So Where Do We Go From Here?

Well, Steve Santarsiero won his PA State House race last night against “Self” Ciervo, he of the voter-caging absentee ballot letter.

Aside from that…ummm…yep, that’s about it.

I guess, then, in no particular order, allow me to offer the following:

Newly-elected U.S. House Rep Mike Fitzpatrick (ugh) said he lost in 2006 because of Dubya and Iraq, in so many words, both supported by Fitzpatrick. Apparently, that has been borne out. In response, if I were Patrick Murphy, I would say that I lost in 2010 because of the economy, which he tried his best to fix in our district (and isn’t this an interesting development, by the way? You think it would’ve helped if this had been announced, say, a month earlier??!! Thanks, Helicopter Ben!).

Update: Never mind - scratch that about the Fed (here)...

Yes, it’s cold comfort for Murphy I realize, and I also know it’s a little disingenuous to act like the rotten economy has only boomeranged on Dems, when it did against Poppy Bush in ’92 to help get Bill Clinton elected (and speaking of the Bushes and the economy, let’s not forget this – and if Ras has the edge at 5, you can be sure that the real number is higher than that).

Also speaking of the economy, you can be sure that I will watch the unemployment rate under Mikey and the Repug majority in the House next year to see if that figure goes down or goes up; the talking point about the unemployment rate supposedly doubling under Murphy apparently being a winner for the Repugs…as far as I’m concerned, the real rate is always higher regardless because of people who aren’t counted, such as those who have lost their jobs and have become discouraged over time from actively looking for work, those who are self-employed or wish to become self-employed, those who have retired before the official retirement age but would still like to work (involuntary early retirees), those on disability pensions, etc. So let’s see if the Repugs put a serious dent in the unemployment rate between, say, January 2011 and August-September 2012.

I will also review any legislation forthcoming from the “Boehner bunch” to find out how many pages are included and publicize the total number of pages at each opportunity (if there is one talking point in particular I got utterly sick of from the Repugs, it was listening to them whine about the page length of legislation…as if any government official reads every page of the legislation against which they cast a vote – that’s why they have degreed individuals on their staffs to pore through the bills instead).

In short, I will watch this next Congress to see if these characters govern responsibly. Given their track record from earlier in this decade of the “oughts,” I think we already know the answer.

If there is anything bound to occur over the next year or two that will provide amusement, though, it will be watching the DeMint teabagger crowd, including Sarah Palin of course, butt heads with Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao, Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie, and the Repug high rollers who truly call the shots in that party. We’ll see if our corporate media decides to look the other way or offer a blow-by-blow account of the spectacle instead.

And when it comes to offering a post mortem, leave it to the New York Times (a usually sensible publication despite its frequent wankery) to allow column space to Evan Bayh, of all people (here), about what the Dems are supposed to do next (Gee, wonder if Bayh is going to say that Obama should embrace unions, immigration reform and MoveOn.org? What’s next, an editorial calling for Obama to drop Biden in 2012 for Bob Kerrey…and no, I assure you that I can’t deal with 2012 yet either).

(There are many reasons why Bayh is a contemptible gutter snipe, but one of them is that, by deciding not to run in this election in which he was favored by a sizeable margin, he could have cost the Dems the Senate also.)

Update 11/5/10: What Rachel Maddow sez about Bayh here...



Any kind of analysis on this from yours truly, though, must also cast a look back at myself and my blogging brethren.

Even though I can’t compare in site traffic to my “A” list betters, even by my measurements, I could tell that the “buzz” was mostly on the other side up until the very end of the election, and I know that’s normal when the opposition party is out of power. And yes, you can’t blame bloggers for the crappy economy and some of the failures of the Obama Administration to not go big enough on trying to fix it when they had the chance (like here).

Still, this administration and the departing Congress did a lot of historic stuff over the 21 months when it controlled two of the three branches of government, which was noted in this video by Rachel Maddow (by the way, I’m tempted to let that be the final post of the Wordpress site, a standing reminder of what the voters of this country, in their utterly dunderheaded stupidity, rejected, something they can view time and time again if they choose as the U.S. House of John Boehner turns into the sad, contemptible spectacle that I thoroughly expect it to become).

And that historic stuff was largely ignored and went unpublicized by many of us. That is, until the perception that the Dems in Congress were a bunch of elitist liberal spendthrifts under the command of that dastardly San Francisco libertine Nancy Pelosi had become thoroughly cemented in the political consciousness of this country by Fix Noise and its brethren.

In shorter words, it should not have taken someone like yours truly to write this post (last item) to point out that our fragmentation on getting out the good word was going to cause trouble. Would it have prevented the Dems losing the House? Since the rotten economy trumped everything, probably not. Would it have made a difference in some close races? Who knows?

We need to be less concerned about becoming mini-pundits (again, looking at myself a bit) and instead focus on propagating a positive political message when we have one to tell everyone.

I know the comeback – the Dems have a “big tent” and are a fractious bunch anyway. But one of the reasons why we have the result we do today (aside from the Citizens United ruling by the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR) is because, as usual, the wingnuts were absolutely relentless in the consistency of their messaging, no matter how preposterous the message. Assuming the day ever comes again when Dems hold both bodies of Congress (and though that prospect looks impossible now, it looked that way for the Repugs about four years ago also), that’s something we definitely need to learn instead of harping about the size of the “stim,” for example (and as much as I admire Jane Hamsher, writing a post in which she agreed with Grover Norquist against Obama was a sort of nihilism of the type that I hope I never see again).

Oh, and another thing – I watched Jonathan Alter on “Countdown” a few nights ago, and though I was mad at him a few days ago for saying that liberals complain better than they organize, I have to admit that he made a good point about the whole Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert “Rally For Sanity Or Fear” or whatever that was called on the Mall last weekend. Alter said that Stewart had the chance to make some really good points about people getting involved in the political process by voting and speaking out but basically blew the chance to do so, with Stewart blaming the media and the politicians instead. I agree.

So there, I think I’ve spoken my peace, so I’ll leave it at that (and I thought this Karen Heller column in the Philadelphia Inquirer on this subject was pretty spot-on).

Get ready for two years of “values voter” crap, pointless investigations, groveling to their corporate “betters”…avoidance of every legitimate issue and refusal to legislate policy in typical Repug fashion (on the federal level – I haven’t even said anything about PA state government, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Repug party also).

I give this bunch two years. However, that’s more than enough time for them to do a whole world of damage.

And in 2012, who knows whether or not the voters of this country will stage another hissy fit and return the people to power that actually did some good as opposed to rewarding the ones who made the mess in the first place (wonder if the Dems can organize a bunch of people wearing funny hats and racist signs waving around miniature copies of the Constitution?)

(And by the way, so much for “bipartisanship” – couldn’t even wait for a whole day after their victory.)

And I give you a “values” issue from the land where the corn “grows as high as an elephant’s eye,” as the song goes (here…can hardly wait for somebody from that state to introduce a federal bill like the state one – paging Dan Boren…that’s sarcasm, by the way).

Update: And speaking of "values voter" BS, I give you this (Surprised? If so, you haven't been paying attention).