FOUR MORE YEARS

Some of the excuses being made for Mitt Romney's loss are pretty amusing. e.g. - I've seen "he couldn't separate himself from right wing extremists" cited.

Silly rabbit. That would be because Mitt attached himself to them. Nobody made him go hard core on immigration to counter Rick Perry. Romney’s choice.

Nobody made Mitt endorse Richard Murdouck both before AND AFTER his horrific rape commentary. That was Mitt's call. He chose to co-sign such extremism all on his own.

Did Romney distance himself at all from Donald Trump's ludicrous, baseless, racist bordering accusations? Nope. Not even by an inch or two.

Romney may not be as conservative as he pretended to be (will the real Mitt Romney please stand up, please stand up, please stand up), but he did earnestly pretend to be as conservative/extremist/right wing as they come. There are repercussions for such behavior regardless of whether it’s heartfelt or play acting.

Another reason I saw cited for Romney's loss was because ads by the Obama team managed to make Mitt seem unlikeable. Hah!

Let us be straight with one another here. What made Mitt Romney unlikeable was Mitt Romney. His actions spoke, opposition ads simply spotlighted them.

Unless Barack Obama is a master ventriloquist who somehow put that 47% quote in Mitt's mouth, Romney basically created attack ads on himself.

Obama didn't even need to tie Romney to Bush like he effectively did with McCain. In their last debate Obama basically said that Romney is another GW copycat, except that Bush’s policies were less mean spirited than Mitt’s.

McCain made major mistakes, biggest of all being the selection of Sarah Palin. But at least she got him Alaska's electoral votes so she wasn’t entirely useless.

Romney went & picked an Ayn Rand devotee who couldn't even secure his own state for the ticket.

Mitt beat his own damn self during tough economic times that should have spelled doomsday for the incumbent. The main reason Mitt beat himself is not anything stated above but the simple fact that he was an awful candidate who tried to buy his way into the White House. DENIED.

After lurking throughout the campaign I decided to engage a die hard Republican friend of mine who was griping about the end result on Facebook. Conversation went reasonably well because I respectfully disagreed but made undeniable point he did not really attempt to counter.

Point I made is that whatever party you happen to side with, the obligation of that party to is put forth serious candidates to promote the cause.

You can severely disagree with the Democrats’ principles but at least acknowledge that Obama, Kerry, Gore, Hillary Clinton were credible candidates with serious intentions.

On the other hand, the Republicans ran a serial flip flopper whose crowning achievement was the healthcare mandate he then had to run against. When you battle yourself, no matter who wins, you lose.

Keep in mind that this is after running Sarah Palin in the VP spot as a blatantly shallow attention grabber the last time out. And we must not forget that Donald Trump was once the Republican party’s frontrunner even though his brief flirtation with running was clearly a publicity stunt. Herman Cain was just a small step up from Trump, his presence a weak attempt to prove that the Republican platform is for black people too.

To a certain degree it doesn't matter whose argument is superior. Plenty of valid points are issued by both sides. A quality candidate from either of our two main political parties can go on to excel at the presidency. But if instead of well qualified applicants you run clowns, more often than not you’ll lose.

I suspect the lesson has finally been learned and the 2016 election will feature quality candidates on both sides of the political theory divide.

Then again, money talks and if the super conservative ridiculously right wing fringe is spending plenty of it, another lame GOP candidate may emerge. This would guarantee another victory for the Democrats.

It seems necessary from reading my Twitter stream after Obama’s victory to point out that a vote for Romney was not by definition a vote for racism. His supporters baffle me but they aren't ALL bigots.

Too many of them are though, as evidenced by: Anti-Obama Protest at Ole Miss Turns Unruly

If you're white, not a bigot, and a student at Old Miss, it's a lot harder to hold your head high while wearing your college sweatshirt today.

Behavior like that makes future would be Republican voters go "Nah, I don't want to be affiliated with that. I'll go Democrat or be Independent instead".

Stupid people don't realize that they hurt their causes and themselves with stupid behavior. That's because they're stupid people. It takes a long long time to weed out ignorance. There's always somebody passing stupidity down to their kids, keeping moronic hate alive.

But a work in progress is still undeniably PROGRESS.

We may not be post-racial but we are most definitely post slavery/Jim Crow/segregation. The GOP needs to distance themselves in a hurry from those who should really be members of the KKK for all their backwardness of beliefs.

It is never going to be 1950 again no matter how badly you want to turn the clock back. In the 21st century if you keep disenfranchising racial/ethnic/religious minorities, women, homosexuals - you'll lose.

You either change with the times or get run over by them. There really is no happy middle ground. Not if you require more votes than that obtained by a reasonable challenger to gain employment.

Once the GOP platform is not about exclusion, but rather, about core principles that they can run proudly on, they'll reclaim lost relevance.

It that doesn't happen they'll simply go the way of the dinosaur. Getting pounded in quest for Black/Latino/Gay/Immigrant/Women votes = extinction.

And for Pete's sake, let overturning Roe v Wade go. It's been decided. It's in the books. It makes sense. Move on. There are other causes.

With so many people PISSED about the state of the economy, all the Republican Party needed to do was put a credible candidate at the head of the ticket. They royally messed that up.

Final Electoral College tally: Obama 332, Romney 206.

Why Elections Matter - And Debates Leave Too Much Unsaid

Is there ever going to be a serious conversation about what the repercussions would be if Roe vs Wade was overturned? This is not a theoretical matter because it could really happen in the not too distant future, at which point the matter ceases to be about opposing talking points and transforms into nitty gritty details to be dealt with.

I respect someone sincerely having a Pro Life position but I’m tired of hearing politicians say “I’m pro life”, “I believe in the sactity of life”, “all lives are sacred” without then detailing a follow up plan.

Suppose Romney wins the election and eventually he’s able to appoint enough conservative Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe vs Wade.

So it’s now illegal for a woman (guy who contributed to the pregnancy bears no consequence of course, a major flaw in plan) to get an abortion. Penalty for breaking the law must be decided on.

Jail time seems ridiculous. So I guess you go with a hefty fine. But not everyone will be able to afford the fine. Jail time for those who can’t pay? Result, prisons overflowing with poor women.

Whatever penalty is decided on, let us assume it’s quite pursuasive. This means far fewer abortions, far more babies. The number of women who get pregnant without planning to parent will stay the same. After all, many of those who are anti-abortion are also illogically anti-contraceptives.

So now what? I will conservatively guess that the birth rate increases by 50%.

Women who wish to avoid the penalty for getting an illegal abortion (I won’t even get into the safety of the inevitable bootleg abortions from the network of unlicensed practicioneers that will emerge) decide to give birth even though they don’t want/plan to parent.

A percentage of these women will give a half hearted shot at raising the children. I'm going to say 20%. These are mostly poor, single women pushed to care for children they don’t want in their lives. The picture will not be pretty in those households but all that matters is squelching abortions.

But how about the other 80%? The attitude of these women is that you can make them carry to term but you can’t make them parent. 10% of these pregnancies are hidden and babies end up left in dumpsters.

Now we must deal with 70% of babies born to women who did not want and do not plan to raise them. The system (which takes various forms, much of it private/charitable, but much of it also government run or dependent on government money) will have to take care of these children. Adoption agencies and foster care system become overloaded but all that matters is squelching abortions.

I will generously assume that if you’re going to overturn Roe vs Wade you’re also going to pass laws that make adoption extremely affordable. As result, 25% of these children find welcoming homes.

It would be nice if all of these households had guaranteed healthcare. That’s a separate though certainly not unrelated matter for another day/post.

25% is probably too high a projection. After all, a fair number of the children will be the result of rape and even incest. This makes them way less adoptable. It’s not like reducing the cost of adoption means everyone becomes willing to do it. Many people have no interest in parenting, or no interest in parenting someone who is not their biological child. As for those who are willing (God bless them), they’ll have some restrictions (such as no can do if child is the result of violent rape) for obvious reasons.

But I’ll stick with my optimistic 25% guesstimate anyway. That leaves 45% of the babies whose biological mothers could/would not raise them going into the sytem.

Now as we know, the Romney/Ryan budget calls for making massive cuts to social services even though a massive INCREASE in funds to social services would be required to handle all of these children.

What we have here is another case of math that doesn’t add up. You want to “fix” our economy but simultaneously want to overturn a law that would eventually lead to a crippling of the economy. And keep in mind, this is the best case scenario I’m working with.

So maybe, just maybe, the issue isn’t quite so simple as saying “I’m pro life”, “I believe in the sactity of life”, “all lives are sacred”, “abortion is cold blooded murder that must be prevented at all cost”.

If that’s your stance, I understand and respect it. You believe in no exceptions other than perhaps when the life of the mother is at risk? Fine. I too wish that the number of abortions that occur each year considerably decreased, although since I am a man and cannot get pregnant, I’m not so arrogant as to think I have the right to tell a woman what she is allowed to do with her body. But if you are that arrogant/self righteous then I really need to hear your follow up plan. I need to know how many lives you are volunteering to care for if you insist on taking away women’s reproductive rights. If you are going to insist that every child be born then surely you will be doing your minimal share to address the consequences of this taking place. You don’t want to just overturn a rule of law and then let the chips fall where they may, correct? Not when those chips happen to be lives that you profess to care so much about.

If in fact you don’t have a follow up plan, then you need to go sit quiety in the corner and give more serious consideration to who you plan to vote for.



p.s. - NOBODY PUTS BABY IN A BINDER

Open Mouth - Grab Foot - Insert

"My only concern is the poor, especially minorities, blacks in particular. The rest are set so can fend for themselves." – Invisible Obama

Even if that was how he feels (and it isn’t), the real live flesh and blood President Obama would never say such a foolish thing. Not during the heat of a campaign. Not in public. Not even behind doors he believed to be closed to the media. He learned his lesson about sounding even remotely condescending towards any group of people not serving in Congress the last go around. Yet there are plenty of people who believe my make believe quote to be an accurate summary of Obama’s point of view. Why? He’s a Democrat, ain’t he? He’s liberal, ain’t he? He’s Black, ain’t he? He’s not truly American regardless of where he was born, right? No matter what he says and does, there is a portion of the electorate that does not believe Obama gives priority to their interests. They require no evidence of this. That’s the beautiful thing about prejudice (not just talking race based prejudice either), it can’t be reasoned away because it’s incapable of recognizing things such as logic and common sense. Why believe their lying eyes when all that matters is what’s in their hearts?

Mitt Romney on the other hand did not need to carry the burden of appearing to care for only a select few. We didn’t assume that he’s only looking out for his select group of brethren from the start. After all, he has church service and a health care plan in Massachussets and even his “rescue mission” of the Olympic games to point to as evidence that he cares about ALL AMERICANS. Other selflish looking acts on Romney’s part may have given some people doubts about his character, but it would and should have been no great challenge for him to believably claim he’s running for President to help EVERYBODY. He’s a politician so of course he would have been viewed by the media and many voters with a degree of cynicism, even if he had a similar resume to that of Mother Teresa. Yet he should have been able to plausibly claim that he cares for that kid in the projects just as much as he does for that CEO who generously donated to his campaign. He merely needed to do a little acting. How difficult could that be? Romney has repeatedly shown he can appear to be convinced of one thing on Monday, and of the opposite being his belief by Friday. So surely he’d be able to make it to the end of a campaign without actually confessing that he could give a damn about nearly half the country. No way would he admit that he didn’t plan to preside on their behalf were we idiotic enough to elect him.

Guess again. The cat is out of the bag. It was a transparent bag so we could see the cat in there all along. But at least the feline was contained and therefore could do minimal damage. Now the critter is out and ready to race through all 9 of the Romney campaign’s lives. Mitt looks like a President, or so we’re supposed to believe. Appearances weren’t deceiving for long enough though. It didn’t take debating with the President to expose him. It didn’t take someone proving that he’s paid hardly any taxes over the years. It didn’t take making an absurdly dumb choice for vice president to be his undoing. Mitt Romney simply opened his mouth and told “his people” how he truly feels, because he didn’t think any of “the others” were listening in. There are a lot of others. I don’t know if the percentage is closer to 47% or 99% of the population, but it should be sufficient to make sure Mitt Romney never sees the inside of the White House unless he pays to take a tour.



"It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation.” – Obama campaign

“Had he (he being Mitt's dad, who was born in Mexico for fascinating reasons) been born of Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot of winning this.” - Mitt Romney

On a completely unrelated note, please check out my interview with the blogger behind Layered Pages.