Notes from the Cafe Fiasco

State of the Union

You know, this year I just didn't have the stomach to watch.

Primaries

It was a measure of how much "in the tank" commentators on the recent elections were that they didn't really understand the fact that almost twice the number of voters turned out in Iowa as had four years before and the percentage for New Hampshire was about 120% for about half a million voters. They seemed to think that these phenomena have solely to do the work of the candidates in getting out the vote. Not true. The main reason that people went to the polls was to reclaim their country.

After a year on the stump, most of the candidates (even Mitt Romney) have figured out that what people want is change. Change from what? Well, change from incompetence for one thing. This is something that people in both parties can agree about. What ever you think of the current administration's policies, few people can defend their ability to actually do the job. And this is why Bush's approval rating took the big header right after the debacle of Katrina that showed their incompetence in technocolor.

It also looks like people of both the red and blue persuasions are sick and tired of people lying to them. On the Republican side, both Huckabee and McCain seem to be people who tell it as they see it. On the Democratic side, Hillary won New Hampshire because on the day before the primary she had a lapse and, for one, didn't look like some sort of robot. Assured that there really was a Hillary there, women all over New Hampshire went out and voted for her.

All this is good. There are signs that Americans are actually starting to think about taking their country back. Unfortunately, this fact is being missed by the talking heads, whose assumption is that the body politic is some inert mass that only moves when poked and proded by television ads. This year, maybe the electorate has a mind of it's own. That would be nice.

Romney and God

So, now that it's okay to be a member of a minority Christian religion and run for President, the one question that no one seems to be asking Mr. Mitt is this: "Does this now mean that it's okay for someone who is not a Christian to be President?" I'd love to hear him answer that.

Spriggs to Norsk: Watch Out

Dear Norwegian Friends,

Now you've done it.

Tucked way up there at the top of the world out of the way, the American Right undoubtedly never thought much about you. You were up there with the Polar Bears (that they heard were in trouble for some reason but didn't care about) and there was no reason to pay attention to you. That was until last week when you gave the Nobel Peace Prize to one of their main enemies - Al Gore.

Al, of course, has picked up many prestigious awards lately for proclaiming what to many of us seems like common sense - put a whole lot of crap in the atmosphere for a long time and eventually something bad will happen. But this seems to have never occured to the American public and it has taken a whole lot of charts and graphs to convince them that this is indeed the case. But Al's made good inroads with the half of the American populice that isn't living in the 19th century. Good for Al. Somebody had to do it and he's been laboring mightily for many years attempting to take sense to the people. I personally wish that he had done more in this department with Bill when he had a chance before the Dark Ages, but that's another story ...

Anyway, now the Exxon/Mobil knows where you are (actually they knew where you were before but, since Norway is a major oil producer, they assumed that you were on their side) and you may be in trouble. They may send Ann Coulter out to slime you so that she can sell more books or Bill O'Reilly may go into some sort of anti-lutifisk rant, all so that they can continue the current war against science and rationality that they are making so much money at. You survived a Nazi occupation so you can probably handle this, but its really too bad that you might have to put up with what we've had to deal with for the past seven years.

Above all, don't take it personally, because they don't. It's just business to them and it really doesn't matter to them if we kill the planet as long as they continue to get their cut of money and power on the way down. And, of course, people like Al Gore don't get theirs.

And, after all, you may luck out. They probably figure that the Swedes gave him the prize. And given your feelings about the Swedes, wouldn't that be ironic?

Best,

MTS

The Good Old Days

It was a little hard to listen to Ben Stein cry on CBS Sunday Morning this week about how the Republicans were treating Larry Craig so shabbily by throwing him overboard at the hint of a scandal (unlike how they would have done it during the kinder and gentler Nixon Administration of which Stein was a part, no doubt).

The fact is that Craig is a major part of the right wing movement of hate toward gay people over the past few years (he was a main engine on Capitol Hill around the idea of a constitutional amendment against gay marriage) and gained a great deal of power by fostering a climate that whips up activities like stings directed toward gays that he, rightly or wrongly, got caught up in earlier in the summer. It's hard not to see the poetic justice in all this.

For some reason, those who trade on hate never think that they will be caught in the social processes of hate that they promote. Larry, who knows that he's not gay, never thought that he would be brought down by police actions designed to affect gay people. But once the rabid dog is off the leash you can't really control who it's going to go after next. It might be you. In Larry's case, it was. I find it hard to get upset about this.

And, come to think of it, you could make a case that Richard Nixon's carelessness about the rule of law came back to bite him too. But it's still hard to listen to Stein moan about the Good Old Days since he's watched and supported the activities of his party for the past six years. These changes in "civility" (even if it is relative civility) didn't happen overnight. Why did Ben recognize these changes just when the Republicans seem to be losing? Or are things okay when the dog is firmly on the leash and you can direct who it's going to attack?

CitizenTube

YouTube has created a special channel for poltiical content. You can go to the Mitt Romney site (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=GovMittRomney) and see him change his position on issues right before your very eyes.

Higher Ups

Yestereday, former Speaker of the House Thomas Finneran reached a deal with Federal prosecutors where he will be on unsupervised probation and will pay a fine for attempting to abscond with the civil rights of a portion with of the Commonwealth's citizenry. Federal prosecutors obviously sought the deal so that they could get to next higher level in the conspiracy.

Wait a minute ...

Spoils

Looks like the Liberals are beginning to line up to get new jobs in the Patrick administration. Since I was one of the first people to actually make fun of Kerry Healey (before she started being a caricature of some Republican from Utah) I feel that I should be considered as well and I've made up a partial list of jobs that I would accept in the new administration:

- I want to be the guy who grades the MCAS.

- I want to be the guy who decides what's smart growth and what's dumb growth.

- I want to be the guy who signs the checks for vacation pay at MassPort.

- I want to be the guy who runs the GPS tracking Mitt Romney (I know, not strictly an administration job, but it would have been interesting for the past two years).

- I want to be the guy who signs the checks going to Bechtel.

- I want to be the guy who decides what a quasi-public agency is.

- I want to be the guy who finally understands the difference between the Charlie Card and the Charlie Ticket.

- I want to be the guy who educates the citizens of the Commonwealth as to who Charlie was.

- I want to be the guy who figures out what all those MBTA fare collectors are going to do from now on (move to cell phones?).

- I want to be the guy who figures out how Mitt gets credit for a universal health care bill that doesn't cover 40,000 kids.

- I want to be the guy who figures out where the hell the American Dream went to.

- I want to be the guy who figures out how to harness the greatest wind energy resource in the Commonwealth - the Massachusetts General Court.

- I want to be the guy who defogs the vague Patrick rhetoric and figures out how to put things back together after the Weld-Cellucci-Swift-Romney administrations (or, on second thought, maybe I don't).

Deval, I'll be waiting by the phone on November 8th. I am available for any and all of these positions. Hope to hear from you soon.

MTS

Today's Campaign

I'm not very well informed these days. I stopped getting the Globe everyday and I've taken up hiding under the bed (something the cat doesn't much care for since this is his territory) since I saw too many of those Kerry Healey commercials.

So, first I heard something vague about John Kerry finally having stood up for something that he said, but then it turns out that he ended up apologizing for what he said and it turns out that he couldn't even tell a decent joke.

Makes one wonder what good it's going to do if the Democrats actually do take over the House. (And also it makes me wonder when I'll be able to come out from under the bed.)

Patrick Marketing

I've noticed a lot of Deval Patrick signs in the neighborhood - basic blue and white with "Deval Patrick - Together We Can" on them. This is pretty low tech for a gubernatorial race in a high tech state and it seems to me no matter how much he's a "man of the people." if Deval is going to win this thing (and we're supporting him - the alternative being to hand the state over to the Junior League), he's going to need a campaign more geared to specific parts of the state.

We here at the Cafe Fiasco have been working hard last night while we were waiting for the bus on trying to make the basic campaign slogan fit different communities in the Commonwealth just a little better and we offer the following to the campaign:

Lexington: Deval Patrick - Together We Can Right After the Kid's Soccer Game

Berkshire County: Deval Patrick - Together We Can Despite Those People in Boston

Amherst: Deval Patrick - Together We Can If It's Cool Politically

Cape Cod: Deval Patrick - Together We Can Except During June, July, or August

Lincoln/Weston: Deval Patrick - Together We Can If We Run It

South End: Deval Patrick - Together We Can And It Will Be Fabulous

Northampton: Deval Patrick - Together We Can With The Goddess

Jamaica Plain: Deval Patrick - Together We Can Just Like The 60's

Brookline: Deval Patrick - Together We Can Except Possibly on Saturday

Worcester: Deval Patrick - Together We Can Before the Tornado Comes

Southeastern Mass: Deval Patrick - Together We Can But Not Outside During the Summer

Gloucester: Deval Patrick - Together We Can Once We Get the Boat Back

Somerville/Charlestown: Deval Patrick - Togetha We Can Cuz We're Wicked Pissah