Did America Dodge A Bullet On Election Day?

Maverick! Real America. Hockey Mom. Joe Six-Pack. Joe The Plumber. Executive Experience. Faith. Palling Around With Terrorists. Socialism. Number One Liberal. Sarah “Plain” Palin’s ignoble campaign can be summed up in a few catchy words. I’m just glad she won’t get the chance to speak any of them from the Oval Office. She probably would not have brought on the end of the world, but she would have destroyed my spirit. You Betcha!

p.s.

A Fox News reporter on the Bill O’Reilly Show says Sarah Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent. But there’s no corroboration. Maybe she is that ignorant, but I think many Republicans want to shift all the blame for losing the White House over to her.

Partying With Lincoln

The Republicans cry “Lincoln” and “let slip the dogs of war” when they are desperate for support. “We are the party of Lincoln“, they say. “We are the party of patriotism“, they say. But I think to call the modern Republican Party the party of Lincoln is like calling McDonald’s fast food authentic Scottish Cuisine.

A political party can be divided into the powerful people who run it and the voters who support it at the polls. When Lincoln was elected President, the Republican Party was considered progressive and the party of the urban elite. America was mostly an agricultural nation at the time, in the process of becoming a major industrial one. In contrast, the Democratic Party was the party of slavery and of the rural poor and the country elite. But political times change.

William Jennings Bryan, the lawyer who helped prosecute in the 1925 Scopes Trial, was a staunch Democrat. (He had served as Secretary of State under President Wilson, a major racist). Bryan supported the common man, prohibition, labor unions, and creationism. He spent the last years of his life fighting against Social-Darwinism and the teaching of evolution.

Modern Republicans pander to rural and suburban America. They court the “soccer moms“,  “The Heart Of American“, and “The Bible Belt“. Modern Democrats court everyone else. A demographic map denoting the blue vs. the red states is simplistic, but it does demonstrate where a party is strongest. McCain isn’t in San Francisco, and Obama isn’t in Boise. The maps have shifted since 186o. The Democratic Party, once the party of slavery, racism, and creationism, is now supporting a black “evolutionist” for president.

The Republican Party is now the party of Chuck Norris, and the Democratic Party is the party of science. I don’t know about you, but I’m voting for science.

P.S. McCain is a computer illiterate.