Political Zombies and Vampires - Dealing With The Undead In The Next Election

I was wrong before when I thought that the political center couldn't be falsely spiked any further to the right, but now I believe people when they say that there's still plenty of crazy to go around among Conservatives. 

They're already so close to the edge that Google Maps shows them to be in 'Heere Bee Dragons' territory, but they've got their parkas and tinfoil hats on, strapped into their kayaks, and they're ready for the plunge over the Rim of the World with all moral compasses pointing due South.

Maybe they'll see the giant tortoise on whose back rests the Flat Earth that so many in their party believe in on their way down...out...up...or where-the-hell-ever it is they're headed.

I'm not sure that even they know, anymore.


The Tea Party wants to steam full ahead with every divisive tactic they have in their arsenal. I think they might, one day, miss having people who, you know, cast votes. I want to say that nothing would please me more than the Tea Party's passing, but I've been wrong about "misunderestimating" political craziness before. I might actually find that, in the future, they're the sane party on the Right. Just not right now. 

I saw a daytime photo of Ted Cruz, Michelle Bachmann, and Rand Paul together, yesterday. First of all, I didn't think that those people actually showed up in photos or mirrors much less could withstand the sunlight. But I thought I caught a glimpse of Bachmann's wife...sorry, husband...flipping me off in one of those Harry Potter-type photos where the subjects actually move around. It scared me less than it should have; I guess I'm getting used to the Politically Undead.

It seems like Hillary will probably run in 2016. That's a good thing, I think. The Right will be lined up against her and may trip themselves up trying to prevent her from staging Occupy West Wing. It's going to be a bloodbath, whatever happens. If she has any skeletons left in her closet, they're bound to get their bones rattled. This is once where osteoporosis might be your friend, if you're her; the skeletons could crumble and take the wind out of the rightwing nutfudge fringe's sails. 

It's just as likely that they'll tear themselves to pieces in the primaries. I'm buying popcorn futures as I type this. I smell blood, and it's got Type V for Vampire written all over it.

Resetting the center for a prosperous middle class

We've allowed the national agenda, and the political center as well, to be pushed so far to the right that an adjustment is overdue. Pursuing pragmatical Progressivism is our only chance to build a middle class sustainably. The lessons of Conservatism are clear for anyone to see and parse and they're lessons of failure. The very nature of Conservatism deals a self-inflicted deathblow, and that's Nature's way of telling us that it's wrongheaded: You can't stop the Arrow of Time from progressing at the rate of 1 second per second. Conserve all you wish, time marches on.

Frankly, we need to ignore the Conservatives as the failures they are. We need a laser-like focus on the future and on a sound path to it. We need to present ideas for debt and deficit reduction that won't crush the weakest among us, but which simultaneously won't hinder the entrepreneurs. President Clinton would make a wonderful budget ally if he could be persuaded to assist since he was able to journey us along that fine line once before. 

If our President and his administration can continue the momentum we have, we will break free from this recession, but it also requires Congress to act in concert with him, something Conservatives there have shown a puerile contempt to do. 

Four more years, then Hillary. We can do this.