Egad! Thirty percent of voters who thought government hadn't done enough stimulus spending voted Republican

I'm nursing my election night wounds.....

Much of American political strategy these days is to misrepresent your opponent's position and then argue against the misrepresentation. This worked in a hugely successful way in 2010: from 'death... panels" to "he raised my taxes."

Given 1) the 24/7/365 right wing AM radio/Faux News demonstrated ability to
drive the false political narrative - Obama is a communist, fascist, nazi, socialist, Kenyan, alien, Muslim who Hates America wants to raise your taxes;
and 2) the "Lamestream" media's acquiescence in this false narrative (ABC had plans to have Andrew "The Liar" Breitbart comment on election night --ratings are the most important thing--, but backed off when enough sanity driven people protested); and 3) we had what President Clinton called a "fact free" political climate; 4) and given the enormous new amounts of unidentified Corporate cash pumped into this election disinformation campaign; and 5) given the massive messaging failures of the Obama Presidency and his disappointing "detachment"; American voters have put back into power in the House the Frat Party that created the whole mess to begin with. Disinformation rules!

A very conservative Republican friend of mine was adamant that this was not a Pro Republican vote, this was an anti-Obama vote. I'll agree with that partly but also modify that conclusion to say it was an Anti - ObamaCaricature vote. People voted against the Misrepresentation of Obama, not Obama. George Carlin said once, “Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!” A woefully misinformed and disinformed electorate put back in power the party that "Drove the car into the ditch." Epistemic closure prevailed. And the Lame stream media went along with it. People were casting votes against the Muslim in the White House, against the Alien in the White House; and people were voting against the man who raised their taxes.

But I'm going to bet that the firmly rooted Corporate/Establishment Republicans already in Congress and rightest wing corporate Tea Partiers newly elected to ongress will try to govern as though they were given a Huge Mandate like George W Bush did when elected by the narrowest sliver of votes in two elections, the first one by a 5 to 4 vote of the Supreme Court. The second one by a handful of anti-gay votes in Ohio and Florida, which is slowly sinking into the Atlantic (despite the global warming naysayers). So there you go: it'll be interesting to see how this newly elected formula for gridlock works out.

But I'm predicting the Republic will survive and you'll need a 2011 Art by Cassiday calendar after all with NEW AND IMPROVED DATES! I'm including election day 2011 in the new calendar for all my Republican friends to look forward to getting one more branch of government. And also for my Democratic friends, given that there's always hope!

Regards, Bud C

ps. I'm available for small painting and tiling jobs through the winter.......