The Mid-Term Election

Ok…I need to say something about last Tuesday’s election (I apologize in advance, recall Blog number 1 and let me get this rant over with).


I am, and always have been, a card carrying Republican since my Young Republican days at Mesa College back in 1972 when I turned 18. I consider myself a left-of-center conservative who may actually be dragging my blue shirt wife kicking and screaming with me into the dark side.

It’s only been a week and I am officially tired of all the chest-bumping and high-fiving going around the Republican and Tea Party houses of ill repute. I want John Boehner (pronounced Bayner…yeah, I know it’s not how it’s spelled) to know that there’s no crying in politics and I really don’t care that it’s been his “life’s work” to become Speaker of a House divided. I’m less enthusiastic about Mitch McConnell being the Republican Leader of the Senate. This is the guy who still questions the citizenship of our President. I’m not sure if being able to read is a much sought after quality in that backwoods district you’re from but it’s a documented fact he’s a citizen, get over it.

Here’s the thing. One of the flaws of a two party system of government is….it’s only two parties. Yeah, I know there’s a smattering of Green Partiers and Independents out there (how’d that work out for you Governor Crist?). Our beloved Constitution does make it possible for discourse and disagreement. But in reality, there’s only two. So to all those who are running hysterically through the hallowed halls of our Local, State Houses and their Federalist brothers and sisters, let’s be clear. We didn’t have much of a choice. Oh, we did want to unseat most of you fools who, once elected and receiving your lobotomy at the door of the Senate and House Chambers, completely turned off your hearing aids and pulled out your own worn and frayed agendas from your pockets.

And there’s the rub. John, I’m not sure I would have voted to keep your gravelly voiced, “Pledge to America”, Brooks Brothers suited butt in your 8th District seat if I was from Ohio (have you checked the unemployment rate in the Buckeye State lately?). Hey, is it me or doesn’t the “Pledge” look a lot like Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” from 1994, look how well that went for ol’ Newt. Talk about “Professional Politician”, Johns been in the House since 1991.

Oh yeah Mr McConnell, by the way, I didn’t vote straight ticket either. You might want to know that when I looked over the field, I didn’t think all the red shirts out there warranted my vote. Unlike Rand Paul, I (and I dare say most Americans) believe the Civil Rights Act (that’s right, LBJ was a Democrat) was the best thing to happen to America since Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 (oh yeah, he was a Republican too). The Civil Rights Act snapped America back from the worst legislation ever created, the “Jim Crow” laws of the 1870s, a complete repudiation of our “unalienable rights” our very own Constitution guaranteed us. Oh, wait a minute, isn’t Mr. Paul from Kentucky too? Hummmm.

Oh, and get a reality check. Mr. Obama is our President. He is a birth-certificated citizen of these here United States. Get passed it. I kind of like the guy and being POTUS is not the easiest job out there. I also like the idea of free or low fee health care for the poor, old, and especially kids. Especially when I hear how the huge, bloated, health care insurers won’t treat a child’s brain cancer or replace a missing limb because it’s not cost effective or due to a “pre-existing condition”. Are there actually humans on this planet who can tell kids to their faces they might die or can’t have a new leg because it’s too expensive? I’m a Dad and that sort of thing really upsets me. Especially when I see an elected official take a different stance as he’s filling his next campaign coffer with money it would take to treat the kid from the insurance industry PAC .

Oh, Mr. McConnell, I forgot to mention that my vote was not a vindication of your personal agenda to make sure Mr. Obama is a “one-term” President. Really, is that all you could come up with representing a Nation with a 13 trillion dollar debt, which grows daily (Source:  http://www.usdebtclock.org/ )? I was hoping the people I voted for would abide by my agenda of getting my neighbors, many of whom haven’t worked for two years, back to work so they can provide for their families, stay in their homes, contribute to their community’s well-being and reduce the crushing debt that has virtually ceased all economic expansion and left us, for the first time in our history, beholding to the very nations we scorn for their human rights abuses and dictatorial governments.

What I believe to be the most important message I and the rest of America sent on November 2nd to the new and old guard is…you’re currently the only game in town and we have so little to work with. But, if you get to your State House or your tony Alexandria, Virginia farmhouse home away from home, you can stay there and earn our respect and your paycheck (and free heath care...did I say that out loud?) if you continue to listen to your electorate and the American People as a whole and do their bidding not yours. The alternative is to become one of the 9.6 percent of the unemployed you so handsomely made possible being the party of no for the last two years. Well…after you exhaust all those honorarium fees and the book advances. Remember, “it takes a village”.