I’ve tried to avoid marinating in political punditry as best I can over the last few days…longer, really. Who wants to watch ambulatory genital warts like Ron Fournier and Byron York fabricate elephant-themed window treatments for Harry Reid’s office? Nope.
There are trend pieces on how President Obama needs to play ball with Republicans (where “ball” = “unpinned grenade” to anyone who has paid even the most cursory attention for the past six years). But I haven’t seen much on why non-Republicans are even within striking distance in deep-red states like Kansas and Georgia. Why is that?
Here in Florida, we appear to have a better-than-even chance of ousting Governor Voldemort. Of course, it’s disgraceful that it’s even close, but here we are. My hope is that the little electric fan was the seventh Horcrux. Should Crist prevail, there will be great rejoicing at the Cracker Compound.
Among his many hideous offenses as a human being, governor and fashion icon, Governor Scott wears cowboy boots emblazoned with the official Seal of the Great State of Florida. No, really — I’m not making this up:
The better to stomp our rights with, my dears. It makes me happy to picture him watching the returns Tuesday night and then ripping the boots off and flinging them into the back of his 1,500 square-foot closet in a snit when he realizes the voters have used their own boots to kick his worthless, thieving ass to the curb. Please make it so, FSM.
Please feel free to talk about whatever.
Belafon
Newsmax: Now with pictures!!
Mike E
One last bite of the apple before the indigestion sets in.
shelley
NewsMax headlines bad enough; now we have to have pictures to go along side them?
Ben Cisco
Just walked through the break room. CNN chryon (paraphrased): Polls give GOP boost in final days.
The GOP needs to assume room temperature, with the MSM right beside them to the last.
Jacks mom
I am so afraid the good people of colorado are about to lose a very good senator and gain a teahadist asswipe. I don’t know how that happened but any woman that votes for Gardner should hand in their vagina!
raven
@Jacks mom: Hand it in to whom?
shelley
Can’t believe there’s anyone boneheaded enough to still be writing pieces like ‘If only Obama would reach out to the Republicans…”
dmsilev
@Belafon: “Are you an American with a wrap-around mustache thick enough to be used as a toilet-bowl cleaner? Please read.”
Just Some Fuckhead
Tomorrow is the big day! Second season of The Curse of Oak Island premiers.
burnspbesq
A great piece by Joey Fishkin of UT law that humanizes the struggle to securevoting rights for all.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2014/11/like-looking-for-vacuum.html
Mustang Bobby
@Jacks mom:
Okay, there’s an image now burned into my corneas.
I’m seriously thinking about driving up to the polling station in my Pontiac wagon with the Ontario plates and big Canadian flag on the bumper, hopping out, and saying, “So, this is the voting place for my riding, eh?” and see if any of the poll-watchers bark chow.
I second Betty’s wish that tomorrow marks the end of Rick Scott’s nasty, brutish, and short career in electoral politics. Of course the way Florida’s been going, he’ll come back in four years as a liberal Democrat.
Scotius
Speaking of rotten governors, I hope Mainers come to their senses and send LePage packing. The polls are way too close considering what a buffoon he has been. I graduated from the University of Southern Maine and his freezing of state funds to the Univerity of Maine system along with a freeze on tuition has just about killed it.
schrodinger's cat
@Scotius: What happened to the Republicans in Maine, they were much saner when I lived there. I left in the mid aughts.
Cacti
Obama showed Democrats how to win big, twice.
And what did they do?
Decided to keep chasing after “Reagan Democrats” like it was 1992.
Derp!
Amir Khalid
It’s only in America that cowboy boots go with business attire, I reckon, and then only if you’re a (male) politician. It reminds me of Congressman Dild* — uh, Dilbeck — from that Demi Moore comedy back in the 1990s.
Ruckus
Betty
Whenever I see pictures like this I tend to wonder what the rest of the world thinks of our politics. Are we the laughing stock of the world or what?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@shelley:
It’s not boneheaded when it becomes the narrative. Somehow, despite trying to work across the aisle for his entire presidency only to be told he was some dangerous furriner that needed to be stopped for the good of baby Jesus, the narrative is that it’s OBAMA who’s the real super-mega-ultra-hyper-partisan horror story and that we need more GOP folks to force comity and decency in Washington and force Obama to actually recognize that he’s not a super dictator or some ballsout crazy shit with no grounding in reality.
Another Holocene Human
Can it be tomorrow yet? Can it be Wednesday morning yet?
Can somebody fedex me some xanax and an excuse note for work so I can spend the next three days in a happy, election-free haze?
I can’t take any more of this shit. It’s doing me in.
Another Holocene Human
oops, I said a forbidden word
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus: Yes.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I’d volunteer but I’m married and my wife would probably find them.
Jacks mom
@raven: sorry. That’s just something my sister and me tell each other when we think women are voting against their own interests. I know…”who are we to judge”.
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: They’re voting Independent now because they can’t bear for a Democrat to win. They’re so … vulgar … and Catholic.
raven
@Jacks mom: All in good fun.
Amir Khalid
@Ruckus:
Yeah. Does the Governor frequently hike up his trousers to show people his Florida-themed boots?
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: I think your rule is only valid for politicians (mostly from the south and may be the west). Elsewhere people will judge you to be an idiot, especially in Yankee country if you wear cowboys boots with business attire.
Kristine
This made me laugh so hard I woke up the dog.
Another Holocene Human
@Cacti: The derp is in the oversimplification.
FACT: Dems are defending red state seats
FACT: Obama lost a bunch of these states
FACT: tying your campaign to policies and a president who went over like a lead balloon two years ago is not going to be a winning strategy
Exceptions? Well, Kay Hagan has been notoriously bluedoggish even though NC is a purple state. If she wins it will be despite her attempts early on to attempt to appear Republican. HKoJs has more to do with NC right now than her (very expensive) campaign. So there’s that.
But KY? Give me a break. And I don’t see Democrats running from the Democratic party in BLUE states. Crist has not run from Obama. Udall went whole-hog with the women’s rights thing. Michaud is a very conventional liberal Democrat. Coakley isn’t running from the admin (if she loses it will be largely because of the evil she’s done). Jeanne Shaheen hasn’t been denying Obama as the cock crows–in fact, she’s talked about Mitch McConnell.
Maybe if we could lance this boil of white supremacy in the US things would be different, but we’re not and in 2014 D politicians have to play the hand they’re dealt. In a red state you know, it is what it is.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
OK I think @Jacks mom: has got my minds eye in a bad? place, when I first read your comment I saw Florida themed boobs.
Of course given another definition of boob it also applies to the current FL gov.
schrodinger's cat
Those boots are hideous. Voldemort needs to start his own fashion blog.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: The Dark Lord only appears in public under highly staged conditions.
Don’t try to visit him in his office … he’s not there …
Can’t even get a glimpse of his mansion in Tally. State troopers blocking the way.
He’s like Greta Garbo. He just wants the polloi to leave him alooone.
Ruckus
@schrodinger’s cat:
And Now!!! Our newest show, What Not To Wear!!
Fashion tips from utter stylish failures!
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: Not an idiot, exactly, just fucking arrogant and begging to be cut down to size.
Well, that’s the Northeast, not sure how cowboy boots play on the West Coast. Overdressed? Douchey? Dunno.
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: Look upon my boots and despair.
Botsplainer
@schrodinger’s cat:
Cowboy boots get you mocked here in Kentucky.
schrodinger's cat
@Another Holocene Human: OK I agree with your correction. Ted Cruz is the poster boy for these arrogant cowboy boot wearing non cowboy SOBS. Its an affectation of folksiness, more than anything else
Cervantes
@shelley: Yes, you can.
schrodinger's cat
@Botsplainer: Then there is hope for Kentucky, now just make sure that Turtle McConnell doesn’t go back to DC.
Another Holocene Human
In Florida you see these adorning the front of highway patrol vehicles:
http://www.wholesalecentral.com/overstockedsigns/store.cfm?event=itemdetail&itemid=806068&returnto=
With the state seal in miniature and the red cross enormous, I’ve always figured the intent was to strike fear in motorists by reference to the Confederate flag-like shape.
Am I wrong?
schrodinger's cat
Do you think Byron turned out to be so mean, because he got teased a lot in school because of his name?
El Caganer
About the only venue here in Philly where I can imagine Gov. Bat Boy flaunting those puppies is the Mummers’ Parade.
schrodinger's cat
@shelley: There is no hope for those, who are just pretending to be blind.
bemused
There have been other govs/legislators that have worn cowboy boots with state seals or did I dream that.
srv
The only question is whether there will be boots on the ground before Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Calouste
@Ruckus: American politics are something to be laughed at, but you haven’t reached Silvio Berlusconi levels yet.
Another Holocene Human
Wait wait wait, hold up: Dan Snyder is SUING EONM for making him lose his case in front of the USPTO again?
IANAL, but isn’t this the definition of SLAPP? I mean it’s beyond frivolous, it’s an attempt to silence political speech.
Valdivia
@Cacti:
exactly! also–why won’t he lead??
Such idiots.
schrodinger's cat
@Cacti: Aren’t Reagan Democrats mostly dead or are Republicans if still alive?
Scotius
@schrodinger’s cat:
I moved out of Maine in the mid oughts myself, but I strongly suspect that the rot was already setting in in the Maine GOP by then. Certainly by 2010 they were actually vandalising middle school classrooms.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/05/14/96995/maine-classroom-gop/
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: Like vampires, Reagan Democrats never die. If there is still a Washington press corps a hundred years from now, they will still be expounding on the importance of Reagan Democrats.
Arclite
Jackboots?
(Godwin’s law FTW)
Bobby B.
I think of the South as the “lost territories”, full of The Devils and The Damned. Plus Stuckey’s.
Prove me wrong, kids, prove me wrong!
seefleur
@schrodinger’s cat: We moved here in 1985 and the ultra conservative xtianists have been seeping into every nook and cranny of any county that is north of Cumberland county. I live in Penobscot county, but work in Hancock county – and my flabber has been gasted over the last 12 years politically. All I can think of is that the education cuts have directly affected people’s ability to think for themselves. The fact that so many people in Ft. Kent are sincerely concerned that they are at risk for Ebola because someone (whose last name isn’t a “local” surname) went for a bike ride is absolute proof that Maine has some of the biggest morons on the face of the earth. And they all voted for LePlague. I love this state, but politically I want to punch Cutler and anyone who voted and/or votes for him because of what he’s wrought on the rest of us.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
I suspect that you’ll find local variants on this kind of thing wherever there’s democracy. We just don’t see it so much because our media focuses predominantly on our own political situation and doesn’t get into the details for other countries’ politics. It only attracts attention here when it gets as outrageous as shirtless outdoorsman Vladimir Putin.
Chris
@Cacti:
I’m watching the French TV reports on Democrats running Blue Dog campaigns, and boy does it ever make me want to puke.
Stop posing with your shotguns and running against Obama, you fucking nimrods. People who want a Republican are gonna vote for a Republican, not you.
geg6
Now I must first say that I find cowboy boots the singularly ugliest possible thing one can put on one’s feet, with Crocs coming in a distant second.
But those are the ugliest damn cowboy boots I’ve ever seen. Ever. Wow. So ugly that I may never be able to un-see them.
The Pale Scot
Chief Wright’s take: Stone Kettle Station;
Go Read the rest
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: If Hillary decides to run, her campaign is going to be nauseating.
Corner Stone
@geg6: Cowboy boots are actually pretty comfortable, and some are quite attractive.
I, however, do not wear them with my business attire.
ETA, Of course, I also have a couple pair of Red Wing boots, one steel toed and one steel toed and insulated that I find amazingly comfortable and stylish, even though they weren’t bought for that purpose.
I also do not wear them with my business attire. Yet.
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
Appealing to the wrong people. If you want to appeal to the salt of the earth types around here, you’d dress as a farmer, not a cowboy.
geg6
@bemused:
That wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare.
geg6
@Corner Stone:
Nope. Nothing is ever attractive about cowboy boots. Ever. Never saw a pair I’d put on my feet. I’d rather wear Crocs. And, just so you understand, I wouldn’t be caught dead in Crocs. Hell, I don’t wear athletic shoes because they are too ugly for words. At least, not outside my house. They are for the treadmill and that’s it.
PaulW
Rick “No Ethics” Scott had BOOTS made up with the governor’s seal on them? What level of egomanaical fuckshit is that?
Hope is one thing, but we need to make sure we get the vote out. I am absolutely terrified that the voter turnout will be below 40 percent (AUGH) which gives the advantage all to the G(reed) O(ver) P(eople) fuckwits. We need 4.5 million Democrats voting by tomorrow and 3 million NPA voters going for the sane choice of Crist and the Democrats in all key offices.
It’d be nice to think the Democrats could win either house in the Lege, but dammit the coward Dems left 65 percent of GOP-held seats UNCHALLENGED. Was the gerrymandering – which should be ILLEGAL NOW UNDER THE CONSTITUTION – that bad to overcome?!
Corner Stone
@geg6: Actually, cowboy boots can be, and some are, quite attractive. My dad had some ostrich quill that were so soft I had a jealous.
And the comment on athletic shoes is not really even worth responding to.
Belafon
@PaulW: Gerrymandering kept the Democrats from controlling the House in 2012 even though 1.5M more Democrats voted in Congressional races than Republicans. If Congressional districts in 2012 were what they were in 2010, Democrats would have controlled the House.
schrodinger's cat
@Corner Stone
You can, when you become the governor of Texas!
Corner Stone
Who is this FL Hispanic Hippie ™ on Joy Reid’s show?
schrodinger's cat
@Calouste: What about Sarah Palin?
Xantar
R.I.P. Tom Magliozzi of Car Talk
Matt Finnigan
@Xantar: I was just coming here to post that.
Raven
@geg6: You should see my hand made Prarie Roses! In 71 you drew patterns of your feet and mailed th to the Acme Boot Co in Texas and they sent the boots 6 months later. I don’t wear em much but they look good up on the top of the cabinet in my living room.
Amir Khalid
@geg6:
The ones with the traditional, not-too-elaborate decorative stitching look all right. It’s just that wearing ones with state crests, corporate logos etc. seems like attention seeking to me. Especially since to display the custom artwork, a man would have to either tuck his pants into his boots, which only looks okay on an actual cowboy, or make a ceremony of hiking them up on occasion.
Another Holocene Human
@Xantar: Damn!
Mary G
@The Pale Scot: I agree that nothing much is going to happen even with G.O.P. majorities in both houses. They haven’t been able to agree among themselves about anything besides OBAMA IS BAD for years now. The tea parties will want to go maximum crazy and will overreach, causing the few Republicans to resist or alienate voters so much that 2016 will be a Democrat wave.
Corner Stone
@schrodinger’s cat:
Ha! But you know, I was evaluating that kind of thing earlier this week. Not the me being Gov part, but what the candidates in the future are going to be like. Because either they are going to be Stepford People ™ with no internet history who have been raised to be immaculate from birth, or they are going to be people with some flaws that people will tolerate.
Right now we’re still in the purity, Pure of Heart ™ phase, where any person who watched pr0n one time when they were 13 are scared to death of running for office. But we’ve got to get past that, hopefully, eventually. Because the generations behind us have lived their lives online, and done all the stupid shit we did but never had broadcasted to 500 million people and an intertrons that.never.fucking.forgets.anything.
I can’t be Gov because my Phd thesis was “Masturbation and the Ethics of Single Sex Group Dynamics”.
So there’s that.
Tree With Water
It took Governor Pete Wilson’s attack on hispanic Californians to turn California blue, such was the magnitude of that republican party blunder. For Florida’s sake, I hope a similar happening permits the forces of good to coalesce and overthrow their own republican rat’s nest.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: Agreed on boots, which can be beautiful in their own way and as long as they’re not adorning the reptilian shanks of someone like Rick Scott.
@Xantar: Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve enjoyed their program for many years.
danielx
@Betty Cracker:
Dear Betty,
Please don’t ever change, we love you just the way you are.
Regards,
The BJ Commentariat
Edit: The Cracker Compound won’t be the only place of rejoicing if Rick Scott goes down in electoral flames tomorrow, particularly since it doesn’t seem there will many rays of light in all the gloom.
catclub
@Mary G:
There was an important post at Washington Monthly. The GOP winning senate seats in states where Romney won by 12% is not a wave election, no matter that there are lots of seats like those up this year, since 2008 WAS a wave election. A wave is when they win where they are not expected to win.
Colorado and Iowa come to mind.. OTOH, Kansas and Georgia may have something to say about that.
Amir Khalid
@geg6:
For some 30 years now, adidas, Nike and Puma and their competitors have been been pushing sports footwear as street-fashion items, with loud clashing colours and hideous graphics. This World Cup season just past, Puma launched football boots where the right boot was bright red and the left boot bright blue — presumably for the dyslexic-player market.
Calouste
@schrodinger’s cat: Palin hasn’t been Prime Minister three times, hasn’t been convicted of tax fraud, and hasn’t been charged with paying a minor for sex.
Roger Moore
@Tree With Water:
This is a common misreading of history. The demographic trends that have turned California blue were well underway already by 1994. The Democrats did quite well in California in 1992, winning majorities in both houses of the state legislature and the Congressional delegation and going heavily for Clinton. The point of Prop 187 was to boost Republican turnout for the midterm election and avoid the same kind of defeat. It was successful in that it got Wilson reelected and boosted the Republicans in a lot of close races. It might have sped up the Democratic takeover of the state by pushing Latino activism- and pushing them further into the arms of the Democrats- but that change was on its way with or without Prop 187.
geg6
@Corner Stone:
I’m a heels woman. I don’t do sports shoes. I wear them on the treadmill because I have to in order to exercise and not break an ankle. I also don’t exercise outside of my home because I don’t like to sweat in public. Unless I’m swimming. I’m not sure why you are so hostile about my personal sartorial choices. They aren’t outside the mainstream of the people I know.
Chris Grrr
Moving to 321 from California was a shock. It’s hard to imagine how the local Democratic Party could be less visible, productive or effective.
Suzanne
@Jacks mom: Hand in my vagina? The whole thing?
Corner Stone
@geg6: I’m not hostile to your decisions regarding footwear, and I reject your poor mischaracterization of my comment(s).
I, and I’m sure others, wear gear that is appropriate to the situation. It’s more of a reflection on your inflexibility and rigid outlook on this topic than it is anything to do with me.
I wear what works and if someone told me I look foolish wearing athletic shoes to the grocery store or my son’s bball game or to the park or to any number of venues I would have the same nonplussed reaction. And then move on with my life.
I could not care less if you choose to totter around on heels while grocery shopping or checking the mail or walking your dogs or anything else.
2liberal
i am planning on drinking tomorrow night (I very rarely partake) and ignoring election results.
Corner Stone
@2liberal: I plan on pan frying a hamburger patty and having some baked mac & cheese with bacon crumbled on top.
To each his own, fucker!
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
I’m reminded of nothing so much as this.
Cervantes
@Suzanne: Better than arming it, I suppose.
Suzanne
@Cervantes: Weird shit on the internet aside, I really don’t think a hand in the vagina ends up working out so well.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: Sometimes I am just so thankful for you that I can not handily express how much.
Cervantes
@Suzanne:
Well, no, I wouldn’t recommend it, either.
evodevo
Don’t hold it all in, Betty !! Say what you’re thinking ….
LOVED the horcrux reference..
2liberal
@Corner Stone: i just updated firefox and now have to figure out once again how the cleek filter works with the new version. Why don’t you just make things easier and just make all your posts read “REDACTED”.
Corner Stone
@2liberal: You don’t seem very liberal 2 me.
2liberal
@Corner Stone: I don’t believe I am the only one here with this reaction to your writings.
Cervantes
@2liberal:
A useful non sequitur.
They’re not as rare as one might think.
Corner Stone
@2liberal:
Indeed. Cleek’s fantastic pie filter is always a useful metric to determine who is who and what’s what.
Thanks again!
Tree With Water
@Roger Moore: Very interesting, though I’m not sure I buy it. Primarily because those hispanic Californians I worked alongside back then very suddenly began dropping Wilson’s name with genuine loathing. Up till then, they had been largely apolitical. At the very least, their mass defection from republican ranks is the paramount reason why California stays blue.
lou
I wonder if the cowboy boots with the state seal is some sort of GOP governor obsession. Governator Ah-nold also wore such boots. (And he’s shorter than you think, probably needed the heels).
And out of curiosity, I googled George W. Yup, he wore ’em too. Also with presidential seal.