Saddle-up Your Pickups, Boys
or You're in Good Hands with Joe the Plumber
It's amazing that the Democratic Party and the White House haven't yet been able to figure it out. The GOP has once again managed to out-smart it's Democratic rivals by relying on the dim-witted, Pavlovian responses of the electorate in a key state.
Scott Brown, the newly elected Senator from the blue state of Massachusetts, has apparently raised the location of the Mason-Dixon line up to the suburbs of Boston. Is it that hard to figure out that, given the opportunity, American voters, no matter where they reside, will fall for any semi-charismatic figure who rides into town in a pickup truck, sings praises of the local sports franchise and carries a firearm? Such is the sophistication of American politics, the land of the free and the homer of Joe the Plumber.
The mandarins of the Democratic Party in Mass have been left scratching their heads. How could it have happened? The voters just one year ago overwhelmingly elected a college professor, an intellectual with the brain power and oratorical skills not seen on the American stage since Woodrow Wilson. The Republican Party has been in disarray, responsible, by either commission or omission, for perpetrating the greatest economic disaster to befall the Republic since the great Depression. Could a state that elected and re-elected Ted Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate, reject his hand-picked successor in favor of a neophyte who vowed to turn back health care reform, the very issue that Kennedy had fought for his entire career? Never happen.
I don't know how others feel, but tonight one unusual notion has succeeded in invading my thoughts: Massachusetts has its own universal health care system that, while imperfect, covers over 90% of the state's citizens with affordable insurance. With the election of Scott Brown the rest of the country that lacks such a luxury may find itself once again in the good hands of the same rapacious insurance companies that have been at the root of the disaster we know as the American health care system.
This republic, as we call it, has proven itself incapable of functioning with the measure of equity and justice it's founders had envisioned. Perhaps what we need is an enlightened monarch, a leader with the intelligence and courage to create a just society by fiat. One thing seems certain: it won't likely be the current occupant of the White House.
or You're in Good Hands with Joe the Plumber
It's amazing that the Democratic Party and the White House haven't yet been able to figure it out. The GOP has once again managed to out-smart it's Democratic rivals by relying on the dim-witted, Pavlovian responses of the electorate in a key state.
Scott Brown, the newly elected Senator from the blue state of Massachusetts, has apparently raised the location of the Mason-Dixon line up to the suburbs of Boston. Is it that hard to figure out that, given the opportunity, American voters, no matter where they reside, will fall for any semi-charismatic figure who rides into town in a pickup truck, sings praises of the local sports franchise and carries a firearm? Such is the sophistication of American politics, the land of the free and the homer of Joe the Plumber.
The mandarins of the Democratic Party in Mass have been left scratching their heads. How could it have happened? The voters just one year ago overwhelmingly elected a college professor, an intellectual with the brain power and oratorical skills not seen on the American stage since Woodrow Wilson. The Republican Party has been in disarray, responsible, by either commission or omission, for perpetrating the greatest economic disaster to befall the Republic since the great Depression. Could a state that elected and re-elected Ted Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate, reject his hand-picked successor in favor of a neophyte who vowed to turn back health care reform, the very issue that Kennedy had fought for his entire career? Never happen.
I don't know how others feel, but tonight one unusual notion has succeeded in invading my thoughts: Massachusetts has its own universal health care system that, while imperfect, covers over 90% of the state's citizens with affordable insurance. With the election of Scott Brown the rest of the country that lacks such a luxury may find itself once again in the good hands of the same rapacious insurance companies that have been at the root of the disaster we know as the American health care system.
This republic, as we call it, has proven itself incapable of functioning with the measure of equity and justice it's founders had envisioned. Perhaps what we need is an enlightened monarch, a leader with the intelligence and courage to create a just society by fiat. One thing seems certain: it won't likely be the current occupant of the White House.
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