Bloggin' the Mid-Terms

Very early on all cable news networks started claiming a Democratic landslide with victories in Senate and House races thus giving the “fighting” dems, as Nancy Pelosi calls ‘em, a majority in both congressional bodies . Well not Fox – they just look sad, but MSNBC talking heads start expounding on glittering generalities (one of my favorite alliterations) about why and what. CNN is looking for some magic number to put the Dems in the majority tonight. Hmmm – I wonder who’s side they’re on. This is around 7:00 PM PST.

Trying to kill time why they await more results, Chris Mathews floats a hypothesis about how the Republicans actually ran several black candidates but lost – “I guess that’s a failed strategy”. Someone points out that all of them ran against incumbents in a year that everyone is pissed at Republicans because of the war. It doesn’t really mean anything. Besides Harold Ford, a black democrat is losing also. Of course in that Tennessee race they blame race for the loss. In the Republican situations its because they are Republican.

Oh by the way, former Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut wins as an Independent against the guy who beat him in the Democratic primary earlier this year! Guess who said he could win anyway as an Independent.

I always find it hilarious how a bunch of people can sit around and yak and come up with one-liners about why people voted. It’s not much different than your after football game sports talk. After a closely fought football game won on a last minute field goals set up by a fumble, the talking sports heads will go on and on explaining “keys of the game”. Finally someone will blurt out –“well it really came down to Bill Parcell’s aggressive game plan”. Yeah, I bet he really planned on winning on a last minute field goal.

CNN blurts out something similar. Paula Zahn looking like she’s at a Cinco de Mayo Fiesta in her red bolero dress says “It must because of the war”. Duh. But I’d like to pour her a margurita, por favor. After some more pandering about how wonderful the Democrats are someone on MSNBC says all of these early Democratic wins on this night all occurred in “blue” (Democratic) states and no one will know anything until the “red” (Republican) races come in. Most intelligent thing said all night.

Chris Mathews asks John McCain if Enron caused the potential Republican downfall. Wha? That’s right - and it would have been worse if Ken Lay hadn’t died. Chris Mathews says everyone hates conceding Senator Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania because he’s pro-life and against gay marriage. Someone finally says that most of America feels that way.

Basic election fact – in mid-term campaigns the controlling body and with usually its incumbent President always give up a number of seats to the opposing party – it’s commonplace for Congress to give up 20 seats either way. Remember the Republicans taking over during the Clinton years? It’s sort of normal – so this result is not shocking in the House. The Senate would be a bit different – but remember the GOP has Joe Lieberman as an Independent anyway.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann cannot believe his teleprompter when it still shows that Republican George Allen (son of former NFL coaching great George Allen) is still ahead in a tight race from the Senate in Virginia. He’s dismayed because the vaunted exit polls said that everyone is still against the war! How could this b e.

Oh god Hillary is on. I got to go throw up. Be back in a minute.

Hillary beat some guy named John Spencer. Waitaminute, wasn’t that the appealing character actor that was on the West Wing and LA Law? And died last year? No wonder she won. Hmm I wonder who that striking man is by her side at the podium? There’s a stain on his jacket. Hillary is wearing some yellow coat jacket number which makes her look like the Morton Salt Girl.

Keith Olberman still can’t believe that John Allen is still winning with 94% of the vote. What in blazes is going on here? Criss Mathews ask some Republican if they will ever win again in the Northeast. His inane questions are driving me batty. Let’s go to CNN.

CNN projects former Tennessee Vol and Washington Redskin QB blowout Heath Shuler as a winner in North Carolina as a fighting Dem. Man this is like SportsCenter! Unfortunately former Pittsburgh Steeler Lynn Swan loses in his Governor bid in Pennsylvania. CNN’s Anderson Cooper, you know of the 360, is interviewing three pundits who are standing at bar-like structure and they all have lap-tops in front of them. I guess they are all working on their fantasy football lineups during the slow times. Anderson Cooper’s mom is someone famous but I can’t remember right now. CNN runs a tagline that the Dems needs 8 seats to capture the House. Of course everyone knows they will capture the House. That’s a done deal.

Actually the big news of the night that keeps streaming along the bottom of the TV screen that Britney Spears has filed for divorce from that no-good scum K-Fed. I really can’t believe they haven’t broke in with a special report. Waitaminute Heath Shuler lobs a TD pass to Lynn Swan. Juggernauts win! Wow. George Allen must have had a great game plan.

Chris Mathews is stunned that incumbent Republican Senator John Kyl is projected to win in Arizona – almost a half hour after he projected the other guy to win. Keith Olberman is wearing a baby pink tie – in fact every MSNBC’er is wearing a peculiarly distinctively different solid color tie. It’s almost like they are playing Risk! with their ties during Election Night. “the Ukraine is weak, Newman!”. All networks project the Dems will take the House. Okay already, now tell us about Britney!

Ooops we did it again. About an hour ago everyone projected some white guy over black Republican Michael Steele in the Maryland Senate race even though now with 45% of the vote in Steel still leads. Now they’re trying to explain it. James Carville shouts down Anderson Cooper while he still talks on and on about Clinton. Anderson did a 360. Nice dome James. Back at MSNBC, Chris Mathews complements former Congressman Dick Gephardt at not being fat like other older politicians. “My lord when I saw Al Gore the other night I thought I was talking to the Hindenburg!” Let’s play some hardball.

CNN reports from the White House that Karl Rove had just called the President to tell him that the House is now under the control of the Democrats. Wha? Someone had to call him? All he had to do was to watch the friggin’ TV! That chick reporter said this was a colossal change for the White House. Wolf Blitzer said this a “major, major” development. Business talking head Lou Dobbs said this was a shocking sea of change. My god – it has been forecast before the goddamned football season started. For friggin’ Pete’s sakes. No one gives a shit about the House. Except for the fact that someone named Nancy Peolsi gets to shout out her extremely radial leftist krap all day long. She makes Hillary look good.

Now everyone has pulled back their projection of incumbent Democratic Senator over black Republican Michael Steele in Maryland. They are amazed that perhaps black voters in urban Baltimore may have voted for a Republican. Go Orioles. It is also fairly obvious now that Republicans are leading in closely contested and much talked about Senate races in Tennessee and Missouri but all networks don’t want to call them because that would be the end of their show – with the Senate still under Republican control. Boo hoo. I’m sure you realize that everyone on MSNBC and CNN are major Dems and want them to take control desperately. Their contempt for the latest results is written all over their carefully color coordinated ties.

Like I have said before I don’t watch Fox that much but I would have to say they are the more sober of the bunch – they are now even talking about how the Dems may take over the Senate (with some suddenly quick turning numbers) – the other two channels are tripping over their generalites and these guys are really talking turkey without much flag waiving. I’m pretty surprised. Its seems generally fair and balanced – and real. How refreshing.

Arizona voted on one of their Propositions to make English the State’s official language. How sad. MSNBC projects Ahnuld Schwarzenager to be reelected as governor of Califronia. Chris Mathews says it because of the huge nature of “celebrity”. That is amazingly so wrong. Ahnuld tried to change a bunch of stuff last year and got soundly defeated and as deft a politician as I have ever seen he swung back to the center, approved a hike in minimum wage, amongst other things and soundly defeated a guy who was well know to support every tax hike known to man.

Chris Mathews continues to misread graphics on the screen. Webb pulls ahead of Allen but he doesn’t know it. Keith and Chris are now getting excited. More blather about the wicked witch of the west Nancy Pelosi. David Schuster reports from Allen headquarters – he’s a pretty good reporter. But the MSNBC guys are abuzz – I mean its actually sort of exciting. I wonder if Heath Shuler can hang onto the ball.
Chris Mathews says George Bush’s only position as a lame duck President is to keep taxes low. He says this “only helps the rich”. What a myopic little prick. Keeping taxes low helps the entire economy!. After 9/11 Bush rushed into play tax cuts that kept an economy staggered by 9/11 – remember the airlines? – afloat. What political and economic nonsense. This man does not have an economic brain cell in his head. And he’s on fucking TV!

Finally, at 9:29 PST Tennessee is declared for the Republican Bob Corker. Chris Mathews is disappointed. He’s says they won’t project Corker…oh we will…we have all the votes…oh wait we don’t..well let’s see. It’s projected by MSNBC anyway but Mathews too busy pontificating he can’t believe it. Allen trails by 2,000 votes as he signs off at 12:30 AM EST. There is also talk about a disputed count. It will go into a recount. But it now doesn’t look good for Allen. I guess he didn’t have a good game plan.

It’s fairly sad that Chris Mathews keeps saying that black Senator candidate Harold Ford lost in Tennessee because he was black. Frankly, I like Harold Ford. I’ve seen him on TV before and he seems like a sharp guy to me – very candid – fairly in the middle – well spoken and on point – a true gentlemen if you ask me. But apparently he lost in Tennessee because he was black according to Mathews. I mean Gore couldn’t even win as a VP candidate in Tennessee. It’s not the color – it’s the party affiliation. And Ford came really close. He will do well somewhere else.

Hillary Clinton apparently spent $29 million to run for a pretty much uncontested seat. Unbelievable.

No one knows about the Senate yet. The Dems will have a tough time doing anything anyway with Bush waiting with his veto pen.

NO NEW TAXES!

It's a Whacky Whacky State

California is the most bizarre place for an election. It has a state mandated ability for any idiot with money to put a Proposition on the ballot for the collective to vote on and make law. This is why the state is excessively hard to manage because many of the voted upon issues have hamstrung the state. This year’s slate includes:

Prop 86: Tax cigarettes another tax of $2.50 per pack ramping up the on the street cost to almost eight dollars. This state loves to tax vilified people without representation – this is outrageous and for no new real reason except that they can. This will lead to bulk market sales of cigarettes and pretty much racateeering. Anyone heard of prohibition? Wait for the “drug” running and the black market affect.

Prop 87: A proposition created by local venture capitalists to create a fund to finance alternative energy issues without any result in sight. And it will create a tax on gasoline. Can you understand anything crazier than a tax on gasoline in these times? – but this is what they are proposing. And they had shills and ads out here by Clinton and Gore that were pure lies and bullshit. It damns me that an ex-President can sell himself for such an ad lowlife prop it is unbelievable. That is the man – a shill. Over and over Clinton – an unelected but former President is telling people that they should tax themselves for funding a bullshit alternative energy fund on behalf of the rest of the country? Impeach the bastard again!

Prop H – an advance on California’s long held stance on NOT increasing property taxes that will purportedly fund low cost housing. While laudable, give developers a lot of money to do something that doesn’t make sense sound stupid to me. Another dumb soak the “rich” effort.

It’s a whacky whack state. I long for Texas.

Halloween Surprise

Well before John Kerry opened his mouth and inserted his foot and threw Republicans a softball…no make that a beach ball... I was going to make some general comments about next week’s election. And mostly about our local election out here in California and all the wacky inanities that come with this beautiful but in some cases, backward politically, state. But since the recent headlines deal with the national congressional and Governor races let's chat about that.

First of all let me preface those remarks by telling you where my point of view is coming from. I like to call myself a “rock-n-roll Republican” – and I have been meaning to write a post as to what that means but we’ll do that at length a little later. But suffice it to say I prefer less government, low taxes, no bloaty government programs and a strong national defense. But on the other hand I can be a bit more flexible on social programs. I’m not a bible thumper, I don’t think Roe v. Wade should be overturned and if gays want to get married have at it. Just don’t raise my taxes, please protect the country and promote free enterprise. Pretty simple really.

I sort of want to refrain from talking politically on these pages because unfortunately the discussion usually devolves into yelling and name calling. I’ve been to more political web pages and it really is just a bunch of screaming back and forth. That’s not much fun – I’d rather talk much more about how my fantasy football team sucks. I did start the blog to have a place to spout off because I do grow tired of the incredible nonsense I see on TV on almost every channel. It is so left, so intellectually dishonest, it defies comprehension. And no, I do not watch Fox religiously, more to the contrary I watch MSNBC – so I cannot silo myself.

What really capped this off for me was the media coverage of hurricane Katrina. Ws the government slow to respond? Yes. Was it despicable that they somehow reorganized FEMA and were so focused on terrorism that they could not respond as usual? Yes. I don’t have a problem with people piling on about that. Was the President of the free world’s comment “You’re doing a helluva job Brownie” a stupid statement? Hell yes. Go ahead – take your shots. It is warranted.

What I didn’t like was the assertion made over and over and over that everyone knew the hurricane was going to hit New Orleans. Over and over and over. Any idiot could see this happening – why weren’t we more prepared? Should our response have been better? Yes. But wasn't this also done with the fine collaboration of that well known political machinery in Louisiana? Puhleese. Everyone know that Louisiana is the most backwards state in the Union – and since my girlfriend is Cajun, I think I can say that. I think even some of my LSU friends would say that as well. But in the press it was over and over “any idiot could see this coming”.

That weekend I was sitting in my hotel room at a casino on Lake Charles, LA and on Friday night I saw reports that Katrina had spun around the tip of Florida. I also saw a report of people deciding to spend the night on their boats of the Louisiana shore not respecting a potential imminent threat. I guess they were just a stupid as the President. But no one in the press continually attacked them – probably because they’re dead now. I left my buddies at the krap tables and by the pool around noon Saturday amid bright sunshine as schedule so I could have dinner with friends in Houston that night. It wasn’t until I landed in LA and went to a party that people told me that New Orleans had been evacuated. My friends by the pool and at the kraps table had to scamper out in a hurry and through a lot of traffic later that evening. “Any idiot could see this would happen” spouted the media machine.

Just like anyone could see that 9/11 would happen because someone filed a report saying that someone was interested in flying planes into buildings. Were we asleep at the switch? Yes. Was it obvious to everyone? Hell no. In fact in pre-9/11 times if we took certain action against foreign students taking suspicious flight training classes any administration would have been rung up for violating people’s civil liberties. Even now people bitch about the Patriot Act and other actions the administration has taken to protect us.

And for Iraq – I was always conflicted on it. Did part of me want to go in and kick ass? Yes – as a child of post-World War 2 there was that part of me that wanted to flex our political will if we could and if it was prudent. Let’s do it – let’s quit being passive and try to do something in this region which somehow creates most of world’s problems. And in a post 9/11 world I think it was important to be proactive instead of being reactive. But I always couldn’t figure out how it would work for a long term. Iraq was put together by the British and it had three distinct different religious groups. This looked messy to me. While I thought the idea of promoting a democracy in the Middle East for a certain country or area was laudable I found the thought to be somewhat unrealistic. But hopefully our guys knew something that I didn’t.

What we, and the rest of the world, didn’t really know was the extent of the rise in radical Islamic fundamentalism. I would suggest to anybody to read the book “The Looming Tower” which explains how radical Islamic fundamentalism didn’t start when some guy from Texas took office, but actually started after World War 2 – and because some other guy, exiled from Egypt came to America and didn’t like what he saw. And not in New York City or Hollywood – but some little town in Colorado. He came back to Egypt, wrote books, started a movement, killed Anwar Sadat - because he was not religious enough - and now radial Islamic claim him as their George Washington. This is what we, nor any administration, nor any political head arguing against global warming or saying he wore boxers et al, saw coming. Please read the book – it’s a friggin eye opener.

And that is what we are up against. A very serious problem with, not a country but a religious ideal. You may think this rhetoric about how “they want to change our way of life” is just a campaign slogan – but it is very real. They want to kill all infidels – which is us. Do all Arabs feel this way? No. But alot do. And it’s not because of our “government’s policies in the region”. Its because we are who we are. No one did anything. No politician misspoke. They just hate our way of life. It’s against their religion.

And while most of us would say – go ahead practice your religion - it’s a free country – not many religions promote annihilation of everyone else. Which is what Sharia does.

What’s surprising to me is that no one in the media talks about this. This is the immediate threat. This is what we should be “prepared” for. But no. They talk about Hillary’s numbers, how Bush’s number are declining , how Barak Obama looks appealing. Asleep at the switch? The hurricane is coming? Duh?

By the way – did you know the economy is booming? No, I bet you didn’t - because the media hasn't told you yet.

Which brings us to Mr. Kerry. As any news outlet would tell you he’s not running for anything. Who cares? He wants to be part of the story. He came out west to stump for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelideis who is nothing more than an angry accountant wonk who thinks that everything can be solved if you raise taxes. Besides having three adorable daughters who have campaigned for him he is a despicable human being. He ran adds linking his opponent Ahnuld to Bush on and on and on. His past campaigns for Treasurer jobs consistently ripped the opponent instead of standing on his own virtues. His tactics are lower than low. Can’t talk about the issues but he can’t rant and rave about the negatives all day long. He’s pretty much is on the record for raising every tax known to man in California if he gets elected. And so he trails in the race by double digits. So let bring out Kerry – he will energize the campaign.

Kerry – on the stage again – comes out swinging against Bush. He just can’t help it. Say what you want to say about Bush. But you know where he stands. Kerry, Clinton – all wordsmith experts saying not alot really. And he says what you know already. Standing on the steps of a college he says “You know we are here to talk about education but you know if you do well and study hard you may get somewhere but if you don’t you’re stuck in Iraq” .

When I heard this news clip driving in my car to work never in my mind did I think Kerry was disparaging the troops . I knew better. He was too arrogant to do so –he just wanted to take a swing at the President. And he missed- in fact he threw the bat.

Why is this important? Because a man who ran for President thought he could just swing for the fences but got caught up. If you didn’t think he was after the troops then he was after the President – and after saying education was a big deal. But do any of you really think he tried to say the President was dumb even though he is on record at being dumber? Do you realize that Bush had better grades at Harvard than both Kerry and internet inventor Al Gore? The reality is you don’t because the media has not told you. So how does this compute? Bush was "smarter" than those guys, but if you don’t do your homework….huh?

Is a verbal gaffe that bad? – not really. But one week before an election? Dumb. And dumber.

Please cast your vote wisely.