The Not-So-Brave New World

¡Hola Thinkers!

¡Recepción al mundo nuevo! Prepárese para los cambios a continuación. Opinión adiós al país que usted conocía. ¿No es maravilloso?

...what's that? You don't like getting emails in Spanish? Start getting used to the idea.

There have been oodles of punditry and speculation on why the Republicans lost both the US House and Senate this election. As I see it, one of (or maybe more than one of) the following scenarios occurred:

1. The US of A is becoming a more liberal nation and this election simply reflected that. Our voting citizenry is craving higher taxes, kid-glove treatment of criminals, amnesty and privileges for anyone who makes it into this country illegally, and less freedom of the marketplace.

2. More dead registered Democrats came out to vote than expected. And it's amazing how in two short years, all the problems with voting machine malfunctions have miraculously been solved! The only time I remember anything like this is when all the news stories on homeless people disappeared after Bill Clinton won his first term.

The new (NY) statewide database of registered voters contains as many as 77,000 dead people on its rolls, and as many as 2,600 of them have cast votes from the grave, according to a Poughkeepsie Journal computer-assisted analysis.
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061029/NEWS01/610290381/1006/NEWS

3. The Democratic political machine got smart, supported moderate and possibly even conservative candidates where necessary. Registered Democrat and some Independent voters were highly motivated by their opposition to the war in Iraq, while conservative voters were highly motivated by ... NOTHING!!!

For the past 12 years, the Republicans have had the ball in at least the House, yet they have shown that are politicians first and anything else a distant second. Remember the "Contract With America?" Even though it was a House initiative, it was a perspective that, at least in concept, defined most Republican office holders, from local to federal levels.

Here's the "contract" in case you forgot: http://www.house.gov/house/Contract/CONTRACT.html

Republicans were supposed to be for smaller government, less spending, rule of law, and term limits among other things. What did we get? A morbidly rotund bureaucracy that Jenny Craig couldn't stop from growing, more pork than a Rosie O'Donnell between meal snack and a complete disregard for protecting our nations borders. I won't even touch the term limit fiasco.

Democrats may say that the Iraq war was the actual vote this week, but that would not explain why Joe Liberman won and Lincoln Chaffee (along with John Hostettler-Ind. and Jim Leach-Iowa) lost. I will contend that the nations conservatives were less than impressed with our free spending, "Republican" Congress, a no-veto President, and a group of "leaders" who started at their fidgeting feet like a kid who just smashed mommy's Lenox vase when the issue of illegal immigration came to the forefront.

So to conservatives across the country, remember this valuable phrase:

¡Es hora de asir tus tobillos! (It is time to grab your ankles!)