Granted, for lots of Virginia conservatives last year , McCain was not conservative enough to get them excited. Granted, last year Obama was the first biracial presidential candidate and that did get people excited. Granted, Republican Bob McDonnell is pretty. Granted, he cranked up right wing Republicans with his crazy radical early history, and he cranked up less conservative suburban Republicans with his more recent act of being conservative but not quite that conservative, so both groups voted for because they thought he is theirs, and one group is wrong. Granted, Deeds was not a dynamic campaigner. Granted, in the past thirty years, the party of the President in Virginia has ALWAYS lost the year after the win. It's kind of weird that Virginia holds their elections the year after, it's like, hey we are contrarians here.
But even with all of the above, I find myself feeling a bit testy. It's like this people. Why did you vote for Barack Obama last year if you did not plan to show up at the NEXT election, the one that the Dems in Congress are going to be closely watching to see which way the winds blow? Here's the thing. Politics is a team sport. When the pitcher walks out there, you don't stay in the dugout. Creigh Deeds may not be that special, but he sure as hell does not deserve 40% of the vote in Virginia to McDonnell's 60%. Of course the turnout was ridiculously low, so if another 400,000 Dems had showed up, Deeds would have won.
McDonnell's plan for building our transportation budget is to install toll booths at the North Carolina border at get those people to pay for our roads with their money. I am not making that up. Just to make you aware what you just let happen.
Or maybe there is some buyer's remorse going on, like, now we are not so sure that we like this President? What exactly was there in his platform that he has not tried to do? What has he tried to do that he did not discuss in detail during his long campaign? Has it occurred to you, if the recession is on your mind, that in September 2008 we were looking at a possible economic collapse and now we are only looking at a mess?
To conclude, I showed up at the voting booth this morning. Where were you?
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Comments: 17
People are pissed off at that. Yes, there may have been a finacial collapse abd something needed to be stimulated but that stimulous should not have gone to where it did, in the way it did.
Don't get me wrong. I voted for Obama, and I know that most paranoia runs deep with all the misrepresentation of him going around, but I also remember just before the election, and then with the stimulous package afterwards, the people actively engaged and contacted their representaives in Washington, and 98% of the people lit up the boards telling their representatives to vote, NO!, and they were almost completely ignored. They do remember those kind of things, if nothing else.
Chris I would be curious of your opinion of a rant I posted earlier today. Click Here.
Not that I am excited about Obama's policies to date. In fact, I am extremely disappointed in his direction. He's not only not walking the walk, he's not even talking the talk.
I thought it was simply media hype making these elections about Obama. I am surprise that people outsode of the media and party paid "consultants" are making this about Obama.
I may not like how much spending (trillinos and trillions) or the idea of the governement being the medical insurer for the nation or the taxing carbon, but these elections still seem to be local.
I will acknowledge that Congressional Reperasentatives from those states might be concerned, but that is still local politics.
If we must make every such eleection about Obama, then I think we need to seperate goverening from personality. Best guess the Presidential eleections was about the on campaign person Obama and nontthe politics of Obama. I think the campaigner is still as strong and well liked as ever. The President Obama is on shacky ground.
My gut tells me that virtually nothing will get done in the next four years. It will be like putting the state on hold until the next election. That's sad, as four years from now the northern Virginian transportation problem will be even more of a mess than it is now. I suspect there will be some cuts in social services to help close the budget gap, but other than that I don't expect much. Whereas I felt Deeds would work hard for Virginia, it seems likely that McDonnell will just tote water for the national Republican party. Heck, they are already buzzing about him being a 2012 VP option. Talk about the cart before the horse.
We'll see.
In answer to the title question, I was at home in California. I had nothing to do with it. :) There were no elections in the town I live in. Democrat John Garamendi won the election for the district Ellen Tauscher resigned from. It's next door to mine.
The even better news is that my Independence party has the center all to ourselves.
The bad news is we have very little money. Same old story.