A shellacking

The pendulum, folks! As a body politic, we need to achieve some type of equilibrium.

Remember two and a half years ago, at the nadir of the financial crisis, when the country was made aware of the evildoers–of Wall Street—the rampant greed, the neutered Security and Exchange Commission (courtesy Bush '41),  the cratering of the real estate market, the demise of Bear Stearns? Even hard-core Republicans saw the error of the ways of their aging, alcoholic, dirty joke-telling, slacker frat-boy good ol' boy W ('43) and the holier-than-thou right wingers and we voted in droves for the Democrats.

Now, two years later, and the pendulum swings the other way, to the lunatic, hateful Tea Partiers.

We need to become more stabilized and less polarized. Where are the Adalai Stevensons, Lyndon Johnsons, Sam Rayburns, Shirley Chisolms, Robert Byrds, Hubert Humphreys, and Harry Trumans of today?

It was a sad November 3 to wake up and find the politically savvy Linda Chavez-Thompson, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and force who rose from migrant laborer to executive vice-president of the AFL-CIO lost to the wealthy, dissipated, and elite David Dewhurst for Texas lieutenant governor, the real power center in Texas.

Maybe it was a good thing the public was not aware of components of every deal, but at least our elected
officials worked together for what they thought was the good of the country.

Hey, Tea Partiers! It's not about ideology, it's about the welfare of the country.

Update: at the November 13 Brazos Valley Farmers' Market, a retired judge and I struck up a conversation. I had taken him for a rock-ribbed conservative East Texas Republican, but–surprise!–he is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, a delegate to the National Democratic Convention that nominated Bill Clinton and the son of a old-time Texas state representative. He added Mike Mansfield and even the conciliatory Barry Goldwater to my list of willing-to-negotiate politicians.