Blanche Lincoln

That’s what leaders in both the republican and democratic parties are counting on. They’re counting on the other party being even dumber than they are, in order to pick up some seats.

Republicans spent the better part of last year touting the virtues of the tea party, only to discover that they’re a giant liability to republicans. Republican leaders didn’t have to foresight to realize that aligning themselves with extremist whack-a-doos was eventually going to bite them in the ass. Good luck turning Sharon Angle into something palatable to the general public, Mitch McConnel! Thanks to your shortsightedness, you lost the unlose-able seat. And thanks to your stupidity, I’m stuck with six more years of Harry Reid in the role of majority leader (because you’re not taking back the senate this time around). Thanks a lot, dumbasses! I was perfectly willing to lose that seat to get a real leader in the senate.

And speaking of dumbasses, there is no shortage of them in the Obama administration. Let’s review;

Robert Gibbs (white house press secretary) went off on “the professional left” (of which I’m not a member because you people are too damned cheap to donate!), stating that they wouldn’t be happy until “…we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the pentagon”.
After the Arkansas primary when Blanche Lincoln (the corporatist incumbent) barely squeezed out a victory against her more liberal, union backed opponent (Bill Halter), an unnamed (it was obviously Rahm) white house source said, “Organized labor just flushed $10M down the toilet”.
Earlier this year, Rahm Emanuel referred to liberal activists as “fucking retarded”.

I think we’re all pretty clear on how this administration feels about liberals. Personally, I would like to let the geniuses at the white house know that crapping on your base is no way to win a midterm election. In fact, it’s a great way to ensure that your candidate is going to have to whore himself out to corporate America with the enthusiasm of a rent boy, to make up for the money that your base won’t be contributing to him in the next presidential election. Here’s a news flash for the brilliant Rahm Emanuel; nothing slams my wallet shut tighter than being referred to as a retard.

Rahm and Gibbsy are counting on the notion that liberals have nowhere to go, so we have to show up for them. They think that republicans are so distasteful to us, that we’re just going to suck it up and support any trash they serve up. Wow, your parents must be so proud of you, what with you sucking less than the other guy. Way to lead democrats, way to lead!

Guess what? I’m not going to show up for you. I’m not going to donate to any DNC candidates, and I’m not going to vote for any DNC candidates. And if that means ceding seats to republicans, then sobeit. If losing control to republicans again is what needs to happen in order for democrats to reassess their policy positions, then that’s what’s going to happen. I have no emotional attachment to the democratic party, so I have absolutely no preference for democrats fucking me over republicans fucking me. If your platform doesn’t line up with mine, then I’m outta here! Republicans allowed their party to turn into a giant crapfest because they chose to stand by their man like battered wives, taking back their abusive husbands in perpetuity. I’m not planning on making that same mistake. I refuse to aid and abet the devolution of my party by buying into the false narrative that I have no other choice.

I can choose to sit back and let you get your asses handed to you. And I will, because that’s preferable to letting democrats hand my ass to me with my vote and with my money.

So congrats to democrats on saving the Harry Reid seat that should have been lost to a republican. And by “saving”, I mean sitting back while dipshit republicans let an unelectable whack job like Sharon Angle win the primary.

And congrats to republicans for winning the senatorial seat in Arkansas. And by “winning” I mean, sitting back while dumbass democrats poured a shitload of money to ensure that Blanche Lincoln (who no progressive will come out to vote for) won the primary.

I have to hand it to the “strategists” for both the democratic and republican re-election committees. Waiting for your opponent to be dumber than you are is a most innovative strategy that I could never conceived of.

I love FOX News. I love the pundits, I love the “reporters”, I’m only mildly amused by the commentators (but that’s because they’re all dimwits). I mostly love them for their talent. Yes, I said talent. You have to be a pretty talented broadcaster to repeat the same talking points that have been repeated over and over again for the six hours preceding your show, and still make it fresh. Like it or not, it does take a high level of skill to parrot what you’ve been told to say, while making it your own. They’re talented in the same way that hosts on QVC are talented. Not everyone can talk about some worthless trinket for ten minutes, while still keeping the audience engaged.

Yesterday’s talking point was predictably, about how Obama was the loser in the elections on Tuesday. He lost big, because the two candidates (Specter and Lincoln) that the administration backed both lost. It was odd that they didn’t apply the same logic to McConnell’s boy losing in Kentucky, but that’s beside the point. All day on Wednesday, different pundits and reporters were bandying about the phrase “referendum against Obama”. Some of them spoke of this referendum authoritatively, others listened intently as their guest made this assessment, and yet others delivered their analysis as if they were making a brilliant point that had not yet been made. The entertainment lies in the different forms of delivery. It’s fascinating to watch it go on and on, hour after hour.

But style points aside, I have a newsflash for the people on FOX News. Obama is my president, not my daddy. I don’t take marching orders from him and I don’t consider a vote against the candidate that he supports to be a slight against him. He backed two candidates that weren’t liberal enough for democratic voters. If anything, Tuesday was a win for progressives who are doing what they can to move Obama leftward. He won his election by promising us change. We’re going to make him honor that promise whether he likes it or not. Voting for someone other than the candidate he stumped for is not a referendum on Obama. Voting for Obama’s opponent in the next election is a referendum against Obama.

Republicans have a hard time with the concept that your president isn’t your daddy because they generally go along with what their leader tells them they should go along with. Warrantlessly wiretap me? YES DADDY, I love small government! You’re going to drive up the biggest deficits this country has ever seen? YES DADDY, I’m a fiscal conservative! You want to funnel billions of my dollars to your corporate cronies at Haliburton? YES DADDY, I believe in the free market! They were happy to contradict every single tenet of conservatism because daddy told them to.

So now they’re left with nothing, other than to project. We’re not mindless lemmings, happy to go along with everything our president tells us to do, so we must hate him. We voted for candidates that were to the left of the ones he backed so we must all be turning against liberalism, thereby proving that we’re a right of center country.

Republicans don’t understand democrats and independents at all anymore, which is becoming problematic, since their voters don’t trust the establishment anymore. Daddy has slapped them around one too many times. When you simply don’t understand 60% of the country, and you’ve abused another 20% one too many times, you’re in deep trouble.

I sound like a broken record, but get it together republicans! I can’t have a country with only one viable party.

Banking On Dumber

Who’s Your Daddy?