Cross posting here since this is where the action is:
[quote name='IRHari']One election in 30 years yields a Republican senator and...it's now officially purple? Really?[/QUOTE]
It's a stupid state, that's for sure, no matter the color.
http://www.brownforussenate.com/issues
Look at his stances on issues. Vapid, 75-word responses to major political issues. Most of his stances take the form of reframing "I'm against _____" to "I support _____." Nevertheless, it's the typical political platform of simply being against something. Being against something is easy.
Which is why he was successful - Coakley's gaffes certainly helped, but for
's sake, her lil' Curt Shilling gaffe made loads of media copy, but it's a stupid gaffe that's wholly unrelated to her, or anyone's, ability to govern politically. She
ed her image with that gaffe, which people regard as important - that she said a naughty thing about a beloved
ing baseball pitcher killed her.
Brown was elected for a number of reasons, none of which was any actual platform of his. I've seen stances on issues ten times as long (literally) for people running for mayor of a podunk town, let alone a Senate seat. He offered nothing except what people crave right now: someone who identifies with an intellectually lazy "grumble-washington-grumble" mentality. People applaud an empty stance like "I stand for lower taxes," and feel like they're an informed voter instead of the simpleton they truly are.
But that's why people buy "Slim-Fast" milkshakes, that they drink while sitting on their
ing asses not doing anything to actually become healthy. The American Dream isn't unfettered capitalism, it's uninterrupted leisure without any of the negative side effects. That's why it's a dream.
Obama will have been in office for precisely 1 year as of tomorrow. The public willingly neglects the historical context in which Obama's stimulus bill passed - a recession, the scope of which we have not seen since the Great Depression - and instead brays about "tax and spend" Democrats. They neglect the shedding of jobs, they neglect the recession which started in mid-2007, over 2 years ago, when the housing bubble burst, and those select few who try to be informed about it lie to themselves by blaming the Community Reinvestment Act, as opposed to the 85%+ of subprime mortgages which helped the bubble grow and burst, yet were not under the purview of the CRA.
Was the stimulus a great idea? Time will tell. All I know is that right now I'm sick of everybody and everything in politics. A moron was elected because people with voting power and no intelligence elected someone because of what they stood against, what they perceived they stood against, and the villains that they stood against which were mere phantoms in the minds of voters. The Democrats put a jobber up to run for Kennedy's seat and lost because they were full of hubris.
Most of all, I'm sick to my stomach because voters have already forgotten what the world was like from 2001-2009 under Bush. They forgot how they stretched the limits of constitutionality and went beyond that, how the Republicans ran roughshod over the national debt, and their sitting Presidents sat for over 75% of its total accumulation since 1980, they forgot about a phony war in Iraq, they forgot about detainment of citizens without due process rights, the slashing of habeas corpus. The public's memory goes about 6 minutes into the past to evaluate their lives to that point and they vote as if the first 8 years of this decade never
ing happened.
Most of all, I'm sick because the public has fallen hook, line, and sinker for the new message of conservatives, which is to engage the framework of being "against Washington," but emphasizing conservative viewpoints and vagaries. These "tea bag" mother
ers bought a copy of Doki Doki Panic because it was called Super Mario Bros. 2, and didn't know any better.
And don't get me started on the "can't do anything with a supermajority" Democrats, because these are largely the same congresspersons who bent over backwards for Bush for 8 years. I dare you to name me a SINGLE PIECE of legislation that the Republicans did not pass, in whole, under Bush. Name me a single successful Democrat bit of obstructionism. Yet they can't do a single thing right in 1 year and more people than the Republicans had.
. Really. I'm so
ing sick right now of how
ing magnificently stupid people are.
The Dems went from super majority to plain majority in the Senate because they ran a horrible candidate in a very winnable race! Republicans must be popular again!
