The Elefinks got themselves a piece of ass last night.
Surveying the political landscape this morning we spy a few flowers in the ashes. Colorado elected John Hickenlooper governor by a wide margin — though Bibleburg went big for racist asshat Tom Tancredo — and it appears that Sen. Michael Bennet has won a squeaker over the Weld County Whacko, Ken “Aw, She Was Beggin’ for It” Buck.
It’s not yet clear whether the Repuglicans will slide to minority-party status here — the jabbering incompetent Dan Maes, who came in a very distant third in the gubernatorial race, needs to poll 10 percent for that to happen, and The Post pegs him at 10.6 percent with the Boulder County returns yet to come in.
Here in scenic whackopolitan Bibleburg, the intelligent, hard-working Michael Merrifield naturally got beaten like a rented mule in his race for the county commission, and fuckwit Doug Lamborn easily kept his gig in the House. But it looks like Donk Pete Lee will be going to the Colorado House, and likewise John Morse to the Colorado Senate.
Nationwide, of course, we’re looking at a train wreck, with the Elefinks picking up more than 60 seats in the House, defying the usual statistical models in historical fashion. In short, the Donks got stomped like the floor at an Arthur Murray Dance studio on flamenco night, which Kevin Drum says may be attributed to “both tactical and policy missteps,” noting that things might look even worse today had the Pachyderms not bet on so many clearly unhinged teabaggers instead of the usual moderately deranged candidates.
This is not to say that reasonableness prevailed, of course. Steve Benen flags a glimpse of what Salon called “the 10 most terrifying would-be congressmen,” adding that half of them won on Tuesday.
The good news is that it’s Hump Day. The bad news is, we got humped last night.
• Late update: We’ve been having technical difficulties with the DogS(h)ite again today, so two quick announcements while I still have the microphone: First, Rep. Jim Oberstar got the hook in Minnesota, and thus we have lost a powerful cycling advocate in DeeCee. Second, if you don’t see any updates here in the next 24 hours, come see me at https://maddogmedia.wordpress.com. The fartblossoms at Hostcentric must be Republicans.
Click the image for the Election Eve edition of Radio Free Bibleburg.
. . . pun intended, the first Tuesday in November being a day on which we are invited to stick it to ourselves via the ballot box.
I just wrapped up my civic duty, voting the straight Democratic Party ticket, croaking all amendments, propositions and city-county questions devised by tea-baggers, Industrial Christians and other asshats, and retaining one judge I know personally from having endured jury duty in his courtroom.
Herself votes via mail-in ballot, but I enjoy walking the five blocks to the polling place and gauging the mood of the electorate. Plus it’s a beautiful fall morning day in scenic oligarchical Bibleburg and I’ll grab any excuse to get outdoors before the snow finally shows.
Poll workers said the turnout had been strong all morning, and at least one of them was getting anxious about the potential crush come lunchtime.
Of course, this being Bibleburg, I’m not certain whether this is good news or bad news.
• 6:15 p.m.: The polls are still open here in Colorado, so the bad news is so far coming from elsewhere. NPR just aired a few moments of frothing tea-bagger talking points from the insane fuckwit Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana, which caused me to dash out and buy a bottle of Chamucos Reposado tequila as a palliative. Good sites to keep an eye on for real news, if you’re into self-flagellation, are Steve Benen’s Political Animal and Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo.
• 6:30 p.m.: If one of my readers would be so kind as to send me money for airfare (cash, no checks, please), I’d be happy to jet off to NPR HQ and slap the mortal shit out of Melissa Block and Robert Siegel behind the microphones. They and their correspondents are entirely too giddy for my taste this evening.
• 6:45 p.m.: It’s the economy, stupid. And the GOP talking points. If you believe NPR, the electorate is buying what the GOP is selling, which would not surprise P.T. Barnum, H.L. Mencken or Hunter S. Thompson.
• 7 p.m.: The polls just closed here in Colorado, so we’re braced for evil tidings. Well, I am, anyway. Herself is at the movies with a neighbor, knowing that this is the time of night when I commence to march around the house yelling shit shit shit and scaring the cats. Meanwhile, The New York Times has managed to piss me off with a banner hed that reads “Tea Party Victories Propel Republican Gains in Senate,” when only one seat has been called as switching hands; the Elefinks need 10. Shit shit shit.
• 7:15 p.m.: No more NPR for me, thanks. I’ve croaked the audio and placed my faith in Al Gore’s Innertubes, as God intended. The early news from The Denver Post is that Donks Michael Bennet (Senate) and John Hickenlooper (governor) are looking good, with 2 percent of precincts reporting. Two percent. Where’d I put that Chamucos?
• 7:30 p.m.: Bennet and Hick’ still looking good with 4 percent reporting. More of the same unsupported jabber from the NYT. The WaPo site appears to be in spaz mode. More servers in the ol’ farm for those of us trapped in flyover country, please.
• 7:45 p.m.: OK, we’re clearly stuck in a holding pattern here. I may be forced to resort to television. Meanwhile, I’m off to cook dinner before I lose my appetite. Or my life, if Herself comes home to a kitchen with no vittles in it.
• 9:15 p.m.: OK, the Post is saying Brewmaster Hick’ is gonna be Colorado’s next governor. This I will drink to. Incidentally, in case you had any doubts based on the previous update, I’m still alive. Breaded pork chops did the trick. This was a deliberate election-night menu choice, my reasoning being: Eat the pig before the pig eats you.
• 10 p.m.: The NYT is saying the Pachyderms have the House. The Senate appears out of the Elefinks’ reach for now, but the members of The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body® will all be occupied with running for president for the next two years, so it doesn’t much matter who’s calling the shots over there. Speaking of shots, mmmmmm, tequila. A la chingada con tu y tus amigos gabachos, Tomás Tancredo.
• 10:15 p.m.: Well, since neither breaded swine nor cactus whiskey seems to be moving this election along, I’m gonna call it a night, since the news can only get worse. Plus Herself has a real job that requires (a) early rising and (2) an Irish-American serving up breakfast in the kitchen (what is this, Russia?). Meanwhile, try to look on the bright side — some day, we’ll all be dead.
When you surf over to The New York Times the morning before Election Day and see the headline “Offering G.O.P. as 2010 Version of Change” over the teaser “John A. Boehner, who hopes to be the next speaker, is running against Washington after 18 years in Congress,” it’s easy to spit coffee into your keyboard and consider drastic action, like hanging yourself or someone else.
Hey, look, it's a jackoff-o'-lantern!
Rewarding this conniving, pumpkin-colored ward heeler with a majority in the House and the speakership on top of it is like electing the dog speaker of your house after he gets into the garbage and then shits all over the living room.
The stormcrows in the media have spent months awk-awk-awking about the ass-whuppin’ the Donks are gonna get on Tuesday, and now it’s upon us. Part of me hopes we get it, in spades. A nation with an attention span measurable in nanoseconds, which oscillates improbably and inexplicably from Clinton to Bush to Obama, deserves a righteous, brass-knuckled, wake-the-fuck-up sort of dope-slap.
Of course, this would mean that the innocent would suffer alongside the guilty. So instead I choose to think about the crowds that stormed our house last night for Halloween. It was a bumper crop of costumes, a record turnout that wiped us completely out of candy for the first time ever, and there wasn’t a single, solitary sourpuss among the escorting parents despite our yard full of signs pimping Democratic candidates in solidly Republican Bibleburg.
You could take this as a sign of the dire times — can’t afford food, so let’s hit the streets for some free sugar — but I’m going to vote against my own best judgment and call it a sign of (what else) hope.
“You know, I think there are more of us than they think,” said a passer-by the other day, applauding our choice of candidates.
Let’s hope so. Get out there and pull those levers, folks. Unless you like the idea of having the Great Pumpkin two steps away from the presidency.
