During the dark days of the Bush Administration, the collective mood on the Left could not have been more pessimistic and discouraged. Believing ourselves to be utterly ignored and summarily discounted, our anger was palpable and copious. I wonder why we on the Left didn’t form a series of spontaneous demonstrations, venting our frustration at a government we saw as illegitimate and destructive. While it is true that protests were plentiful then, no self-proclaimed movement sprung up, one then dutifully covered exhaustively by the media. That we did not resort to Teabagging tactics was itself a very good thing, but I think also that many of us placed complete faith in the mechanization of the system itself. When things began to turn around at long last in 2006 and then, two years later when a compelling candidate articulated our desire for change, we believed that working tirelessly to secure his election was wholly sufficient.
Tag: 2008 Election
Dec 05 2009
Did the Republicans throw the 2008 Presidential Election?
What’s that, you say?
When playing the game of checkers, surrendering one piece to set up a subsequent double or triple jump may be well worth the sacrifice, remembering that losing a battle sometimes sets the stage for winning the war.
The Republicans had to be cognizant that the party that “won” the Oval Office in 2009-2013 would be holding onto the equivalent of a sack filled with animal droppings and an activated hand grenade. They may well have calculated that no matter which party occupied the White House during the current term, there was a significant likelihood that the opposing party would prevail in 2012, and perhaps more importantly, the party controlling the Executive Branch in 2012 could be well-positioned to retain that power for quite some time to follow.