Some stuff I get.
I get an unhappy electorate. I understand that America elected Barack Obama in 2008 and he wasn't able to magically fix the economy. He wasn't able to snap his fingers and recreate the millions of jobs that have been leaking into Asia and succumbing to technology for years. He wasn't able to make a wish and eliminate eight years of deficits due to unfunded wars and unfunded tax cuts. The President did manage to pass healthcare which, if you believe the administration, won't cost a dime. He pushed through a financial reform bill which might help prevent the next meltdown which might prevent the next bailout. Do we imagine that Grandpa McCain, with his profound knowledge of all things financial, would have fared better?
What I am at a loss to understand is the flood of strange, delusional, fringe candidates that are being offered by Republicans/teabaggers (not necessarily by the Republican party) to challenge incumbents and reverse two years of rational progress. To wit I offer Carl Paladino of New York, Christine O'Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angle of Nevada. For the moment we will ignore the likes of Joe Miller in Alaska who believes Social Security is unconstitutional because it isn't in the Constitution or, Meg Whitman in California who needs help understanding what constitutes "illegal alien".
In an effort to appear unbiased (why bother?), news organizations have given these bizarre candidates a pass. The strange, bigoted, uninformed pronouncements of these escapees from the Island of Dr. Moreau appear on page eight or under National News, as if proclaiming not to be a witch was a regular news item. FOX News, having discarded any pretext of fairness or balance, is in the unenviable position of attempting to make these candidates look electable...or at least housebroken. Sadly, all the lip gloss companies in the world don't make enough lipstick to make these pigs look like movie stars.
For example: no one thinks it particularly strange that Carl Paladino attends a meeting of Orthodox Jews in New York and proceeds to read a homophobic speech prepared by the group to whom he's speaking. Why not call Don Pardo? Carl apparently feels that sex between people and animals is worthy of promulgation but love among people is problematic. Carl is behind by almost 20 points in recent polls but the real question is, "How much must you dislike Andrew Cuomo that you would pull a lever for such a reprehensible human being?" Cuomo isn't an incumbent nor did he vote for TARP. I'm guessing that a vote for Paladino is a vote against the hated President but my God, Carl Paladino is your response?
In Nevada, Harry Reid went all in on the healthcare bill knowing that, with unemployment running at 15% in Vegas he was backing a losing hand. Republicans, apparently wishing to prove that you could beat Senator Reid with a ham sandwich, decided to run one. Sharron Angle, who suggests that farm animals can be used to pay medical bills, has turned a slam-dunk win for the GOP into a dead heat. Hell, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could beat Harry Reid. Ms. Angle has spent the entire campaign hiding from reporters and literally running away from anyone with a question. I'm guessing that, if elected, Ms. Angle will refuse to go to Washington. After all it's full of liberal subversives. Actually Nevada has a "none of these candidates" box on the ballot; the only state that does. Perhaps Nevada will have six years of an empty chair in the Senate. A good spot to rest a ham sandwich.
And then there's Christine O'Donnell who is so toxic Karl Rove shakes her hand wearing asbestos gloves. This child carries more baggage than Amtrak. She is about ten minutes from a series of indictments concerning her inability to distinguish campaign funds from personal piggy bank. Her previous candidacies for Delaware's Senate seat, ensured that Joe Biden would win by a larger margin than Kim Jong Il. So far as anyone can tell she makes no campaign stops, delivers no speeches, gives no interviews. (I'm sorry but being drooled over by Sean Hannity doesn't count.) Not since Abe Lincoln has a candidate been less exposed. Her opponent, Chris Coons, apparently read that old saying about never underestimating the stupidity of the American electorate. He is taking Christine's campaign seriously. That's more than can be said for the rest of us. In the absence of any real statement of Ms O'Donnell's platform, ("don't play with yourself or you'll go blind" is not a policy position) we are left with old clips from Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect from the late 1990's.
This is the country that elected Jesse "the body" Ventura, Dennis Kucinich, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Marion Barry, Sonny Bono and two out-of-work B-list actors from California. (Maybe you forgot George Murphy.) We understand anti-establishment. We also don't like being told who to vote for (See "Dewey Defeats Truman", 1948). However, if we must protest, at least we should choose serious people; people with positive ideas. I can live with being governed by politicians with views contrary to mine but I would prefer not to be governed by politicians elected exclusively based on their opposition to everything progressive. One constructive idea would be nice. Besides, election to office is the ultimate form of self-gratification. Fortunately, considering a 17% deficit in the polls, Christine O'Donnell isn't likely to suffer this particular moral dilemma.
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