The jackasses are rounding the last turn, and we’re heading into the home stretch on Election 2012. Depending on who is polled and who is doing the polling, either Rainbow Unicorn is pulling away from the pack, or Olympic Rhino is ahead by a nose. Also depending on which echo chamber you listen to, one of them or the other is winning this thing without breaking a sweat.
On the “Obama must go” side, everyone is talking about how the president is losing it, his administration and re-election are in disarray, and he will lose by a huge margin. While I hope that they are right, I have two words that should give all of us pause: John Kerry.
In 2004, George Bush was about as unpopular as I’d ever seen a sitting president in a re-election cycle. Honestly, you could have knocked me over with a feather the day after the election when I found out that Bush had been re-elected, and I supported the guy. Kerry supporters had been crowing for weeks before election day, and afterward they needed a suicide watch.
I want Obama to start packing on November 7. I want this country to start the long, slow, slog back to sanity. But we won’t get there by assuming we’ll win because everyone we know says he’ll lose. Leave the celebration for the day after the election. For now, we need to get on the ground and grapple with the opposition, no matter how defeated we think they are. We need to scrounge the voter lists for every possible person we can get to the polls, argue every point with the misguided, and point out every single reason Obama should join the ranks of the unemployed.
I will sincerely hate having to come on here on November 7 to discuss how we lost because we got cocky and didn’t take care of the electoral essentials. Let’s all do what we can to make sure that doesn’t happen.
DaddyBear’s Den 
derfreiheit
/ September 21, 2012Where does this battle need to happen? Here in Kentucky the election is already decided. This is a red state and the winner takes all of the electoral votes. Your vote is “safe” here and you are free to vote for the better candidate (like Gary Johnson) rather than the smarter-of-two-stupids, , http://www.lpky.org/node/307.
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daddybear71
/ September 21, 2012True, and I have not committed to voting for Romney. But the election has to be fought everywhere, even in ‘safe’ places.
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derfreiheit
/ September 21, 2012Don’t forget the down-ticket races either, especially in Louisville. School board races and the busing issue is big! http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120909/NEWS0105/309090033/Where-JCPS-school-board-candidates-stand-key-issues
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daddybear71
/ September 23, 2012Excellent point. The local elections are more likely to have a direct impact on our lives, and they are the breeding ground for the next generation of leaders. Plus, if the president, whoever that ends up being, has at least one chamber of Congress that doesn’t necessarily agree with him, it can put a damper on his wilder urges.
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daddybear71
/ September 23, 2012And yeah, I’m becoming a single issue voter in school board elections: How do you feel about the JCPS bussing program?
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derfreiheit
/ September 25, 2012The first week of school I saw a bus dropping off early elementary aged kids at 5:30PM. I am not a fan and giving serious consideration to what I want to do with my boy (just turned 6 mos). I am opposed entirely to busing for many reasons:
– expensive, diesel costs money
– “lost kids”, this smacks of gross incompetence and negligence if the kids are on the bus less there is less chance to screw up
– we’re not raising a generation of commuters, spending that much time on a bus in all but the most rural communities is unacceptable
– harmful to low income parents, I spoke with a grandmother who had to drive 20 minutes in a beat to hell ’76 Pontiac if her granddaughter had trouble in school while mom was at work, this is devastating to low income households
– neighborhood schools help communities, I recall my friends parents carpooling us, if a few of us had practice or detention or whatever. we could also easily walk home after school if no ride was available. Also my bus driver knew who the kids and their parents were, the driver bumped into mom in the grocery from time to time
– several courts struck down busing on different grounds, they just keep inventing new metrics to support it
I could go on. I guess I’m lucky in that saving early and budgeting for private school is an option. I’m also making idle threats to move to Hardin County, but that impacts my ability to work (telecommuter I need good Internets)
What do you do with your kids DB? Do they get bussed all over town?
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daddybear71
/ September 25, 2012You pretty much echo my problems with bussing. Girlie Bear has been one of the lucky ones to not get bussed across town. She attends our neighborhood high school.
Boo will be going to private school. Irish Woman was raised in the Catholic school system, and she’s quite firm (OK, stubborn) about him getting at least as good an education as she did. With the way JCPS is going, I don’t blame her. We’re already budgeting for him to start kindergarten next year.
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daddybear71
/ September 25, 2012Oh, and if private school in Jefferson County isn’t an option, she would be quite happy to move a few miles down the road and put him in Shelby County schools.
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derfreiheit
/ October 1, 2012If I had contact info I’d email you, but wow! Look at the sample ballots for Jefferson County – http://ags2.lojic.org/WhereDoIVote/default.aspx
I have FIVE political parties represented and one independent!
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daddybear71
/ October 1, 2012I seem to have a lot of unopposed Democrat candidates for down-ticket races. That’s troubling.
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