Hope? Nope.

Future president George Bush,
Firing up the crowds at Andover

Are we going to get a sensible conversation
about tax policy?
The Taxes is Too Damn High!
There's your analysis!
--Hope Against Hope, Tom Toles (11.1.10)

The voters have spoken.
They have gone back to Casablanca, for the waters.
Perhaps they were misinformed, again
--Watering Can Massacre, T.T. (11.4.10)
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Apres-election thoughts:

• Hope sure does have a short shelf-life

• Both parties spend political capital that they don't have. This is why the party balances in Congress swing so widely. America wants middle ground leadership, but neither party delivers

• Richard Blumenthal was elected even though he lied about being a Vietnam veteran. His original claim was not a misstatement, nor was the revelation of such "dirty politics". When one seeks and receives five (5) deferments and finally serves stateside, that is not a mind-slip.

• Regardless of the party, the voters accept liars as leaders. If outright liars are acceptable leaders, what does this say about the electorate? About our cadre of leaders?

• In Florida, Don't ask, Don't Tell is alive and well at the Gubernatorial level.

Is there any predictive value in the results of this election? Steven Higgs said concisely, "Barack Obama and the Democratic party failed to understand that they were elected to act" (Don't Act Don't Sell). Ranger ventures the following:

If the Republican party acts responsibly and from a centrist position, and if they can both keep Mrs. Palin off the ticket and produce a Presidential candidate that can interest the non-affiliated voters or those stricken with ennui, disgust and/or anger, Obama's a one-termer.

It would be a salve to the nation if the 1012 elections produced candidates committed to ending the entrenched polarization the U.S. system currently suffers. We need leaders, not cheerleaders. The U.S. has not achieved that lofty goal since ca. 1960.

One thing the last half-century of U.S. politics teaches is that the two-party system is dead as a doornail, far as producing viable leadership.