Peter Gaston
Former Democrat party volunteer Kelly Faulkner, of Taradale, is devastated by the decision of her hero John Kerry to concede so early and give George Bush victory in the US election.
Mrs Faulkner, a native of Los Angeles, cast an absentee vote in the election and stayed up until
after 11pm last night watching the special telecast of the election results.
"I'm so disappointed. I thought Kerry had a real chance and after the last election I thought he should have hung in there longer before conceding," she said.
Mrs Faulkner worked as a volunteer in Los Angeles for at least four elections, two of which saw Bill Clinton elected president of the United States, the world's most powerful position.
As a volunteer, she made telephone calls to undecided voters, stuffed election material into envelopes for delivery in her area, attended rallies and even marched on the Federal Buildings in Los Angeles in protest to the 1991 Gulf War.
"It was a war for oil, the same as the latest invasion of Iraq. From a human rights point of view I did not want either to happen," she said.
Kerry's campaign promise was to bring an end to the Iraq situation.
"It's been a tragedy from start to finish," she said. Americans Overseas for Kerry Hawke's Bay organiser Anne Maloney, of Havelock North, said she was incredibly disappointed and shocked by the result.
Mrs Maloney, who has not lived in the United States for 11 years, said she could not believe 58 million Americans could be so "blind, deaf and dumb" as to vote for Bush. She was concerned about the next four years.
"Bush's policies are going to affect the whole world."
The US today under George Bush was not the America she could remember and was certainly not one in which she cared to live.
Most expats living in countries such as New Zealand would have backed Kerry, she said.
Napier solicitor Susan Hayward, who had been out of the US for 18 years, said she usually voted in the election but this time could not decide.
"Not voting is not my style. I did not know who to vote for," she said.
She didn't care for Bush, while Kerry "was not overwhelmingly wonderful".
