The Mid-Term Elections

Hey Sage,

When your sister was born, it was smack in the middle of the race to the primaries of 2008, one of the most historical elections ever on record. And now here you are, born only 12 days before the 2010 mid-term elections, also very important. I thought you should know what is going on as you begin your life in the world of U.S. politics (from the view point of your VERY liberal, bordering-on-socialist Auntie).

Things are a bit crazy. Barack Obama was elected only 2 short years ago, and everyone's all mad that he's not fixed everything already. And he inherited a big mess. Bush got us into a fake war we never should've been in and spent all our money doing that. He also bailed all the banks out so the global economy wouldn't disintegrate. Our economy is a mess and unemployment is pretty bad. There are a lot of people without enough money and without enough to eat, even. Health care is also a mess. Obama is working on fixing it, but some people are hellbent to call it a failure before it even begins.

So this new group called the Tea Party came along last year. They are basically protesting everything under the sun and want everything to change. They hold rallies and Sarah Palin is their grand poobah. They claim she isn't, but she is. She's an idiot. She used to be Governor of Alaska and then she ran for VP with John McCain in 2008 and lost and then her teenage daughter got pregnant in the middle of all that even though Sarah goes around spouting on about family values. Then she resigned the Governorship before her term was over, I guess to just go around spewing more idiocy to lead up to a presidential run in 2012, which is just scary, amazing and hilarious all at once. And her stupid daughter ended up on Dancing with the Stars. (Our country is a little crazy sometimes.) Click here for a clip as an example of her inability to even make a basic statement of any kind.

That was a big digression. Back to the Tea Party. According to Wikipedia, the greatest thing ever that you should never cite in a paper for school, the movement's primary concerns include, but are not limited to, cutting back the size of government, lowering taxes, reducing wasteful spending, reducing the national debt and federal budget deficit, and adherence to their interpretation of the United States Constitution. They are basically the antithesis of the Obama administration. They aren't a party and they don't have candidates, per se, but they endorse, and it seems to make a big difference.

It's looking like the Republicans are going to take over everything after this election. The Dems have had control in DC for the past two years, and that is likely over. But that happened to Clinton in '94, and since he was willing to cross over and work well with them, he was still re-elected in '96. That could happen again, assuming all goes well with Obama being able to work with them instead of them just making his life miserable as part of their mission in life. Clinton made some concessions that were "middle of the road" back then that have got us in some annoying situations as a result (See Don't Ask Don't Tell for instance). Compromise can be tough. So we're really unsure what will happen in 2012 and whether Obama will even get a chance to really make a difference. Just today, on Facebook, I posted a post about voting, and one of my friends who is British and lives in Copenhagen said this in response: "...and please do the rest of the world a favour and give Barack a chance to actually make a difference. Can't believe how fickle some of the American public are - at least that's the impression we're getting over this side of the Atlantic. Would loved to have seen how GWB or McCain crinkle chips would have coped with the global recession. Wow look at me getting all political and it's only Monday." In other parts of the world, they see that Obama is good for our relationship with other countries, but people here often can't see past the expanse of their back yards, so they don't really understand that.

There are a record number of Governorships up for grabs as well. 37! And it looks right now like Republicans might take more than they have in over 90 years. And since the decennial census was taken this year and those numbers are going to effect lots of things in states, what party a governor is really matters. Luckily, here in MA, it looks like we are going to re-elect our Democrat, but I think partly because the GOP candidate is just not that great. If there was stronger opposition, I'm not sure what would happen. We're known as being very blue, but we had a GOP Governor in Mitt Romney and we gave Ted Kennedy's senate seat to Republican idiot almost on par with S.P. back in January. So you never know. In your state, you have the Republican incumbent running for a third term against the former mayor of your city, Houston, who is a Democrat. It looks like your Governor will stay Governor, and his third term is unprecedented.

So tomorrow is it. We'll all go vote and we'll see what happens. Some people, like your Papa, vote against any incumbent regardless of anything else every time. I personally think (and your Nana thinks) that this is kind of juvenile, since it would be nice to have someone who knows what they are doing around sometimes. But Papa insists that they are all corrupt and should all be voted out every time.

Okay, I guess that's enough. I just thought you should hear some of what's going on in politics when you were born.