©01 the media desk
Election 2004 outlook (Fall 2001 edition)OK. We’ve got a couple of weeks between us and that unbelievable Tuesday that changed America, and what it means to be an American, for a long time to come.
So, given that… What’s going on with America’s Most Lovable, well, at least Likable, Looser, AlGore?
Well he’s back on the stump. Presenting the latest edition of the New and Improved AlGore… an overweight, mediocre college professor and now resident of Suburban DC… to a very under-whelmed crowd of party faithful in Iowa.
Face it. The 2004 election is now W’s to loose. If he pastes bib Laden, or at least gives it the old college try, he’ll surf into the convention looking like Captain America and roll through the fall with no meaningful opposition. Even if his most wayward daughter makes porn flicks and ends up living with Ellen Degeneres, he’d be re-elected in a landslide.
The best thing the Democrats can dofor their party is to send AlGore out for a public whipping at the hands of the ‘Child President’ who is now more popular than Bill the Lecher ever thought about being. Why waste somebody good, or even somebody so-so with Kennedy Credentials in an unwinnable election?
The ATTACK has left the political terrain unmapped and really unmappable.
Not since WWII has there been such a surge of wild eyed patriotic fever in this country. Korea didn’t even come close, certainly not Vietnam. The Gulf War didn’t last long enough. And the brushfires in between; Panama, Grenada, Somalia, and all the rest, didn’t stir much feeling either way.
Not like this.
Even some of the most whacko groups are coming out and waving flags. In the Desk’s home district there is a college that up until the middle of last month was a hotbed of African-American ‘hate the white man’ pride and activism. And it still is, to some degree. After the attack, students there ripped American flags off cars and made noise about how ‘THEY’ got what was coming to ‘THEM’. At least they did until it became obvious that people of all races and religions were killed that day. The Fanatics weren’t concerned about the fact that Muslims were working in the building, that Chinese nationals were on the planes, that Blacks were among the firefighters, or anything else. Then even the most radical of the students toned it down a little. But some of them still voiced their opinion that the USA was somehow responsible for the Attack.
Which is good.
Yes it is.
America encourages Free Speech. And everybody has the right to their own opinion and has the right to voice it, no matter how stupid it actually is.
This country is the Last Refuge of the Flat Earth Society. We have the Animals are People Too crowd and the Meat Opossum Association. Jerry Falwell can say any blame fool thing that comes into his head, and people like the Desk come out and call him an idiot that needs to be locked in a closet with Rosie O’Donnell for about a month. And we have AlGore, the immediate past vice-president of the country, blathering about how he is a New New-Democrat.
This is Free Speech.
Something the Taliban will never understand.
We have Mormons and Baptists that work alongside each other.
We laugh at Chinese and Black acting teams in movies.
In America you can order Lasagna from a Mexican Restaurant and have it delivered by a Indian exchange student driving a Japanese car.
And nobody thinks twice about it.
Not really.
This is the Melting Pot.
What the Talib did in their attack was make all the Hyphenated-Americans into Americans.
Something the Civil Rights act couldn’t do.
Something the NAACP wouldn’t do.
Something Title Nine and Desegregation and all the rest would never do.
In August who would have thought that Al-‘I shoulda won’-Gore would come out and openly support anything GW said or did?
In August, who would believe Bill the Lecher and the Smartest Woman in the World would sit in the same church service as the Presidents Bush 41 and 43?
In August… in August.
America was as different in August as it was in 1855. Just as divided, just as obsessed with things internal.
Now it is a different Country.
Until April 14, 1865.
Just as America Then came together to mourn the Death of President Lincoln, we have come together to mourn thousands of our countrymen.
America Mourned. America Healed. America stood.
We have mourned. The healing will go on for years. America Stands.
And part of what we DO as Americans is Politics.
And, for good or not so good, AlGore and his sillydance about how he has been retreaded and is now a New New Democrat (or is that three ‘news’) is part of What America Does.
Like it or not, Presidential Season 2004 is off to a shuffling start as the 2002 elections come upon us.
So what are the prospects for 2002?
Unless this War takes a very bad turn, the incumbents are going to be very very hard to beat. Unless you happen to be a dingbat African American Congresswoman who was the lone vote against the Use of Force resolution. But then again, given her district, she may well carry it against any opposition.
Don’t look for any huge changes in either seats or majority. Even given some key retirements, there isn’t going to be much to watch. Handpicked successors are likely to walk in without more than token opposition. There may be a few lively contests in the South. Which will draw unwarranted attention as the TV talking heads look for something to talk about, namely in Florida, but they will not have national repercussions.
As far as messages to be taken and inferences drawn as predictions for 2004…. Nada.
The 2002 elections will be as meaningful as to what the ‘mood of the country’ is as far as the ’04 elections as the ’94 vote was for ’96. In spite of the congressional outcome, Bill the Lecher still won. One has very little, if anything, to do with the other. There are no Off Year coat tails to ride. Unless a congressman does something really stupid, a la Gary Condit, the incumbent has a huge advantage and this time around, momentum unseen for years. But remember the upset of 2000. A sitting Senator who had been in the Congress since the thing had been invented, was defeated… Bill Roth.
It happens.
But this time, unless you’re from a one or two districts in California, it’s unlikely.
So it comes back to this.
2002 will shuffle things a bit this way or that way. The Desk is betting the GOP picks up a couple of seats, but things will, overall, remain about the same.
And there will be no Trade Wind to pick up as far as the General in 2004.
It will remain GW’s to loose. Not AlGore’s, or any other Democrat’s, to win.
Openly suggesting that Mullah Omar’s political future might be tainted by some bad behavior of his children would be met by death. To banter back and forth about his opposition, which does exist but keeps quiet and out of the way and out of Kabul for the most part, would be squashed like a water bug under the wheels of a taxi.
To refer to somebody in the national scope as ‘Abdul’ the Lecher would not, shall we say, be welcomed.
And then to post odds on political figures and refer to them as race horses….
This is America.
Political discussion is as much a part of the landscape as ‘amber waves of grain’.
That is something else that the Talib will never understand.
God. Bless. America.
[note- the media desk has never voted for a winning presidential candidate although it votes in every election. also the desk is registered as a ‘independent conservative libertarian’]
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