I know I should be outraged over this; I just can’t bring myself to be so. It’s so funny. It’s like watching little mice run around and over each other, squeaking and squawking. I assume they’re speaking some little mice language, but it makes no sense and is just cute and funny. Or it’s like watching a hamster furiously running on its wheel like it’s actually going to get somewhere. You can’t help but marvel at the little bugger’s drive, but also at its innate stupidity.
Who am I comparing to cute but mindless rodents? These people:
I was around in 2000, and I understand the zeal when you have a President-elect who shouldn’t be. But even we, who had something of a case, got over it. But watching these people scurry about in total delusion provides entertainment I thought I’d lost when Sarah Palin went back to Alaska (though her bills keep coming in!)
Thanks little people. In the post-election glow, I needed something to continue to make me laugh.
It’ll all be over soon, but the drinking. The champagne if it goes one way, whatever makes you pass out faster if it goes the other way. Some bar must have a Joe the Plumber or Caribou Barbie shot ready for us in case we need to be put out of our misery.Not likely, but I’m hyper superstitious right now. I still won’t declare victory until it’s actually declared. And today will be extra long for me as a result of it. Bated breath is starting to feel like a permanent state of being. So I’ll stick to the inane until I wake up tomorrow and know whether this is a dream or a nightmare. I had committed myself to write something every week day during my sabbatical; I didn’t commit to it all being good.
Joe the fucking Plumber? That’s a new low in a campaign. The celebrity of him, I mean. After McCain tried to compare Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears he inflates a nothing into national celebrity? And Joe’s his role model? That’s going down in the annals of ridiculousness. If McCain were to end up in the White House, is he going to give Joe a staff position? It can’t be White House plumber, because the guy’s unlicensed. And it can’t have anything to do with money, since the guy’s a tax scofflaw. I know, court jester! Wait, I think Sarah Palin is actually qualified for that job.
I doubt any McCain supporters will remember this, but Obama made a big deal about texting anyone who wanted when he was officially declared the nominee. What was this all about? Getting cell phone numbers. The youth vote generally don’t have land lines, they only have cell phones. This means they don’t get included in the major polls. But Obama’s campaign has those cell phone numbers so his campaign’s polling is probably a lot more accurate, and a bit higher.
Overall, Facebook has been fascinating for me for this election season. I live in the liberal bubble of Seattle so I didn’t really know McCain supporters at all until my friends list exploded after my high school reunion.
I wonder if Battlestar Galactica will come up in the profanity case before the Supreme Court. If you don’t watch the greatest show that ever hit television, I’ll explain the relevance. BSG has in its vernacular, frack. This word is used exactly as the majority of us use the word fuck. Frack me, frack you, mother fracker, what the frack, and on and on. And the FCC can’t do a damn thing about it because they’ve so narrowly focused on the word, not the meaning. Language evolves. The FCC is “protecting” children from nothing by such narrow mindedness.
It’s tempting to bemoan money in political campaigns. And there are problems. But money is the currency by which speech is enabled. Sometimes it doesn’t take a lot of money (the launch of the blogosphere), sometimes it takes a lot (Obama’s network infomercial). But like everything else in this country, money is the means by which a message gets out. Tinkering with the system will never end, of course, but it’s also important to remember that money is speech as well. Ah, the complicated Constitution in our times.
As far as I know, I don’t know anyone who is voting for Prop 8 in California. I hope I never know anyone who would vote for it.
Where’s Ann Coulter? Where is the woman I love to hate? Where is her fanatical, nonsensical support for Sarah Palin? I need her. Michelle Malkin is a pale shadow to the skinny acid-tongued bitch goddess. But it looks like Ann is pretty much sitting out this election. Wow, you people scared off Ann Coulter?!? I’m truly frightened.
It’s no secret Ann, like most rabid right-wing social conservatives, didn’t like John McCain. She was ready to support Hillary rather than deal with a McCain candidacy. But not Obama. So I was expecting the full force and fury of this nut job unleashed. But the best she can do is constantly refer to him as B. Hussein Obama. Weak sauce! Tepid tea! It’s no fun to make fun of someone who isn’t even trying.
Sure, she’ll bash Obama and Biden, and her first article after the Palin pick was all sunny and supportive. Then, nothing. I mean, she writes her weekly column, but none of it has any bite. And if you Google her, you get more recent hits of Hasselback saying she’s not like Coulter than anything Coulter says herself. The post-VP debate column barely mentioned Sarah Palin and two weeks ago her column was about polling statistics. Middle of October, and she’s talking about statistics? The last bastion of the uninterested? What the hell happened Ann?
Even look at her most recent Hannity & Colmes appearance. Lame, very lame. Where’s the fire, the bite, even the wit? No wonder Bill Maher doesn’t have her on anymore.
Guess that little bit from Palin about there being a Constitutional right to privacy didn’t jibe with Ann’s worldview. Someone like Ann probably gaped in horror at the misstep after misstep which only served to rub more salt in the McCain induced wound. Ann Coulter is mean, wrong, nasty, and certifiable. But she’s a consistent psycho.
There is absolutely nothing new to write about politically and I’m completely incapable of writing about anything else until the election is decided. So here’s another round of political inanities. None of this is meant to be useful, insightful, infuriating, or entertaining. If it is any of those things, gravy.
The Obamercial was wonderfully done. Everything about it screamed leadership and is a welcome change from the stumbling bumbling of curious George. If nothing else, watching this campaign has raised the bar on what campaigning is about.
I was a little concerned about how Jon Stewart would fare with an Obama Administration. But as I was recently reminded by a post someone made on Facebook, he—should Obama win—will still have Joe Biden. Go Joe!
Speaking of Facebook, it’s been a godsend to me this election cycle. I live in a very liberal bubble, and the recent addition of so many of my former classmates in Florida (most of who are either very much for McCain or more probably very much against Obama) has pierced that bubble. In previous elections I’ve had my father to spar against, but even he’s solidly in the Obama camp.
And speaking of Florida, huge kudos to Governor Charlie Crist for supporting voter enfranchisement by extending early voting hours, regardless of the politics. Probably paving his way for 2012. I don’t know much about Crist, but I do know he was on a short-list for McCain’s VP pick. Is he centering himself for the coming Republican schism and positioning himself for 2012 or 2016? North Carolina also made a good, reasoned, decision regarding extending their early voting hours:
No matter what, more voting is good for this country. Our turnout has been pathetic.
Palin seems to have fallen off the news cycle. This is probably a good thing, but leaves me without as much inane situations to write about. But since this wouldn’t be much of an inanities post without a mention about the Palin wardrobe malfunction, here’s Piper’s opinion. Smart kid!
I have a hard time believing that conservative intellectuals are surprised that the above situation is happening. This conservative intellectual criticism has been a building trend this election with one after another coming out of the closet to either endorse Obama, criticize Palin, and/or question McCain.
Conspiracy Theory Alert Ahead …
The fear of the Republicans this election year was that the base wouldn’t come out to vote because of their deep suspicion of McCain. I think that was an empty fear when, while they may hate McCain, no way would they stand for an Obama presidency either. So there was no need to pander to the base with the Sarah Palin pick. As long as they stayed away from Lieberman, any of the other picks would have been fine and the social conservatives would have come out in the end.
But the independents had already started turning towards Obama during the Democratic primary season. Conservative intellectuals started to smell defeat. Their candidate was old and had eight years of mucking up his record on the national stage. The social conservatives weren’t playing along but any attempt to oust them from the party at this stage would be too obvious. So throw Palin in the mix and the social conservatives are mollified once again that they’re the true base of the Republican Party.
But what if it was all a trick? A strategy to schism the party and return the GOP to its economic conservative roots?
Like my earlier crackpot theory about Sarah Palin as the tool to discredit women, this one rests on the premise that the Republicans know they are going to lose this election and so decided some good must come of it, for them. By picking a member of the religious right wing as the VP, McCain seems to be acknowledging the religious conservatives’ crucial role in the Republican Party, but perhaps it’s just to set them up as a handy scapegoat when he loses. Was this plan all along?
If McCain loses (and today’s projections are more dismal for him than ever with Obama polling at 354-375—depending on which electoral vote mapping site you use), conservative intellectuals will blame the Palin pick. The social/religious conservatives will blame McCain and the conservatives who tanked Palin in the op-eds and endorsements. With the Democrats in control of the executive and legislative branches of government, the Republicans could actually have the breathing room to fix what’s gone wrong in their party. And they need to.
It’s already happening, the RNC is pulling out of races where hardcore social conservative candidates are having trouble (Bachman and Musgrave—far right conservatives—most notably) and the social conservatives are threatening to pull money from the RNC. They should. The Republican Party has done nothing to reward this group for the 2000 and 2004 elections. If Obama wins, Roe v. Wade will not even be in play for another 30-40 years. What will they run on then? The Republican Party does not need, in a post-Obama administration, the rabble rousing over abortion and gay marriage. They need to hunker down to the ideological roots of their party, fiscal conservative economics.
It does not say good things about our country that the race for the leadership of the free world devolves into such petty attacks as we have seen. We need to expunge the fringe politics from our executive branch and put them where they belong, in the Congress.
Green Party members, Libertarians, and extreme social conservatives take note. You are never going to win the executive branch and actually enact your policies while under the umbrella of a major party (what’s George W. Bush done for you lately?). Far-left liberals, Nader is never going to win the White House. The better bet would be for all these other movements to disengage from the two major parties and start actively supporting candidates for Congress under their own label. Let the two major parties continue to duke it out for Senate and the White House, start infiltrating the House. The House is supposed to be the party of the people and should have all the bickering, fighting, compromise, and deal-making that people do. Start building the foundations of your own parties in the House of Representatives and make the House truly represent the people.
Naturally these smaller parties would caucus with one of the two larger parties. Or even, gasp, with each other on certain issues that they can agree upon from time to time. From that stage, under their own labels, they could have a larger voice than the position they are now in, buried under the umbrella of the major two parties. But these groups must be realistic and know that the White House, or even the Senate, is not in play and won’t be for decades or centuries to come.
In the meantime, I will happily sit back and watch the fighting happen starting November 5. Coming up next, my virtual shopping spree where I try to come up with a $150,000 wish list at Neiman Marcus.
