Stuff You Might Have Have Missed While Watching The Midterm Elections

by Barry Weintraub

There are a lot of disappointed “Blues” in the country this week and an even larger number of exhilarated “Reds” thrilled with their election day victories.

For me, the real fun is in all the little stuff that’s been overlooked in the immediate aftermath of the “Great Republican Takeover” of the House and many state houses.

For example, how about the joy of seeing the long-haired, torn-jean, gay-loving, pot-smoking, thong wearing, hippie hometown baseball team from San Francisco win the World Series Monday night in Texas? Arlington might as well be the home of the reds and the land of the tea partiers, so that had to hurt.  And it all happened in front of two George Bushes, no less.  Talk about joy for the lefties…

And speaking of George Bush, how about the timing of the release of “W’s” new book?  Leaking tidbits about how he almost really came super close to not keeping Dick Cheney on the ticket in 2004, at the height of election return coverage on the night of the vote in 2010?  What’s with that timing? That’s right up there with sneaking a cigarette in the basement while the wife is out of the house for the weekend, or launching the first black astronaut into space in the middle of the night.  These are all things you do when you don’t want people to notice.

This was the same book, by the way, that was originally scheduled for release earlier in the fall, but was pushed back, according to much speculation, for fear that it would remind people of the Bush years at exactly the moment in time when they were expected to use the ballot box to return us to a 2010 version… of the Bush years.

And speaking of authors, did anyone notice Evan Bayh’s piece in the morning after the election’s NY Times?  Here’s a Democrat who vacated his Indiana Senate seat, knowing full well that it was going to go to a Republican in his absence (and possibly even turn the balance of power in the Senate), lecturing Democrats on what they need to do to regain power in D.C..  Ummmmmm, if I didn’t know better I’d say this guy was positioning himself to make a run in the Democratic presidential primaries as a “moderate” voice of reason, i.e. the candidate for the Tea Partiers on the left.  Word is he already has a $10 million war chest, virtually none of which he shared with Democrats in need in this recently passed election cycle.  If that’s true, then I’d say Barack Obama is going to be surrounded on all sides pretty soon.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Hillary Clinton was in Malaysia, where the odds of her being associated with or asked about the electoral disaster back here in the States were as greatly diminished as the president she currently works for in the eyes of his detractors. And speaking of the president, he’s probably hunkered down reviewing his assets and liabilities at the moment.

Assets: The service sector has grown for 10 straight months; an orange Speaker of the House; an ideological freshman class of right-wing fundamentalists about to join an entrenched class of elite and out of touch Washington insiders; the knowledge that many presidents who lost big in their first mid term elections went on to win a second term.

Liabilities:  Harry Reid is still the “Leader” in the Senate; a lack of numbers in the House ; a personal lack of spine thus far.

This truly promises to be an exciting and entertaining next two years.

By: Barry Weintraub