Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [118]
Epilogue—Tallahassee Hi-Ho
Maria Cantwell received 1,199,437 of the votes while her opponent, Slade Gorton, received 1,197,208. Nader received a relatively strong 4% of the vote, or 103,002 votes. It can be safely assumed that many of those 100,000 Naderites also supported Cantwell as opposed to the Republican or Libertarian challenger (who received only 2.63% of the vote). Election results are from the Washington State General Election Final Report.
Molly Ivins’ article, “Swing-State Progressives Ought to Think Back to ‘68,” was published on November 1, 2000. The vote counts for all of the candidates are officially certified results from the Florida Department of State. Green Party standings come from the Green Party of California and Nader 2000/2004.
AKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’D LIKE TO acknowledge, first and foremost, those of you who have read this book. I hope you had a few good laughs. I hope it has inspired you to go and raise a ruckus. You are the only ones who are going to change things. Promise me that you won’t just put this book down and go back to playing solitaire on your computer or checking your E-mail for the tenth time today. I’ve checked mine two dozen times today already—and it’s only noon. I’m not getting a damn thing done.
Next, I’d like to acknowledge those of you who bought Downsize This and made my first book a bestseller. That allowed this one to get published. I only get this platform if the beast gets fed. No one is publishing my book because they think it’s a good idea to kill whitey or call the president the “president.” If this book does well, you will hear from me again. If not, there’s always something interesting to watch on Nick at Night.
I also want to thank those who stop me in the street and tell me their stories about living/struggling/surviving in America. All that you have told me or written to me has had a profound impact on my work and my being and I thank you for sharing your experiences with me.
Thanks to the good people at ReganBooks and HarperCollins for making this book happen, especially to Judith Regan, the publisher, for taking the risk and having the patience. Also, thanks to my editor, Cal Morgan, for teaching me words I have never heard of (words of which I have never heard?). And thanks to everyone else there who goes unheralded but who has made it possible for me to have my say and see it end up in real bookstores: Jennifer Suitor, Lisa Bullaro, Shelby Meizlik, Cassie Jones, Kim Lewis, Lorie Young, Kurt Andrews, Andrea Molitor, Carl Raymond, Paul Olsewski, Jamilet Ortiz, Tom Wengelewski, Lucy Albanese, Kris Tobiassen, Brenda Woodward, Adrian James, and Westchester Book Composition. Thanks to Paul Brown for the book jacket design. Thanks also to Susan Weinberg at HarperPerennial for first bringing me to HarperCollins.
I also want to thank all of you who work in the bookstores selling these books and to the librarians out there who help steer kids to some good reading. Your efforts are truly appreciated. And thanks to Don Epstein and all the people at GTN who organized the “Stupid White Men Tour Across America” that will accompany this book. Without you there never would have been “The Big One.”
Thanks to those who helped me research and pull this book together and keep it as timely as possible. The publisher had to literally pry the manuscript from us and drive it to the printer at the last possible moment as we were still waiting for one more forest or artery for Cheney to destroy. First and foremost, Kathleen Glynn, who helped me get started and stayed with it to make this the book that it is. My co-conspirators include Ann Cohen (whose greatest contribution, among many, to this book was explaining to me how a toilet seat and a bar of soap works), Amy McCampbell (who came here for a few days to work on my movie and