Republican gains in the election

I'm a bit sad that the GOP won so many seats in the house, but I can't say I'm that surprised. The Dems did a poor job of banging their own drum about all the amazing things they did and I think it bit them. It's not to say they didn't do a lot of cool things, but not enough people knew about them. Obama, I think, made a mistake in overestimating the intelligence of the American people. It's the kind of mistake an intelligent man would make, and I must say it's nice to have a politician who's trying to appeal to me rather than to the Teahadists or people equally dumb.

So, as I say, I'm not particularly surprised that the GOP made such massive gains in the house, but I'm not taking it (as Fox is putting it repeatedly in that "lets all repeat that key phrase as if we each just thought it up" way they have of doing things over there) as a "referendum on Obama's policies." I'm rather looking at it as the impatience and general cluelessness of the American electorate, who can't figure out that it takes a lot longer than 2 years to get out of a hole that took 8 years to dig... particularly when the worst of things only started happening 3 years ago.

More to the point, though, if this had been a real victory for the teabaggers, they would've elected even one of the bigname candidates that Sarah Palin had backed: O'Donnell, Tancredo, Angle, Miller. All of them ate a bucket of fail last night. It's still amusing that the teabaggers cannot figure out that they've already been totally co-opted by the GOP, who are writing their marching orders. If they really dislike the GOP so much--and many of them do--they'd have created their own party. No, they're clearly bought and paid for and they don't realize it.

I read a very interesting article by Alvin McEwen about what the election means.

My favorite quote from this article: "Now that the Republicans have Congress, they can now reveal that incredibly, wonderful master plan to cut taxes, bring down the deficit, and increase the work force. Apparently the plan is so awesome that none of them wanted to reveal it to the media or each other." I will truly be listening for that, because if they could do all of that, I and much of the rest of America would be interested. (Why stop there? Add hair restoration and erection enhancement to the label and go for the clean sweep.)

BTW, it's been 12 hours since becoming the Heir Apparent to the Speakership of the House, and John Boehner is already touting how good they're going to make it for America by... putting their energy into repealing Obama's healthcare package. Because, yeah, when I'm out of work and my unemployment's running out and the economy sucks, I really want someone telling me that they're going to fuck with my health insurance. I'm sure that's what the marching morons who voted for these people wanted. (But, oh, no, they won't touch Medicare or Social Security. What hypocritical jizzbags!)

Republican gains in the election