The Morning After, 2012

With my hectic schedule of late (improv, temp work, etc.) it has been a daunting challenge to post a weekly dispatch by Tuesday evening. The only advantage to a looser deadline in lieu of my usual rigid, self-imposed cutoff is that I comment on news when they happen. I knew I wouldn't have time on Monday or Tuesday to write anything so, therefore I can write about the election almost as it happens.

+ In the words of Michael Steele: "This was not a repudiation of conservatism, but the way the our party presented conservatism." It's not so much that Romney lost as the GOP did. As the party keeps shifting further to the right, their best hope against the incumbent president was forced to flip-flop and tweak his stance on certain issues. Say what you will about Romney being an out of touch opportunist, but he is a dyed-in-the-wool moderate conservative and he was never going to appease Tea Partiers.

+ Claire McCaskill didn't win reelection in Missouri so much as Todd Akin lost. Ditto for Joe Donnelly and Dick Mourdock in Indiana. There was a sharp uptic in female voters in both states (and the nation in general) and it had a lot to do with the bullheaded comments Akin and Mourdock made about sexual assault. As a result, the second-most vulnerable branch of the government --that it to say, the U.S. Senate-- in this race tips slightly more in favor of the Democrats. (Not to salt wounds, but I also extend my congratulations to Wisconsin's Tammy Baldwin, the first lesbian ever elected to the U.S. Senate.)

+ Florida is still up for grabs? Gee, what a surprise.

+ The network and cable news coverage alike was a tad over the top. NBC had what looked like a skating rink dyed with Mio, and CNN had a long, tacky graphic/musical overture combo that announced every state result. An exhausted Diane Sawyer spent all night acting like somebody's drunk aunt at a family get-together. Fox News' all-around meltdown after Obama clinched Ohio was a like a car wreck; almost unwatchable, yet you couldn't look away...

+ Finally, a point to ponder. You know all those internet memes and "shared" photos that painted President Obama as a socialist/fascist/communist/Kenyan-born radical with no evidence behind them? Or better yet, all those accusations of taking away the guns, apologizing to world leaders, and shutting down America's churches, also without any proof? How about the hack writings of Dr. Jerome Corsi and Dinesh D'Souza? You know, the empty bombast that overwhelmed and distracted from any serious, concrete criticisms of the president?

That sure worked, didn't it?

Next week: the year in music, 1963.
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