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Article by Alpha-Girl
Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 6 Comments
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Would be wise if they did. It's just a pro-forma thing anyway, and they've kind of thrown in the towel and are only going through the motions. Although I have to admit picking a chick as a runningmate was a very good move, and I totally didn't see that coming. (Who expects good moves from Republicans these days? Certainly not me!)
So you're a Floridian, eh? Take pride in utterly ruining national elections for everyone else, do ya'?
In my defense, I was living in Arizona and registered AZ voter at the time of the Florida voting fiasco.
I don’t know about Palin. But, I guess conservatives are already falling in line about it. I just got a message on Facebook from a friend who’s insisting that she’s more experienced than B-Rock, among some other choice remarks ripped from the McCain/ Fox News talking points.
That message, and a bunch of forwards I’ve been getting from my family, have gotten me so riled up that now I think I’ll have to write an article about dealing with the rightwing nutjobs in your life.
I feel your pain, sister. The husband of one of my dearest friends has gone off his nut in his middle age and moved them to Montana so he could roam free among his own kind (people who shoot animals for fun and think that George W. is getting a bad rap). The only good thing about it is that now I can talk with her without him butting in. I’m old, so most of my own right wing nut in-laws have passed on, but I’ll never forget my husband’s grandfather ending a political argument with him by saying, “I know what I know; stop trying to confuse me with the facts.”
Palin is the Republican equivalent of Geraldine Ferraro, and the party’s decision to pick her and McCain is virtually identical to the democratic decision to run Mondale/Ferraro 24 years ago: “Well, we know we’re gonna’ get our asses handed to us on a plate, but we have to run anyway, and so let’s not waste a candidate who has a promising future. Instead, let’s run a codger who’s political career has clearly already peaked, and let’s try to broaden/secure our long-range demographics by throwing a chick on the ticket. That’ll make us look good.”
Neither of you should be getting so upset about all this. Your wish is granted, your victory is assured, you should be sitting back and enjoying it. I don’t understand why you feel such anger at people who believe differently from you. Be tolerant. Coexist. Particularly when there’s more practical matters at hand.
If anything, you should be concerned about what happens next: We’re still occupying two not-entirely-pacified countries with no easy exit, the economy is still in the crapper, the biofuels movement has caused widespread famine and death throughout the developing world, Russia clearly feels now is the moment to become a major world power again (And they’re right), our space program effectively ends in two years, and if we do pull out of Iraq everyone who’s collaborated with us is gonna’ get slaughtered by the people who didn’t collaborate with us. Obama will be inheriting a pretty impressive world of hurt, and there’s not any immediate answers to most of those problems, and while I hope he can handle it, he’s being dealt in with a much worse hand than most presidents start out with. If he profoundly screws up, I doubt the democrats will be likely to get another shot at the office for a while. It’s make-it-or-break-it time for the Democratic party.
I can’t speak for Rubymac, but I’ve been confident that Americans would vote the sensible way before, and it didn’t happen. I’m confident in my candidate, but I’m not confident that the majority of voters feel the same way. You said earlier that if the election were held today, B-Rock would only win by something like 7 electoral votes. That’s not a number that inspires a feeling of electoral security. I have to remain vigilant until the election returns come in.
Yes, B-Rock would be inheriting a world of hurt from GWB, but I think he’s more likely to act to resolve it. Will it all be resolved by the end of his first term? Of course not. Is he being dealt a much worse hand that most presidents? Surely. But, so was Franklin Roosevelt. He wasn’t exactly a failure.
I never meant to imply that Obama wouldn’t be able to do the job, like I said I really hope that he can, but he *is* getting the worst deal-me-in hand since FDR. All I was saying was that it’s a hell of a job, much worse than usual.
As for the Democrats throwing away two consecutive “Gimmie” elections, that’s really got more to do with how the party chose to run those campaigns than it does the american voter. Gore (prior to his makeover as an environmentally evangelistic crusader) had no personality, no presence, didn’t distinguish himself at all while he was Veep, and he ran a very lackluster, ‘entitled’ kind of campaign. He thought he was going to win, in fact, he thought he was owed a win, and he felt there was no way he could loose. A very anemic bid for office. And of course the Democrats kind of went out of their way to alienate religious voters who might have otherwise supported them.
Kerry was a complete debacle. He was totally the wrong choice to run for office, he refused to listen to the clinton’s advice, (Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they know how to run campaigns!), he refused to take basic advice from the party, he kept talking about his new ideas, his strategies, etc, but the more he talked the more it became apparent that he really didn’t have any. Add to this that the Democrats went out of their way to alienate religious voters who might have otherwise supported them. *AND* the fact that we’re in the middle of a war. Two wars, actually. In 232 years, American voters have never voted *against* an incumbent president in time of war, even if the president is unpopular (And Bush 2 certainly was). We just don’t like to change horses in mid-stream.
This time out, though, the people running the campaign seem to have realized what went wrong the last couple times, taken responsibility for completely miscalculating the voter’s whims, and things are running much, much better. Sure, there was a real possibility that Hillary Clinton would have split the party and torpedoed yet another election, but somehow they reeled her in, and having done that, you guys’ll win. No question. It’ll be less than 10%, it might be less than 7% of the popular vote, but it’ll be a way more comfortable margin than the 3% that Bush 2 got.
(I say “You guys,” because you all are obviously Democrats; I’m not a Republican.)