Election recap

Just some commentary on some of the elections I was following this past campaign.

First, the losers:

• Christine O'Donnell - Too bad this woman didn't win.  From early on, at least on the national stage, it didn't seem like the election was going to be about issues, but about smearing O'Donnell personally.  Ironic that the supposed party of tolerance and acceptance would slam O'Donnell for "dabbling in witchcraft" YEARS ago.  The whole brouhaha about her anti-masturbation stance (which, once again, was on MTV YEARS ago!) was unsurprisingly lampooned by every moron who had the time to attend political rallies or get air time.  Know what masturbation is?  Self-love.  Too much self-love equates to narcissism.  And O'Donnell is spot on about pornography:  It can be destructive to relationships.  Look the statistics up.  To be fair, what O'Donnell doesn't get is it's about everything in moderation.  More than anything, the O'Donnell-Coons campaign exposed rampant misogyny alive and well on the Far Left.  Most prominent was Bill Maher, who vowed to continue releasing embarrassing video clips of O'Donnell from his failed talk show until she came on his current-testament-to-how-much-sleaze-HBO-will-tolerate.  O'Donnell wisely didn't take the bait, relegating Maher to only feel he's important to the national political debate.
• Sharron Angle - Apparently, the voters of Nevada and I disagree about whether Sen. Harry Reid is representing their interests.  Angle rightly hammered Reid over the issue of illegal immigration, but may have spent too much time and money on that.  Joy Behar, clueless twit that she is, nearly torpedoed Reid in the final days with her charges of "racism" against Angle's anti-illegal immigration ads and calling Angle a "bitch" who would "burn in hell".  Angle marvelously took the high road and turned Behar's verbal bile into campaign cash and sent her flowers for helping her campaign.  Joy still wouldn't shut up, so Angle continued to laugh her way to the bank.
• Carly Fiorina - This one was a close one against Barbara "Don't Call Me Ma'am" Boxer.  Fiorina might have eked out a win here had it not been for the hairdo comments about her opponent.
• Meg Whitman - Sadly, too few people failed to see through the cheap political stunt pulled by Whitman's former housekeeper and politically-driven attorney Gloria Allred during the California gubernatorial campaign.  Allred essentially used Diaz as a pawn to give Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown an edge.  Greta Van Sustern, hardly a conservative, rightly berated Allred for conduct that definitely wasn't in Diaz's best interest.  Couple this with NOW throwing its support behind Brown, even after he or an aide were caught on tape calling Whitman a whore, and Whitman's campaign was successful at least in exposing the kind of feminism that NOW and Allred really believe in:  Empowering liberal women only.  Or in other words, sometimes promoting liberalism over female empowerment.  Hypocrites.
• Chris Barden - Doing my best to continue following Minnesota politics while living in Iowa, I was impressed with the thoroughness of his case against Lori Swanson.  However, Barden thought he was making a courtroom argument against the populist Swanson who can keep her teflon coating by pursuing companies under the guise of consumer protection.  Lest I fall into the same trap the Left has and accuse the voters of being stupid, I do have to wonder if a majority of them in Minnesota let their passions guide their votes.  After all, it's stylish to hate corporations as evil, faceless tyrannies without once considering their motivations.
• Dan Severson - Not enough visibility.  Incumbent Mark Ritchie won the last election in 2006 with the help of ACORN.  Since then, the Secretary of State position has become a politically-charged position.  The 2008-9 recount between Norm Coleman and Al Franken exemplified this.  It worries me when uncounted ballots are "found" in someone's car trunk in a close race. Evidence in a trial is inadmissible unless there is a clear and uncompromised chain of custody.  Why should it be any different for an election?  Sorry, once there's a chance the ballots could have been compromised, the safe strategy is not to count them.  I'm all for everyone's vote counting, but what about when you cease to be sure whether it's really their vote?  Ritchie's shtick has been about not disenfranchising voters.  Except, curiously, absentee voters. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the voting patterns of deployed military personnel.  Just a coincidence.  As Minnesota gears up for a gubernatorial recount, I hope Tom Emmer is more tenacious in challenging the partisan Ritchie.  However, if Minnesota ends up with a Governor Dayton, I'm comforted by two things:
• Both houses of the Minnesota state legislature swung to GOP control for the first time in decades, nullifying some of the damage Dayton could do.
• I'm permanently moving to Iowa, so any economic damage Dayton could do to Minnesota automatically would benefit the "sane" states bordering Minnesota.

Now the winners:

• Chip Cravaack - MN Rep. Jim Oberstar (D) thought he had a seat for life.  However, supporting economically disastrous Cap-And-Trade legislation and referring to some of his constituents as "flat-Earthers" did not endear him in those same voters' eyes.  Oberstar claims permanent residence in Maryland and reportedly only had one political contributor in-state.  That certainly didn't help his case.
• Michelle Bachmann - Representative Bachmann was a lightning rod for Dem efforts to unseat her this election.  Pelosi, Biden, and Obama all lent time to give Taryl Clark the edge in the MN-6 US House race.  Why?  Bachmann isn't part of the GOP leadership.  But she is a successful conservative woman.  Bachmann has long dealt with the naked misogyny that Sarah Palin dealt with as a vice-presidential candidate and later as a private citizen.  Two low points for the attacks on Bachmann:
• Joy Behar saying that Bachmann was anti-children.  Joy, if Michelle was anti-kid, why would she give birth to five of them and foster 23 others?
• Chris "Thrill Up My Leg For Obama" Matthews asking if Bachmann was "in a trance" because she wouldn't give him the answers he was looking for regarding whether a GOP-dominated House would conduct witch-hunts on "un-American" activities.  Bachmann's wouldn't bite and simply returned the serve:  "I imagine that thrill on your leg is not quite so tingly anymore".  Point. Set. Match.
• Dan Webster - Holding his own in a race against the mentally-deranged Alan Grayson, Webster was the victim of perhaps the most fallacious ad I've seen.  Grayson's campaign took Webster's comments before a gathering of Christian men and twisted the words completely around to paint Webster as misogynist who believed women should submit to their husbands.  For this, Grayson and his campaign labeled Webster "Taliban Dan Webster".  Too bad what Webster actually said to the men was that they shouldn't use the quote about "wives submit to your husbands".  The ad was so over the line that MSNBC left-biased "info-babe" Contessa Brewer opined to guest Grayson that the ad had crossed the line.  Grayson just smiled his creepy smile and dismissed her protests.  On election night, Grayson naturally blamed the weather for his 18-point loss.  Did I miss it?  Was Florida hit with a blizzard on election night?  Damn that Global Warming, robbing Grayson of his divine right!
• MSNBC viewers:  Seeing themselves as a foil to the "hyper-partisan" Fox News Channel by ironically, being even more partisan in the opposite direction, the MSNBC dream team has doubled down on stupid.  Keith Olbermann, a frequent critic of Fox News' hosts contributing to political campaigns (though News Corporation's rules permit them to do so as long as it doesn't impact their ability to do their jobs effectively), ended up being put on indefinite suspension after it was revealed he had given the maximum allowable contributions to three Democrats' campaigns without prior permission, in violation of NBC's rules.  Personally, I think Keith should just get a slap on the wrist for this, as his material is pure comedy gold.  Without him, the conservative Newsbusters site might have to layoff some of their bias watchdog!  Most importantly, the show could be worse:  It could be called "Countdown with Alan Grayson" now!
  
  Naturally, Rachel Maddow attacked Fox News instead of hers and Keith's employer, whining about how FNC's employees are not forbidden from these contributions.  Umm, Rachel, every employer makes their own rules.  Don't like it?  Work somewhere else!
  
  So how does this benefit the 12 viewers MSNBC has left?  Well, with the upcoming acquisition of the channel by Comcast, some changes to their business model might be forthcoming.  I doubt Comcast will tolerate MSNBC being a losing business venture like GE's Jeff Immelt did, mainly because Immelt has used MSNBC as a propaganda machine to promote policies that ultimately benefit GE.  Olbermann's departure quite possibly was prearranged, and Phil Griffin just looked for a pretext.
  
  In the end, I am a strict laissez-faire capitalist.  I believe competition among the news companies is good, and a FNC monopoly on cable news would be no better the monopoly CNN held for many years.  Competition keeps 'em honest, and a MSNBC that competes with FNC on actual news reporting  rather than just news commentary benefits everyone.
  
  Yeah, I know.  Keep dreamin'.

This election, I noted that there's one of those universal constants with regards to how lefties handle getting trounced in an election:  Blame the loss on voter stupidity.  I recall being at a Democrat-heavy election party in '08 when the news announced Bachmann's win then.  I recall a lefty at the party saying something to the effect that Bachmann won because the voters in the 6th district were "in-bred morons".

Keep thinking that way, lefties.  Don't take the pounding as a reminder of who the boss is, and adapting yourself to meet the boss' interests and needs.  Just say the boss is wrong.  No wonder you're in the unemployment line...