Reasons for hope.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: The Word from Washington - Editorial

I married an optimist. Despite my own anxiety, I was seduced by hope on Election Day, and I felt good all morning and all after noon. I got upbeat bulletins from my beloved throughout the day. Turnout was great. The exit polls were promising. Bush would be defeated.

Living in Wisconsin, where Tommy Baldwin and Russ Feingold--two of the country's most progressive legislators--posted strong victories, it was easy to imagine a progressive sweep nationwide. The energy from the massive Kerry rally in Madison with Bruce Springsteen from the Thursday before lingered in the air. On a day with historic voter turnout, I walked with my three-year-old daughter to our neighborhood polling place, where she marched enthusiastically to the voting booth and insisted on feeding my ballot into the vote-counting machine. She shares her dad's sunny outlook, and wore her lucky shirt. "We're going to win!" she proclaimed.

Even late on election evening, at the victory party for Baldwin and the statewide Kerry campaign, there was laughter and cheering. Vote tallies from around the Upper Midwest looked good. Baldwin tried gamely to talk about the meaning of her victory and, prospectively, Kerry's, to the nation. She praised the left for uniting and showing up in droves at the polls.

"I think there was almost a guttural feeling among progressive voters that we had to reclaim our country," she said. She tried giving me two scenarios, starting with a Kerry victory. "Obviously, it will be up to us to undo some the damage of the Bush Administration, and progressives have a role to play in pushing for the most progressive solution," she said. "Under Bush ... God, I can't even wrap my brain around what will happen if we have another Bush Administration."

We agreed to talk later, as partygoers stood glued to the returns coming in over the looming TV screens. Slowly, the mood turned to anxiety and quiet tension.

The next day, there was gut-gripping pain.

The cold reality--Bush's margin in the popular vote, Kerry's wooden concession speech, Daschle's defeat in the Senate, every branch of government controlled by a band of emboldened rightwing Republicans--was almost too much to take in.

Now what? There is a lot to be learned from the blue island that is the Upper Midwest. Despite heavy spending and frequent visits by the Republicans, Democrats held their ground. Partly that was due, Baldwin suggests, to the progressive tradition from the turn of the last century.

There is...