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It has been amazing how many people invested so much hope in the non-Christian Presidential candidate from Utah and in abusive ballot issues they are saying Americans should not be allowed to vote. On Wednesday and Thursday the collective voice of the defeated want the 99% voice silenced. The bitterness of the Rush / Hannity / O’Reilly / Rove listeners and followers is astounding. Everybody lost on something on Tuesday and everyone won something. Most of all the system won, now deal with it.
Found variations of this headline circulating the South Dakota press since Tuesday: Daugaard Reacts To Defeated Ballot Issues. Sure he did. The under qualified Governor dreamed up ill-conceived plans to wreak havoc on his citizens and he is mad at us. But you know, this is not just a South Dakota situation. This is the national GOP (Grumpy Old People) party meme post 2012 election.
The shock and awe of what happened nationwide is still causing the bloodletting to get more intense and painful. Look at what the shocked GOP US Senator from Wisconsin had to say about it: “If you aren’t properly informed, if you don’t understand the problems facing this nation, you are that much more prone to falling prey to demagoguing solutions. And the problem with demagoguing solutions is they don’t work,” Johnson said. “I am concerned about people who don’t fully understand the very ugly math we are facing in this country.” This of course is the Wisconsin senatorial election aftermath which will require him to serve with the 1st openly lesbian US senator, Tammy Baldwin.
In other words, we Americans spoiled the plans of the 1% by electing people we wanted and not believing the billions of dollars wasted by the 1% on crumby ads and lies. Did the GOP and the rich not understand people did not want lies. Did they not believe the average American could see the destruction of what is left of their dreams for a middle class lifestyle? Nationwide, the 1% thought they had dumbed down America to the level we would just accept the lies.
If you have seen the Karl Rove meltdown from election night, it is classic. He spun and spun trying to pretend the facts were wrong and we should believe his ‘facts’. He was so confident of his lies, he even believed them himself. So we have our half governor out in Pierre, only watching Faux News, being upset because his precious pet programs are no more. Yes, the GOP won big on election night in outh Dakota in the legislature but this is only because of the incompetence of the Democratic Party.
Karl Rove is a good salesmen / con-man. He was able to take some of the richest people in American for $300,000,000.00. He can retire now on the percentage he stands to make from this shell game he played. Let’s say he only skims 10% off the top for himself for his management ‘fees’, this is 30 million dollars in his already fat pockets. He had nothing to lose this year because the money was already spent. If he is done with American politics (which I doubt) he could just go somewhere and hide with his money. He will rise again and spread his vial with a plan to skim more money from his marks.
DL
What would I like to see out of Obama in his second term? Well, here is my dream list. Get out of Afghanistan. Stay out of the pissing match between Israel and Iran. Reform Obamacare  by implementing single-payer. Legalize marijuana on a federal level for recreational use, tax the crap out of it and pull us out of this economic shit hole. Change the tax structure so we are taxing the super wealthy at double the tax rate.
If Obama accomplishes at least one of those things, I would be happy. Romney would have been disastrous to our country, I am not saying Obama is some kind of economic genius, but he certainly wouldn’t take a sledgehammer to the middle-class like Romney would have.
As for the state races, I would like to congratulate a few winners. Hajek, Buhl, Feinstein, to name a few. But what I can’t figure out is
why South Dakotans re-elected the same people who supported the governor’s ill-conceived legislation that brought so many measures to the ballot. If you truly want fewer measures on the ballot, elect and require your legislators to represent you. It just seems a bit counterproductive to elect people who write and pass legislation that is not in our best interest. It gets a little old voting on these measures every election cycle because we have elected self-serving legislators. Wake up South Dakota. We need party balance in Pierre. The over 30 years of the GOP chokehold on us needs to end. Stop electing these yahoos.
As for local politics, one thing to watch will be the snowgate election (hopefully this Spring). Stehly, chair of the petition drive tells me that when they turn them in they will be hovering at around 9,000 signatures. twice as many that is needed. Bravo.
Add your own, we’d like to hear…
For some reason there are a lot of dropped characters in this post (first letter removed from numerous words etc.) – it needs some cleanup.
As to the content – well people can analyze the election all they want, but what I see is a nation that is very equally divided. Yes Obama won the election, but the popular vote margin was small enough that we can clearly see half the nation is against him.
This simply means this election was more certainly not a mandate, and I hope he doesn’t attempt to treat it like one… because if he does we will be having the same battles are disagreements four years from now.
What would I like to see… compromise. I’d like to see spending reduced at least $3 for every $1 in tax increases. I’d like to see the GOP ignore their pledge to Grover Norquist and start moving towards the middle. I’d like to see both sides ignore the hot-button issues like abortion or gay marriage or gun control and instead devote their energy to balancing the budget, reducing the debt, and getting people back to work.
I’d like to see more “Clintonesque” bipartisanship where we can look at reforming welfare and disability and unemployment to remove the massive fraud. I’d like to see reduction and/or elimination of corporate welfare and subsidies. I’d like to see the government shrink instead of grow, and I’d like to see more state control and federal oversight rather than federal control.
I’d like to see 1000 things, but I’m also a realist and I don’t expect much to change in the next four years. This isn’t to say it will be Obama’s fault, but I just don’t believe the leaders we have in Washington have any desire to change. They will dig their heels in and continue to do the same things they have always done…rinse and repeat.
One final thought – I was very happy to see our friends to the East voted against the Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as one man and one woman. Mark my words – you will see legal gay marriage within Minnesota within the next 2-4 years, and they are poised to position themselves on the right side of history…. a place I don’t expect to find South Dakota on for another decade or two – or until it is federally mandated.
hat he uck appened o ll f our irst etters? s t ome ind f ode?
Everything you need to know is here.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/09/164711093/what-earthquakes-can-teach-us-about-elections
“Campaigning” is merely background noise that cancels out that from the other side.
Folks need to get a life and move on.
If you want the government to stay out of both your bedroom and your pocketbook, you might be a Libertarian. They have their wingnuts too, no doubt, but the Libertarians might be onto something. Our two-party system results in nothing but gridlock with party politicians who, even if they go to DC with the best of intentions, get sucked into the black hole that puts party, fundraising, and re-election before true good government.
The rhetoric from the media opinionhead hacks from both sides has been disgraceful. Watching any of these networks in the evening should be for the entertainment value only as they lend little to a rationale arguement. The bitterness sown by those networks does nothing to get our country to where it needs to be. The cable news programs shown during the day barely qualify as news.
At the end of the day, voters who are not engaged will not understand why their taxes went up, why their employers are cutting back on their hours, or why some of their entitlements have disappeared. It would not have mattered who got elected. These things were going to have to happen.
Our 2% SS tax holiday ends January 1st. So the person who sees $30-60 more taken out of their monthly check is going to go “WTF, I thought my taxes were not going up.”
With little change in the makeup of Congress the next 2 years could be like watching the movie “Ground Hog”
This election proved the process works. The direction is identified. Like for sailing, there is tacking but not a direct course. Wind makes it impossible to reach an exact goal. You can come close then reset for the next destination. One thing not mentioned here is how political parties made piece and accepted new or ongoing leadership. We’re all americans. These are problem times when we must come together.
Stehly is remarkable. She rallied helpers and citizens. Remarkable because the mayor nor anyone on the council pales in comparison.
I should proof before I post. Peace not piece.
I think I got the post fixed. Sorry, I did it on a PC and posted from a Word Doc. Gawd I hate Microsoft. I guess I will have to stay with my old MAC to get it done.
Craig, I would agree, the economy should be our #1 issue over the next 4 years.
@Craig – you wanna spin that Obama doesn’t have a “mandate”. Okay – so what do the Repubs have using your logic?
Even less than nada. Seriously. They lost the Presidential race, they lost seats in the Senate, they lost seats in the house. Whooped! And no amount of spin toward the right can change those facts/trends. But go ahead – try.
Here’s something to chew on – although the Repubs still hold the majority of the house – they DID NOT win the popular vote count for all house districts. The Dems did. Gerrymandering of House districts by Repub held state legislatures has create a situation where Dems would have to win the popular vote by 5% or more to win 50% of the house.
Pathloss – I like your sailing analogy being an old salt me-self. Even going with the wind – a direct path is not the best. One needs to reach off a bit to be in sure control.
I generally don’t jump on the social media backslapping that tries to take credit for everything, but I have to admit that twitter and Facebook is helping keep everything a little more honest than before. The long lines for early voting in many states was all over social media, as was any issue (including Ohio) on election day. Stories that the cable channels won’t report are being circulated to millions. The people are speaking, and they don’t want the status quo. They don’t want voter suppression. They don’t want the typical lies and half-truths that spout out of the mouths of these imbeciles. Karl Rove’s meltdown was immediately reported, and tons of people who would otherwise never turn to that channel went to point and laugh at the election’s biggest loser.
It’s time for all of us to let these media companies know that we’re not going to take it anymore. We don’t need the Argus to slap our wrists for not voting for the Sanford slush fund (read Lalley’s column from Friday). We don’t trust the talking heads to give use the real story. The extremes of the parties shouldn’t be the media voices. Life is not black and white. Let’s stop handling political issues as such.
@Scott – Rove was ridiculous. To the point where Kelly left the desk Rove and she were sitting and walked over to the “real” FOX experts who were in a seperate room analyzing “real” results. They assured her they were right and Rove was wrong. I mostly flipped through CNN, FOX, and CBS. All were pretty entertaining.
It will be very interesting to see how members of the House dance the fine line of doing what needs to be done and satisfying their constituents back home. Doesn’t matter if you are Kucinich, Warren, Cruz or Noem. You run again in two years and the people back home are watching you. If you go to the HuffPo election map, you see that many House members won by high margins, no matter which party they serve.
I can tell you one thing for certain, the incentive to shrink to or hold at the 50 employee threshold to get under Obamacare requirements will add millions to the unemployment lines within the next 18 months.
Welcome back, Carter!
Sy – We have a meeting at one of my jobs about that exact thing this coming weekend. Since most of their employees are part-time anyway, it won’t affect us to much, but the full-time employees will see their hours cut. I think we can fix Obamacare once and for all and implement single-payer, then businesses don’t have to worry about finding loopholes because most people would get on board with single-payer.
In our case, it will cost us nearly $500K to provide insurance (40% increase over last year) to our 75 employees and $150K to take the fine and dump coverage altogether.
What would you do if you were me? Better question, what do you think my competitors will do?
“If you like your plan, you can keep it” = biggest lie of the whole damn healthcare debate.
If I were a small business like yourself, I would lobby congress to reform to single-payer, then businesses like yourself can get out of the health insurance business and have employees pay for it through their payroll taxes. I would think this would also give employers the opportunity to pay workers better, or even hire more workers.
We aren’t in the health insurance business, and the people who are will be out of business very soon. Why do you ‘spose Howalt just sold out?
That along with taking the profits out of the medical industry in the name of “fairness” will utterly destroy the economy to where it won’t make any sense to even be in business, let alone grow a company.
Hey at least we won’t have to worry about giving people like Craig Lloyd TIFs anymore, there won’t be anyone who can afford to move into a downtown condo before too terribly long.
Well, when the Repugs had a chance to come to the drawing table, they said FU to Obama. So now we have a horribly written piece of legislation. If the Repugs would have gotten on board and said, “You know what, single-payer is a great idea, it is funded through ‘working Americans’ and best of all businesses no longer have to provide healthcare for their employees. Instead, Repugs just put the two middle fingers and now they are crying because it will hurt them. You can say FU to change all you want, but if you are not willing to roll with it or accept it, shit happens. Shit is now happening.