I'm frustrated, disappointed, sad and very pissed off that the Democrats got the shit kicked out of them by the Republicans tonight. As Savannah Guthrie of NBC News put it, still retaining control of the Senate while losing the House (by a large margin) may be the worst scenario that could befall President Barack Obama. Because while he loses any power to get legislation crafted and passed, he is still perceived to have influence on the legislative branch.
Two years is a long time; many pundits said the Republican party was dead two years ago. But this is not going to forebode well for the President.
A lot of Democrats got massacred tonight, some of them unfairly. I should (and probably will) write about one of them later. But I wanted to first give a more somber Poor Bastard Of The Moment shout-out to now-former Senator Russ Feingold, a very progressive Democrat from Wisconsin who had served proudly and valiantly for the past 18 years.
I have no idea why Sconnies threw him out of office. Is this, uh, Ron Johnson businessman really a good enough person to turn out a three-term Senator who knew the rules of law and parliamentary procedure and gave no quarter in defending his morals in the face of byzantine bills and sneaky horse-trading? His attributes are eloquently summarized by Esquire, whose Politics Blog is now must-read for me on the Internet. But let's just say that he frequently marched to the beat of his own drum, no matter how much the Democrat apparatus tried to get his attention and force him to step in line with the others.
Always liked the guy for his independence and bravery. That's illustrated in one quote from the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. It was a foregone conclusion that the votes weren't there to toss Clinton out of the presidency, and all Democrats were in unison in declaring him not guilty even before opening statements began; I imagine the trial was such a waste of time it was like they were just chewing gum and passing notes as they waited for the last bell of the school day to ring.
Every Democrat, that is, except Feingold. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, "I want to hear all the evidence first." Now, I wanted Clinton to be embarrassed for lying (as well as getting masturbated by an intern as fat as Monica Lewinsky, but that's just the Court of Unforgivable Wetness). But here was a guy who really meant it when he said he was going to keep an open mind as a member of a jury impaneled to decide the political fate of The Most Powerful Man In The Free World. That's when he had me as an admirer.
Also, Feingold was a fierce advocate of campaign finance reform. As far as I know, he tried to run a clean campaign free of outside money because that's how he thinks campaigns should be run. Do people not care about campaign finance reform, or even like the money-buys-everything system we have now?
I understand the Republican Wave, but Feingold hasn't been a lockstep Dem, uh, ever. Shit man, he even voted against the stimulus bill and TARP, two things teabaggers who won tonight also hated. What did he do? Seriously, he may be the only true grown-up in the Senate.
Wisconsinites turned their back on a politician in the best sense of the position. And in his place will be some businessman who thinks the country should be run like a business and not a democracy. A guy who has little experience with either parliamentary points of order or the Constitution. A guy who'll accept as much goddamn outside lobbyist money he can because he's good at making money.
The people of Wisconsin are nothing but a bunch of nihilist motherfucking goddamn idiots, and I spit at them with violent contempt. Plain disgusting.
Oh yeah -- Poor bastard.
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