After billions were spent the election left things unchanged. Obama was reelected. Democrats still have a majority in the Senate (I'd not call it control). Republicans still have a majority in the House. Some governors moved around.
The net result was the status quo. On the macro level, it appears that all the ads and spending netted out to nothing. That means that we can't make a "harmful to democracy" argument. Though the lack of effect does suggest a "wasteful and useless" argument. But that's largely a problem of excessive income disparity driving wasteful spending, not of the particular type of spending. If it wasn't dishonest attack ads, it would be yachts. At least attack ads just waste TV time and advertising executives, rather than resources that could reasonably be expected to go to something useful.
So let's not worry about the spending.
In related news, I didn't find either of the speeches to be particularly good. The Obama one was nice and had some energy, but it didn't connect for me. I wasn't inspired. Romney's speech had a good message, but he just does not seem capable of projecting human feeling. Also, why the one last "job creators" drop? I'm sick of that term. Why not use "business owners"? Seems like a more accurate term. I much preferred the speeches of four years ago, particularly McCain's speech, which I thought was an excellent unifying speech.
And finally, I was glad to see that the rape candidates were defeated.
The net result was the status quo. On the macro level, it appears that all the ads and spending netted out to nothing. That means that we can't make a "harmful to democracy" argument. Though the lack of effect does suggest a "wasteful and useless" argument. But that's largely a problem of excessive income disparity driving wasteful spending, not of the particular type of spending. If it wasn't dishonest attack ads, it would be yachts. At least attack ads just waste TV time and advertising executives, rather than resources that could reasonably be expected to go to something useful.
So let's not worry about the spending.
In related news, I didn't find either of the speeches to be particularly good. The Obama one was nice and had some energy, but it didn't connect for me. I wasn't inspired. Romney's speech had a good message, but he just does not seem capable of projecting human feeling. Also, why the one last "job creators" drop? I'm sick of that term. Why not use "business owners"? Seems like a more accurate term. I much preferred the speeches of four years ago, particularly McCain's speech, which I thought was an excellent unifying speech.
And finally, I was glad to see that the rape candidates were defeated.
2 comments:
I do not buy (har har) the argument that the $6 billion spent campaigning amounted to nothing. I mean, sure, technically. But it is extremely obvious that had one side or the other decided to not spend their $3 billion, the side that spent money would have ran away with the election in a landslide. If I finesse my CV while you are brutally honest about your lack of qualifications, I will get the interview. Both of us sprucing up our CVs will cancel everything out, but that does not mean that nothing was lost in the meantime (e.g. integrity, etc).
Also, it is not quite the status quo. The status quo was "starve Obama out of office and make him a one-term president," bolstered by a Tea Party mandate. While a lot of Tea Partiers remain, it is not really a part of the national conversation anymore. It is probably too much to hope for some actual Republican compromise going forward, but at least they will need to come up with a better bogeyman when they filibuster everything. Plus, it will be fun seeing what they do about their growing "demographic cliff," as it were.
Anyway, ugh, so glad it is over. I live in Ohio, and sometimes I forgot what channel the TV was even supposed to be on.
I'm not sure we had integrity in the first place. We could look back to Kerry getting "swiftboated". Further back HW Bush had the awkward shots of him seeming to not understand barcode scanners (it was a new design that would have been a little confusing to anyone). Even further back you can find allegations of corruption, adultery, treason, and anything else negative you can imagine. Pretty much the only time we had a clean election was when everyone picked Washington. Things were at least better back before anyone cared much to be President, back when the US was small, poor, and at perpetual risk of being destroyed by Canada.
Some Republicans might recognize that they've been a too extreme and that their do-nothing approach didn't work politically. Given that the economy is almost guaranteed to grow over the next four years, looking like they had some part in that may be the way to go.
I didn't know you were an Ohioan. I'm so sorry. My suggestion is to stick to public media, liberal bias and all :P
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