The Day After

Well, it's o-fish-al ... another four years of Dubya. No sense in rehashing point after endless counterpoint. He's back in office for another four years, which means we have no choice but to hope he can reunite the country, take out the bad guys and put money back in our pockets. Anything short of that, well ... at least he can't serve a third term. And if you plan on being gay or being raped by your daddy in the next four years, this might be a good time to find a new country until he's out of office. I'm certainly hoping Bush keeps his eye on the ball (terrorism, Iraq, economy, Bin Laden), but I wouldn't put it passed him to waste his time trying to push his moral agenda (gay marriage, abortion, etc.).

A few observations about this time around the election block:

Good Charlotte -- YES! Political Process -- NO!!
It would seem that MTV is a one-trick pony. The megaforce in music(?) television can do wonders when it comes to influencing the cultural and social druthers of the pre-teen to young adult set. But ask the voting-age portion of the flock to put down their iPods, turn on their brains and hit their nearest polling place, and suddenly we've got Lt. Cmdr. Queeg staring at another Caine Mutiny.

Only one in 10 between the ages of 18 to 24 made it to the polls. That's just damn dismal. Using the P. Diddy Algorithm, this means that 90 percent of people in this age bracket will now die. So sad to see them leave, but that's how it goes? I mean, are you going to be the one to tell P. Diddy he's wrong?

The upshot of it all is that MTV has proven to be little more than a tool, albeit a hugely popular, revenue-generating tool. And by logical extension, it further reveals Hollywood as the supremely psychotic and vacuous pantheon we've always known it to be. For all the mobilizing of forces, nationwide tours and programus interruptus to bring you this special 'vote or die' message, the results were utterly and quite clearly zip, zilch, nada. NOT EVEN A DENT!!!

It's sad, really, to think that the young adults of the world would obey MTV and corporate radio if they told them to shove an Abercrombie shirt up their asses or tattoo their virgin equipment with Hot Topic jewelry. Yet, ask them to recognize when civil liberties, national and global unity, and the very future of America are in a precarious position -- well, unless you can download it for free and upload it to your toaster, then you're SOL.

I know, I know. The more things change, blah blah blah. It's an old argument right? Youth is wasted on the young? Fine, then let's move on.

Dismantling the Dems
I'm a fence-sitter by nature, which is to say I claim no allegiance to either of the primary politcal parties in the US. In my opinion, the view is better from the fence -- I can see both sides ya know! But a rose is a rose is a rose, and the democratic party is in complete disarray. There's no two ways of saying it. Twice now they've put poor candidates up against someone who is clearly the worst republican leader in the history of the republican presidency (my neocon friends agree), and twice the party has failed to stop Dubya. If that doesn't tell you how weak both Kerry and Gore are, then ain't nuthin' gonna get through to you.

Even more significant than the office of the president itself is what happened in Congress. I'm not the first to say it, but this was a truly abyssmal performance by the dems. All of which is to say that the bottom could be falling out of the democrats' base. To put it simply, the party needs to: a) find a way to again command respect; and b) once and for all identify a leader capable of not only uniting the party but also swaying the fence-sitters and moderates of the world. Do we the people believe Hillary Clinton will really make these things happen? She'll have to work miracles to transform herself from being a potentially divisive character into someone who can appeal to the right as well.

No, unfortunately for the dems, they have some serious soul searching to do, and the next four years (hell, the next 24 years) will be critical in determining the future of the party.

Pete Coors is an ass!
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper successfully ran a 'businessman, not a politician' campaign and has been embraced by the citizens. He stuck to the common man theme, demonstrating that he was just like you and me -- a hard worker who had big plans. Yes, he's nice and weathly now, but he has remained grounded in the eyes of the public (who can forget his candidacy ads in which he rode around Denver on a scooter). For that appeal, people adopted him.

Pete Coors is a rich ass with no political experience, and for that he lost to Ken Salazar in the US Senate race here in Colorado. Not to take anything away from Salazar ... he ran a similar campaign to Hickenlooper, although clearly Salazar has much more experience in public service to rely on than Mr. Mayor. But back to the rich ass, er, Pete Coors.

In his concession speech, he said, "I will now go back to having the greatest job in America -- running a beer company." That's somewhat like saying "I'm taking my ball and going home." Or in his specific case, it's like saying "I'm taking my diamond-encrusted Rolex, hopping in my stretch Hummer, and heading to my palacial mansion in the Rockies."

I don't fault a guy for being weathly, even if it's the type of western blue-blood riches that Coors was born into. That's not the problem. The issue here is Pete was so out of touch with his fellow Coloradans that he essentially gave the state's predominantly republican base no choice but to vote against him. Yeah, I've heard Gov. Owens say that Colorado -- despite its conservative leanings -- has a tendency to vote for dems, primarily because we have a history of putting forth strong liberal candidates. In this case, we had a strong dem going against a weak, inexperienced republican who thinks that a trip to the Bronco game is the way to endear himself to the 'common people' of Colorado. As if hanging around the luxury, box-level seating and sharing a pint of Rocky Mountain Piss Water was the way to locate and reach the common man.

Way to go, ass!