Rooting For The GOP In The Mid-Terms

Yes, you read that headline correctly: I hope the Republicans win the mid-term elections this November and take over the House Of Representatives. And putting them in charge of the Senate, although not as likely, wouldn’t be a bad thing either.

No, I am not smoking crack. No, I haven’t flipped parties–I am still a Liberal. And no, this isn’t a joke.

It’s time for the GOP to get to work and show the American public exactly what they will do to improve the economy, stimulate job growth, protect our borders, and make this country whole again. It’s time for the likes of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to stop whining and crying about how their party of “No” has been unable to get their ideas across the aisle. It’s time for the Republicans and the Tea Party to stop threatening to filibuster every vote on a Democratic bill, and delay every Obama appointment. It’s time to put them in the driver’s seat to see exactly what their “ideas” are. It’s time for them to do their damn jobs.

I don’t agree with anything they have to say, and I am surely not going to vote for them myself, but the GOP seems to believe that they can fix this country better than the Democrats can. Boehner and McConnell continue to assert that the American public doesn’t like how the Democrats are handling the economy, and they claim we don’t like the tactics the Democrats used to get healthcare reform and financial reform passed. So let’s see what they can do when they have the power to do it.

Here’s why this is a good strategy for the Democrats:

The Veto: As long as President Obama is in the White House, he still commands veto power. This is the Liberal safety brake that allows me to sleep at night. No crazy trickle-down economics bill will get passed Obama’s desk, and no bills will become law that infringe on my civil rights or raise my middle-class taxes. Healthcare reform will not get repealed. And no new wars will be started while Barry-O is sitting in the Oval office. However, I absolutely trust that if a good idea comes from the right wing that actually makes it to his desk, he will sign it into law. I trust the President to do what is right because that’s always been his M.O., and that’s why I voted for him. So as long as he is the check against anything radical or ridiculous, I say to the GOP: bring it on (I just had to get a W quote in here).

Congressional Procedures: Let’s see how the GOP likes to be filibustered to death. Let’s see them use the cloture they cried about during the healthcare votes. Let’s watch the Republican party squirm when the Democrats use every trick in the congressional playbook to muck-up their right-wing agenda. Let’s see how they like it when they have to compromise and water-down every idea they come up with–just like the left side of the aisle did for the last two years.

Transparency: It’s easy to criticize someone else’s ideas. But when the GOP controls our legislative branch of government, they will finally have to tell us what their ideas actually are. No more “the Democrats shut us out and we can’t get our ideas to the table.” That BS will be over, and the GOP will be required to say to the American people “Here’s what we are going to do. Ideas X, Y, and Z will take care of all our problems.” And the more the Democrats fight against them, the more they will have to explain their ideas and sell their ideas to the people. And their ideas will be laid out on the table for all the Rush Limbaughs and Sarah Palins to defend, and for all the Keith Olbermanns and Rachel Maddows to slice up and dissect each and every day for the next two years. And we the people will finally get some concrete answers to the question: “what would the Republicans do differently to pull us out of the morass this country is in.” They won’t be able to hide behind excuses anymore. Their ideas will be front and center, and it will be their agenda that will be up for debate. For all to see in plain sight.

Closing The Enthusiasm Gap: The most revealing poll out right now as a predictor of the upcomming November mid-term elections is the measurement of voter enthusiasm. Last week a Gallup poll came out that showed 46% of registered Republicans were “very enthusiastic” about voting in the November election, compared to only 23% of registered Democrats. Looks like the left needs a severe wake up call, and now is the time to do it. It’s easy to be complacent when you are in control, so perhaps all the Liberal voters decided that they could stop paying attention. “Yeah, my party is in power so they’ll take care of everything.” That attitude is about to backfire right in their faces. If the left-leaning independent voters and the registered Democrats aren’t worried, then they deserve to lose their edge. American politics are only as secure as the next election, so if you weren’t paying attention to every John Boehner press conference, and every Sarah Palin rally, and every Glenn Beck sideshow, and every FOX news broadcast, and every Tea Party march, well then brothers and sisters of the left you missed a lot. It’s not important how absurd all the conservative idea spittle is, or how inane their platform may be. A lot of voters agree with them, and they intend to vote for them. Once the Democratic voters start hearing a steady stream of tax cuts for the rich, show-me-your-papers immigration solutions, drill baby drill environmental policy plans, let’s overturn Roe v. Wade, it’s time to close down the Dept. of Education, privatize social security, and the end of Medicare, then we will see a fired up and engaged Democratic voter base. They all forgot how pissed off they were in 2008. If the GOP wins big this November, Democrats will have a lot more to be angry about again. And that can be very motivating.

Obama’s Second Term: The net-effect of putting the GOP in control, and putting their “leadership” clearly on display for the next two years will give Barack Obama all the campaign ammunition he needs for 2012: “Are you better off now than you were two years ago?” The answer will be a resounding “NO” if the GOP wins this November, which should teach the Democrats a lesson. I’d rather we spend the next two years taking the GOP to task for the things they do, rather than listen to their empty rhetoric. When you actually have a record to run on, then your opposition has your record to run against. The Democrats will re-take Congress and Obama will win a second term. Then we can really make some progress.

I am willing to sacrifice Hope and Change for the next two years if it will teach the American people (and the Democratic party) a simple lesson:  don’t believe the hype.

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The US Political Spectrum: 2010

Do you get confused when people use terms like “Socialist“, “Moderate“, “Democrat“, and “Tea Party“? Does it seem oxymoronic (with emphasis on the moronic part) to accuse someone of being a “Communist“, while emulating a “Fascist”  dictator like Adolph Hitler at the same time? Is the media “Liberal” or “Independent“? How come conservationists are hardly ever “Conservative“, and why are “Republicans” typically in support of big corporations instead of the Republic? And do the “Progressives“ actually make any progress?

Here’s a handy guide to help you understand the state of politics–The US Political Spectrum: 2010. Now complete with a “Tea Party” addition and the actual definition of “Socialism”. Suitable for printing and saving, for those times when you are dragged into an impromptu civics debate, or start a drunken political argument at Thanksgiving dinner, or when you are simply taking in the latest punditry on either FOX News or MSNBC. It’s YOURS FREE–just for reading Voting Mad!

Going from LEFT to RIGHT, here’s what it all means, including some key players and controversies. Refer to the chart above, and see if you can figure out where you fit into politics as we know it in modern day America:

COMMUNISM: Putting the fear of Karl Marx into people from around 1917 until the day the Berlin Wall fell, Communists were the boogey-men of the infamous Red Scare in the 1950s. Derived from the word commune, Communists believe in advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. Unless you are a party boss, in which case you live like a king while destroying your political enemies. The USSR was the mother-of-all Communist regimes, until they decided to embrace mafioso-style corruption, wear western clothing, and experiment with Democracy. Now they are broke, less powerful, and more strung out on Vodka and prostitution than ever before. But hey–at least they have a whole new generation of rich oligarchs who are living proof that if you can make it in Russia, you can dominate anyone anywhere. About the only legitimate Communist countries left now are China and Cuba. China is now a global economic powerhouse and basically the lien holder of the entire US of A, while Cuba boasts some of the best public education and healthcare in the entire world. But just try to buy a home in either one of those countries and you risk your life, or become indebted to a black-market warlord. Famous Communists: Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, and anyone who marched against the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

SOCIALISM: One might be brainwashed by now to first think of Barack Obama as a Socialist–after all, such geniuses as Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity all said he is because he wants to make healthcare affordable and lower taxes for the middle class. But read the definition of socialism and you’ll see this can’t be so: a political and economic theory of social organization advocating the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. “Regulation” seems like a pretty smart word. So does “community”, and “organization”. But not if you are rich. Then those words start to mean “rules for other people to live by”, “those people outside my fence”, and “unions=death to the individual”. Socialism’s core aims to protect and serve everyone equally. If “Protect and Serve” sounds familiar, it’s because that phrase just happens to adorn many publicly-funded police cars in many towns, cities, and rural counties across America. Having publicly-funded (ie: funded by taxes) municipal services are a foundation of American life. Famous Socialist programs: the United States Federal Government, police, fire and rescue services, the military, education, bridges, roads and tunnels, sewers, Federal Parks, Social Security and Medicare, the Post Office, scientific research funding grants, and coming soon to a President’s desk near you…healthcare industry reform!

LIBERALS: Archie Bunker hated Liberals. Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh hate Liberals. Liberals even hate Liberals. A Liberal is someone who has made too good of a living to be a Socialist. Not necessarily rich, but not angry enough to protest either. A Liberal is the conscience of the Democratic Party. Liberty, or liberte as in “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”, French for “Liberty, equality, fraternity (brotherhood)” is the whole reason America has for being in existence. It’s so bizarre that some Americans hate the French (see Conservatives and Tea Party), when you consider that they helped save our butts in the Revolutionary War and influenced the essence of our culture. A Liberal hates killing people so much that they want to outlaw guns completely, they want to end the death penalty, and they are anti-political assassinations–even for people like Saddam Hussein. But don’t mess with abortion rights! Liberals are everybody from the welfare queens to gay couples to Greenpeace donors to San Francisco Mayors to blue collar workers to Riesling-sipping adjunct professors at New England Universities. Famous Liberals: Al Gore, George Soros, Hendrik Hertzberg, Howard Dean, Kweisi Mfume, Arianna Huffington, Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman, Tavis Smiley, Teresa Heinz-Kerry, Tom Daschle, Tom Hanks, and every single goddamned page ever published by the New York  f***ing Times!

DEMOCRATS: This is the “left wing” of politics. The Democratic Party is one of the world’s oldest political parties and is the party with the lengthiest record of continuous operation in the United States. Thomas Jefferson helped create the Democrats in opposition to the Federalist government and Alexander Hamilton’s fiscal policies. Democrats opposed a national bank and wealthy interests. Most people think of liberals when they think of Democrats, however most of the history of the racist south is told by Southern Democrats, or “Dixie-Crats”. Lincoln was a Republican after all. LBJ was the guy who really changed the identity of the Democrats by getting so much accomplished in his one lone term. And he did it with Socialist entitlement programs like Social Security, and by signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he predicted would “…sign away the South for 50 years.” But LBJ also oversaw some of the worst moments and bloodiest mistakes of the Vietnam War. Democrats today are an odd bunch because they don’t know if they need to be Liberal, Progressive, Independent, or what they call “Blue Dog”. For example, President Obama is a Progressive Democrat. Joe LIEberman was almost the Democratic Vice President of the USA, but then he became an Independent who votes “NO” with the GOP on healthcare, and votes “YES” to war. Vermont’s Bernie Sanders is an Independent, but sounds like a Liberal and caucuses with the Democrats, and Evan Bayh is a Blue Dog Democrat, otherwise known as a Conservative. Bill Clinton was a Democrat’s Democrat-smart, tough, and real like FDR. But he was also like JFK in that he couldn’t keep his pants on. Speaking of not wearing pants, John Edwards could have redefined what it meant to be a Democrat–self made, defender of the poor, smart, southern, and rich enough to empathize with a Republican base below the Mason-Dixie Line. But John Edwards would have destroyed the party if he and John Kerry would have been elected in 2004, just like how he destroyed not just one but both of his families, and earning himself a lifetime spot in the  “WTF Were You Thinking” hall of fame, right next to disgraced ex-Governor of New York Elliott Spitzer. The Democrats are always the smartest people in the room, but too stupid to pay their whores to stay quiet.

PROGRESSIVES: Most people don’t know that there already was an established Progressive Party, which was founded in 1912 by none other than President Theodore Roosevelt. The Progressives trace their political roots back to workers’ rights and the emergence of Union protections and safety regulations. They are more conservative than Liberals, despite their name. When one thinks Progressively, one usually thinks of innovation and invention, and you know, progress. You would not expect Progressives to be the most centrist democrats, but they are. What makes them this way are their unquenchable thirst for making bi-partisan deals and working with their political enemies. Is that progressive? Is that their radical idea–make friends first, then ask for votes on legislation later? I don’t know why these folks are called Progressive. They’re no more Liberal than a Liberal, and they believe in a women’s right to choose, laws against concealed handguns, healthcare reform legislation, gay marriage, and financial regulations. Sounds almost like a real Liberal. But Progressives are different from Liberals. Liberals get things done, progressives make talk shows about getting things done. For example, the most famous Progressives are all on TV: John Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow,  and David Gergen are some of the best-known and most Progressive thinkers out there. By contrast, there is not one single politician who would call themselves a Progressive right now without running the risk of ending up like Ralph Nader-he speaks the truth, but you don’t want to be caught hanging out with him.

INDEPENDENTS: Independents are the middle finger of the political spectrum. An Independent effectively says “I have no party loyalty”, and in a close vote I can put you over the top or ruin your dream. Independents tend to caucus with Democrats, but as referenced above this is not always so. JoeLIEberman is an Independent ex-Democrat who caucuses with the GOP. Vermont’s Bernie Sanders is an Independent and is more Liberal than most politicians anywhere. And New York City’s lovable Mayor Michael Bloomberg, self-made billionaire and media mogul, got elected as a Republican because there were no openings to challenge the party structure for him to run naturally as a Democrat. Now he is an Independent and the city has never been in better shape. And to think that this party was started by a spandex-wearing ex-pro wrestler in Minnesota named Jessie?

MODERATE: Moderates are often referred to as RINOs (Republican In Name Only), and are viewed as equals to the Liberal by traditional Republican standards. Moderates are not typically extreme, partisan, or radical. They do not always vote with mainstream Republicans, and are always thought of as the only ones capable of preventing legislative gridlock. Moderates are really the best examples of open-mindedness, fairness, and bi-partisanship that we have  in this country. Moderates are the voices of reason, the champions of compromise, and the defenders of rational discussion. Examples of Political Moderates: …

REPUBLICANS: The Grand Old Party. The Party of Lincoln, and Reagan…and Nixon too! And Gingrich and Karl Rove. George H.W. Bush and his boy W. Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, and Herbert Hoover. And Ford. John McCain was the darling of the political Right in 2008 until he picked a more conservative running mate named Sarah Palin. Then he was exposed as a nitwit with shoddy judgement. A Republican believes in “America..love it or leave it.” Republicans believe they are the true patriots of this country. Republicans think that smaller government is the way to go, and free markets need to be free. Because freedom is everything. That’s right, Republicans believe no government should ever be able to take away your freedom and they are against government intervention of any kind. To a Republican government is the enemy of freedom, and that government should stay out of the lives of ordinary people. Unless those ordinary people want an abortion, or are gay and want to get married. And Republicans believe that government has no right to regulate guns, healthcare, or even the banking sector. But they go full-contact government to make sure the pledge of alligience always includes the line “under God” or that coins minted by the US Treasury always include the phrase “In God We Trust”. So it’s tricky with the Republican party. They are against government intrusion in our lives, but are actually for government intrusion when it comes to sex and religion. So if you run a huge bank or a corporation that ruins the lives of thousands and millions of people because you were allowed to run wild and unregulated, then that’s just free market capitalism. But if you are a homosexual that wants to get married to your partner of 30 years because you love each other, that is a threat to the very fabric of American life and the Government needs to step in protect the people of this great land. Republicans: God, Guns, and Good-Ol’ Hypocracy.

CONSERVATIVES: A Conservative is a Republican on religious steroids. Conservatives can quote the bible better than they can quote the Constitution. And Conservatives love to rationalize their decision making process by tracing everything back to God. Conservatives don’t want things to change, and would prefer it if this country stayed exactly the way it was–the way it was in 1850. Gays can’t get married in the US because the bible says so. Conservatives believe in the institution of marriage for heterosexuals only. They believe that homosexuality is a sin, but infidelity is just an indescretion. After all, men have been cheating on their wives since before time. It even says so in the bible. Score one for the conservatives. Mark Sanford, John Ensign, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, Larry Craig (who cheated with men, and therefore may not be eligible for the Conservative Unfaithfulness Exemption), David Vitter, Dan Burton, Dan Crane, Henry Hyde, and Mark Foley have all claimed to be “Family Values Conservatives” and then they cheated on their wives. Gays can’t get married, but these guys can all go out and cheat on their wives. The only thing Conservatives don’t conserve is semen.

Tea Party Conservatives: These are Conservatives on LSD. They have delusions of the US government taking over. They believe in death panels, and they believe Sarah Palin would make a great President. Tea Partiers are scarier than a Hells Angels biker rally because they are just as psychotic and they believe they have God on their side. They talk about starting a revolution again, and they hate Obama with a passion. They are anti-immigration, anti-taxes, anti-globalization, and anti-intelligence. The Tea Party worships Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, FOX News, and believe they aren’t just entitled to their own opinions, but their own facts as well. The Tea-Party calls Obama’s healthcare reform both “socialized medicine” and “Nazi healthcare”, which if you look up at the spectrum chart I have provided you will see that is impossible. So it appears the Tea Partiers are also apparently anti-education as well.

FASCISM: Far out on the fringes of the political Right are the Fascists. Fascists believe in purity of the nation and strive for one-party rule over a homogenized population. That’s where Hitler and Mussolini came in. Hitler believed that one party could rule a nation of Aryans, and ultimately take over the world to create one human race. Sounds a little like Reagan’s casting call for the “Morning In America” commercial he put out in 1984. But Ronald Reagan was no Fascist. At least Fascists care about their own people. Reagan didn’t seem to give a damn about anyone.

So that’s our blog post on The US Political Spectrum: 2010. Check back in 10 years and we’ll see what the political landscape looks like. Unless we’ve all killed each other by then.

Bye-Bayh Supermajority (and good riddance)!

Indiana Senator Evan Bayh (D) dropped the “bomb” yesterday, and declared that he will not seek reelection this fall. And he made this announcement 24 hours before the filing deadline for candidates who want to represent the Democratic party. I guess that’s Bayh’s way of sticking it to Harry Reid for bobbling the supermajority that was handed to him in 2008.

Many Democrats will lose sleep over this, but not me. In some ways this is a blessing in disguise. There’s a lot of pressure involved with having a supermajority in the US Senate, and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did not handle it well at all. Reid was too concerned with playing nice with the GOP, and being bi-partisan, that he forgot to do what the people elected him to do–deliver on the Progressive agenda the Democrats promised in the 2008 campaign. When you have a supermajority of 60 votes, you are shielded from the filibuster and essentially given the right to push through any legislation you want. It sounds easy, but in this day and age of career politicians Harry Reid was too concerned with getting reelected this fall, and wanted to appeal to the broadest swath of Nevada voters as possible. This meant crossing the aisle and extending a hand to the GOP. And when he did, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell slapped him.

And then started “The Great Democratic Dropout of 2010”: Christopher Dodd (Connecticut), Ted Kaufman (Delaware), Roland Burris (Illinois), Byron Dorgan (N. Dakota), and now Evan Bayh all decided not to run for reelection. At a time when the Democratic party should be celebrating victories in healthcare reform, financial reform, and a jobs bill, they have nothing to show for the full year in which they had an opportunity to get things done. So who can blame these Senators for quitting? They are probably just as frustrated as the rest of the country by how broken the Federal Legislature is.

So why is this a good thing? For starters, Evan Bayh was a very conservative Democrat and didn’t necessarily agree with the Democratic agenda. And I think that because of people like him the party has lost its identity, which contributed to their lack of cohesion and progress. If the Democratic party can retain 52-55 seats held by true Progressive Democrats in the election this fall, then there will be a will to fight the GOP fanatics instead of fighting internally within the party. Sure this will leave them open to the filibuster, but then the GOP will ultimately need to come up with some actual solutions and ideas of their own instead of playing Nancy Reagan Politics (“Just Say No”).

The Democrats have been in the driver’s seat and they went nowhere. Now they will have a chance to turn left at the next GOP stop light and drive a true Progressive agenda. If they don’t, then we may be seeing the end of the Democrats as we knew them.

But perhaps that will (finally) open up a lane for the Progressive Party Express.

Dems=Canary, Mass=Coal Mine

Tonight...regress vs. progress

If Ted Kennedy were still alive this would never happen.

Democrats are on the verge of losing the one Senate seat they could always count on for the last 47 years. I don’t like to make predictions, especially when it comes to elections, but Martha Coakley is about to lose the Massachusetts Senate race to Scott Brown in a special election to replace “The Lion of the Senate”. This is unthinkable to most Democrats, but they had better start thinking the unthinkable and get used to it. We are witnessing the Tea-Partying of the USA.

Scott Brown was indeed endorsed by the Tea Party Republicans (a movement more than a political group), and that has helped him wipe out a double-digit lead that Coakley held just a few weeks ago. True, she ran an awful campaign, but this election will break the super-majority, filibuster-blocking, 60-seat Democratic party hold on the US Senate. And whomever ran Coakley’s campaign should be tarred-and-feathered for their lack of vision as to what this means for the entire country.

Healthcare reform? Dead on arrival. Scott Brown has vowed to vote against it. And the Democrats are acting like they’ve had spine-removal surgery performed on them by letting Joe LIEberman muddy the waters last fall when a bill should have been passed. Whatever happened to the Christmas deadline? Whatever happened to acting on a basic 51-vote majority? Why do Democrats play nice while Republicans play to win?

And now along comes a GOP Senate candidate about to steal a seat at the worst possible moment in our country’s opportunity to make some progress. Democrats took this race for granted. They figured that it would be automatic to keep MA blue. Well, this is gonna be a painful wake-up call.

Will it be the dreaded referendum on President Obama? Not likely. His 53% approval rating is the same as his popular vote margin when he won the election last year. But I do think this is the beginning of an anti-incumbent movement. And right now the Democrats are the incumbents. It’s 1994 again. Get ready to get nothing done for the next 3 years.

How come this never happens to the GOP? They are political killers and that is part of their political DNA. They know when everything is on the line and they band together. I don’t live in Massachusetts, but a race this important should have been waged on a national level. The message should have been this simple: if Coakley loses, healthcare reform loses. If Coakley loses, the Democrats lose senatorial power. If Coakley loses, Ted Kennedy’s ghost loses. If Coakley loses, the Tea Party wins. That’s the kind of message that would resonate all along the Mass Turnpike, and straight out down Route 66 across the country.

So tonight we will lower the canary’s cage down into the mine shaft to see if there is a Republican gas leak emanating from the state of Massachusetts. If the Democrats come up dead, then they’ll have to look elsewhere for their political fortunes. Fast.

And that sound you hear will be the late, great, Ted Kennedy rolling over in his grave.

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UPDATE @ 9:30PM, 1/19/10

Watching Scott Brown’s acceptance speech on TV. His supporters are cheering and screaming, but I can’t help hearing TMK doing a big underground spiral. Rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling…American politics can be so heartbreaking.

Ok, I’ll say it: Al Franken for President (one of these days).

It’s time to take Al Franken seriously. It is for me anyway.

Al Franken was Stuart Smalley, and today he is the Junior Senator from the state of Minnesota. Although elected in 2008, he wasn’t actually sworn in until July 7, 2009. He was too busy defending his victory over wannabe chad-counter Republican Senator Norm Coleman. The GOP hates Franken so much. They hate how progressive he is. They hate that he’s another Harvard-educated liberal. He was born in ultra-liberal New York City, and raised in “St. Jewish Park” (St. Louis Park), MN. Franken is Harvard-educated (he majored in Political Science), creative, charming, famous, rich, adored by the millions of fans he’s entertained since the 1970s, and he’s Jewish.

He sounds like the GOP’s biggest nightmare.

I always laughed my head off whenever I saw Franken, I mean “Senator Franken”, do his Stuart Smalley routine. I always knew he was smart, and he really caught my attention with Rush Limbaugh Is A Big, Fat, Idiot. He was good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it-I always liked him. But I didn’t realize he had guts.

And then he kicked lame Joe LIEberman’s butt back to his desk. Watch the 2.5 minute video HERE.

Al Franken told Joe LIEberman to sit down and stop talking about his self-centered, hypocritical viewpoint on healthcare reform as soon as he hit the customary 10-minute limit. He didn’t even give LIEberman a Hanukkah gift of an extra minute or two. I love it.

And get a load of John McCain acting all put off by Senator Al Franken doing what he had every right to do–deny LIEberman any extra time to speak by refusing to honor J-LIE’s request by unanimous consent. John McCain is Mr. Anti-Pork, and he talks about preventing waste, and then he wastes precious time on the tax-payer’s dime talking about procedure and proper behavior in the Senate, and BS like that, instead of talking about fixing healthcare. John McCain is the epitome of Old School, with the emphasis on old.

So Senator Al Franken has the brains, the guts, the politics, the money, the charisma, and the first real legitimate shot to be the first. Jewish. President. Ever. That’s my opinion. Would he be in the Democratic Party, or will he christen the Progressive Party? Will Obama give Franken Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency to re-capture the progressive wing of his base and win reelection, thereby allowing Al to gain incredible perspective and experience as the apprentice to the most powerful job in the free world?

From there anything is possible.

Political Football

"Pelosi takes the snap and hands off to Reid...he's looking for the hole..."

Politics, like football, seems to be a game of inches. It takes a team of people working under enormous pressure, against an equally enormous foe, to move their agenda forward towards the goal. Every inch in that direction is a test of will, determination, and strength. Pride, ego, validation, and ultimately money are on the line. Every inch forward is vital because progress for one side is regression to the other. Glory goes to those who win, because the fight is hard. People get injured along the way. Inch, by tormented inch.

But football, unlike politics, is an honest game. Put aside gambling, cheating, and Terrell Owens crying about Tony Romo for a moment, and consider this: when two football teams step onto the field they are both trying to beat hell out of each other. The Bears hate the Packers. The Jets hate the Patriots. Everyone hates the Raiders. The mission is clear: our team must win.

In politics we get this phony attempt at bi-partisanship, which is just a ploy to make the American public feel good about ourselves. Voters pull the lever for the politician that supports the issues that are important to that him or her. And I am sure “kumbaya” is not on anyone’s top-10 list of most important issues right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for a happy nation where everyone is getting theirs. I would like all Americans to be able to agree on some basic things like guns, abortion, human rights, and never letting Tom Delay dance in public again. But that’s not what America is all about. America is really all about football.

Why not just ram the ball through the opposition's weak defensive front?

In the Healthcare Reform Legislation Bowl the Democrats are the home team. They have the crowd mostly behind them. They have a great quarterback (Obama) who knows how to move the ball. Their offense (House of Representatives) is superior, but their defense (Senate) is pretty evenly matched against the GOP because of some weak spots in the lineup (Lieberman, Nelson, Conrad).

The Republicans are the underdogs in this game. They don’t have the numbers in the House to lineup against the Democrats, but they can score points off their own offense in the Senate by overpowering the Democrats’ porous secondary. In football this would be called the Blue Dog Offensive Scheme.

The Democrats are playing this too conservatively. Rather than playing to avoid mistakes or fumbles, they should just take the ball and play smash-mouth. Break through the GOP’s weak defense against a public option, and outrun them to the end zone.

In other words Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and her housemates have put out a bill on healthcare reform. The bill is now in your hands. If the Bluedogs like Lieberman, Nelson, and Conrad are gonna let the GOP run all over you in the Senate then use the power of cloture–you have the numbers for that. Get your team together on a bill that delivers what ALL DEMOCRATS said they’d do before the 2008 election, ram it through and do what you gotta do to get it on the President’s desk for a signature. If it upsets the GOP and their supporters, I can assure you that the voters will let you know if that’s a problem or not. 2010 is around the corner, and the voters will all have something to say on election day. Win this game now and you might just dominate for a long time. Losing it means losing many Democratic voters, your job, and likely losing control of the congress in a year.

Democrats were elected to run this country right now, and I want the agenda I voted for. NO COMPROMISES! Democrats, if you get an inch in this debate, turn it into a 55-yard kick return and take it all the way to the house–The White House.