50 percent victory equals half a loss

From Behind the Lens By RYAN SMITH

Red, white and blue balloons swayed back and forth from tabletops littered with patriotic contraband.

Stars, flags, and faceless names printed on campaign stickers that will never be worn, all set the stage at the local Republican campaign party Tuesday night at a Fresno banquet hall called Pardini’s.

The cream-colored hall, with its elaborate arrangement of chandeliers and mirrors that seemed so large just hours before, suddenly felt too small to contain the excitement of hundreds of Republican supporters as “Bush predicted winner of Florida” flashed across the screen.

The polls were closed for nearly an hour in California, one of the last polling states to close Tuesday, but with many of the states still voting 3,000 miles away and Bush only about 50 electoral votes ahead, nothing was set in stone.

It looked like it might be a fight to the bitter end.

But again and again, the banquet hall surged with emotion as state after state posted results in Bush’s favor.

Hundreds of eyes glared joyously at two television screens on opposite sides of the room, anxiously awaiting the next state to be painted red.

All around, people chanted and cheered “Four more years! Four more years!”

As a Kerry win moved slowly out of reach, there were only two eyes in the entire building that wished one hand had a crayon to color over the red mass creeping across the map on television.

Blue was the color of the Democratic Party in more ways than one Tuesday night.

How helpless a feeling to watch a television determine the fate of the next four years in America.

Can Bush really feel like a winner with little more than 50 percent of the popular vote? I hope so, because it doesn’t seem possible to run a country when the other 50 percent of the country doesn’t think he can handle the job.

And therein lies the paradox.

How can either candidate properly run the country against those kinds of odds?

I’m reminded of the signs that say “United We Stand” and I can’t help but think that statement is far from the truth.