Bush wins as campus stays sharply divided

As news of Sen. John Kerry's concession of the election to President Bush spread across campus Wednesday, students contemplated the idea of a second term with disbelief, despair or uninhibited elation.

Declaring the end of a bitter election that remained unresolved well after the polls closed, Bush said on Wednesday, "America has spoken, and I'm humbled by the trust and the confidence of my fellow citizens."

Early Wednesday morning, results in a handful of states — including pivotal Ohio — remained unclear, meaning neither candidate held an electoral college majority. Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards pledged to fight on, but Kerry phoned Bush several hours later to concede the race.

In an election that saw the highest voter turnout since 1964, the Republicans also solidified their advantage in Congress, gaining four seats in both the House and Senate — including that of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

Locally, the Democrats prevailed with Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) reelected by a comfortable margin to a fourth term. In the race for Borough Council, Democratic incumbents Andrew Koontz and Roger Martindell defeated Republican candidate Evan Baehr '05.

And on a campus polarized for months by an unusually bitter campaign season, at no point was the division clearer than on students' faces today.

Sleep-deprived from following the results late into the night, some wore "W" pins and exchanged high fives while others walked around in a daze, looking stunned and angry.

Standing in front of Frist Campus Center's 100-level television just past noon, Gabriela Aoun '08, also a 'Prince' photographer, shook her head in disbelief as she learned that Kerry had conceded the race. Aoun had been watching nearly continuously since 6 p.m. Tuesday evening, sleeping less than five hours and attending only one of her classes.

"I'm just disgusted with the country right now," she said. "Voting for Bush was not an option. This is going to isolate us from the international community and it's going to be irreversible."

But others were thrilled at the outcome — optimistic even as they acknowledged mistakes in Bush's first term.

For Matthew Millen '05, a registered Independent, the decision came down to the issue of moral conviction.

"I think Bush has a much more ingrained set of beliefs," he said. "He hasn't done a good job with Iraq, but he has a solid base in other issues."

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Millen has a two-year-old son, and said his decisions hinge on "what kind of world I want [my son] to grow up in."

Nationwide, exit polls labeled the social agenda the "sleeper" issue of the election, which many pundits said would be determined primarily by Iraq and terrorism.

Between bites of a turkey sandwich Wednesday, Mike Sanberg '05 said he believes the next four years will prove to be much more important than the last, especially with potential judicial appointments.

Sanberg, a politics major, wrote his junior paper on the United States' mistakes in Iraq, but said, "I feel more comfortable with not changing presidents in the middle of it."

But others see the Bush victory as a squandered opportunity to change U.S. foreign policy and international perception.

"If Kerry wins, there will be a real possibility for bipartisan consensus on partisan issues, because many moderate Republicans have been signaling for a long time that they would be open to change," Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80 said Tuesday night. "Kerry would have a better chance of getting more global support . . . and changing public opinion in [European] countries."

Though the margin of victory in some states was small, the election clearly established the legitimacy of an administration that some felt succeeded unfairly in the 2000 election. Bush won a majority of both the popular and electoral votes — a feat last accomplished in by his father in 1988.

"The fact that Bush presided over one of the most conservative administrations in history without a popular mandate for the last four years makes me very worried about how he is going to act over the next four years," Michael Ellenbogen '07 said.

As like-minded students consoled each other, they joked halfheartedly about buying a one-way ticket out of the country.

But Aoun looked ahead, refusing to be demoralized by the defeat. "You have to fight," she said. "You have to stick to the left and fight for the left."