Thursday, October 16, 2008

An Odd Thought

According to all the polling data I'm seeing (Electoral-Vote.com, Pollster.com, and RealClearPolitics.com), not only does Obama have a good lead, both nationally and in the electoral vote race, but the congressional races also are tending Democratic. And, oddly enough, I'm unsure how I feel about this. The bitter, resentful part of me wants a huge Dem majority with a Democratic president as payback for the 2000-2006 GOP travesty. I'm practicing my smirk already.

But at the same time I'm uneasy about such a monolithic possibility. I'm not afraid of some awful policy decision by a Democratic Congress; I believe that if America is strong enough to survive 8 years of W, we can escape just about anything. But I am afraid that, politics being politics, Congressional Democrats will be bitter and resentful and do something horribly stupid (see health care reform, circa 1993).

So, I'm thinking that it would be wise to vote for GOP congressional candidates. But both of our races--the Senate seat that Udall will win and the local House race--feature such lousy Republican candidates that I can't do it. Steve Pearce is another slow-talking, unintelligent oil man with a drawl, and Darren White has done a lousy job as sheriff because he's so set on imposing and supporting a conservative ideology in a place where that won't work that he would clearly be a poor congressman.

My plea then is to all my out-of-state readers who live in swing states with close congressional races to vote for the GOP candidate and give us a more balanced Congress (Wait, who reads my blog and doesn't live in ABQ, UT, WY, or NY? Nevermind...).

1 comment:

Bill said...

Hey! Oregon here. But not sure this is much of a swing state. High population density areas are heavily liberal while rural areas (with low population density) are heavily conservative. But as you can see, it's a strongly Dem state.

Did you know that we have to mail in our votes here? No polling places. Weird. (I just learned this. My first time voting in this state.)