I think too many people stayed home in misplaced frustration. We live in a bizarro world where people actually seem to think Obama is a liberal and where blame for a near economic disaster has been diverted from George W. Bush and the Republican Congress to the current administration. Part of this is Obama’s fault. He still acts like he’s a Senator instead of a President and he is unable to communicate to the average American all the good that has been done in the last two years. I had hoped Obama would revive fireside chats and try to be FDR, instead he let the Republicans beat him up because he didn’t understand that they wouldn’t make any attempt to work with him and his party. I think a lot of racism comes into play in all the hatred of Obama. Obama will be a one term President if he doesn’t wake up and try to recapture his 2008 charm. He will do what all humbled Presidents do, he will take trips outside of the US and try to look like a World leader. What Obama SHOULD do is get feisty with the Republicans, tell the truth about what is going on instead of letting the other side of the aisle define him, and start to remember that progressives, women, minorities and intellectuals elected him, not conservative white men. He needs to give us something. He needs to restore sanity. He needs to be compassionate not intellectual and YES he needs to use gimmicks so that average Americans can relate to what he is trying to accomplish.
Ironically, many of the lunatic fringe that were elected will wind up attacking establishment Republicans as much as the Democrats because they are not crazy enough for them. It should be interesting to see what the Aqua Buddha loving Rand Paul tries to do over the next 2 years. We've moved from Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole conservatism as leaders in the Republican party to Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle, Christine O' Donnell and worse...I may not be a witch but if I run for office I expect people to ask me questions like what I believe in and what are the Bill of Rights.
Part of this “bloodbath” is due to American’s ever shortening attention span, lack of education, and lack of understanding of basic economics. We can’t keep fighting two wars, cut taxes for the rich, and let Walmart/China, Banksters, and Big Oil drag us down without seeing major hardship. I would be shocked if these tea-baggers go after wild Pentagon spending. They will try to cut social programs that actually help the very people who vote against social programs. In fact, shortly after writing this letter, the wild rumor on the internet was that Obama was planning a $200 million dollar trip to India. Beyond being obviously ridiculous to the point where you begin to wonder why anyone would repost that rumor as fact, it is clearly the beginning of attacks to undermine Obama as a 2012 candidate and to make him look irresponsible. When are we going to stop the wars that cost us $190 million per day? Where is the outrage over that?
Part of this is the fault of the National Democratic Party. Making Pelosi and Reid the leaders of the Democratic party was nothing short of sheer stupidity. They are two of the most spineless people serving. So of course, Pelosi is running again to be minority leader...good grief! Sadly Russ Feingold, the only representative smart enough to vote against the Patriot Act lost Nov 2. Michigan completely abandoned sanity and elected a number of Republicans…I guess people don’t think the economy in Michigan is bad enough already.
The tea baggers are correct about one thing, we need another political party or at least one that represents sane people, and we need one that is not owned by corporations. We need to turn off the media spin machine and start thinking again!