Some musings from one of the millions of disgruntled, disgusted and disillusioned conservatives on Tuesday's election results...
The political landscape has changed drastically in the United States in the last 48 hours. Both houses of Congress have changed hands, Don Rumsfeld is out as Sec Def, and Bush is now a lame duck President in every sense of the word. Many things in DC have not changed, though. There's still more hot air per cubic centimeter than anywhere else on the planet.
Pundits have had a whole lot to talk about... and as usual only about 10% of it makes a lick of sense. Some of the more outrageous and ridiculous ruminations have mentioned words like "mandate." Give me a break. Every race was a squeaker, and the Senate race in Virginia may well end up in a recount because the margin was less than 1/2 of 1%. A mandate was the Johnson landslide of '64, or Reagan carrying every state except Minnesota in '84.
This was the American people sending a message to the Republicans, not giving a mandate to the Democrats. We were telling the Republicans we are tired of extreme partisanship, incompetence, scandals, and no apparent plan for Iraq. The only thing the Democrats did to earn the supposed "mandate" was that they weren't the Republicans. The most astute political comment I've heard all week was Jon Stewart on the Daily Show who described the Democratic strategy in this election as "backing out of the room slowly while your brother is getting yelled at."
On Tuesday I proudly voted to re-elect Georgia's Governor, Sonny Pardue. Other than that, I held my nose as I voted Republican. But I can't tell you I felt good about it. As I watched the results on television, I couldn't help but think, "They had it coming. They did this to themselves."
It's over now, thank God. No more ominous background music as we're told that one of the candidates once voted to approve the death penalty for Girl Scouts. No more calls during dinner from audio animatronic versions of national figures ("Hello. This is former Attorney General John Ashcroft calling to tell you the very future of our Republic depends on you going to the polls on November 7th...") No more election signs every 1.5 feet along every road in America. Hey, maybe now the folks in Washington will actually work together to make this country better, not just posturing and positioning to gain more power. Yeah. And maybe monkeys will fly, too.
Hey, politicians... we're the American electorate and we approved this message.
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