.<\/font><\/p>\n

Even if you’re young, in your lifetime you can recall presidents of wildly different skills, which did not consistently relate to the success of their campaign or presidency. Charisma in Nixon, no. Exuberancy in Carter; no, he was reflective. Common man was Bush I; no, he was patrician and graciously so.<\/font><\/p>\n

In these days of primary selection, any candidate who strong enough to become his party’s nominee, or running mate, and make it to November with decent poll numbers probably will be at least an adequate president.<\/font><\/p>\n

The point is more that George II won, not that Kerry lost. Actually, it was the entire Democratic Party that lost. This point and the first point about personalities will not be belabored here.<\/font><\/p>\n

Now is a time for tolerance. When one is fairly religious, you by definition have to think well of your faith and that of others is lacking. Goes with that territory.<\/font><\/p>\n

I can, and am, annoyed by a lot of the so-called Christian Right — until I recall certain remarkable Christians I either know or have studied. There are righteous Christians, just like righteous Muslims or Jews, whose faith supports their loving acts and wisdom.<\/font><\/p>\n

We need a lot more of them.<\/font><\/p>\n

Besides that, people in our families or our neighborhoods voted for George II. It surpasses understanding perhaps, but there you go.<\/font><\/p>\n

I for one am very close to sick of reading analyses that miss usually by a lot, what’s going on, and I am happy to wait days or months until I can figure it out. Yes, I’ll be helped by the thoughts of others; I won’t be terribly original. That’s OK. -30-<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Friday, November 5, 2004: I don’t know my precise opinion on the presidential election today, except that we who think we are smart better think again. I resent those commentators who blame Kerry: no personality, poor campaigner, bad presentation, because, well, none of this is true enough to have cost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":48,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/01\/ex-executive-privilege\/","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":0},"title":"Ex-executive privilege","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Monday, January 17, 2005: Days ago, George II brought in George the First and Bill Clinton to lead private fund-raising for the south Asian tsunami disaster of 12\/26\/04. This is life imitating art! \"Saturday Night Live\" has a periodic cartoon by one of its staffers--\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/10\/thinks-hes-a-comedian\/","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":1},"title":"Thinks he’s a comedian","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"October 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, October 27, 2004. \"The Wall Street Journal\" today in a feature recalled Gracie Allen's 1940 run for president, noting also Eddie Cantor's in 1932 and Will Rogers in 1928 and also 1932. And it mentioned Pat Paulsen's runs in 1968, '72 and '76. No\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":71,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/05\/three-shots\/","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":2},"title":"Three shots","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, May 19, 2004. I just realized something about procrastination that books on self-improvement never mention, nor do interviews with so-called personal coaches. It must be because they're not procrastinators. If they only realized, if they only understood, this. I've got a couple of notes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":82,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/06\/naders-nadir\/","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":3},"title":"Nader’s nadir","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, June 1, 2004. Ralph Nader won't hurt John Kerry, and if he does, the tall Brahmin will deserve the loss. Just like Al Gore. I don't believe Nader cost Gore the election. Nevermind the numbers and the Electoral College; the number indicate damage. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/07\/separation-of-church-press\/","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":4},"title":"Separation of church, press","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 26, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Constitutional separation of church and press Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Monday, July 26, 2004: I want to toss an endorsement to the defense of the First Baptist Church of Springdale and its senior pastor, Ronnie Floyd. An self-proclaimed do-gooder group is trying to sic the IRS against them, citing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":63,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/11\/a-long-night-just-ended\/","url_meta":{"origin":61,"position":5},"title":"A long night just ended","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2004. It is, absurdly, nearly 3 in the morning. My newsroom did not bring in boxes and boxes of mediocre pizza but decent barbecue for the Election Night crew. Unfortunately, I don't eat meat, so the slaw and beans kept me going\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}