why we vote

I think the American people got really tired and fatigued with the arrogance and style of this administration. There is an old saying ‘If you want to get elected, learn to speak. If you want to stay elected, learn to listen.’ "

Similarly, exit polls showed that about 37 percent of the voters who cast their votes against Republican candidates did so as a protest against Bush personally. Voters seemed to conclude that after six years of "staying the course" with unbendable will, while showering even the most benign critics with contempt and derision.

Bush and his Congressional allies had simply lost the capacity to fix their own mistakes. More interested in being right than in being reasonable, they seemed unable to respond to a range of emerging threats, from a hurricane on the gulf coast to an underground explosion on the Korean Peninsula.

To keep going around and saying that everything’s great and how it’s all going well in Iraq was ridiculous. There’s such a thing as being firm, and then there’s such a thing as ignoring reality."
If this election was about the cost of arrogance, though, then it should also be viewed as a vindication of the much-maligned American voter.

Thoughtful and dynamic leadership, after all, requires a willingness to negotiate and a tolerance for dissent — which is the main reason that Republicans now find themselves glumly packing boxes rather than gleefully continuing to pack the courts.