Election Day! Yes! Or, Why I Geek Out Over Seemingly Insignificant Elections

Okay, I admit it. I can't wait for tomorrow. I know it's not a national election. I know it's not even a midterm. I can't help it - I lovelovelove Election Day!

What's better than walking to the polling place on a crisp, fall evening with your kids in tow, signing your name, and voting for the candidate of your choice? What's better than declaring your party affiliation proudly, receiving that Democratic ballot, and letting Tweenie and Little Man punch the ballot? What's better than getting the great little sticker that proudly states, in patriotic red, white and blue, "I have voted - have you?" And what's better than talking to your Little Politicos on the walk home about why you voted for Measure A, or why it's important to make sure Dems get elected to the City Council and the School Board? You know, most other countries make Election Day a national holiday, and some actually fine those who are eligible to vote and don't exercise that right. I don't think the right is taken as much for granted in other places as it is here, but I am hopeful that the surge of new voters we welcomed to the polls last November will feel the responsibility to act locally as well as globally. I hope for a better turnout than these poor state and local elections usually get, as they affect our lives tremendously.

I mean, think about it...what's more American than casting your vote for the offices that most directly affect your life, your family's lives? They say that running for national office, you don't have to know about the micro, just the macro, whereas at the local level, you really need to know your stuff. You have to know why saving Two Trees is important, you need to know how people feel about the natural gas plant being built off our coast, and how we can keep Wal-Mart from going megastore on our town's sorry little economy. You need to know budgets well enough to be able to explain to me how to actually get my folks street paved when it hasn't happened since I was in high school. Ya gotta know your stuff. There's no smoke and mirrors here. You have to actually campaign: shaking hands, kissing babies and canvassing door-to-door. People need to know you and trust you. You really do have to know your community and its constituents. It's a tough gig, with small budgets and few advisers - not like the national scene. And the best part? Any one of us can do it. You can run for office. That's the beauty of our democracy.

So, I will do my best to get home in time to pick up the kids, vote, then watch the returns on MSNBC, the station that I love because they seem almost as excited about it all as I am! I'll work with the Little Politicos on homework while I point out what the local measures are doing so far, and why the New York race, on the other side of the continent, is so significant. The Hubby will bring home pizza and maybe we'll stay up a little past bedtime (Momma will, anyhow, while The Hubby downloads songs and the kids rest their sweet little heads) and I'll see what happens in Washington and Maine with the gay marriage initiatives, and whether the local library will get the necessary funding to remain open. And when I finally get to bed myself, I will be grateful to live in a country that prides itself on every citizen having a voice, whether they choose to exercise that right or not. I'll revel in the fact that we are a self-governing people, from the local Dogcatcher to The Office of The President of The United States. And I will sleep well knowing that, once again, a peaceful transfer of power, albeit on some of the tiniest levels of government, has once again transpired.

No matter what time you vote, or what your party affiliation, or your choice for school board, don't forget to get out there and make your voice heard. Call a friend to remind them it's time to vote, and offer a ride to the polls to the elderly folks across the street. Wear your civic duty with the pride that comes with knowing that once again, We The People will decide the course of action for our cities, counties and states. Oh, and don't forget your sticker. You earned it - wear it with pride. Happy Election Day, my fellow Politicos!

Hell, No! Joe Must Go! More Importantly, My Kids'll Be Soooo Cute On Halloween!

I hate to say she told us so, but...well, I'll let Rachel Maddow tell you herself:

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If Joe won't go along with his caucus, then he needs no chairmanship, and let the chips fall where they may! Two cloture votes, and we can let him stay...for now!

On another note, I will have the cutest little penguin and the prettiest bumblebee on the block come Halloween night! I was relieved that Tweenie's costume is much more modest than it appeared in the catalog - no tank top necessary underneath (that was our deal!), and am just delighted that my Little Man still likes the idea of funny, cute animal costumes instead of creepy stuff. I know, I know, it's probably the last year I'll get that gift, but I am completely and utterly smitten by the innocence my little penguin still shows and the literal jumping for joy that her bumblebee costume brings.

Gotta go - time for the annual watching of "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"! Enjoy your Halloween, be safe, and share your costumes here, fellow Politicos! I can't wait to hear what fun your 31st will bring!

Hoised By Their Own Pitard: GOP v. Tea Party Means Dems Wins in N. Y.

Well, y'all know this is not the first time I've said this, and it won't be the last...I've been predicting the extinction of the Republican Party for some time now. And the real beauty of the whole process is how they've been doing it: just like the Dodo, causing their own demise. Watch this faboo clip from our dear Maddow:

Howzabout that, Sports Fans? Amazing, right? This may be the first time that a Dem wins in this particular county since, get this: 1854. That's one hundred and fifty-five years ago, for God's sake! How can this happen???

Those of you who are regulars here at MP know that I have been convinced of late that the GOP are eating their own young...politically speaking, of course. While pandering to the base, the Republican Party has pushed the bounds of crazy far beyond the point of no return, by stirring up their base through propaganda and lies, revisionist history and encouraging the death of civil discourse. This divisiveness has grown over the past few years to a record high and and all the while, the GOP feeds this frenzy of uber-conservativism to the point that it has become a party tht folks accept as a legitimate alternative. They pulled the Conservative out of Republicans and made it their own party.

So, you ask, why have Dick Armey and his corporate Tea Party pals have been stirring up a hornet's nest if it is truly harmful to the GOP? Honestly, I think it was the proverbial tempest in a teapot, no pun intended...So let's start by taking a look back to the Primaries in '08. Hell, let's look further back than that. How about the seven years before, while Cheney ran the country into the ground. back then you had a Party so desperate for power in order to benefit the corporate few that they use fear as their ace in the hole. And there's nothing like a war to feed corporate profits, so let's acquire some intelligence that we know is dead-wrong and get one of our lackeys (AKA Colin Powell, that poor man, the way he was treated was criminal...he and Scooter Libby should form a club. They could have jackets...) to give it credibility. Next, invent a color-coded Terror Alert with which to terrorize our citizens "Okay, so every time the death toll in Iraq goes up, our polling numbers go down, right? So, all we have to do is raise the terror alert every time so our numbers will go back up, too! We can always claim to have discovered a sleeper cell if things get really bad. Then again, we can always play the 'if we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them here' card and perpetuate our corporate welfare, uh, I mean 'War on Terrah,' sponsored by our friends at Halliburton, Blackwater and KBR."

Of course, there's nothing like fear to get people to surrender their civil liberties. And, hey, if you are an elected official and decide to do something truly suicidal like fight to preserve The Constitution of these United States or to defend our Bill of Rights, they'll run a smear campaign accusing you of Anti-Americanism, of holding favor with that abstract group known as "the terrorists" and try to defeat your next election bid by running horribly negative ads all over your home district. This is where it all begins.

So on to Election '08, my friends. In a race filled with racial undertones and accusations from the right wing nutjobs of "Muslim" and "friend of terrorists," the primary races have one of the lowest turnouts for Republican voters in the last twenty years. Perhaps it had to do with the choices available on the GOP ballot; maybe it had to do with ordinary Americans, the ones who send their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, moms and dads to war, realizing that the "Mission" of the past seven years of a Cheney-Bush White House was not "Accomplished" in the least. Or maybe it was the fact that the frontrunner was no longer the maverick he once was, having diametrically changed positions on most major issues (if it were a Dem, they'd call him a flip-flopper"), and the base felt he was no longer to be trusted. As early as the Potomac Primaries, voter turnout for the GOP was simply abysmal, while Democrats were infused with enthusiasm over a race that seemed to hold something for everyone in historical proportions. Democratic voters were out in record numbers, not boding well for GOP in the General Election.

This strange turn of events, an energized Democratic base and an apparently disillusioned Republican one, made for a strong mandate for the Dems in November. In the process, the desperation grew on the Red side of the fight, as some states became purple, then violet, then cornflower blue and on to a deep, rich hue of royal Democratic blue. The dissatisfaction of core Republican voters plummeted to an all-time low: according to Pew Research Center, only 27% of voters self-identified as Republican by the time the election drew near. I marveled at the number of my conservative friends (I do too have some!) who told me they'd changed parties and formally registered as Democrats. These were not malcontents, or rebels. These were lifetime Grand Old party supporters, born and raised. They told me they'd had it with the war, the corruption, the lies and the fearmonger politics of the right. It was the most amazing transformation I'd ever seen. And the Democrats won both the House and the Senate, as well as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Wow. Just...wow! The nation was inspired with hope one again, we were surrounded by possibility, and America had overcome the stranglehold it had held on racism for so long, electing the first
African-American to the White House.

Now, fast-forward to January 2009. While hope reigned supreme, much bitterness swelled in the ranks of the conservative right. While mainstream Republicans polished their obstructionism, the seeds they had planted grew and bloomed. As in the case of the Moral Majority, which was simply a vocal minority with good PR skills, the rhetoric of the few became more and more dangerous. Tea Party politics began to rear its ugly head, encouraging the protesting of taxes, health care reform and anything else the present Administration wanted, watered and fed by Cheney and Armey and the rest. Anything to give the sitting President a black eye, to stir the base to action. But the spin machine began spiraling horribly out of control into whack-job-land and took on a life of its own. Self-deemed Teabaggers (Man, I hope they learned to google their chosen monikers from now on!) protested everything from so-called Obamacare to Secession, Confederacy to Gun Control, and came armed with an arsenal to do so. They protested the big government and deficit created by Cheney/Bush (and yes, they're deliberately placed in that order...) This fringe continued to bring guns to events where the President was appearing and to insist that a black man could be Hitler (what genius put that combination together??? Gotta wonder.) White supremacy groups were coming out of the woodwork at an alarming rate. And suddenly, the GOP realized they had created a monster that was dividing their party. The genie was out of the bottle, and not going back in without a fight.

And we've come full circle to the race you heard Rachel talk about in the first clip. The Republican Party has become a house divided. With its frustrated members on one side defecting to join the Democratic Party, and the far fringe voting for Conservative Party members for the first time, we see a rift that has split the votes of the Republicans to the point where the Democrat takes the lead in a district that hasn't voted Democratic since the Civil War. They've created their very own spoilers in the NY race, the first of what I predict to be a trend. Teabaggers, many more libertarian than the moderate "let's run McCain" faction of the GOP, are feeling their oats and realizing that there are many more angst-filled, dissatisfied Americans looking to blame someone other than the Bushes and the banks for the misfortunes in our nation today. And we all know that there's nothing like a strong dose of fear and a good scapegoat behind which to unite people to a cause. But who would have predicted the rise of a third party out of the ashes of the Republicans? And it is a real a possibility as ever before. As I have said before, we are watching the GOP unravel before our very eyes, and we are compelled to watch as if it were a bad accident. And I will say it again, and again, and again: not only will we be witness to the obstructionist downfall of what was once the Grand Old Party. But they will have no one to blame but themselves when they've decimated their political party, and the blood will be on their hands when the hate-filled, self-righteous crazies they've created rise up and and act upon the violence they eschew. May reason and the return of sanity come to light before it happens.

iPhone Apps for Rethuglicans - A Must-See!

Here's a new app for the GOPs in your life (and, yes, I do have some Republican friends!) Many thanks to Sirens Chronicles for passing it along. A new classic - enjoy!

The Olympics, The Nobel Prize & National Pride: The GOP & The Death of American Patriotism

Once upon a time in this country, we were all Americans, and wore the title proudly. It was O.K. if we were different; in fact, it was considered one of the strengths of this great nation. My next-door neighbor could be a Republican, and I could be a Dem, and we'd still loan each other the mower and support each other's kids' fundraisers. We could even put opposing lawn signs up, and still be cordial. Everyone had the right to feel patriotic over our country's greatness; patriotism was not restricted by one party, claimed exclusively for their own. Our country's successes were all of our successes - that was what America was all about. Despite our differences, when our country won, we all won.

The Republican Party has been draping themselves in the flag since the Reagan era, claiming that the "my country, love it or leave it" mentality was the definition of patriotism. And as the Bushies came through the Oval, there has been a transformation toward intolerance. The Moral Majority, a vocal minority, wrapped the flag in conservative Christianity and suddenly "Onward Christian Soldiers" seemed like the new national anthem. What began as a movement that pressed Americanism into their religious/political agenda mold began rejecting anyone outside of that mold as un-American. And they dubbed themselves the new patriots, the only ones "protecting" America. This indoctrination soon extended to the GOP in its entirety, the "you're either with us or against us" mentality becoming the main beam supporting all else in the party platform.

Before we knew it, Sept. 11 hit, and for a brief period, it was all put aside as we became a nation once again. Everyone reclaimed the flag as their own. But that is to be expected in a time of crisis, that regular Americans always rally to band together during tragedy is not surprising. But as we found out more and more about the pretenses with which we were sold a preemptive strike, we became skeptical. And the divisions arose once again. Those who disagreed with the Administration's false intel, who did not believe that America stands for such wrongs as lying about intel to support an unjust war were branded un-American and reviled. This cycle continued on, with swiftboating and the stripping of our civil rights, the loss of freedoms granted by The Bill of Rights. The right to privacy and free speech, the right to assemble freely, and even due process began vanishing in order to "assure the nation's safety." Suddenly, you could be turned in by a neighbor as a suspected terrorist or monitored by the government at peace rallies, as if you were a "known communist" in the McCarthy era or on the "enemies list" in the Nixon era. Patriots supported whatever the country did. My country, right or wrong, the rallying cry of the right.

This horrific progression continued through both Bush terms. And along came Cheney to centralize as much power as possible in the Executive Office. Somehow, he was even able to rationalize that the Office of The Vice-President did not fall in the Executive Branch and was above the law. We were expected to accept regression to the Nixonesque idea that "if the President does it, it's not illegal." Signing Statements and Executive Orders became all the rage. And all the while, our country was using torture, and it was suddenly o.k. because it purportedly paid a dividend. The slippery slope has been breached, and the slide continues on the right, further and further into the self-serving, smug idea that it is acceptable to disturb town hall meetings with screaming. It was seemingly acceptable to lie and name-call instead of civil discourse, to wear guns at public events in a passive-aggressive display toward The President, and to yell and accuse The President of lying during speeches to the Joint Houses of Congress. How far will we slide? "How low can you go?" appears to be the rallying cry of the Republican Right, and their motto, "Might Makes Right," has become a call to violent action. They are unconcerned with the blood that is, and will continue to be, be on their collective hands.

Now we live in an era in which if you disagree with the GOP, then you are not a true American. We're living in a time when Republicans are expected to call their children's school to forbid the viewing of The President's speech. In fact, it has become desirable among the majority of the Republican Party not simply to obfuscate and obstruct progress for middle class and working Americans, but to literally root for the failure of our President. It has become bloodsport to cheer for the failing of America if The President is not from your political party. It is socially acceptable, no, encouraged, to wish for and promote, and yes, even cheer for the failure of America:



Not only are there folks cheering the failure of America as a nation, but they now are attempting to dispel the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the current sitting President of The United States:

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The appalling idea that it is O.K. to wish for the country to fail miserably because it is the only way for your chosen party to possibly regain power is un-American. By definition. Let me restate that: it is morally wrong for Americans to wish for the failure of their nation because it is the only way for their own party to come into power. It is reprehensible, abhorrent and just plain immoral.

I can't recall a time when I saw eye to eye with either Bush. I despised the Shrub, who even made his father look good in comparison! And if Cheney keeled over today, I would not mourn the loss. But I also would not stand up and cheer in a public venue. The Democratic Party never encouraged an assassination attempt on either Bush, or their mastermind, Cheney, by encouraging the wearing of loaded weapons to Presidential rallies. We did not dispel debate or publicly label others who disagreed with us as enemies of the state, or call out either President Bush for the many lies they perpetrated on the American people by screaming epithets at them during speeches before Congress. We protested peacefully, worked through our representatives and the electoral process for change, and blogged about injustices we saw happening, because that is the American way to work for change.

Disagreement is tantamount to our system of government. It's why we have more than one party, and why we have three branches of government and the checks and balances put in place by The Constitution. It is American to disagree, but to work within the rule of law and elections to make change. But it is truly unpatriotic to cheer our country's loss of an Olympic bid. It is unAmerican to dismiss the decision of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for honoring the efforts of the United States to mend the horrible rifts in world diplomacy, all of which were created before President Obama took office, might I add. And it is not just irresponsible, but downright evil to encourage assassination attempts with incendiary remarks by the Republican-controlled media - or any media outlet, for that matter.

Is this really the America we want? I have Republican friends who are appalled at the actions they have seen in recent events. Some have even changed their party affiliation. Shouldn't the fact that only 26% of Americans self-identify as Republican send their party a strong messagea about its actions? I don't believe that we really prefer for our country to be thought of as thugs around the world, instead of, as French President Sarkozy stated, "it sets the seal on America's return to the heart of all the world's peoples." Do we prefer to undercut our national pride and encourage divisiveness with the poor sportsmanship that wouldn't even be seen on an elementary school playground? The most terrifying fear of all is that this hatred and division will not end until it has been acted upon in its extreme, in an assassination attempt or worse. The Republican party and its leaders in the media (Limbaugh, et al) will continue to stir up racist fear and anger for their own profit until we see disastrous results for our nation because of this death of true patriotism. And I am sorely afraid that they will stand up and cheer if an unspeakable tragedy happens.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: The Honorable Alan Grayson

Somebody in Congress grew a pair, and that man is Alan Grayson. Finally! The voice of reason! Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to present my new hero, Rep. Alan Grayson, (D, Florida), a populist and common man, here speaking earlier in the week on the new Rethuglican health plan:



That was amazing! Fantastic! Go get 'em, Grayson! I thought to myself, how can he possibly top that? And then, today, after the Rethugs told him to apologize (did they apologize for the whole "killing grandma" thing???), he spoke out again, even more brilliantly:



It is so incredibly amazing to hear someone who is in Congress for all the right reasons. He is the embodiment of Mr. Smith goes to Washington - wildly patriotic ties and what look like off-the rack suits, an ordinary guy actually willing to fight for what is just plain right. No fancy speeches, just a regular Joe willing to speak the truth. "Lead, follow, or get out of the way!" My kinda guy.

Maybe I am naive; maybe this is all about building his campaign coffers. Well, I'll tell ya what. If that's what will get campaign contributions happening, then there are a heck of a lot of folks responding to his populism, and he's a really smart cookie for doing it. Either way, he is saying what needs to be said right now and I am grateful nonetheless for his candor and his chutzpah, so he's got my donation either way. And maybe I am wrong, but this guy seems like the genuine article. I believe he's the real McCoy. If you think so, too, then please let the Honorable Alan Grayson know we appreciate his bold, brave actions on our behalf, that we want to encourage him to continue speaking out: contribute to his reelection campaign.

Coming soon, my take on our President, the Nobel Peace Prize Recipient...for now, give me your take on my new hero, Representative and All-Around Good Guy, Alan Grayson. Come on, Politicos, whaddya think of Grayson? Is he the real deal, or am I just a pollyanna?