if you can't say anything nice...

i called this one the moment the mittster put his foot in it with ryan as his running mate.  turning the election into a referendum on social issues sure got people excited, but it entrenched the clearly-drawn battle lines of a losing campaign, (mccain's), and really left the election nowhere to go but barry.  (the yahoo blog, the signal, correctly called 50 out of 50 results LAST FEBRUARY, and if florida tips romney, they'll be a perfect 51 for 51).  most americans want true freedom, (note the states legalizing gay marriage, recreational marijuana, etc.), not just the jingoistic and mean-spirited kind, and they don't want economic prescriptions that leave all our money offshore in guys like the mittster's bank accounts.  even a good number of the folks who hate obama with a passion (you saw them everywhere) aren't so far away on many of those issues, so much as sick and tired and fed up with the way power gets misused around here.  the rest?  well, they like fascism so long as it's THEIR flavor of fascism, and there's no pleasing them short of locking the rest of us up for believing in that "pursuit of happiness" thing our founders so whimsically and brilliantly put at the top of our Declaration of Independence.

so what i want to know is, observing the veritable flood of unseemly electoral end zone celebrations being so unsportsmanlikely made in the vanquished's faces--do any of the unfoundedly self-congratulatorial lefties out there remember 2004???

in 2004, dubya squeaked one out and immediately crowed about a "mandate" that was nowhere in the election results.  surely, the bedrock foundation of barry's victory yesterday was just as solid then as it remains now, but dubya nevertheless went patriot act on our asses, and furthering that bill of rights insult to warring injury, created the spending architecture that barry has left unchanged that has bankrupted us in that process.

so now it is in 2012 that barry has taken his 50.2% of the electorate and his supporters are just as confident in a "mandate" to run roughshod over the feelings and resolutely held sensibilities of the other side.  the lefties are even further emboldened by their marijuana and gay marriage victories to feel like their 0.2% somehow means more than it ever possibly can.

it's a mistake.

the bedrock foundation of the conservative backlash is oh so clearly in place, and you know you know tons of romney supporters (even here in massachusetts they are everywhere) who cannot wait to rub a reverse pendulum swing right back into your faces.  THINK ABOUT IT.  that pending backlash is so strong that these people who make up a hair's breadth short of a majority even convinced themselves they could support MITT ROMNEY, one of the most flip-flopping, panderingly opportunistic and crass politicians who have ever run for any office anywhere, let alone our highest office in the land.  the guy CAME RIGHT OUT AND SAID he didn't give a shit about 47% of america.  HE SAID IT.

if there's one thing you know mitt meant this entire campaign of contradicting himself at every turn, it was that.  "just get me elected".  that's all mitt really wanted to say to us.

but back to the point:  this is NOT a mandate.  this is a highly predictable (go read the signal's rationale from last february) outcome of firmly-entrenched battle lines that are no less in place this morning as they were last night.  our democrat and republican politicians are locked in an endless struggle to remain our only two choices so that nothing of substance is ever easily (if ever) accomplished.

gay rights?  we get "don't ask don't tell".  civil liberties?  we get rulings like the one the other day that police need no warrant to place hidden cameras ON PRIVATE PROPERTY.  budget sensibility?  we get headlines like "smallest government spender since eisenhower" to describe an administration that has actually spent the most in national history--only the rate of increase is smallest since eisenhower.  in short, NOBODY is getting what they want, let alone what is right.  not the lefties, and certainly not the righties.

and so we remain divided.

please.  PLEASE.  if you are a lefty with the urge to feel vindicated, take a real long hard look at the numbers over the past 12 years.  there are some extremely thoughtful and heart-sick americans who aren't comfortable with things this way.  they didn't get "convinced" or their minds changed last night.  if anything, they became just that much more bitter and resentful and motivated to push things back the other way.

it's not a mandate.

it's just the next few bars of taps.

the only way out of this mess is to reach back across the divide, and to ask the person wearing the other color political badge what you can do to better understand their feelings and their position, and find some common ground on which to build consensus, not bulldoze their morality.  because just as surely as you may feel that marriage is something for everyone, they feel that it's something in need of better respect.  WE ALL AGREE ON THAT PART.  respect is good.

so lets find a way to build a country on the parts of everything that we share in common.  let's find a way to tell barry to shut up anytime that M word (mandate) tempts him.  it's not a mandate.

it's just the next few bars of taps.  and you can ask the dubya supporters how that feels when the pendulum swings back.  because you know it always does.