GranolaBox

The Battle, The Campaign and the War

This election turned out better than I dreamed it would happen. To find out before I went to bed that Democrats won the House, to find Donald Rumsfeld on his way out the next day, and then to win the Senate the day after was even more incredible.

Despite my immediate joy, I’m still gaurded. There’s a lot of work to be done. Locally, we lost the battle. Nationally we won the campaign, but the war in Iraq still rages on.

I live in one Congressional district and work in another, and in both cases the Democrats lost by about a 2% margin. I’m saddened because the incumbent in my district is an arrogant, wife-beating lackey, and his opponent was a great guy.

I can live with this state of affairs for another two years though because this was my first experience with small-town voting. I’m used to impersonal polling places where I don’t know anyone. It was great to vote alongside the clerk from the convenient store where I get my gas in the morning, and the owners of the diner that my wife and I eat breakfast at on weekends. It gave me a great feeling of direct democracy even if a lot of my neighbors made a bad choice for Congressman.

On the state and national level I couldn’t be happier. Elliot Spitzer is Governor-Elect of New York. He’s a raging, scrappy liberal who kicked ass and took names as Attorney General, as the new Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo has promised to do.

And oh… the House of Representatives. The Republican faithful must be sick to their stomachs at the mere thought Nancy Pelosi wielding the gavel as Speaker. And even though I cringe at the thought of Dick Cheney being President, we can, in the words of Neil Young “impeach the president for lying.” (http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/lwwvideos/letsimpeach_qt.html)

As for the Senate, the election deadlock and ultimate Democratic victory almost makes up for the debacle that was the 2000 election. Payback’s a bitch isn’t it George? And speaking of bitches George, Now you’re Nancy Pelosi’s.

Let’s not forget though, that the war is raging in Iraq. With Donald Rumsfeld out of the way, Democrats need to lead the way to a safe and sane policy in the Middle East. This is something we cannot balk on. Too many innocent civilians and soldiers are dying every day with no end in sight as we “stay the course.”

Technorati Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Elliot Spitzer, Andrew Cuomo, Nancy Pelosi, Neil Young