Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Samsara

An all-but-one sweep of the swing states. Once Florida is tabulated, 332 to 206. A 126-vote lead in the electoral college is not a mere blowout, it's a veritable beating.

The popular vote was within 2.5m but let's not forget why we have the electoral college; it prevents a candidate with lopsided regional popularity -- for example, massively popular in the north and the opposite in the south -- from being elected, thereby failing to represent a full half of the country.

It forces candidates to have broad appeal. It forces a candidate to represent the centrist interests and values of the country at large.

This leads us to the obvious question, "What are these interests and values?"

Same sex marriage amendments pass in Maine and Maryland, the first states to do so by vote and not legislation or court order. Minnesota voters shoot down a same-sex constitutional amendment.

Marijuana flat-out legalized in Washington and Colorado.

And Obama elected in a landslide.

Yet somehow conservative talk radio is awash with two interpretations of the election results; Obama doesn't have a mandate and the electorate wants more conservatism.

Let them keep thinking it. When you do not see something clearly, what you perceive as a solution is often just digging the hole deeper. Samsara.

This election was brought to you by the words "Tea" and "Party" and the conservative fetishization of party purity.

TYVM.

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