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.
