For Wildcard Wednesday, here’s my take on the election results.
I most certainly wasn’t rooting for Romney, but was kinda hoping to out Obama. Why? Because — as I explained to my wife, causing her to snort her beverage while out at lunch today — I prefer a fresh, new hell to four more years of the same hell. Whereas it seems we will elect nearly anyone on the crutch of predictability (hey, it worked for Clinton and [[Bush Jr.]]), I get annoyed with the boredom of being right in the end when there’s no prize for it.
Sure, we’ll make strides against draconian morality-based legislation, albeit while throwing away everyday individual rights and economic freedoms, but the economy itself is quite possibly doomed. I don’t go by short-term adjustments, but it was no surprise the DOW tanked today. I expect my variable mortgage rates to stay low, but health insurance mandates and intrusions don’t bode well for many of us.
Maybe I’ll take the optimistic path others have voiced — that Obama may surprise us yet with some shred of useful policy he can actually take credit for. Or maybe I’ll be pessimistic based on the party line record of blaming Bush no matter how many years things don’t turn around or get worse. And let’s be clear that not only are things worse off, but according to exist polls, not even the average Dem believes the partisan rhetoric and slanted statistics to the contrary.
So why risk staying a failed course? The public thinks giving anyone a second chance is preferable to the likes of Romney and certain other members of the GOP. It’s a bit mind-boggling actually — the pundits all touted the economy as the big issue for people, when clearly it was not. Sometimes I think that if Democrats were willing to accept the failure of their economic policies or Republicans would step down from theocratic oppression, there’s be no need for the other and we could all get along.
But did I call the election correctly? I expected some lead by Romney based on his larger campaign budget, and the media backed off their dominant liberal-pushing a bit at the last minute. But I wasn’t surprised that he lost, either, since the Republicans insisted on picking the candidate with possibly the least centrist independent support. Perhaps only Romney could have been defeated by Obama, and the GOP needs to take a good look in the mirror as to why. Or perhaps it’s because their television ad budget was far lower.
Or perhaps a growing minority population was the determining factor. It sickens me this may be true, but sickens me even more that the talking heads simply assume support based on race. It’s bad enough in either direction, but a double standard? Sure, it’s a bad thing when people vote against someone because they are a different race, but it’s alright if they vote for someone on the grounds of also being a minority? Ethnic identification must be stronger than the fact that minorities have suffered more than others in a recession, as always. And after hearing about the potential for riots if Romney won (a “dream deferred” or an “excuse to loot”?) I am wondering if we’ve come a long way against prejudice, or just spun the color wheel.
I’m going to end on a simple note, contrasted with the burst of nutjob rants similar to those found when Bush got re-elected:
Even if we’re in for rough times, a president does not make a nation or an economy. There are opposing forces to dissuade either side from going too far for too long. And pardon my colloquial baseness, but I say either candidate was going to end up ripping America a new one; it is only a matter of what area of our lives and how wide.
