Oh, and New York City restored term limits for Mayor and City Council (only two consecutive terms per but it doesn’t kick in for a while).
I’m ambivalent about it so didn’t vote on it, but I’m glad it won since it was originally instituted (twice) by plebiscite, only to be overturned through manuevering (and payoffs and arm-twisting) by Bloomberg in 2008 so he could have a third term in order to “fix” NYC. The referendum also decided that the City Council could not act to do away with the lmiits again.
Funny that Bloomberg supported the restoration of term limits.
You know, I have been thinking a bit about this and looking back on my life and I think that I can say that it seems like whomever is in charge has not really made much difference one way or the other in my day to day life.
I am pretty sure that what is really happening here is that big business runs things and has a donkey puppet on one hand and an elephant puppet on the other. These are uses to keep everyone distracted by a lot of sound and fury. What I would like to see is more people trying to look behind the curtain.
I considered writing up a rant like the OP did, but what’s the point? We know that American voters are utterly stupid, especially the so-called “swing” voters who always vote against the ruling party whenever the economy’s in the shitter, and in favor when the economy’s doing okay. These are the same clueless idiots who voted for GWB in 2004, even after that lunatic criminal went on TV to say, “I don’t know where Osama bin Laden is, and I DON’T CARE!” The drunken bastard said that less than six months after 9/11, when the USA was still in a period of mourning; and all you dumb Americans re-elected him anyway. So…meh. My only big surprise is that O’Donnell did NOT get elected; I thought for sure that Delaware voters were plenty stupid enough to vote for her.
Nobody ever went broke from overestimating the stupidity of people in general.
I think I’ll follow sun tzu’s advice and not attack while the enemy is in the process of failing all over itself. I’ll just point out that I got a good chuckle out of many posts in this thread, especially the OP and those from blalron. If you two wouldn’t mind bottling your sweet, sweet tears and sending them to me, I’d sure appreciate it.
This is true. As some one who has some what recently won my L&I appeal, in which I had to fight against my own employer of nine years rather than the state, this one hit close to home and was one of the few bright spots on the night.
So I think the political lesson we can learn from this is:
If you’re going to fuck up the country, fuck it up so badly that it can’t be fixed in the next two years. The public will forget you were the ones who wrecked it in the first place, and after the other party can’t fix it in two years, they’ll want you back in.
By far my biggest disappointment was the failure of CA Proposition 21 ( $18 auto fees to fund the state park system that was gutted last time by the budget crisis ). All politics are local as they say and I like state parks. As for politicians…
Eh. I’ve seen these big shifts several times in my life ( most recently two years ago ) and it eventually snaps back. Always. There is no pleasing a divided, diverse electorate.
It was the anticipation of just this sort of magnificent mixed-metaphoric puddle of outrage that has made the 2010 election if not exactly enjoyable, at least tolerable.
On an equally happy note, two out of three of our local tax-raising ballot initiatives failed to pass, so that I can enjoy the spectacle of dwindling public services and high school seniors left to panhandle on the streets.
And just think, in just under two years we’ll do it all again.
This. This is the reason for my despondency.
I understand conservative political philosophy. While I strongly disagree with most of it, I agree with some and respect a lot of it as alternate arguments for a path to prosperity and as a basis for legal principles. As we’ve seen all-too-infrequently on the board there are articuable and rationally defensible positions.
But that’s not what won.
Fear-mongering lies won. The Fox News-level rape of rhetoric won. The difference is between candidates that could have run on legitimate differences of opinion over economic stimulus plans or UHC and the candidates that shrieked “Communist!” The difference is between candidates who could have articulated reasons why they disagreed with financially propping up banks and automakers and candidates who chanted “Obama nationalized the auto industry!”
Though there are exceptions, this was a slate of candidates who failed at putting forth a political philosophy, and instead put out a political comic book. This wasn’t a national debate about ideas, it was about monsters under the bed.