Electioneering, Part I

I paid almost no attention to the 2000 election. I suppose I wrote Shrub off as a joke; I remember thinking "How stupid and desperate are the Republicans that they had to settle for this clown?"
I wasn't passionate about Gore and Lieberman further dampened any trailing enthusiasm I might have had. I recall the time now as being very busy with work and not having a lot of interest.
Then watching the election returns, when one of the networks called Florida for Gore, I saw a name and a face I'd never encountered: one Joe Allbaugh. He was on screaming "no way, we won Florida, we won Florida." I found his air of certainty puzzling and at a deep intuitive level I had the thought "the fix is in."
On 12/12/2000, I watched breathless reporters on the Supreme Court steps at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday reading the court ruling aloud, trying to parse it. When it was concluded that the Florida certification would stand, I had that same deep intuitive sense "we're in for 40 years of this shit/" The architecture of the "permanent majority" had been cemented in place.
The lesson, I suppose, is that I won't let myself be so unconscious again.