Elections

Okay maybe it’s a little late to talk about the election results, but suffice to say that I was very happy on Wednesday.  It’s been a long time since I stayed up late to see the election results, but I did this year.  I was concerned about the network reports showing Ohio 49% to 49% for the presidential candidates, even though Ohio had been called for President Obama.  When the local networks said that ballots from Cuyahoga and Summit Counties were just coming in, then I knew President Obama was definitely going to carry Ohio.  Then I decided to stay up to see Romney’s concession speech.  I watched most of the results on PBS because their commentary is so much better than what is on the networks, but I kept switching to the networks to see the actual vote counts.

After a least an hour after the election was called for President Obama, Romney appeared for his concession speech.  Didn’t he look like a deer in the headlights?  The next day I discovered why.  I don’t follow the conservative news channel and hadn’t been aware they had predicted a big win for Romney.  And, Romney was so sure of winning that he didn’t prepare a concession speech.  Actually I can understand not preparing a concession speech. 

So now with the elections over, it appears that the Tea Party or as I like to call it The American Taliban can’t get a candidate elected to a statewide or national election.  They get candidates elected as representatives in areas gerrymandered.  Or so it appears to me.  On the season finale of “The Newsroom” Aaron Sorkin had his anchor, played by Jeff Daniels, who is a moderate republican define the Tea Party as having views as “ideological purity, compromise as weakness, a fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism, denying science, unmoved by facts, undeterred by new information, a hostile fear of progress, a demonization of education, a need to control women’s bodies, severe xenophobia, tribal mentality, intolerance of dissent and a pathological hatred of the U.S. government.”  Jeff Daniels’ character ended saying, “They can call themselves the Tea Party.  They can call themselves conservatives and they can even call themselves Republicans, though Republicans certainly shouldn’t.  But we should call them what they are The American Taliban.”

Here, here!!

So as our Congress tries to resolve the financial crisis, let us all encourage our representatives and senators to increase taxes on the 1% and to compromise.  It is always compromise that makes governing possible.