Well well. It has once again been a long time since I posted anything on my much beloved blog and so I will briefly cover many topics in a fodder type format.
At the beginning of this month the Republicans made much expected gains in both houses of Congress. They have obtained the majority in the house of representatives and have trimmed the democratic majority in the Senate. This is absolutely great news for the country as this will finally end a congress that along with the white house maintained a policy of spending their way out of economic turmoil that has so far done nothing recognizable to help our country recover and has only served to add to our mounting national debt.
About the Tea Party. They deserve credit for being a vocal critic against the fiscal irresponsibility of the President and of the congress. They also deserve credit for keeping their own criticism's not only party based, lambasting the GOP for preaching one policy while campaigning and following a very different policy once they were elected and sent to Washington. Thanks to their devotion to fiscal responsibility we will have many great new congressmen to follow their campaign promises closely, as well as what I believe will be great Senator's in Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marc Rubio of Florida. Along with the good comes the bad though, and they also deserve the blame for blowing what should have been Senate wins in Nevada, Delaware, and depending on your point of view, Alaska.
In Nevada, my home state, we had a very unpopular Senator in Harry Reid. The state leads the country in unemployment at 14% and has the highest foreclosure rate for about three years running. Add to that Reid's very anti-mining voting nature since he became majority leader and this should have been a cake walk. Enter the tea party to insist that not only must Reid's challenger be fiscally solid, they must be solid on social issues as well, in fact if they are known more for their social conservatism the better. What? That makes about as much sense as a donkey in the kentucky derby, but so it goes and Sharron Angle manages to win the Republican nomination. Sharron Angle, who is so polarizing as a State Senate republican that the republican mayors of Reno and Sparks campaigned openly for Harry Reid's reelection. Angle leads at the polls for all of the race though, but makes campaign blunder after another capping it off with an add on illegal immigration that portrays Latino Americans as gang bangers. In the end Reid fucking wins by five points. Thanks tea party.
In Delaware we had what many considered a locked down seat with a popular former Republican governor Mike Castle seeking the GOP nomination. Enter the tea party. Mike Castle is a New England type of republican and so he is likely to not vote party line on ever issue, such as fiscal and some social issues. No, no, no, we absolutely cannot go with this man. He doesn't meet our needs at all. So along with help from the Tea Party and in particular Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnel gets the nomination. The rest is history that I won't repeat, but suffice to say that since O'Donnel was such a disaster the race wasn't even close. Now, I'm not a huge fan of Castle, but I'm pretty damn sure he would have been preferable to have in the Senate rather than a man who leans so far to the left he described himself as a "bearded marxist" in college. Once again, thank you tea party.
In Alaska where Sarah Palin had more of a play than the tea party, what seems like a very good candidate, Joe Miller won the nomination for higher office. All things considered I think Joe would have made a fine Senator from Alaska and he doesn't seem to have brought any of the negatives that O'Donnell or Angle brought. His downfall appears to be more to due with the political power of the Murkowski family in the state of Alaska. Lisa Murkowski was the incumbent and she voted as little more than a RINO. Deservedly so she got the boot, but hung around long enough to weigh her options and decide to launch a write in campaign that so far appears to have won her another term. It will remain to be seen whom Lisa will caucus with should she be declared the winner, but I imagine it would be the Republicans and so it technically is not a loss for the GOP, but is a loss on a personal level for Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.
If it seems I was a little rough on the Tea Party than please do me a favor and re-read my last few paragraphs over. They are a fine group and they deserve recognition, but if they continue on their path of absolute rigid ideology over any and all things than they will eventually become little better than a right wing version of moveon.org. At best they will be marginalized, at worst they will alienate all others who would otherwise vote republican and cause us future losses. Winning elections matters folks. You can't begin to implement the type of policy you want if all you are is the rabble shouting from the streets instead of in the congressional chambers.
That's all for me.
