Posted on: Wednesday, November 3, 2004

EDITORIAL
Presidential race remains in limbo

In an incredibly tight contest reminiscent of our last presidential election, last night's presidential race was too close to determine a winner at press time.

With a commendable record number of votes here in the Islands and throughout the country, the candidates were running close on a razor-thin margin.

In the coming days, election officials will be working to sort out details surrounding the results (including resolving the tricky matter of "provisional votes") and the outcome should be gracefully accepted by both sides. There are far too many dangers abroad and problems at home to go through weeks of uncertainty over who will lead our country for the next four years.

Let's hope this time we can avoid nasty legal gamesmanship. It would be a shameful distraction, when we can least afford it, to see the results of the election eventually tied up in court.

Clearly, once again, the winner of this election has anything but a mandate. The vote results cry out for consensus-building and sound policy decisions on all fronts.

At home, major issues include bringing control to the soaring national debt, dealing with exploding Medicare and Medicaid costs and producing a coherent and sustainable national energy policy.

Abroad, the first goal should be to come up with policies that will settle the situation in Iraq and set a date certain for the return of American troops. And our "war on terrorism" must be refocused where it should have been all along, on al-Qaida and like-minded terrorist groups around the world.

We are a nation divided. We need our president to heal that divide.