I was checking out the latest Presidential poll results posted at Daily Kos,the partisan punkplace for purity politics and groupthink extraordinaire, and was struck by something.
Fucking cat was on a shelf over my desk and knocked over a small figurine right on my head. Yes, the cat is still alive but that's only because she had eight left.
But something else struck me. I've been reading about how Obama is the shit and loves everyone and would give his right arm for you and me, while Romney is toast, thinks 47% of us are fucked up beggers, might as well give up, his own compadres are saying he sucks and can't win. Since I don't watch any TV news, and I mean none, zero, nada, zilch, I wouldn't fucking watch it if you tied me to a chair and waterboarded me with burning oil, I get those things from Daily Kos, the partisan punkplace of purity politics and groupthink extraordinaire. I don't visit any other websites as weird as Daily Kos so it is somewhat interesting from a sociological analysis point of view to check out the daily diaries about Obama the Great and Romney the Fuckhead and how Obama has it in the bag. I mean these partisan punks of politics have completely discarded the lesser of two evils schtick and are actually back to believing Obama is Ghandhi, Mother Teresa, and Jesus wrapped in a Father's Knows Best dinner jacket. It's like a religious fervor took over and changed them back into the partisan punks they know they are.
So when I saw those polls posted on Daily Kos, it just didn't make sense. How could Romney, who is the worst Presidential candidate in U.S. history, be that close to President Obama, who is the smartest, most handsome, most caring, most hip, has the bestest fucking family on earth, and loves all people, even you and me, in the polls?
It's all weird man. It's like 2008 all over again when Obama was the second coming of Chirst running against an angry old man and a confused serf from Alaska, and 68 million still voted for the angry old man. I can't figure this country out. It's like half of us are stupid and the other half is dumb. Oh well. Can't wait to see what happens in four more years. I don't want to see what happens next year though.
Comments
Question everything.
Ya, ya, everybody says.
Then you talk about a conspiracy theory and they say, ooh, you're crazy aren't you. No, you really can't question EVERYTHING man, only the things that you're allowed to question.
They never read this... and never will.
100 Ways Mitt Romney is Just Like Barack Obama
GOS isn't all that bad.
The Sunday essays on the FP are usually pretty good. And I like read the election round-ups posted every morning. There are some writers I still enjoy reading. Heck, even the comment sections can be amusing to read: "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT OBAMA DOESN'T WALK ON WATER!!!!! THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!!!! HR!!!!!!!!! Okay, crisis averted."
I just wish that issues and policies were as important as they
supposedly used to be.
I can't stand the hypocrisy all around in many venues that when Bush did X, it was wrong and people shouted out against it, but when Obama does the same X, it sokay because Obama has a plan, or he's the only adult in the room, or the republicans won't let him do what he really wants to do, or there are not 60 votes in the senate.
shaharazade is trying to get banned there
but people keep rec'ing her!
I've done that a few times recently,
asking people to report me. Haven't said any magic words yet but certainly getting more acerbic. They usually don't get my sarcasm or innuendos. Gonna have to be more straightforward I guess.
The majority of those people think they're different from the "other side", but they really are not. Like my brother likes to say, "same thing only different".
a miscalculation by Markos
he's ending up with an uninformed, worshipping group of ex-Republicans. I suppose if all he cares about is money then it doesn't matter who's visiting the site. If he cares about the content then it's probably too late.
Its not just ex-Republicans.
Lot of people get caught up in the US media bubble, believing that the options discussed by the Villagers of the beltway media are the range of the possibilities, and so believing that preferring the the center-right to the hard right option makes them a progressive.
But its is an irony that the issue that launched the Daily Kos, opposition to the Iraq War, would under today's Daily Kos see the war opponents shouted down. "You'll spoil our chances of winning the Governor of Louisville election next month if you oppose a popular war!"
The fundamentals of ...
... where economic growth is, where the labor market is and the President's approval ratings suggest a narrow incumbent victory, and the polls suggest a narrow incumbent victory.
Pre-conventions, the incumbent had a 2% lead, and post conventions seems to have a 3% lead nationwide. And around a 3% to 5% lead in Ohio, which seems like it requires for most plausible Romney winning Electoral College maps.
As far as why? The same reason why the mid-term elections were a massive slide against the incumbent instead of an FDR-style follow-on win ... instead of going hard and loud against the banksters, the President soft-pedaled. Instead of going hard and loud for green jobs, the President soft-pedaled. Instead of going hard and loud and fast for his Republican health care reform ~ Romneycare went into place within a year of being enacted ~ he soft-pedaled, with the bulk of health care reform waiting until 2014 in order to "get a good CBO score".
Its not as if soft-pedaling is the only thing this President can do ... no soft pedaling on the pointless war in Afghanistan: that was given the "surge" treatment. No soft pedaling on drone strikes on crowds of mostly non-combatants including women and children in hopes of "scoring a kill" on someone in Al Qaeda. No soft-pedaling on the eternal "war on" innocent people held in Guantanamo Bay that we can't convict because we have no reason to believe they did anything wrong and that we won't release because we don't like sending them to the countries that will take them.
Rhetorical soft-pedaling on the destructive neoliberal fantasy that deficit reduction in a slack labor market is somehow a good thing ~ but that is likely not to be soft-pedaled when it comes to destructive policy action, as the current Administration attempts to get as much of the catfood Social Security "commission" recommendations enacted as possible in the face of opposition from their own side of the aisle.
Its a race between a more effective politician rhetorically pretending to represent a coalition of New Deal and New Age Democrats, but in reality supporting a kind of what used to be a moderate Republican policy agenda, versus a less effective politician who'll say anything to get elected and is hampered by the need to keep the radical reactionaries on board.
If the incumbent had pursued a serious green jobs bill in 2009, we'd be at 7% unemployment nationwide and under 6% in Ohio and Virginia, and the challenger would be toast. So its a close election with the incumbent leading ~ as the fundamentals suggests it ought to be ~ and if the partisans of the President's Hedge Fund wing of the Democratic Party are made nervous by the fact that the President is not winning it easily, they have nobody but their standard-bearer to blame.
Spot on, Bruce
I cannot agree any stronger with this statement:
If the incumbent had pursued a serious green jobs bill in 2009, we'd be at 7% unemployment nationwide and under 6% in Ohio and Virginia, and the challenger would be toast.
The analogy I like to use (imperfect as it might be) is the Tennessee Valley Authority. The country needs to launch an all out effort on green energy. Wind energy should be a huge part of our infrastructure. Why don't we have off shore wind power all around the Great Lakes, the East and West coasts and the Gulf? C'mon, already. We don't have one off shore wind power facility online, and none under construction. That is pathetic.
We need real solar power projects in the Western States. We need to seriously upgrade our electrical distribution program. Why are we fighting over more pipelines to deliver the worst possible grade of oil. I'm not trying to rant here but these are not exactly ground breaking ideas. The number of jobs that a serious energy policy would create is in the hundreds of thousands. These are jobs that would not be out sourced and would pay a living wage. Remove the whole global warming aspect from the argument (just to shut up the right wingers and avoid a needless argument) and it still makes sense to create a green energy policy.
Building codes contain very strict plumbing, electrical and safety considerations. We should have national building codes that require green roofs, solar panels and other green policies. We just don't even try to get the simple stuff passed, let alone the hard stuff.
A brief looking yesterday
About 90% of the diaries had Romney in the title. Important issues are ignored.
Sometimes I look back at my notes saved from diaries and comments years back and wonder how this could have happened.
Did it happen because it's turned into a reality show like
American Idol or Survivor? Shiny Objects Are Us?
Or are these past 3 1/2 years just a celebration of one person's election without any attention paid to policies enacted by the Democratic Party and its leader.
By the way
Be wary.
Unwelcome comments there might possibly bring on something which would not be healthy for your computer.
I cannot prove the source of a virus which arrived disguised as a Java update. I fell for it once and have caught one other attempt.
The timing was what drew my suspicion. Once after one of my comments brought on a hail of "hides" and a "warning" not to make such comments in the future. Another after making a comment that went against the grain.
This does not rule out the possibility of coincidence. However, fool me once ....
Very interesting
Not sure if there would be enough of a payoff for operatives to bother with . If there is a connection, probably it comes from a jerk acting on his own is my take. But that's an interesting bit of info.