Election Dejection

With the mid-term elections just a few days away, we'll all be grateful when the din of political ads stops. The pundits are predicting big Republican gains. We shall see. Buster would like to offer a few final thoughts on the whole unholy process. Nothing you haven't heard before, but still . . .

"Money Can't Buy Me Love", but it sure can buy you public office.
The Roberts Supreme Court declared that corporations are people too, a decision which, for the first time, allows anonymous and unlimited campaign contributions from all sorts of places. It gave Republican advocacy groups, for the first time, a distinct financial advantage over the Democrats. And they've used it.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce (a.k.a. Chamber of Republicans, a.k.a. Chamber of Horrors) has spent an unprecedented $75 million nationally in support of Republican candidates. Might some of this lucre come from foreign countries, or organizations with ties to foreign countries? Maybe, maybe not. No way to tell, and they don't have to tell.

Rupert Murdoch was getting ready for bed when he found a spare $1 million in his pants pocket. He promptly gave it to his good buddy and former employee John Kasich. As a counter-measure, Buster immediately made a $25 contribution to Ted Strickland.

By hook and by crook, the Portman campaign raised four to five times more money than Lee Fisher's did. And unless Portman is discovered eating live babies for breakfast, that's all it takes. Game, set, match to Robbie in an easy win.

CBS News reports that the average seat in the U.S. Congress now "costs" $4 million, and all-time high.

Endless repetition of lies and bullshit buzzwords works.
It's said that if you repeat a lie often enough, a lot of people will come to accept it as the truth. Historically, the Democrats have been semi-reluctant to use such disgraceful tactics, because they're . . .uh, disgraceful. The Republicans, on the other hand, fully embrace low-down muck-wallowing and are always ready to give us the horseshit hard-sell and lie like rugs as long as it gets them elected. And it looks like it might do just that. A small sampling:
"Death panels"
"Kenyan"
"Big/Huge/Massive" government
"Failed" stimulus ["Failed" is a hot word. "Failed" anything.]
"Government-run" health care
"Government take-over" of health care
"Jobs killer"
"Has cost us [insert a really big number] jobs"
"Increased" taxes/spending/deficit
"Job-killing taxes"
"Reckless"
"Wasteful"
"On our side"
"Not one of us"
"Nancy Pelosi's [insert anything here]

The average American voter has an unmatched ability to forget what happened to him ten seconds ago.
Our recent Great Recession/Depression began on George W. Bush's watch. It resulted from years of relentless Republican-led deregulation of our financial system.

Our economy has been shedding jobs for a decade. The Crash of '08 certainly sped the process, but the problem is systemic and many of these jobs are never coming back.

The vast majority of the current federal deficit results from Dubya's tax cuts and his military spending spree.

Nutshell: We had 8 years of Bush, and Republican control for 20 of the last 30 years, but the average American voter has forgotten all that and is mad as hell because Obama hasn't fixed everything in 20 months. (FDR was well into his 2nd term before the First Great Depression began to ease up.) Due to Republican policies, the average American voters' investments/401 K's took heavy hits, but now many of those average American voters are ready to happily cast their vote for some ass-faced ideologue who wants to privatize Social Security. They're pissed off about Wall Street bailouts but they're gonna vote for some right-wing douchebag who wants to give tax breaks to Goldman Sachs.

The average American voter is an idiot. Not you, of course.