Friday, September 24, 2010

Is Sanity Overrated?

The 2010 midterms are going to be the battle between inspired lunacy
and apathetic rationality.

Republicans are putting up candidates with serious mental health issues like Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, Ken Buck, Rand Paul, and Christine O'Donnell.  Standing next to them makes even Sarah Palin look like an intellectual heavyweight. In a normal election year these Republicans would have a hard time getting elected hall monitor on Shutter Island. 

Opposing them, Democrats have fielded a list of candidates whose main attribute is they still have pulses, not that anybody cares.

On the issues, Republicans are mostly trying to hide except when they go on Fox News where Sean Hannity does all the talking and the candidates just nod politely and beg for money.

Democrats are realistic, they stand firmly on the platform that It Could Have Been Worse. Democrats don't take credit for what they did accomplish (health care reform), they don't try to accomplish anything prior to the election (tax reform), and they don't promise to do much of anything if reelected.

Republicans have motivated their bases. They have motivated them into a frothing at the mouth mob that is lynching Republican moderates. Democrats are staying calm and rational. They are staying so calm their base is in danger of slipping into a coma.

The question before the electorate is do they prefer electing a bunch of highly motivated, dangerously paranoid, babbling idiots who promise to accomplish a whole lot of really bad and frequently impossible things. Or do they prefer calm, rational, boring, milquetoasts who won't promise what they can't accomplish and really don't think they can do anything.

I am seriously rooting for rational to win, but I suspect this is an election where sanity is vastly overrated.

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