Maybe I should change my blog name to "morning after". Truly though, after the election last year, and much of what's gone on since, I took a long break from the political side of my blogging. (For those of you with a more personal connection to me, I do still blog on that side of the fence haha) I didn't stop reading the news, or watching what was going on, but I did stop commenting on it. The truth is, I'm tired of the same tired arguments, and interested in people stepping back from their parties and really looking at what we need to do to get back America. (I can say this proudly as a non-card carrying member of any party. Yay!)
First of all, to those of you who have made mention of Fox News in relation to the Scott Brown Campaign. Um, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC. It was okay for all of those networks to basically become arms of the Democratic Party during the 2008 Presidential Election, but you are seriously going to whine about ONE network in ONE election? More importantly, sites like Instapundit.com and Redstate.com have been reaching out to their network of readers for months, LONG before Fox news jumped on the bandwagon.
Second, the GOP has no right to claim victory in this election beyond the "R" attached to Senator-Elect Brown's name. In a state like Massachusetts where admitting you are Republican isn't entirely healthy, I would say a lot more then Republicans voted for this candidate.
Third, the "tea bagger" references need to stop. This is a crude sexual reference to a group of people who do not identify with a party, they identify themselves as Americans. They are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Independents. They are tired of of way government is being run. They are not real fond of either major party. They come from every background. If you don't like what they stand for, fine. But making crude sexual references to a group of people is not considered good political debate. (For the record neither is calling someone an idiot, ignorant, dumb or stupid. Just saying)
Now, moving on to my thoughts on what this election means.
First of all, Martha Coakley's campaign was dealt two death blows that she had nothing to do with. When the Senate Leadership bought off Senator Nelson, it pissed off the American people. In a big way. Color the American Public stupid, because we all know that stuff happens all the time. However, the health care debate, if you can call it that, took place where the public was kept in the dark. Let's face it, we are STILL in the dark about everything that's in that 2,000 page atrocity. And a good way to piss off the rest of the country is to promise that the rest of us schlubs are going to be footing the bill for Nebraska for the rest of our lives, our childrens lives, our grand childrens lives, etc. Then news came out that the American taxpayer was also buying off Louisiana to the tune of 300 million dollars. And if that wasn't enough, we got the news that while the Senate was going to tax "cadillac" health care plans to pay for their 2,000 page monstrosity, the unions were going to be exempt from that tax for 5 years. The collective response across the country was WTF? Ms. Coakley didn't have a say in either of those things, but the (D) next to her name doomed her to take credit for them regardless. (Much the same way anyone with an (R) next to their name gets labeled as George W. Bush...still.) In all fairness, both of those things were beyond the candidates control, and she got labeled with them, however unfairly. I will however say that when she said there was no Taliban in Afghanistan.... or that Curt Schilling was a Yankees fan... those things probably didn't help. The simple truth is, I believe, that Democrats thought since it was Massachusetts and it was Ted Kennedy's seat, they couldn't lose. Assumptions are bad things.
I've heard many pundits say this is a referendum against President Obama's agenda. Maybe. What I truly think you are seeing is this. In 2006, after 6 years of us spending money like it was water, and driving our nation into deeper debt, not to mention more than a few scandals, the American people wanted change. So they did what is so great about this country. They took power away from the people screwing up, and handed it to someone else. That's the basic principle this country was founded on. The power to change things lies with the people. Now it's 3 years later. In the space of a year we've spent 780 billion dollars on a stimulus plan that failed to do what was promised, we spent over 1 trillion dollars bailing out companies, another how many billions essentially buying car companies, etc etc etc. Our debt is astronomical. We were promised transparency, and yet we haven't seen a whole lot of CSPAN cameras covering the meetings involving the health care bill. We were promised ethics, and yet we've seen a lot of really unethical things going on. See, we were promised change, and change didn't happen. I understand that we need some kind of health care reform, and I think it can be done working within the framework of our country, but when millions of people are without jobs (me included), and families are struggling to put food on their tables, worried about paying their mortgages, and barely getting by, they don't want Congress taking on some MASSIVE output of money. And Healthcare is a MASSIVE output of money, money this country doesn't have to spend. So, I feel more likely that this is a referendum against Congress and the Senate.
The question is, are the Democrats smarter than their Republican counterparts? Are they smart enough to sit back and listen to the people they say they are looking out for? A majority of this country does not want either one of the health care bills currently making the rounds in the halls of power. When I hear the leadership stand up and say they are going to pass it anyway, I wonder when they forgot that they are at will employees of the citizens of the United States of America. We never lost the ability to decide what is best for us. And right now, at this point in time, this is NOT good for us or our country. Hopefully, this morning, they are sitting back and rethinking exactly what their priorities should be. If they do that, they stand a chance of retaining the mandate they believe they have. If they don't, 2010 could very well look much like last night.
That's really all I have to say. For now anyway.
my time is running short. Other more pressing needs are calling me to stop writing. I have not proof read this, so if there is a typo or stray spelling error, it's because I didn't have the time to correct them all. Please don't label me an idiot for it. That will get any comments quickly deleted. Remember, calling someone an idiot is NOT good debate.
First of all, to those of you who have made mention of Fox News in relation to the Scott Brown Campaign. Um, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC. It was okay for all of those networks to basically become arms of the Democratic Party during the 2008 Presidential Election, but you are seriously going to whine about ONE network in ONE election? More importantly, sites like Instapundit.com and Redstate.com have been reaching out to their network of readers for months, LONG before Fox news jumped on the bandwagon.
Second, the GOP has no right to claim victory in this election beyond the "R" attached to Senator-Elect Brown's name. In a state like Massachusetts where admitting you are Republican isn't entirely healthy, I would say a lot more then Republicans voted for this candidate.
Third, the "tea bagger" references need to stop. This is a crude sexual reference to a group of people who do not identify with a party, they identify themselves as Americans. They are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Independents. They are tired of of way government is being run. They are not real fond of either major party. They come from every background. If you don't like what they stand for, fine. But making crude sexual references to a group of people is not considered good political debate. (For the record neither is calling someone an idiot, ignorant, dumb or stupid. Just saying)
Now, moving on to my thoughts on what this election means.
First of all, Martha Coakley's campaign was dealt two death blows that she had nothing to do with. When the Senate Leadership bought off Senator Nelson, it pissed off the American people. In a big way. Color the American Public stupid, because we all know that stuff happens all the time. However, the health care debate, if you can call it that, took place where the public was kept in the dark. Let's face it, we are STILL in the dark about everything that's in that 2,000 page atrocity. And a good way to piss off the rest of the country is to promise that the rest of us schlubs are going to be footing the bill for Nebraska for the rest of our lives, our childrens lives, our grand childrens lives, etc. Then news came out that the American taxpayer was also buying off Louisiana to the tune of 300 million dollars. And if that wasn't enough, we got the news that while the Senate was going to tax "cadillac" health care plans to pay for their 2,000 page monstrosity, the unions were going to be exempt from that tax for 5 years. The collective response across the country was WTF? Ms. Coakley didn't have a say in either of those things, but the (D) next to her name doomed her to take credit for them regardless. (Much the same way anyone with an (R) next to their name gets labeled as George W. Bush...still.) In all fairness, both of those things were beyond the candidates control, and she got labeled with them, however unfairly. I will however say that when she said there was no Taliban in Afghanistan.... or that Curt Schilling was a Yankees fan... those things probably didn't help. The simple truth is, I believe, that Democrats thought since it was Massachusetts and it was Ted Kennedy's seat, they couldn't lose. Assumptions are bad things.
I've heard many pundits say this is a referendum against President Obama's agenda. Maybe. What I truly think you are seeing is this. In 2006, after 6 years of us spending money like it was water, and driving our nation into deeper debt, not to mention more than a few scandals, the American people wanted change. So they did what is so great about this country. They took power away from the people screwing up, and handed it to someone else. That's the basic principle this country was founded on. The power to change things lies with the people. Now it's 3 years later. In the space of a year we've spent 780 billion dollars on a stimulus plan that failed to do what was promised, we spent over 1 trillion dollars bailing out companies, another how many billions essentially buying car companies, etc etc etc. Our debt is astronomical. We were promised transparency, and yet we haven't seen a whole lot of CSPAN cameras covering the meetings involving the health care bill. We were promised ethics, and yet we've seen a lot of really unethical things going on. See, we were promised change, and change didn't happen. I understand that we need some kind of health care reform, and I think it can be done working within the framework of our country, but when millions of people are without jobs (me included), and families are struggling to put food on their tables, worried about paying their mortgages, and barely getting by, they don't want Congress taking on some MASSIVE output of money. And Healthcare is a MASSIVE output of money, money this country doesn't have to spend. So, I feel more likely that this is a referendum against Congress and the Senate.
The question is, are the Democrats smarter than their Republican counterparts? Are they smart enough to sit back and listen to the people they say they are looking out for? A majority of this country does not want either one of the health care bills currently making the rounds in the halls of power. When I hear the leadership stand up and say they are going to pass it anyway, I wonder when they forgot that they are at will employees of the citizens of the United States of America. We never lost the ability to decide what is best for us. And right now, at this point in time, this is NOT good for us or our country. Hopefully, this morning, they are sitting back and rethinking exactly what their priorities should be. If they do that, they stand a chance of retaining the mandate they believe they have. If they don't, 2010 could very well look much like last night.
That's really all I have to say. For now anyway.
my time is running short. Other more pressing needs are calling me to stop writing. I have not proof read this, so if there is a typo or stray spelling error, it's because I didn't have the time to correct them all. Please don't label me an idiot for it. That will get any comments quickly deleted. Remember, calling someone an idiot is NOT good debate.
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