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defrogSo there was this election in Massachusetts, apparently. I was sort vaguely aware of it but it wasn’t until my Facebook page started filling up with smug Republican friends doing a verbal victory dance over the end of the Obama era that I thought I’d better look into it. Because, you know, I thought the Presidential election was still a little ways off.
So now I know who Scott Brown is. And at first, I wasn’t all that impressed with all the hype and hoopla over his victory. Of course I would expect Republicans to act all smug and jabber about mandates and messages (and admit it – you would too after getting yr ass handed to you the last two Congressional elections). But otherwise, I just couldn’t see what the big deal was.
Then I saw Brown’s Cosmo spread.
And I thought, “OMG this IS huge!”
Seriously. You are looking at a major, MAJOR shift in American politics right there. Five years ago – hell, ONE year ago – a story like that would have been a political career-ender, because nudity is basically illegal in America. And yet despite that spread being posted all over the Internet, Brown still won.
That’s unprecedented. I mean, name ONE candidate for a major political office that has been photographed naked on purpose and won. (Besides Arnold Schwarzenegger, I mean, who doesn’t count because he wasn’t American at the time.)
Sure, if he was a woman and/or a Democrat – or if those pics had run in, say, The Advocate instead of a woman's magazine that Republican voters used to ban from supermarkets because it encouraged unmarried women to have sex and enjoy it – he’d have been clobbered mercilessly. And granted, if he’d run in, say, Oklahoma rather than a “liberal hotbed” like Massachussets (because liberals LOVE naked people), he might have had his bare ass handed to him.
But still, I think this is a milestone. It’s a mandate from the American people, all right: we want more naked male Republican senators.
I will take yr questions now.
Yr joking, right? Surely this is huge because Ted Kennedy’s seat just went to a conservative?
Maybe if Ted was still alive to defend it, you could call it an upset. But come on, it's not like Massachusetts has never voted Republicans into office before. Massachusetts’ rep as a forever-liberal state is mostly a GOP fantasy concocted to make Mike Dukakis and John Kerry look like Socialists. The state is just as prone to angry voters kicking out the incumbent to vent their frustration as anyplace else.
But what about the Demos losing their filibuster-proof supermajority? That’s mega-huge.
Uh-huh. The Demos had the power to turn America into Cuba for something like eight months before Ted died. Here’s what they accomplished with that:
1. Nada.
2. Bubkis.
3. Not a goddamn thing.
So Brown’s victory isn’t exactly upsetting the balance of power here.
But isn’t it fair to say that this is a major blow to Obama and an indictment of his presidential policies and a mandate from the American people that he’s leading the country in the wrong direction?
What, Obama’s party losing one seat by five whole percentage points? Well, look, I know there’s been talk about frustration over the economy and the health care debate being a factor in this race, and it’s an argument the Demos aren’t really winning for a lot of reasons (many of them self-inflicted). On the other hand, Republicans have been writing off Obama’s admin as washed up and doomed to failure at least six months before he even won the election. They were saying this kind of stuff back when Obama’s biggest scandal was using teleprompters.
Personally, I think it’s far more of an indictment of the Demos for buying into their own MassLib urban legend and backing the wrong horse on the logic that they could run anyone and still win. That said, if it’s true that Coakley lost because she dissed Red Sox fans, then Massachusetts deserves whatever Brown is eventually going to do to them.
So yeah, all up, I’m way more impressed by the fact that a naked guy won a Senate seat.
Progress!
Get down, get undressed,
This is dF
So now I know who Scott Brown is. And at first, I wasn’t all that impressed with all the hype and hoopla over his victory. Of course I would expect Republicans to act all smug and jabber about mandates and messages (and admit it – you would too after getting yr ass handed to you the last two Congressional elections). But otherwise, I just couldn’t see what the big deal was.
Then I saw Brown’s Cosmo spread.
And I thought, “OMG this IS huge!”
Seriously. You are looking at a major, MAJOR shift in American politics right there. Five years ago – hell, ONE year ago – a story like that would have been a political career-ender, because nudity is basically illegal in America. And yet despite that spread being posted all over the Internet, Brown still won.
That’s unprecedented. I mean, name ONE candidate for a major political office that has been photographed naked on purpose and won. (Besides Arnold Schwarzenegger, I mean, who doesn’t count because he wasn’t American at the time.)
Sure, if he was a woman and/or a Democrat – or if those pics had run in, say, The Advocate instead of a woman's magazine that Republican voters used to ban from supermarkets because it encouraged unmarried women to have sex and enjoy it – he’d have been clobbered mercilessly. And granted, if he’d run in, say, Oklahoma rather than a “liberal hotbed” like Massachussets (because liberals LOVE naked people), he might have had his bare ass handed to him.
But still, I think this is a milestone. It’s a mandate from the American people, all right: we want more naked male Republican senators.
I will take yr questions now.
Yr joking, right? Surely this is huge because Ted Kennedy’s seat just went to a conservative?
Maybe if Ted was still alive to defend it, you could call it an upset. But come on, it's not like Massachusetts has never voted Republicans into office before. Massachusetts’ rep as a forever-liberal state is mostly a GOP fantasy concocted to make Mike Dukakis and John Kerry look like Socialists. The state is just as prone to angry voters kicking out the incumbent to vent their frustration as anyplace else.
But what about the Demos losing their filibuster-proof supermajority? That’s mega-huge.
Uh-huh. The Demos had the power to turn America into Cuba for something like eight months before Ted died. Here’s what they accomplished with that:
1. Nada.
2. Bubkis.
3. Not a goddamn thing.
So Brown’s victory isn’t exactly upsetting the balance of power here.
But isn’t it fair to say that this is a major blow to Obama and an indictment of his presidential policies and a mandate from the American people that he’s leading the country in the wrong direction?
What, Obama’s party losing one seat by five whole percentage points? Well, look, I know there’s been talk about frustration over the economy and the health care debate being a factor in this race, and it’s an argument the Demos aren’t really winning for a lot of reasons (many of them self-inflicted). On the other hand, Republicans have been writing off Obama’s admin as washed up and doomed to failure at least six months before he even won the election. They were saying this kind of stuff back when Obama’s biggest scandal was using teleprompters.
Personally, I think it’s far more of an indictment of the Demos for buying into their own MassLib urban legend and backing the wrong horse on the logic that they could run anyone and still win. That said, if it’s true that Coakley lost because she dissed Red Sox fans, then Massachusetts deserves whatever Brown is eventually going to do to them.
So yeah, all up, I’m way more impressed by the fact that a naked guy won a Senate seat.
Progress!
Get down, get undressed,
This is dF
