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Election Day Musings

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

I’m still a bit groggy, having had only four hours of sleep last night, but as an amateur self-appointed pundit I feel it my solemn duty to get my reactions to last night’s events on record, for the edification and education of the non-pundits of the world. I freely confess that in my stupefied state, these observations will be more or less random, but they’ll still be more connected to reality that the ravings of my pundit brethren and sisthren on the teevee.

First, lets get the obvious out of the way. Romney lost because he wasn’t conservative enough. The voters who were busy endorsing gay marriage and electing progressive Senators were simply turned off by a candidate who refused to insist that a woman had to bear her rapist’s child, although, to be fair, he also refused to say she didn’t have to.

Second, Obama’s victory is no victory at all. Consider, for example, the headline in this morning’s New London Day: Divided U.S. Picks Obama. Now, if memory serves, the last time a non-divided U.S. picked a president was 1792, but this time it’s special, since you can bet your bottom dollar the Day has never had a headline like that about any other president. Particularly one of the few presidents in recent history who got more than 50% of the votes every time he ran. But the Day wants us to know that the division is special this time, and we all know why, don’t we? No election is legitimate if the majority of white men vote for the loser.

Third, Al Jazeera is every bit as full of claptrap as American networks, except it comes with a British accent and twitter girls wearing head scarfs. I know this because I have no television and I wanted to watch Mitt concede. Wishing to gloat, I first downloaded the Fox News app to my iPad, but soon trashed it, as the Rove meltdown had long since ended. I then switched to the Al Jazeera app, where I was treated to the same sort of blather I could have heard on CNN, but I did catch both the concession speech (robotic, but what could you expect) and the victory speech (masterful, but what can you expect).

Moving on, let us in Connecticut take a bow for having twice smacked down Linda McMahon, a two time Senate candidate who showed her utter disdain for voters by not even bothering to familiarize herself with the issues, never mind letting on what her positions might be. On the surface Linda’s failure is of a piece with what looks like the failure of the Citizens United crowd to buy the Senate, at least this year. But it may just be that the suckers among the rich were throwing money at Rove, et. al, while the smart money was busy buying state legislators, who are far cheaper and easier to snag, and where a small investment can realize truly monumental returns. Someone with the time and energy could do us all a big favor by looking at the role of corporate money in state politics. But, at least for the moment, we can take some comfort from the fact that Americans proved relatively impervious to the billionaire funded blandishments of Rove and his ilk.

Finally, on an even lower level, I’m happy to point out that we held the line here in our area. All our local legislators were reelected, including Ted Moukawsher, who faced an uphill battle when his district was altered to include part of Republican heavy Gales Ferry. That victory was particularly sweet, as Ted defeated one of the Paul Ryan wannabe young Republicans that pop up like mushrooms.

Also satisfying was the victory of Cathy Osten, who won her 19th district State Senate election against Chris Coutu, perhaps the most right wing member of the state House of Representatives. Coutu was going to take on Joe Courtney, but baled on that race when Edith Prague announced her retirement. I have to admit that I feared for the worst on this one, as Coutu’s signs were omnipresent, at least on the roads I travel to get to Norwich. But Norwich pulled through, and denied a majority even there to the guy who is apparently not its favorite son.

So, altogether, a very satisfying day, leaving us pretty much where we were before the voting started, but with definite signs that the electorate is becoming more tolerant and less gullible.

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Listen to Sir Paul

Monday, November 5, 2012

So my wife finds these things and I uncurl from my mental fetal position and post them. The night before an election is sort of like the night before Christmas in reverse.

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One more day

Monday, November 5, 2012

..and if there is any justice we will never see this man’s face again.

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Tea Leaves

Sunday, November 4, 2012

From Talking Points Memo:

Connecticut Republican Senate nominee Linda McMahon has been telling voters lately that it’s okay to vote for President Obama as well as her. Now she’s taking it a step further — and getting about as far away from her own party’s nominee for president as she can — and actually urging voters to cast their ballots for Obama as well as in the final days of the campaign.

McMahon campaign doorhangers that Democrats say they’ve discovered in minority neighborhoods this weekend couldn’t make it more clear: “Vote Barack Obama For President and Vote Linda McMahon For Senate,” they read. It’s a surprising suggestion from a Republican who, along with her husband, has given $150,000 to help make Romney the next president of the United States.

(via TPM2012)

Here’s the picture that was in the article:

Were I Chris Murphy, I think overall I’d take great comfort from this episode. Like Romney’s current attempt to make an issue of Obama’s revenge remark, this smacks of a campaign having nothing to lose, because it knows it is losing.

You have to hand it to Linda, though. Yesterday I would have said that Romney is the most unprincipled person to ever run for higher office in this country, at least in this century. Now, I’m not so sure.

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Friday Night Music-A reprise

Friday, November 2, 2012

When this song first came out I wrote that it was an “anthem ready made for the Obama campaign, if they have the smarts to use it, and if Bruce lets them.” Well they did, and apparently he did. Nate says Obama’s climbed past 80% and I want to believe part of the reason is that he’s pushed the idea that we’re all in this together, so here’s Bruce again, this time live.

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They’re only in it for the money

Friday, November 2, 2012

It recently occured to me that I’m not aware of a single race in which big money appears poised to buy or defeat a politician that would not otherwise have been elected. There’s probably an election somewhere in which the forces of evil will tip the election, but the impact so far looks to be relatively minimal.

Paul Krugman notes that this may be because there are Republican grifters between the billionaires with the money and the propaganda they want to spew, including the biggest grifter of them all, Karl Rove:

Remember how Rove and others were supposed to raise vast sums from billionaires and corporations, then totally saturate the country with GOP messaging, drowning out Obama’s message? Well, they certainly raised a lot of money, and ran a lot of ads. But in terms of actual number of ads the battle has been, if anything, an Obama advantage. And while we don’t know what will happen on Tuesday, state-level polls suggest both that Obama is a strong favorite and, much more surprising, that Democrats are overwhelmingly favored to hold the Senate in a year when the number of seats at risk was supposed to spell doom.

Some of this reflects the simple fact that money can’t help all that much when you have a lousy message. But it also looks as if the money was surprisingly badly spent. What happened?

Well, what if we’ve been misunderstanding Rove? We’ve been seeing him as a man dedicated to helping angry right-wing billionaires take over America. But maybe he’s best thought of instead as an entrepreneur in the business of selling his services to angry right-wing billionaires, who believe that he can help them take over America. It’s not the same thing.

(via NYTimes.com)

There’s really nothing new about this, as Krugman points out. Apparently Richard Viguerie made piles of money on direct mail, only a fraction of which went to the non-productive use for which it was solicited. Four years ago I wrote about another group of right wing scammers that specialized in raising money on behalf of sure losers, which losers got only the crumbs off the fundraiser’s table or ended up owing them money.

The difference between what Rove is doing now and what Viguerie and organizations like BMW Direct did then, is that the marks are orders of magnitude richer, but apparently no smarter. The Vigueries of the world went after the same sort of folks who tithe themselves so the fundamentalist preacher of their choice can live the good life, but you’d think that when you’re collecting money from billionaires they’d take care to make sure their investment is well spent. It pains me to think of Rove getting rich, but if he must get rich it’s heartwarming to know that he’s doing it by diverting money that would otherwise go toward lying about Democrats.

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A modest proposal

Friday, November 2, 2012

My current audiobook is My Life, a biographical interview of Fidel Castro. I have a lot more respect for the man now, but that’s not the point of this post. At one point during the interview he talks about a rumor that was spread after the Cuban revolution, to the effect that the new government was going to take people’s children away. He remarked that it was a good example of Goebbel’s theory that you can get people to believe any lie by repeating it often enough. Of course, that made me think of Republicans, who have certainly learned more than one lesson from Goebbels.

But it also occured to me that it’s the repetition that counts. The lie is neither necessary nor sufficient to get people to believe something so it occured to me that it might behoove the Democrats to consider endlessly repeating the truth. Take global warming, for example. People with brains know that it’s real, and it’s the most important issue facing the world. People without brains only know that they have heard endlessly repeated lies from the likes of Fox News, to the effect that global warming is a hoax. Wouldn’t endless repetition of the truth at least neutralize the liars? (Who knows, even mentioning it occasionally might help) It’s really a strategy that Democrats might consider. Imagine what might happen if the Democrats started to endlessly repeat the truth about climate change, deficits, social security, Medicare, and inequality. Besides global warming they might start by repeating the fact, against the Republican attempt to suppress it, that higher taxes on the rich don’t reduce economic growth.

At any rate, it couldn’t hurt to try.

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Counting Chickens

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Nate Silver has Obama’s chances at greater than 75%, so I am going to indulge myself a bit here.

Back in 1960, John F. Kennedy said “Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I’m the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House. ” I remember reading that quote long ago, and sure enough, he either said it, or it’s been repeated often enough that he might as well have.

I recall that now because it occurs to me that this may be the first time since 1960 that we get to exult at the defeat of a truly loathsome Republican candidate. I can’t count Goldwater among the loathsome, since he was a man of integrity, even if his political views were fresh out of the 18th century. But since then, the only Republicans we’ve managed to beat we’re the relatively non-loathsome: Ford, Bush 1, Dole and McCain, while the truly loathsome: Nixon, Reagan and Bush 2 have won. It’s beginning to look like this particular losing streak is going to go by the boards. Certainly Romney belongs among the loathsome, and barring some catastrophic event, we’ll have reason to celebrate the night of the 6th.

Should anyone doubt Romney’s bona fides for membership in the dubious pantheon of loathsomeness, consider his response to his declining fortunes. Some men might try to salvage at least some dignity when they see the writing on the wall, but not Romney, or the equally loathsome Ryan. Whether it’s lying about the auto companies, bringing back the already debunked welfare lie, attempting to capitalize on tragedy with a phony disaster relief event, or slowing those relief efforts for the sake of a photo-op, there is no depths to which Romney-Ryan will not sink. And remember, I’ve only mentioned their sins of the last couple of days. It’s certainly arguable that Romney is the most mendacious and least principled man ever to win a major party nomination for president.

So there will be a special sweetness to savor on Tuesday if Nate is right. Here in Connecticut we may be able to double our pleasure, if Chris Murphy manages to end the political career of the also loathsome Linda McMahon.

But my Republican readers, should I still have any, have nothing to fear. There is an inexhaustible supply of loathsome Republicans to take their places. To pick only two of many, consider Steve King who feels we must take especial care to make sure we hurricane victims don’t use relief funds to buy “gucci bags”, or Congressional Candidate John Koster, who feels incest is rare and we’re making entirely too much out of this “rape thing”. (What is it that draws these Republicans to rape gaffes like moths to a flame?) Yes, there are a lot of them out there, and they’re getting more loathsome all the time. The scary thing is, one of these years one of them will win, but this year, at least, we’ll pick a few off.

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Power back on

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Came back a few hours ago. We’re astounded, as we’re normally pretty much last in getting our power back, being on one of the most rural roads in Groton. However, for us personally, it could disappear in a minute, as a fallen tree limb is leaning against the wires running into our house. But right now, things are great. All our devices, and we (I, mostly) have many and sundry, have been recharged and we are connected to the world again.

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Mixed messages

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

If you’ve ever given money to a political campaign-even one-then like me you are probably getting about thirty fundraising emails a day. Clearly, based on what I get, people’s respond to different messages. Consider the subject lines in emails I received one after the other:

  • NOTHING CAN STOP US (all caps in original)
  • We risk losing everything

Both from Democrats of course. I imagine Republicans are getting the same sort of messages.

Now, I suppose one can make the argument that both those statements are true, but it’s undeniable that they’re sending decidedly mixed messages. As for me, I’m still picking and choosing; though I did break down and give some more money to the DCCC because I liked the guy who called, and my wife, a friend and I had just finished a bottle of wine.

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