Life Of Illusion (The Director's Cut)

Latest Newspaper Column: 

[Note: this is the unedited version. The one in the paper eliminates the first paragraphs because the editor was afraid the Party of Love might firebomb the newspaper office.] 

So now, at long last, the election is over, and President Barack Obama will have his second term. Before we get to our discussion of what happened and why, let me just take the time to say: HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

Ahem. On to the post-election analysis.

I’ve said before that Mitt Romney was destined to be the John Kerry of the Republican Party. Each man was a rich, entitled Massachusetts moderate trying to convince his party's skeptical base he was one of them, despite having once supported the thing that that base purported to despise most (the Iraq War in Kerry's case, the individual mandate in Romney's). Both Kerry and Romney ran against controversial incumbents, with a central message that amounted to “I’m not him.” And both fell short. But Mitt Romney fell much shorter than Kerry. Why? Perhaps because the “him” Romney was running against didn’t exist.

The imaginary Barack Obama that the Republicans were running against bore little or no resemblance to the actual man in the White House. Imaginary Obama was a scowling, far-left radical, a socialist, a fascist or a communist, depending on who was yelling into the mike at the time. Imaginary Obama was simultaneously an evil schemer who was plotting 24/7 to destroy America and a guy who was too dumb to get into college without affirmative action or to speak without a teleprompter. Imaginary Obama was a divisive, harshly partisan figure, hated by all, even his former supporters. Worst of all, he was an incompetent, a miserable failure at absolutely everything he touched.

The problem with this strategy is that the actual Barack Obama that non-delusional people could see was a smart, calm, moderate with good likability ratings who’d brought the unemployment numbers down at a steady if sometimes maddeningly slow pace, saved the auto industry, and brought Osama bin Laden to justice. People heard the Right dismissing every bit of good news, crying doom and gloom, and insisting “everything’s getting worse,” looked around, and went, “hmmm, it really isn’t.”

Then along came Sandy. The quick Presidential response to the hurricane and the grateful reaction of Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who only a few weeks before had been savaging Obama at the GOP convention, blew away any lingering doubts non-delusional voters may have had about both the President’s competence and his ability to work with Republicans.

As the polls showed the President pulling further and further ahead in crucial swing states, Republicans began pulling the blanket of delusion over their heads. Pundits like Dick Morris, Karl Rove, Michael Barone and even the usually sane George W. Will predicted a Romney landslide, with Will predicting 321 EVs for Romney.

 One expects this sort of thing from hacks like Morris, Barone and Rove, but Will really should have known better. The polls were “skewed,” they insisted, because they assumed that Democratic voter turnout would be the same in 2012 as it was in 2008. That wasn’t going to happen this year, they asserted with the all the misguided and uninformed bravado of a latter-day George Armstrong Custer.

Actually, had you asked earlier in the year, I might have said you had a point. There were a lot of disaffected Democrats, particularly on the Left. (Anyone who says liberals all think the same has clearly never been around any). But that was before the GOP, some of its prominent supporters, and its candidates began taking extreme radical positions on things like abortion, contraception, gay rights, and immigration, and saying things that frightened, offended or ticked off Latinos, LGBT people, African-Americans, and especially women. That fired up the very constituencies the GOP had told themselves would stay home.

So thanks, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, Todd Akin, Rick Santorum, John Koster, Richard Mourdock, etc.! You fired liberals up and damaged the GOP brand with moderates, probably for years. And right wingers, dwelling as they do in their tightly woven cocoons where only Fox News and talk radio can penetrate, never even saw it. They still don’t. But numbers really don’t lie.

Now that the Republican leadership has failed in their stated number one goal of making Barack Obama a “one term president,” what will they do? Will they actually start pushing bills other than futile grandstanding attempts to “repeal Obamacare”? Will they actually deal in good faith on the budget?

Well, we live in hope. But first they’re going to have to do is stop deluding themselves that everyone hates the President and the Democrats as much as they think they do and that they’ll be rewarded for obstructionism. Reality, it’s said, has a well-known liberal bias, but it’s still reality. 

What a Guy

The last days of Romneyland - First Read

"Ann Romney's remarks brought several staffers to tears as she told the assembled group that they would always be part of the fabric of the Romney family."

But: 

"Aides taking cabs home late that night got rude awakenings when they found the credit cards linked to the campaign no longer worked."

Why November? Why Tuesday?

Latest Newspaper Column:

As Hurricane Sandy bore down on the Northeast, more than a few people raised the question: What happens if the affected states are still wrecked by Election Day?

Would the election still go on? Could it? Would it be necessary to postpone it? Can you even do that? What plans are in place for the situation where a major disaster occurs on or about Election Day?

Taking the last question first, the answer is: None. And it doesn't look as if there are going to be any such contingency plan put in place in the foreseeable future. The U.S. Congress sets the day for the national election, and let's face it, they're not the most nimble or quick-moving of bodies on their best day.

Which raises another question: Why that day of all days? Why November, and why Tuesday?

The answers lie in the early days of the formation of our republic, when we were largely a nation of farmers. Congress established the "Tuesday after the first Monday in the month of November" by a law passed in 1845.

Before that, the individual states could hold their presidential elections any time they wanted, so long as it was within the 34 days before the Electoral College met on the first Wednesday in December. Imagine what that would do to TV election coverage if they did it that way now. The reporters and pundits, poor dears, would be dead of exhaustion before it was all over. There'd probably be some disadvantages as well.

In any case, Congress decided to standardize the election system so that Election Day was the same all over. Remember that back then a lot of the population lived in rural areas, but did their voting in towns they could only reach by horse, mule, wagon or buggy. That took time.

The records of the congressional debate show that the legislators were aware of the challenges that created. November was not only within that 34-day window before the electors met, but it was also after the last of the harvest had been taken in, so a lot of people were going to be coming to town anyway. A day in November, therefore, still made sense.

To have Election Day on Monday, however, you'd have to make people travel on the Sabbath, so that was out. In most places, Wednesday was market day, when farmers were busy making their money selling the crop, then buying whatever they were going to need for the winter. Thursday was the day for traveling home, and everyone would want to be cleared out by Friday. So Tuesday it was.

In those days, Election Day was a festive event. There were speeches, bands and parades. People would get dressed up, socialize with their neighbors and, in a lot of cases, party like maniacs.

Today, several states mandate closing the bars and banning liquor sales on Election Day, but in the olden days, as far back as Colonial times, whiskey was as much a part of the day as brass bands and bunting.

For example, when George Washington ran for his first political office in the Virginia House of Burgesses, he neglected to wet the whistles of voters and was soundly trounced by his opponent, who supplied them with beer, wine, whiskey and rum punch. The next time he ran, Ol' George (a fast learner) rolled out the barrel, got everyone good and hammered, and won handily.

So now that we've transformed from a largely agrarian nation to one where a 40-plus-hour, five-weekday work week is more the standard, does it really make sense to only have voting on one day, a workday, when it can be a real hassle to go stand in a line and wait to vote - and it may be downright impossible, given the demands of many jobs, not to mention child care?

Well, no. It really doesn't. Many states, like our own North Carolina, have expanded absentee and early voting to extend the period in which voters may cast their ballot. Some states, like New Jersey and California, allow voting by mail. Oregon's gone even further: It conducts all its elections by mail.

We're moving the voting process from the 19th century into the 21st. The first thing to go, sadly enough, was the free booze. But now states are working on expanding access to the polls, which means that people have fewer and fewer excuses.

So, whoever you are, if you haven't done so already, get out there and vote. It's important.

The Party of Love Is At It Again

Officials investigating complaints of Obama effigy outside NC voting site - Politics - NewsObserver.com

State election officials are looking into reports that a truck pulled into the parking lot outside an early voting site this morning in Goldsboro towing a trailer displaying effigies of President Barack Obama, Gov. Bev Perdue and other officials, all hanging from nooses.

The contraption, which also showed effigies of a judge and law enforcement officials, was reportedly displayed outside the Wayne County Public Library on Ash Street, a one-stop early voting site. Election workers have little jurisdiction beyond the buffer zone around voting sites.

But let's not forget...it's the Liberals who are filled with hate. 

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/11/01/2454690/officials-investigating-complaints.html#storylink=addthis#storylink=cpy

Taking A Break From All the Politics So We Can Relax and Watch Stuff Blow Up

We haven't had a "stuff blows up" post in quite a while, so here's some footage of a fire in a rocket fuel plant.

The Border Was Just Asking For It

I have seen some crazy and offensive shit posted at  my local paper's website, but this post, by a drooling idiot hiding behind the moniker 101jackson, takes the cake, as he responds to my latest column by equating illegal immigration with rape:

Rape in this country is not as widespread as the Democrats make it out to be, unless you want to consider the illegals penetrating our borders, now that is rape, or the fact that they also have been getting tax refunds through fraud, again that is rape being carried out by the same illegals who raped us the first time by sneaking in, well come to think of it we are getting raped repeatably and it seems the Democrats are loving it since they just lay down spread our border patrols out so thin making forceable entry seem like it is conscensual. And again Obama will hold us down and for a few more votes pull down our pants. Why do you refrain from the immigration topic when making your weekly speech?

The Party of Love: you can always depend on them.  No wonder they're losing among women. 

(Post title courtesy of  Nic Rhoades)