Stuff I Won't Miss After 2008

by Chris Bowers [courtesy of Open Left - Front Page]

Yesterday, I complained about things that will continue to frustrate me after the impending Democratic landslide is complete. Today, I'd like to balance that out with a series of things that I won't miss after the huge Democratic victories this year. In the extended entry, I list a whole bunch of them.
Stuff I won't miss after the election:

1. I won't miss statements like "X is why Democrats lose" or "Democratic won't start winning until they do X." God, those sentences are irritating, especially since the C variable is inevitably the pet project of whoever is writing them. However, when Democrats have the White House and congressional majorities Republicans haven't enjoyed in eighty years, it will be kind of hard to argue that Democrats aren't winning elections anymore.

2. I won't miss statements like "Republicans will just use voting machines to steal the election anyway." Such statements irritate me because of both their fatalism and general lack of proof. While I have no doubt that such statements will continue even if Democrats when a 100 seat majority in Congress, they will be less frequent. Kind of hard to argue that Republicans just steal all elections through voting machines when Democrats have such enormous majorities.

3. I won't miss statements about how much a genius Karl Rove is, or that simply he is somehow controlling a vast Republican conspiracy that will certainly dominate us. The fact is that Republicans will experience their largest electoral losses in over thirty years under Karl Rove, even though he was handed the most favorable Republican political environment in a century after 9/11. Anyone who turns his party's most favorable political environment in a century to its worst losses in half a century is a pretty sucky political strategist. Enough with the Karl Rove worship and paranoia.

4. I won't miss Republican claims that Democrats don't understand the American heartland, and the bucolic small town values at its core. I am really, really sick of this one. I can't wait to write the counter articles that say stuff like "Republicans don't understand modern, pluralistic America," or other concern troll pieces that give incredibly stupid, lame, patronizing advice of that sort. This is the reverse of #1.

5. I won't miss the daily tracking polls. Waiting for those causes way too much stress in my life.

6. I won't miss all the talk of partisan polarization or gridlock in Congress. With majorities like these, we might not always do the right thing, but we are going to pass a lot of stuff. Republicans are not going to be able to hold filibusters together in the Senate, even if they do manage to hold onto 41 or 42 seats. Half of all Republican Senators will be up for re-election in 2010, and there wasn't a single Senate vote this year of any consequence where the entire Republican party held together. We will get plenty of defectors to pass lots of stuff. Whether or not that stuff is good is another story, of course.

7. I won't miss being asked if I am registered to vote. Yes, I'm registered to vote. I'm the fraking Democratic state party official for this area, alright? I guess I can already be relieved that is over.
   

8. I won't miss Joe Lieberman supposedly holding the balance of power in the Senate. I won't miss hearing Lieberman and others whine about how they Democratic Party left them out. Anyone who left the Democratic Party from 2005-2008 clearly chose the exact wrong time to do it, given the changing partisan mood of the country. Talk about catching the wrong direction of a fashion trend.

9. I won't miss McCain, or Palin, or Bush, or Cheney, or Rice, or Paulson, or really any members of the Bush administration. Good-frakking-bye.

There is other stuff I won't miss, too, but these are the things that immediately come to mind. What won't you miss after 2008?