Subject:  Kerry Concedes Race, but 'Our Fight Goes On' |
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Date Posted: 16:04:47 11/03/04 Wed
Kerry Concedes Race, but 'Our Fight Goes On'
By JAMES BARRON
Published: November 3, 2004
Ending one of the bitterest campaigns in American history, Senator John Kerry called on fellow Democrats today to remain committed to the ideals on which he campaigned.
"Our fight goes on to put America back to work and to make our economy a great engine of job growth,'' he told supporters in Boston, running through a host of issues that included affordable health care, the environment and equality.
And even as he called on his supporters to "bridge the partisan divide,'' he had a message for President Bush. "America is in need of unity and longing for a larger measure of compassion,'' he said. "I hope President Bush will advance those values in the coming years.''
Mr. Kerry and his running mate, Senator John Edwards, made appearances at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall about two hours after Mr. Kerry telephoned Mr. Bush at the White House to say he had decided not to challenge the results in Ohio, where a slim margin and thousands of uncounted provisional ballots could have become to this election what Florida's butterfly ballots and hanging chads were to the election of 2000.
"He said, 'Congratulations, Mr. President,' '' Mr. Kerry's press secretary, Stephanie Cutter said. She described the conversation as "courteous'' and said that Mr. Kerry had told the president it was time to "unify this country.'' Mr. Bush's presidential press secretary, Scott McClellan, characterized the call as "gracious." Mr. Bush - who stayed up until 5 a.m., checking the returns and conferring with aides - is expected to deliver his victory speech shortly after 3 p.m.
Mr. Kerry, sounding hoarse after fiddling with the microphone as the crowd cheered, said his telephone conversation with the president had been conciliatory. "We talked about the danger of division in our country and the need, the desperate need, for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together,'' Mr. Kerry said. "Today, I hope that we can begin the healing.''
But he also expressed disappointment after a long and rough campaign that featured mammoth get-out-the-vote efforts on both sides and ended with talk of a polarized nation. Referring to volunteers who took time off from their jobs or from school to work on his campaign, he said: "I wish, you don't know how much, that I could have brought this race home for you, for them. And I say to them now, don't lose faith. What you did made a difference.''
Mr. Kerry's decision not to challenge the Ohio balloting headed off a potential rerun of 2000, when ballot disputes left the election in limbo for more than than a month, until the United States Supreme Court effectively declared him the nation's 43rd president over Al Gore by halting further recounts in Florida.
Unlike 2000, Mr. Bush won the popular vote this time. With 98 percent of the national vote counted, Mr. Bush was leading Mr. Kerry by a margin of 51 percent to 48 percent. Over all, the president had an margin of victory of about 3.5 million votes, and was the first presidential candidate since his father, in 1988, to receive more than 50 percent of the popular vote.
Florida gave Mr. Bush solid support this time - he received 3,836,216 votes there, or 52 percent, to 3,459,293, or 47 percent - for Mr. Kerry. And the percentages from Ohio appeared to be similar. There, with 99 percent of the vote reported, Mr. Bush was ahead by a margin of 51 percent to 48.5 percent for Mr. Kerry; the president had an edge of about 130,000 votes.
Early today, after bitter court fights against Republican efforts to post election monitors in Ohio polling places - efforts the Democrats feared would intimidate minority voters and reduce turnout - Mr. Kerry's supporters homed in on the still-uncounted provisional ballots there. Ohio allows voters to cast such a ballot if election workers find some reason to question their eligibility.
Ohio officials said early today that they knew of 135,149 such ballots. But there could be more. Before Mr. Kerry conceded, a dozen counties had not totaled their provisional ballots. In past elections, about 10 percent of the provisional ballot total had come from those counties.
As strategists from both parties scrambled to review the fine points of Ohio's election laws, it became clear that not all provisional the ballots would represent legitimate votes. Provisional ballots can be challenged and discarded for having been filed in the wrong precinct, for example, or because the voter does not meet residency or citizenship requirements. Those decisions are made by a bipartisan board of elections, and 2-to-2 ties mean a ballot is invalidated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/03/politics/campaign/04campaigncnd.html
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