November 04, 2008
Hooray!
Now let's look at the disappointing losers in this election:
-Sean Tevis - the xkcd inspired candidate in Kansas got somewhat smeared and lost
-Proposition 8 (banning gay marriage) in California is probably going to pass.
-Also from that nyt link (at the bottom), a symbolic proposition in Florida removing a clause preventing Asian immigrants from owing land is losing. Keep it classy, Florida!
-Unbelievably, convicted felon Ted Stevens is probably going to win again and then have to waste Senate time being expelled.
Who am I forgetting?
The political cartoonists weigh in.
So I guess a big part of the pro-proposition 8 vote was due to the manufactured threat that gay marriage would lead to "teaching about gay marriage in schools". Seriously, what the fuck? Did any of you ever learn anything about "marriage" (straight or gay) in any public school you ever attended?
Anyway, congratulations America for re-convincing me that the country is filled with reactionary cretins that are all too able to seize on a single non-essential (or even non-true!) point and make the whole issue about that.
Incidentally, the above article cites that many people were anti-gay marriage but were afraid to say so because it would make them seem "discriminatory" and "not cool." At least they were perceptive enough to realize the truth on that one...
For whatever reason, I mostly watched the Fox coverage last night and holy hell was Shepard Smith laying down the disbelief. This guy was hilarious and I guess he decided he wasn't going to take dumb nonsense and was just running side commentary all night on all sorts of things including the boos during McCain's concession speech. I'd pay a dollar to the person that made a 5 minute youtube clip of all the times he was just totally stunned.
Newsweek has a crazily compelling behind-the-scenes look at how Obama got to the presidency starting with the primaries. Trust me, it reads more like a screenplay than actual events.
Holy crap. I just spent the day at work with two of the most rabidly conservative people I know. Jeeesuss KEEE RIST! the histrionics were amazing. Appearently, we're all communists and deserve to die and they will have no money anymore because the Democrats are going to take it all away with taxes.
ay yi yi.
re: the taxes
check out the top income tax rate from 1950-1970. This period, of course, is known mostly for it's crippling poverty and a wasteland of American industry.
Being as I am just about the only well known democrat half the shit above was directed at me. It got annoying pretty damn quick, I mostly just rolled my eyes as most of that crap just rolls off my back. however, when they started ranging into the gay marriage issues, or Islam or shit along those lines, well, that started to get under my skin...
Apparently whoever is setting the lines over at Newsweek expects 1.03 secretaries of defense during the Obama administration: 0.33 Gates, .25 Hagels, .25 Hamres and 0.2 Danzigs.
I hadn't thought about Richard Holbrooke. What a great choice that would be. In addition for the reasons mentioned, it'd also be a pretty sweet olive branch to the Clintonistas (I would think), and wouldn't undermine Obama's ability to make progress, like, say Bob Rubin, the most oft-mentioned 'olive branch' guy.
My brother and I were trying to enumerate a list of Obama's ideologies. In rough chronological order, we've just elected a
- Naive / Inexperienced
- Effete
- Elitist
- Celebrity
- Messiah / Cult of Personality Leader
- Angry Black Man (with an Angry Black Whitey-hating Wife)
- simultaneous Secret Muslim and Militant Black Christian
- Non-citizen
- Terrorist
- Liberal
- Socialist
- Antisemite
TTJ -- can you ask your coworkers to help you fill out the rest of this list? And tell them thanks.
Re: Robert Rubin...you have to be some insane kind of masochist to not only want to be the Secretary of the Treasury again but to want it with this economy. More power to him.
Re: Obama's ideologies...The Poor Man (in a post about the weird conspiracy theory that goes "Obama is the illegitimate son of Malcom X, seriously") suggests
"Obama is a Marxist Muslim Arab Jesus Black White Terrorist Technocrat Racist Do-Gooder Liberal FDR Stalin Hitler Commie Fascist Gay Womanizing Naive Cynical Insider Noob Boring Radical Unaccomplished Elite Slick Gaffe-Prone Pedophile Pedophile-Seducing Liberation Theology Atheist Etc. & Anti-Etc. with a bunch of scary friends from - wait for it! - the Nineteen Hundred And Sixties."
wow. That's why he's pro.
... one addition: recidivist smoker
Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are -- good thing we don't know anyone like this.
Part of the genius 50-state strategy will pay off later, laying a foundation for turning states like Texas blue: recruiting precinct captains (Hi Jon!), registering voters, explaining positions. Another I haven't seen discussed was to galvanize supporters from those areas. Most of the carpetbaggers were from lost causes on the left -- Boston, Seattle, &c -- but Mississippi, Texas (natch) and Nebraska also represented.
I know seeing the Sysiphean efforts of our local office was a big motivator: the Kerry office was sad, small and empty; the Obama office efficient, huge and relentless. A paid field organizer in Texas isn't directly helping to win Ohio, but their ripple effects were non-negligible.
Also:
Look at Larry Summers note to Ken Lay from 1999. We already have plenty of reasons not to like the man. But, god.
Until I hear something much more damning, I'm going with Wendy Kopp's appraisal of Larry Summers.
Okay, look, I'm all for change and what have you and I look forward to being pleasantly surprised. However, when presidential inauguration tickets are scalping for $20,000, can you blame the Republicans for going with the "celebrity" attack ad a few months ago? I guess I'm out of step but why doesn't everyone calm down just a little and give the man some manageable expectations to work with. Politics is not magic.
I'm sure there will be plenty of stories about things people will miss about the Bush presidency. The Telegraph, it seems, will mostly miss the dancing.
The election inspired many great political cartoons (from link by habcous, above). "Lincoln/Uncle Sam/MLK is proud of us" was the most common theme, no less profound for its ubiquity (and "Obama cleaning up after Bush's debauched rager" no less ubiquitous for its dicey overtones).
The subtle elegance of Bob Staake's New Yorker Cover wins the thread, though:
of course, not everyone on the left is overjoyed about last Tuesday. There is major soul-searching going on in the LGBT activist community right now.
And there are a lot of gay white racists coming out of the woodwork.
Is that some kind of gloryhole slang that I'm not aware of?
Sadly, that is not slang. Kevin Smith could create an entire movie around such a phrase.
In other news, via Open LeftRonald Reagan's son is already calling for impeachment.
But, you see, you have to control congress before you can abuse the Independent Prosecutor Law. Ooopsie!
Hillary Clinton has reportedly been offered the SecState job. It's about as fine a choice as I can think of, so long as she wants it (there had been some talk of her trying to unseat Reid as Majority Leader).
As you know, there are no red/blue states, there are urban/rural states: most of our geographical political alignment is explained by population density.
If you browse through either visualization, you'll quickly notice two sets of anomalies -- a blue swath through the red, red heart of deepest south, and bright blue limning the TX-Mexico border and arcing up through the southwest. That's because race is the second most explanatory variable. This remarkable map shows just how strong it is:
It overlays a dot map of cotton production at the close of the civil war with voting returns from the 2008 presidential election.
The Obama administration has moved quickly to allay two of my concerns. First, they are not averse to the claim that UT is number one, and going forward support a college football playoffs. Second, Obama has pledged to improve his bowling game through a disciplined process of Wii Sports training with coaches Malia and Sasha.
Polls reveal the bowling thing resonates strongly with the coveted Strangers in the Alps demographic, many of whom cite Clinton's early april press conference as a low ebb in their support for Obama.
That's funny, especially considering that Reagan put a real bowling alley into the White house.
Nixon, not Reagan. I think lifting a bowling ball might have broken Reagan.
a good start, if not also for the fact that it shows that he's willing to piss off conservatives if their cause is insane and stupid enough, and the opposition just enough.
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I mean, Barack. I got so excited, I threw in an extra r for good measure.
posted by daughterofmischief at 11:47PM CST on November 04