I'm going to give Matt Wuerker the top slot today, because his take on the election seems the most comprehensive. How much can you spend on a short-term message of discontent before the long-term message of despair and anarchy sinks in?
If you're only trying to gain control of the existing system, it seems short-sighted to sow the seeds of perennial discontent with a constant drumbeat of "government doesn't work, government doesn't work."
Though if you are actually aiming towards installation of an oligarchy, then you can probably count on the historical fact that a significant segment of the population will always assume that the jackboots are coming for Those Other People.
And I've got friends who have swallowed the gospel of pure libertarianism despite the fact that, given where they live, two months from now they wouldn't be able to get out of their driveways if it weren't for that goddam government spending.
Which brings us to Jim Morin's cartoon. I like it, but the economics are a little nuanced, since the $4 billion was not government spending that might otherwise have been directed towards programs.
It was shadow-government spending, which is different. The amount poured into dark-money campaigning does, indeed, suggest that these corporate-people could raise wages, extend benefits and pony up more taxes if they wanted to, so, much as I hate labels, maybe an indication of whether those are gummint bureaucrats or fatcats in the cab would have been helpful.
Though you can paint "COW" in DayGlo orange on the side of your Holstein this time of year and some nitwit will still mistake it for a deer and shoot at it.
And if no amount of labeling will clarify a message for some people, no amount of explanation of things like the difference between the "debt" and the "deficit," or demonstration of how they actually stack up in terms of the GDP, is going to get through.
The message that gets through is "Taxing the rich is bad, because after I get rich, I don't want to be taxed."
There were also some cartoons on the topic of "Thank God the Commercials are Over," with which I agree, but I'll be interested to see if they follow through with any cartoons calling for campaign finance reform.
Tom Toles suggests that nobody is interested in patching up much of anything, and I'm afraid he's right.
I woke up this morning to headlines of "GOP Gains Control of the Senate" and thought, "Holy shit! They got 60 seats?" but, no, they got 52.
I know a lot of reporting energy has been devoted to the Kardashians, but hasn't anybody in the newsroom even glanced at CSPAN over the last six years?
The big shift will be that, in January, the Senate pages will have to shift all the arguments about the "nuclear option" to the other sides of the aisle.
And I like Henry Payne's panel this morning, which, by the way, was well-calculated to work however the actual vote came out. I'm sure there isn't a lot of penitence over the mud and slime going around among the victors.
In fact, speaking of being proud of your campaign and also speaking of headlines I awoke to, this morning I had an email from one campaign in my in-box, and since G-mail displays the first few words, I didn't even have to open it.
"Tonight, I am so proud of ... "
Aw, geez. That bad, huh?
At least it was a distant race. My local peeps all held on, so I did what I could, I guess.
Interesting thing, by the way, about Voter ID. I had to show my driver's license, and that took the place of signing the register: The election judge just checked off a box next to my name.
It occurred to me, as I was walking home, that there was no actual, documented proof of my having voted. Granted, I did watch her check off my name, but suppose she'd had the ruler on the wrong line?
I could have come back and voted again. And, even with a checkmark on the right line, what if I came back, showed my ID and swore that, no, I hadn't voted yet and she must have checked off my name by accident?
Pretty damned ridiculous to force people to go 60 miles roundtrip to get an ID and then not be able to prove that they actually voted.
Except that the voting districts are small enough that people mostly know each other and would remember that you were there, but, then, that's not an argument in favor of Voter ID laws, is it?
But I digress. A little.
David Horsey notes the cyclical nature of things. I've seen some analysis saying that, while the Republicans made inroads, they did it by being more conciliatory and by adopting more centrist positions.
We shall see.
The photogenic but seemingly unqualified female GOP candidate in this district got her ass kicked in the widest margin of the night, but the photogenic but seemingly unqualified female GOP candidate in my old district in New York won by an even wider margin over thataway, so we'll get to see how this new conciliatory move away from having old white men in charge shakes down.
My guess is this: The old white men are still going to be very much in charge.
And if the GOP continues its current policy of lockstep party-line votes, somebody is going to wake up to the idea that it really doesn't matter the age, gender or color of the robots.
If they genuinely are interested in appealing to the voters as more conciliatory and thoughtful, they've got two years to prove it by establishing a pattern of thoughtful, conciliatory, independent votes.
Here's my other guess: Marilinda Garcia was an absurd attempt to appeal to women and minorities, a terrible candidate who came across like the prissy honor student who raises her hand a minute before the bell to remind the teacher to assign homework.
If that is the GOP's idea of a "rising star," they're headed for another McCain/Palin disaster.
But if they start pumping up New Hampshire's Republican Senator, the equally photogenic but scary smart and clearly qualified, staunchly conservative Kelly Ayotte, the Democrats had better get their game on.
For now, however, it's time for the GOP to nurse their wounds as well as counting their victories, because they didn't walk away from this one unscathed.
Thomas Nast quoted Pyrrhus in 1877 and some quotes just don't ever go out of style.
"'Another such victory, and I am undone'-Pyrrhus"
Now here's your earworm of zen:
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