No, I don't mean that Kerry has already won the election. He will, he will, before this long day is over, if we all get out the vote.
What I mean instead is that I am happy even before we win the election, for two reasons. First, more people are engaged in the process than ever before—at least in my lifetime—and little-d democracy is breathing deeper and stronger as a result. Canvassers and phone-bank callers, letter-writers and bloggers, contributors of money and contributors of time, it's all good. All this intensity and hands-on activity makes for a more engaged and more informed citizenry. Will it finally be possible again to think of ourselves first as citizens, rather than as mere taxpayers or consumers? There is hope.
Second, I'm glad again to be a big-d Democrat. Proud of it, in fact, as Brad DeLong wrote last night. Like DeLong, I've been embarrassed or deeply offended by one policy or another, one action or another, of the Democratic Party over the years—extreme racism before the 60s, the Vietnam adventure, and more recently the "centrist" nostrums of small government and big business. And even when the policies were right, the party's slapdash organization too often reminded me of Will Rogers' comment: "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." It's better this year, sharper, more professional without being too impersonal. DeLong phrases it well:
The Democratic Party has … conducted itself with honor and courage. It has told the truth about its political opponents. It has put forward an alternate vision of America--one that values our allies and builds the Grand Alliance without which the War on Terror will be long and bitter indeed, one that levels with the American people rather than pulling the wool over their eyes with phony intelligence and specious reasons for actions, one that values our soldiers and their lives not to send them into combat in insufficient numbers with inadequate materiel. The Democratic Party has argued for concern with the future of America--while our adversaries argue for the creation of enormous fiscal messes for future generations to clean up. The Democratic Party has argued for equality of opportunity--while our adversaries argue for the great principle that society should be arranged so that the children of the wealthy and the powerful automatically grasp wealth and power themselves. The Democratic Party has argued for effective government--while our adversaries have presented an example of governmental fecklessness and incompetence that I do not believe has been matched anytime in American history.
He's right that the opposition is so mistaken and bumbling this year that the Democratic Party shines simply by contrast. But there is a core of truthfulness, cooperation, and egalitarianism that has a light of its own.
I don't mean to wax too rhapsodic. Any American political party, given the antiidealistic mechanisms of our political system, can only be an imperfect coalition lurching toward several often-incompatible goals simultaneously. And until real campaign-finance reform takes place, there will continue to be too many "malefactors of great wealth"—as Teddy Roosevelt called them—distorting the process on both sides of the aisle. Nevertheless, we Democrats can be proud this year—and happy that we are on the side of reality and grace.
And we'll be even prouder and happier—at the end of the day—when John Kerry wins the election. I estimate the victory will be by 2 million popular votes, with a majority of 284 to 254 in the Electoral College—it's the Allocated map in yesterday's update, with Florida going to the Bush brothers due to the usual shenanigans. But it could be even better! GOTV!
Update: Mark A. R. Kleiman adds up the early returns from New Hampshire and confidently predicts a Kerry sweep: 58%–42% popular vote and 350 electoral votes, concluding, "That, as Mark Twain once said, is the wonderful thing about calculation: you reap such huge returns of speculation for such a trifling investment in fact."
