Wednesday, October 11, 2006
It's the Sex and the Death, Stupid
According to a recent CNN poll, voter interest is very high this year.
I don't think it takes a genius to figure this one out. I believe this has a lot to do with Mark Foley and Iraq. Why? Because people understand these things. They understand sex and they understand death. For a change, the Republicans are suffering under the weight of scandals that the average person can comprehend.
Most people don't understand the ins and outs of campaign finance. Money laundering really isn't something they're willing to spend too much time on. So when Tom DeLay is accused of laundering money through his PACs, most people shrug it off as just another politician playing fast and loose with money. But when Mark Foley is trying to diddle underage boys... that they get. And when we're hearing the daily reports of dead soldiers and dead civilians (possibly as many as 655,000 of them), well they get that, too. These things are easy to understand.
You see, up until now the Republican party has been lucky that their scandals have been too difficult to understand. But these latest ones are simple - A Republican Senator is trying to dork some kids and our sons and daughters are getting killed. And people are tired of it.
If the Democrats do actually gain control of either house of congress, they have the Republicans to thank. Not that the Democrats haven't been pointing these things out for the last six years, but the Right-wing Noise Machine finally appears to have blown a gasket. In the end, it doesn't matter how much lipstick the Republicans try to smear on this pig, we Americans may not understand much of what goes on in our own government, but we understand when creepy old guys are trying to fuck or kill our children.
Politics is a water-cooler topic, a dinner-table subject, an issue to discuss after Sunday services, and this year the interest of American voters is at its highest level in more than a decade.
That renewed attention could translate into higher voter turnout on Nov. 7, according to an Associated Press-Pew poll.
Seventy percent say they are talking politics with family and friends, and 43 percent are debating the issues at work. Among churchgoers, 28 percent share their political views, a number that rises to 34 percent among the congregations in the South.
I don't think it takes a genius to figure this one out. I believe this has a lot to do with Mark Foley and Iraq. Why? Because people understand these things. They understand sex and they understand death. For a change, the Republicans are suffering under the weight of scandals that the average person can comprehend.
Most people don't understand the ins and outs of campaign finance. Money laundering really isn't something they're willing to spend too much time on. So when Tom DeLay is accused of laundering money through his PACs, most people shrug it off as just another politician playing fast and loose with money. But when Mark Foley is trying to diddle underage boys... that they get. And when we're hearing the daily reports of dead soldiers and dead civilians (possibly as many as 655,000 of them), well they get that, too. These things are easy to understand.
You see, up until now the Republican party has been lucky that their scandals have been too difficult to understand. But these latest ones are simple - A Republican Senator is trying to dork some kids and our sons and daughters are getting killed. And people are tired of it.
If the Democrats do actually gain control of either house of congress, they have the Republicans to thank. Not that the Democrats haven't been pointing these things out for the last six years, but the Right-wing Noise Machine finally appears to have blown a gasket. In the end, it doesn't matter how much lipstick the Republicans try to smear on this pig, we Americans may not understand much of what goes on in our own government, but we understand when creepy old guys are trying to fuck or kill our children.
