On Tuesday night my son and his friend were walking toward the
polling place at New Brighton on Staten Island when two young men
in hip-hop gear wearing do-rags on their heads approached them.
"Yo, vote for Bush," they said in unison.
My son thought they were kidding, but as they passed by, one of
the youth said in a defiant tone, "We got to finish the job.
Make sure we win the war."
That evening, my son ran into three other minority-group youths
voicing similar sentiments. The liberal elite of New York might
find that attitude difficult to understand, because it is
completely and totally disconnected from the "heart and
soul" of America.
Apparently, many of those New Yorkers misread the 2002 election
results, or else they wouldn't have been so stunned by the
results of last Tuesday's election. The truth was out there
staring them in the face, but it was on the talk radio waves and
on the Internet Web-logs. They chose instead to believe what they
read in the mainstream publications, or what was filtered through
the liberal hosts on network television.
If they'd tuned in to the national talk radio shows they would
have found out that the exit polls were not reflecting reality.
Callers to talk radio were telling the listeners that the exit
pollsters were ignoring them if they were wearing American flags,
or red, white, and blue clothing. They claimed that only Kerry
voters were filling out the exit poll data sheets. Many callers
said they refused to tell the pollster whom they voted for. For
those who think that only morons listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean
Hannity, last Tuesday was a rude awakening.
The Kerry campaign brought out the entertainment industry to
attract the youth vote. I covered the March for Life in January
and reported that the young people in the huge crowds were solid
Bush supporters - and those marchers didn't need rock stars to
drag them to rallies. These were "broken glass" Bush
supporters. That particular term emerged from the Internet
bloggers who promised to drag their bodies over broken glass to
vote for the president.
What went wrong, the Kerry supporters are asking. One caller to
the John Gambling show was in tears asking how so many people
could vote over moral issues when there are more important issues
at stake. Young lady, to many Americans, including the nearly 3
million New Yorkers who voted to reelect President Bush, there is
nothing more important than the moral issues.
A man regarded by many people as America's finest living writer,
Tom Wolfe, was interviewed by Guardian Unlimited in the United
Kingdom. He referred to a column that Tina Brown wrote about
being at a dinner for press and television heavyweights
discussing how they were going to get rid of Mr. Bush when their
waiter, who was from the suburbs, declared he would be voting for
Mr. Bush. Ms. Brown writes about pondering how she can go about
changing his mind.
Mr. Wolfe told the Guardian reporter, "Tina and her circle
in the media do not have a clue about the rest of the United
States." Mr. Wolfe also said, "I cannot stand the
lock-step among everyone in my particular world. They all do the
same thing, without variation. It gets so boring."
The New York liberal elite is self-isolating. It does not invite
challenging debate. It continues to believe that people with
moral values are all religious fanatics. These self-described
intellectuals consider us as bad as the Taliban. That is absurd.
We may have the values of a traditional America, but many of us
are also children of the 1960s who fought for civil rights and
sponsored rock 'n' roll with our hard-earned money. We have gay
friends and relatives. Many of us have experienced the pain of
abortion and unwanted pregnancies and sympathize with the
difficult choices women face every day. Our choice is to offer
them the help they need without killing innocent life.
We see our respected values, which this country was built on,
shredded by a small percentage of well-connected ideologues who
have corrupted our judicial system to bypass the will of the
people. We are parents who do not believe that pornography
belongs in schools or libraries with our children. We enjoy a
spirited debate with those who disagree with us. We do not behead
them.
Most important, we can recognize evil in a foreign enemy but
still recognize humanity in all our neighbors. If the minority
youth of New Brighton get it, why can't the intelligentsia of New
York?