November 6th, 2002. Wednesday
Well, let's see. Upon coming home last night, James insisted that we watch the news for reports on the mid-term elections. I couldn't think of anything I'd rather watch less. Especially since I'm almost never home to watch tv at 7:30. And SportsCenter was on. I told him no one cared about the elections, but I humored him and switched to Fox or something. And there was no news on. So he says, no "switch to a network that cares about the news." So I flip through the networks. "Oh, you mean 'cares' as in 'Access Hollywood'?" "Oh, you mean 'cares' as in 'Seinfeld'?" "Oh, you mean 'cares' as in a documentary about India"? Not one network had anything on. Sure, later in the evening there were reports, but nothing that was going to interrupt regularly scheduled 7:30 programming. Come to think of it, I should have gone to work last night. I was most pleased that Gilmore Girls was not pre-empted for election nonsense.My gut feeling about the Republican's controlling Congress: Wait, first of all, I take issue when people say that the Republicans now control all three branches of the government. I don't think that's really true. The Supreme Court might be loaded with conservatives, but to say the Republicans control the court is going a little far. Anyway, I'm totally fine with the Republicans controlling congress, and not because I'm a registered Republican. If I had to register and vote for President today, I would not register Republican, nor would I vote for Bush. I just think this is a very good thing. Now, the Republicans can go about their business unfettered. They can push W.'s agenda and no one can really stop them, not even the Constitution, apparently. So now's the time to see what they can really do. And if they fuck up, then they're gone in two years. I'd feel the same way if it was the Democrats in the White House and congress. Just let one party do their thing, see how well it works, and if things are working out, fine, let's keep it going, but if not, at least they can't bitch and moan that they didn't get their chance. They've got the ball in the open court. Now I want to see something spectacular. And if things aren't going so hot, then we only have to put up with it for two more years.
Maybe I don't really feel bad about this because I've come to view all politicians as different sides of the same evil coin. i wasn't always like that. But watching Tom Daschle speak last night... the man is clearly an idiot. I'm so disillusioned with the Democrats. They used to be the hapless nice guys. Now they're the same assholes as the Republicans. What about this business in Montana? The democratic candidate runs a billboard add showing the GOP candidate as a hair dresser or something -I thnk he used to run a hair dressing school or something and ran tv ads- basically deriding him as a homosexual, and the GOP guy's numbers plummet and he has to drop out. Now, if it were the GOP who ran that ad, I'd have thought nothing of it. Since when did the Dems start pulling out the dirty tricks? And then Mr. Daschle, who says he believes America is "a 50-50 country" and that that should be reflected in its Congress. "If the House is controlled by Republicans, then the Senate ought to be controlled by Democrats." That's a great thought. It's too bad that the silly legislative bodies have to be comprised of people who are elected instead of fulfilling that "representative" 50-50 split. And if her really wants the population of America reflected in Congress, why doesn't he think the majority of legislatures should be women? I'm sure if the Dems controlled the whole shebang, he be saying "This is clearly a mandate and message delivered by the American people." Clearly, as the election shows, it's not a 50-50 country, and the congress is exactly as it should be. That is, how it was elected. What a dick.
And by the way, as long as I'm railing, when people talk about this "he's not my president/he wasn't really elected business," i want to shoot someone. It's really time to get over it. Also, when Nixon lost to Kennedy, who did win by popular majority either, in 1960, by less than 1% of the vote, he was urged to protest, especially due to reports of widespread voter fraud in Illinois. But, as reports go, he refused, believing it would send the country into turmoil. I'm not saying he's not an evil prick, but at least he was the bigger man there. PLUS, in three previous elections, the President elected received fewer votes than his defeated opponent. So it's not like it's unprecedented. I just don't ever want to here about this ever again.
So sure, I'm a little scared of the Republicans. But at least we'll really get to see their true colors now. It just really bothers me when people blame the economy on Bush, when it was already going down before the last Presidential election. Or when people don't see the significance that the president only controls fiscal policy, not monetary policy. These people have no concept that these cycles don't just start when someone new becomes president. And it often seems to me that so many people just jump on this bandwagon of outrage, where everything is so black and white. "Republican= evil. Democrat= Not so evil?" People rail against the NY mayor Mike Bloomburg, and his "republican" ways, and a lot of these people either ignore the fact or are ignorant of it that he was a lifelong democrat who switched parties to run for mayor. It's appalling to me that in a system where there are only two major politcal parties that so many people can simply side with one party or another. People who go into a voting booth and just press the button or fill in the box that votes the party line should be dragged out of the booth, into the bathroom, and have there head shoved in the toilet, where a selected member of the electoral college will then flush the toilet, and hopefully purge the stupidity from their little lemming minds. And yes, I'm aware that I could have simply said "swirly," and saved myself a lot of typing, but the detailed description was much more cathartic.
Anyway, that kind of ignorance really gets my panties in a bunch. Still, I guess I should get ready to fill out those forms for my National Identification Card.
Mail to G-Rock