If Angel and O'Donnell hadn't run in the Senate, then most probably the GOP could have recaptured the Senate..instead they put up wacky out of the mainstream Tea Party backed candidates like Christine "I'm not a Witch" O'Donnell. 3rd partys always hurt the mainstream party that they are most affiliated with. Nader in 2004 took many votes away from John "Reporting for Duty" Kerry. And of course Ross "I'm not crazy, people are after me" Perot. The Tea Party will dissolve in a few years and re-assimilate into the GOP.
So we are back to gridlock just like Admiral Stockdale said in the 1992 VP debates. The best Obama can hope for is that the economy will begin to rebound and by 2012 he will be reelected, if it doesn't and the GOP can put up a good candidate then Obama is a one termer.
So this election I voted for
Legalization of Ganja...even though I have never smoked the herb in my life
Barbara Boxer
Jerry Brown
and the Democratic opponent to our lifelong congressman Buck McKeon
Looks like I better make it official and change my party registration from Elephant to Donkey.
I'm pretty much a Bill Clinton Democrat
P.S. Whoever put together that Whitman attack ad that showed Whitman and Arnold saying the exact same things....brilliant! One of the best political ads ever.
3 comments:
Classic. Yes the pendulum swings... but the great myth is that the Donkey and the Elephant are really that different. Both serve a populace that believes the government is there to do everything from pay a living to wage to wiping their noses. The brilliance of our "two" party system is that the swinging pendulum is not really swinging. It gives the appearance of a swing, but in actuality just moves from one form of big government to another.
Here's the joke. Clinton was more hands off than Bush... and the economy did better under him. Bush and a Republican congress passed more blue-ticket items than Clinton did (huge education and medicare increases).
When was the last time you heard a president, a senator, a representative, or a governor look into the camera and say, "It doesn't matter if I want to do that, I am not allowed to by the constitution I vowed to uphold."
I know, I know... I'll write your response for you...
"Brett, so you're saying that you want some kook like Bob Barr or Ron Paul. No one wants that!"
And, Bingo! That's the point. No one actually wants the president to mean it when he takes his oath of office. The American people hope that the first act of every new president is perjury - taking an oath he never intends to keep. But then they get upset when he does something that they personally don't like. As if his job was to be their little genie in a bottle.
What would the country look like if government just said "it's not our job to steal from one and give to another..." If senators and representatives said, "I am not going to tax other states just to give handouts to my own..." What if we actually told our children, "If you want to increase your position in life, work hard and get an education...." What would happen of we didn't believe a president's legacy was built upon whether or not I could buy house, but that was actually going to depend upon me?
I'm considered a freak because I actually think that the Constitution is good and helpful. No one actually sits and argues that Clinton, Bush, or Obama have followed the Constitution. There is no attempt to make that case. Rather those who expect such a discussion are laughed at. Our nation has been brought to a point where it thinks the idea of following our Constitution is archaic and worthy of scorn. There is no need to even make a constitutional case for something. The media skewered President Obama for not getting down to the Gulf Coast quicker, but not one demonstrated that it was his job to do so. They yell at him for playing golf and not doing X when it isn't his job to do it. Leave the poor guy alone and stop assuming that his job is to do everything you want.
The coup has already taken place. Most Americans have no idea what is in the Constitution or that is based upon the concept of limitation of Federal powers in order to protect individual liberties (and responsibilities). For a handout today, people gladly give up their freedom tomorrow.
So yes, we will be in gridlock for a while, but not because they are really so different, but because each does not want the other to get credit for the next expansion of federal powers... which, by the way, I our founding fathers always believed was a loss for the individual, not a gain.
Who knows, maybe gridlock is the best we can hope for these days...
This election is the death nail for the GOP. At least that is my opinion. When the GOP fails to do anything different than before, the party will crumble as the people within the party will move hard right toward the tea party losers.
This was a lose/lost for the Republicans from the start. If they lost the elections, then power remains with the donkeys, if the rep's win and take more power they then have to produce. When they fail to produce the party will go away.
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