Tag: election

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The Morning After

The Morning After

What does the Obama victory mean?

 © Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 7th 2012

 

While last night’s victory was hardly a smashing victory for liberalism, a lot of liberals are crowing with delight today. It’s not because it was a big win, but because what was defeated was so utterly vile.

First, there was Mitt Romney himself. The man seemed to have no concept of truthfulness, or any basic core values. Politics is known for attracting flip-floppers and con men, but he stood out, smarmy, empty, so vacantly dishonest that it was hard to tell if he cared, or even knew, when he was lying.

Then there were the Teabaggers. They had a bad night last night. Their chief harridan, Michele Bachmann, was able to get reelected, but only by the slimmest of margins, and in an area redistricted to her advantage. Had it been the same configuration that she got elected in three previous times, she would have lost. Others from the teabag fringe did worse: Alan West, Mourlock, and Akin are all gone. Scott Brown is gone. So are quite a few of the remaining Blue Dogs.

Faux News took a ringing slap to its credibility amongst its faithful viewers. It had been promising a Romney landslide for the past few weeks, with various pundits projecting Romney getting between 300 and 365 Electoral Votes, and up to 16% margins in the popular vote. When it didn’t turn out that way, Karl Rove effectively had an on-air melt down. He managed to stop just short of screaming “But this can’t be happening! The fix was in!” but it was pretty clear that he believed his own prognostication of 330 Electoral Votes for Mittens. Despite what his own polls were telling him.

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Election Eve

Election Eve

Turn off the TV, and read your voter guide

 

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 3rd 2012

 

There’s an election next week. You may have heard mention of it on your TV. Obama versus Romney, which is mediocre versus horrible. Neville Chamberlain versus Hitler.

OK, Romney probably doesn’t deserve to be compared to Hitler, although the comparison might be apt with some of the people supporting him. You have the teabagger crowd looking for ways to legitimize rape. Others want to toss the American people to the tender mercies of large multinational corporations. His own VP candidate champions a libertarian dystopia where the existence of every working American is at the whim of his boss, and if you don’t work, you can’t expect much in the way of an existence. One Republican candidate even called for executing children who disobey their children.

Four years ago, we made “Hey you kids get off my lawn!” jokes about McCain. I don’t think it occurred to anyone that there might be a candidate crazy enough to suggest that it would be alright for McCain to enforce the sanctity of his lawn with an AK-47. That was then. This is now.

The two party system sucks. The electoral college sucks, as anyone trapped in the avalanche of ads in any of the “battlefield states” can attest. I’m guessing most of my readers don’t feel represented in any meaningful way by either party, or either candidate, and are basing your votes on the one least likely to turn your life to shit.

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The Silver Lining

The Silver Lining

Did Frankenstorm take America off a Path to Catastrophe?

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 31st, 2012

First, I am truly sorry for the death and destruction that the Frankenstorm visited upon people in the Northeast. For the vast majority, the storm means a few days without power, and perhaps talks with insurance adjusters over payments for storm damage. For those who lost loved ones or their homes, my deepest regrets.

Coming as it did, a week before a presidential election, it’s impossible not to look at the political calculus of the storm. If the election were as truly close as some of the polls suggested, then the fallout from the storm seems to be strongly favoring Obama.

It isn’t just that it happened while he was President, and the country always gives support to the President in times of national challenge. Merely pointing that political fact out is significantly less cynical than the Republicans, who, days after 9/11, started trying to parlay that massive catastrophe into a tax cut for the rich. Give billionaires tax cuts or the terrorists win. It was pretty disgraceful.

In this instance, there were several other factors that exacerbated the boost that Obama got at the expense of Romney.

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Are They Serious?

Laughter at the GOP trails off to stunned silence

January 6th 2012

 Santorum and Romney effectively finished in a dead tie in the meaningless Iowa caucuses this week, which means that People are taking Santorum Seriously.

This isn’t entirely a surprise. Every other candidate for the GOP except Huntsman and Johnson enjoyed similar surges at one point or another. Given the quality of the GOP field, it became a joke. No candidate was too stupid or too crazy to be dismissed by frantic GOP voters. In fact, the only ones who were dismissed were the ones who were too sane or too intelligent.

But Santorum’s sudden lurch to the top brought about a couple of interesting things this week that show that the people are getting tired of this.

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2012

A Fraughtful Year

December 28th 2011

 2012 is fraught. It is absolutely fraught. It is the most fraught year since 2011, and we all know how fraught that was.

The good news is that it’s a bit shorter than most years. It ends on December 21st, rather than on the usual date ten days later. Or so the Mayan calendar suggests, since that’s the day the calendar ends upon.

Somewhere around here I have a World Almanac for 1966 which I’ve kept all this time because it recounts the glorious World Series win by the Los Angeles Dodgers over the Minnesota Twins. Yes, I probably should get professional help for that. But here’s the thing: the calendar section there ends on December 31st, 1967. Did the world actually come to an end then, and the Nixon years were just a bit of post-ectoplasmic tummyache?

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