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Why Democrats Always Lose & Why American Voters Need A Brand

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:34:30 +0000

I realized recently that it’s a lot easier to think and talk about politics if you don’t take the topic seriously. I came to this conclusion while having dinner with my liberal friends the other evening. They were mostly talking about what they’ve donated to help Haiti, and how shocking it was that Scott Brown had won in Massachusetts. I accidentally started an argument by asking if they had put their donations on credit cards, asked how much personal debt they carried, what they thought about the federal deficit, if they had thought about Haiti much prior to the earthquake, and what they had done about military spending lately. It really was an accident, but the ensuing brouhaha made clear a point a conservative friend of mine had made recently, which is that people in power love it when the liberal intellectuals get engaged in political discourse, because then they get so busy debating the finer points of the issues at hand that they end up not doing anything about them. And that’s why I reckon we’ll have no new health care plan, a couple new wars, a quadrillion dollar deficit, and a Republican president in 2012. Seriously. Sure, America elected its first black president and the first democratic congressional majority in a while last year, but it took two wars, thousands of deaths, a nationalized banking and auto industry, a massive loss of privacy rights, and a thoroughly gutted economy to do it. And what are liberals talking about a year and a half later? Haiti, a health care bill, and a single republican senator in New England. Don’t get me wrong, this works on conservative voters too. Tell a bunch of hillbillies in a bar that Cat Stevens hates Jesus, that Asians and Mexicans are taking all the jobs, and that allowing gay marriage will turn their kids into atheist homos, and the next thing you know you have George W. Bush in the White House. The Lutzian/Rovian strategy of pandering to voter ignorance is now standard operating procedure for campaigning; ironically the Obama campaign is one of their best proofs of concept. So given this profound dopiness on the part of the American populace, it occurred to me that if the GOP has its elephant, and the Dems have their donkey, the American Voter needs a mascot too. I figured a monkey was a good choice. What about you? Any suggestions?

Would You Vote For A Third Political Party?

admin — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:07:13 +0000

I’m what you might call a reluctant Democrat. Although I felt good about voting for Obama, I’m experiencing some consumer remorse, and I cringed as I voted for Kerry, Gore, and Dukakis. Worthy of note is the fact that voting for Dukakis started a long tradition of voting only to avoid having a George Bush in office, and that prior to that I was a cynical young punk that considered himself more or less apolitical. Which brings me almost full circle. I’m so cynical at this point that I have almost come to the conclusion that I think Washington is so corrupt and self-interested and that the two parties are so similar that there’s almost no point in voting. Before I do that though, I decided with some resolve recently that I’m going to “throw my vote away” if necessary in the next presidential election. By that I mean vote third party if the two major candidates reflect my values as poorly as they have for several election cycles. As I explored my thoughts on all of this recently, I came to a disturbing decision. I may just be a Libertarian. Although something about the political party that calls itself Libertarian gives me the willies with their restrained cowboy capitalism, a lot of the principles that can be described as Libertarian (as in this Wikipedia entry) are right up my alley. We’ve talked about Red vs Blue both jokingly and semi-seriously in the past, but we’d love to know: If there were a third party that represented your values, do you think you might vote for it? Vote below and let us know if you think we’re adequately represented by a two party system.

Did You Take The Red Pill Or The Blue Pill?

admin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:24:16 +0000

I’m confused. I wish the words liberal and conservative would rediscover their meaning and stop consorting with scoundrels like the Democratic and Republican parties. And I wish we could de-politicize colors. Although it was pretty easy to choose a color in the great red and blue contest of 2008, I think I’m really something more like purple, given what red and blue have come to mean. And purple just seems a little indecisive somehow. But who – if they’re paying attention - wouldn’t be a little undecided, in a time when both near-socialists like myself and a rabid neo-con like Free Republic’s Jim Robinson joke about the need for revolution, rather than voting. I think I’d fall into the liberal category simply because I don’t want some demented, rapture-driven Ayn Rand capitalist deciding who we can have sex with, or racist nutjobs like the GOP base deciding anything for us. But I can’t say I’m ecstatic with the current administration either. I know that campaigns are poll-driven marketing machines designed to appeal to nebulous but emotional voter values (like mine), but I have to admit I still feel a little suckered by the “Hope & Change” pitch. I see the former fading in a lot of people, and very little of the latter. So rather than continue thinking for myself, which has never done me any good, I decided to submit my indecision to science, and took the Pew Research Typology Test. Give it a try, the results were surprising. So surprising in fact (it pegged me as a Conservative Democrat) that now I’ve given up on science as well. I found this Democratic Loyalty Test much more informative, with questions and choices like:

Q: Which bumper sticker would you be most likely to put on your car?
At Least In Vietnam, Bush Had An Exit Strategy
May the Fetus You Save Be Gay
Ted Kennedy’s Car Has Killed More People Than My Gun
Nice Hummer. Sorry About Your Penis.

And….

Q: Which of the following do you find most offensive?
A vice president who enjoys telling Senators to “go f— yourself” and shooting people in the face
A Senator who enjoys lecturing about family values when he’s not busy tapping his toes in the men’s room and soliciting gay sex
An anti-war protester who says that Bush is “ten times the terrorist” that Osama bin Laden ever was
A Hollywood celebrity who says that anyone who uses more than one square of toilet paper is contributing to global warming
A FOX News host who sanctions an Al Qaeda terrorist strike on San Francisco and laments that Hurricane Katrina didn’t wipe out the UN

Give it a go, they have a Republican Loyalty Quiz too.

Me? I think I’m going back to my apolitical roots and forming a punk band.

Brewing Discontent: Since When Is The GOP Anti-Deficit?

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:51:22 +0000

I shouldn’t be as astounded as I am that the GOP has once again taken ownership of a public sentiment that has absolutely no real foundation in a partisan stance. Tell me. Who in America (besides a bunch of bailed out bank executives) is NOT angry that tax dollars are being funneled into a mind-boggling array of government subsidizing of business and bailouts of epic business failures? And more importantly, how the hell did the GOP spin this out so cleverly and so quickly into their issue, when it is, plain and simple, their fault? This is the party that from Reagan to Cheney has said that deficits don’t matter. And now, suddenly, deficits are a horrible monster created by Barack Obama. The GOP is even benefitting from the humor and confusion that a typical witty liberal will enjoy when watching a pun-laden rant against tea parties, as in the MSNBC clip featured at left. Who’s behind this masterpiece of Astroturfing? Mostly the conservative lobby groups Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity. Nice job, Dems.

GOP Suing Its Only Friends?

admin — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:37:41 +0000

Hey Republicans! You’re doing it wrong! In the latest example of “just-not-getting-it”, the GOP is apparently threatening to sue CafePress for allowing its users to repurpose the various trademarked GOP images such as the red-white-and-blue elephant and the letters “GOP”. The irony, of course, being the preponderance of images that are IN FAVOR of the GOP. Why would you want to sue your free marketing team? They obviously don’t have any money, I mean, who buys anything from CafePress? Next thing you know, they’ll be suing kids for drawing pictures of Dumbo and reading Horton Hears a Who. Get a grip, GOP, your existing internal marketing people don’t seem to be doing you any favors, and getting lawyers involved isn’t likely to help.

McCain = Bush = Court Date

admin — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:04:40 +0000

You would think an old geezer like John McCain would be more sensitive to the needs of old ladies. Needs which don’t include being strong-armed by security for expressing your thoughts (link includes footage as well as story content). Carol Kreck, a 61-year-old librarian from Denver, was waiting in line to attend a McCain “town hall” meeting. At the behest of McCain’s security people, she was cited for trespassing and escorted away because she was carrying a sign that read “McCain = Bush”. She logically pointed out that if you’re a Republican who voted for Bush, why should you be offended by the sign? Kreck was told “You have two choices. You can keep your sign here and receive a ticket for trespassing, or you can remove the sign and stay in line and attend this town hall meeting.”. To her credit she accepted the ticket and a court date.