A Great Political Christmas, for a Change!

It's done! Obama won, and by a landslide. And so did a goodly number of other Democrats also prevail, strengthening their majorities in both the House and the Senate. It's impossible to predict how much all of this will mean in the future, when it comes to getting useful things done, given the diseased ventilation system in the U.S. Capitol building. But for me the main and overwhelming thing about Obama's victory is that it completely changes the mean-spirited tenor of the times that had been the hallmark of the numerous Republican administrations of my lifetime. So it's like a great Christmas having arrived ahead of time, with the presents consisting of the absence of the usual, continuously ugly, neo-fascist ideas and other junk.

For instance, one of the first great results that I am now strongly hoping for is to hear much less and hopefully nothing of the woman named S. Palin. J. McCain never bothered me as much as she did, and I thought he allowed real offal to be thrown into the game, as the saying expressed in a slightly different way used to -- and still may -- go, when he allowed fellow conservatives to pick that running mate for him. Her appearance soon disappeared completely inside the guise of pit bull combined with ignorance, a terrible combination for anyone to have. Yet some have touted her as being the future of the Republican Party. Unbelievable! We would all be greatly served if she could somehow be returned to Alaska, there never to be heard of again. Everybody would be safe from her then, in that vast expanse of unpopulated real estate. --Everybody, that is, except for her unlucky ex-brother-in-law, the state trooper.

And meanwhile even normally conservative Virginia turned blue, along with Florida among the members of the former Confederacy, while the word is still out on North Carolina. The tiny county in which I live, Nelson, also went for Obama, but that's not surprising, for it has usually been a bright spot of blue in a sea of other rural but crimson counties. My explanation is that it has a high number of transplants like me, plus the original inhabitans are just naturally more relaxed about most things -- because of the great scenery, especially this time of the year with the turning colors. But probably most important is that the county has a large number of old-timers with vivid memories of the hard times of the Great Depression and fond memories of Roosevelt's New Deal.