Election Night Pre-Mortem; Just how did this happen?

Just a real quick note about an hour before the polls close here in Michigan.  Early in the election cycle I felt pretty confident that the Democrats would win enough seats in the Michigan and US Houses to take their rightful place as the governing party.  Years of Republican obstructionism on the national scene and pure evil on the state level had me convinced that the people had just had enough.  Certainly Rick Snyder had proven himself to be ineffective, dishonest, corrupt, and essentially uninterested in the job many Democrats sent him to do in 2010.  He was our best hope to block the insanity, and I really mean that word, coming from Tea Party folks.  But Snyder was not up to the job.  He lied to us, paid off his political allies, and buckled every time the Tea Party threw another destructive idea into the pile of shit they call “legislation.”  I’ve been disappointed in politicians before, but Rick Snyder is near the top of the list.

As the election drew nearer, however, polls show that the Republicans are likely to not only retain power, but to increase it.  Why?  Just what have they done to deserve this.  At the state level they have attacked seniors, the middle class, public education, the right of the people to petition the government, a woman’s right to make her own health decisions….any one of which should be enough to send them packing.  They obstructed the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and actually tried to sell us that they were doing good.  Lying is a political art, but these guys had the audacity to believe that keeping people uninsured was good for the rest of us.  And apparently we bought it.

On the national level, the only thing the Republican House has done is obstruct the President at every turn. Countless efforts to defund a very useful and effective plan to get health insurance to the people Multiple investigations of pseudo-scandals and threats (and follow through) to shut down the government and nearly send the US and world economy into tailspins that would last a couple of generations.   The denied funding for climate change studies, they obstructed all Presidential initiatives.  And they claimed this was in our interest.  And apparently we bought it.

So if the pollsters are right and the Senate goes over to the GOP, we have two more years of nothing in Washington.  Two more years of blocking Presidential appointments WITHOUT having to threaten a filibuster.  Two more years of attacks on every word coming out of the White House.  And apparently we want that.

In the face of a slow but steady economic recovery at the national level and a stagnant economy here in Michigan, try to tell me again how this isn’t about what Obama is, rather than who he is and what he stands for.  Just try.