Tuesday, November 3, 1992...

For one fleeting moment in my life, I thought we could reclaim America from the clutches of Reaganism. On that night, we saw an impossibly charismatic Democrat prevail, the image of his seemingly brilliant wife hugging the wife of the new Vice-President Elect with sheer unmitigated joy, the laughter pervasive and widespread in the crowd in Little Rock, Arkansas which was now the center of the political world as the Clintons and the Gores were delightedly enthroned by the masses assembled that evening.

Time passed: and there was a very young Chelsea Clinton, crying tears as she left her home state for Washington, D.C., an unknown territory filled with strangers and mystery for an adolescent girl: poorly dressed in a time-worn polka-dot dress which belonged in some general store window in the 1950's.

It turned out that Chelsea's upset was well-conceived: our 'hopes and dreams' have been repeatedly dashed by our own people, our own politicians, and our own policies. We are now adrift in some politically pre-Apocalyptic version of America: on the one hand we have the access to unlimited information, unlimited legal graphic sexuality, unlimited entertainment, unlimited sporting events, unlimited libraries of literature, unlimited galleries of paintings and photographs, but we are systematically electing individuals and thus entities which are promoting repression of an individual's lifestyle, State religion, unlimited weaponry distributed among the populus with little or no regard for the intent of its use, deliberate disenfranchisement of distinct ethnic individuals who are citizens of these United States, regressive taxation of the middle and lower classes, destruction of organized labor, and many many more actions which will undermine the progress of the last hundred years.

This was the goal stipulated even while Franklin Roosevelt was implementing his New Deal and Lyndon Johnson was promoting his Great Society. Plans were drawn up to smash them no matter how long it took, no matter what or who had to be sacrificed. The Democrats have had much to do with this and their complicity is evident at the highest levels. We hold this truth to be self-evident.

I do not expect that the job will be finished within my lifetime but it may be completed within my child's who was one year of age on the night of November 3, 1992. The historic election of Barack Obama has allowed the Republicans to employ the techniques of hatred, resentment, and yes, racism to more quickly divide the Nation and to accelerate this process. It is tragic for many including those who do not realize what has happened. My mother of blessed memory used to say that there were three kinds of people: those who made things happen, those who watched things happen, and those who asked, "What happened?". In a number of months, many sleeping individuals will awaken and ask, "What happened?". And the response will be: "Lucy pulled the football away again."

I will tell you that I will not professionally survive another Republican recession. The last one nearly put me completely out of business. The touting of them as the Party of Small Business is a lie, although I suppose that it would not be considered dissembling if we can all agree that Shell Oil or General Foods is a "Medium" business. But of course, it isn't just me whom I am worried about: many many individuals will not survive if health care is withdrawn, if schooling is depreciated by privatizing, if jobs are sent overseas wholesale. There is a higher morbidity and mortality rate for performing each of these actions and it seems that only a minority of people care. So be it, America. So Be. It. It was yours to lose and apparently you are well on your way to doing so.

Post-mortem: An anecdote from years ago, repeated:

Many many years ago here I posted a story about a hot-shot Democratic fund raiser who was a patient and, I would suppose, friend of mine and my family. This guy was as big as it got in Philadelphia and some of you out there who know our landscape probably can guess who this fellow was. He's passed on now...

Once upon a time there was a Democratic candidate for the US Senate who was running against then-Senator Santorum. Now Santorum was not that popular in the Commonwealth and many rank and file democrats believed that he was beatable. But incredibly, there was little to no campaign and Santorum won by six points. SIX POINTS and the Democrats essentially ran zero ads and zero high profile endorsements. This meant that a swing of three percent would have changed everything and doomed Santorum to a one-term status. All the Democrats had to do was do something...anything. But they didn't.

So soon after the election, the hot-shot was in my office and we were talking a bit of politics, which was difficult due to his, shall we say, "interesting" point of view. Undaunted, I asked him why the Party had not done more to promote its candidate. The answer came crisply and sharply: "We didn't want to win. This was not the right time." My angry response...angry but measured was, "Not the right time? Since when is it not the right time to win a Senate seat in a state as large as Pennsylvania?" His terse reply, "Not our call." and that was it. He never spoke of it again. I always wondered, who was calling the shots at that point and who is thus, calling them now?

So is it not strange that you had so few candidates running on the successes of the USA whilst they were in control: Stock Market very bullish, low gasoline proces, low unemployment, saving the auto industry and associated businesses, the death of Osama, the Affordable Care Act, and many other useful policies for the American People. These are not praiseworthy? Of course they are...it must have been a deliberate attempt to lose. How the hell else do you explain the lack of a cohesive message, the inability to appeal to voters on the most fundamental bases, the fumbling of the ball in almost every state. Here in PA, Mr. Wolf won because he rejected the state party and handled his own campaign. I wouldn't give you a hoot in Hell for the Party people. Look who they were going to put up before Wolf announced: probably Allyson Schwartz who had ZERO...and I mean ZERO chance of winning a statewide election here. She was the annointed one but ran the WORST primary campaign anyone remembers for an erstwhile major candidate. I would wager that she would not have gotten 42% of the vote over the universally-hated Corbett. And we were awaiting her "candidacy" when I received the phone call to meet with an unknown Tom Wolf, a meeting which I chronicled at the time and is in my DU Journal http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024140848 here.

I knew he was going to give Corbett a run for his money because he wasn't messing around with platitudes and half-assed statements. He was laying it on the line and going after Corbett as a Democrat should go after a Republican who betrayed the trust of the voters. He's going to have problems with the Republican legislators who control Harrisburg but at least we have a shot at coming out of this funk here, what with schools grossly underfunded, special education in trouble, allowing the oil companies to dictate policy without having to pay any extraction tax. Can you imagine? In Texas of all places they have a tax, but not here...but I digress.

In reflecting upon the nightmare that was Tuesday, it seems as though not only was it a foregone conclusion from 2012 that this would be the result, but that it was facilitated by the power structure from on high. I am alternately appalled and impressed that the Nation is heading inevitably and inexorably towards the goal line as defined in the post-war era by a shadowy group, all of whose names we will never ever know. I'm reminded of an incident which occurred years ago: a gnetleman of my acquaintance with a fairly weird, somewhat perverse affect for an adult, once said to me, "So you think I'm strange. What if I told you that I was an alien?" My response was, "Well, it would explain a lot about you."

"Deliberateness of loss" explains a lot about Tuesday.

The impending death of the Republican Party:

BWAHAHAHA.

It's Lucy with the football all over again. FDR has finally given up the ghost.
This is what America wants.
Oh well, gotta get up and go to work, raise my family, enjoy my life best I can.

Al Franken Wins Again!

Remember the last time…they were counting votes one at a time by the end of the recount.

WTF? How is Hagan ahead 101000 votes with 45% in and it's too close to call?

Again, WTF?

Breaking News: Scott Brown moving to Vermont. nt

Oh Horseshit...

Senator Manchin lecturing us on how no matter who's in charge of the Senate we are all going to have to work together,

Note carefully that you never hear Republicans making statements like these: they say, we're in charge no get the fuck out of the way or we're gonna run you the fuck over. Make no mistake about it: you lost now you are gonna die. And Democrats do just that...

Democrats…all the way back to Coolidge, continuous political masturbation…pissed away the whole 2008 victory.

On nights like this, I'm reminded of the wonderful story

from 2000 when the lady from New York City asked, "How could Bush win? I don't know a single person who voted for him."

I will need a stiff drink and perhaps to go to bed earlier than I thought I would...

WOLF WINS IN PA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Waiting for 8 PM. Hopefully, this will be called by 8:01 PM.

On the eve of every election I harken back to what my father of blessed memory

used to say. He was a pragmatic progressive Democrat who was a four-year combat veteran of WWII, worked two full-time jobs his entire career, and held seven masters degrees in subjects from linguistics to Western History to Hebrew Literature. He obviously never slept but he was brilliant in ways which can only be imagined these days what with narrow, specialized learning tracks and generally poorly selected reading lists in schools including, but not limited to, most universities.

He had a few words of wisdom to impart. One was: there is rampant lying in the news organizations and at best, the truth is shaded. However, there is one publication which never intentionally lies to its readers, ever. And that publication is: The Racing Form. you cannot lie to gamblers - they will cut the ties forever. Whatever is printed within is the best knowledge available to the reporter. My Dad's assumption was that if a media member reported something as fact, that that fact was viewed through a specially colored lens and for whatever reason which might be utterly unknown to the masses, it was advantageous to report, or not report in a certain fashion. This policy was generally decided a priori way up in the editorial chain. If something were reported which should not have been, in the opinion of the powers-that-be, careful retrenchment was then executed to minimize the fallout.

The second consideration was that the Nation was headed in some direction, inexorably and inevitably. He used to say this before the Kennedy Assassination and afterwards he just shook his head and said that this was all a course-correction with respect to what Eisenhower had referred to as the military-industrial complex. My father respected Eisenhower for making the speech but knew that it would have little or no effect upon the March of Time. I've written about this before, but I will again share the anecdote when Goldwater was nominated, Eisenhower was interviewed on TV by two reporters. Ike was not happy about Goldwater's candidacy, but these two reporters kept interrupting and changing the topic, thus confusing the situation with respect to the viewer. I was 11 at the time. My father turned to me and stated words which I have never forgotten: "In America there is nothing worse than being a "former" anything. This man was a Five-Star General, led the Allied Forces against the most horrifying villains in history successfully, was a two-term President of the United States, and these two won't let him finish a sentence. Imagine how they'll treat you after you're retired if this is how they treat this man. I hold no briefs for his politics, I certainly didn't vote for him, but these idiots have no respect for the man; none." To this day, I recall that moment vividly.

The third occurrence was in 1980 on Election night. I called my father and said, "Dad, what are we gonna do?" His reply: "What you're gonna do is get up and go to work tomorrow morning and work hard, do the best you can, try to improve the lives of those within your sphere the best you can. Carter thought that he could lead Americans by sitting in the White House with a sweater on with the heat turned down and attempt to commiserate with them. Americans, for good or ill, don't want to hear that. They require the preacher's intensity and verve for better or worse. Reagan and Republicans know how, always knew how, to give this to them. they prey upon their weaknesses, their fears, and get them to vote against their own economic and life-lengthening issues by doing so. Democrats will only sporadically learn how to do this and then they forget. Republicans never forget the necessity of doing this.

The fourth and final statement he made in this regard was that the Fundamental Principle of Republicanism was for rich people to be able to hold onto their money; that in America it is extremely difficult to make a lot of money but even harder to hold onto it once it has been squirreled away. Every decision a Republican makes is with an eye towards this Principle. It is virtually inviolate.

We have found that nothing has changed. We need to win on Tuesday to allow the status quo, which admittedly isn't great, to continue. We know that losing will throw us into some, but not complete, turmoil. Some will suffer needlessly, but the narcissism of many of the electorate precludes them caring enough to think of the plight of others, even if they do attend the religious service of their choice on Sundays. I wish us the best luck and to GOTV.