No Random 11 today

Which is too bad, because I was going to do an All Angry Music Guide edition. But Libby has pink eye and a fever, which means doctor visits and babying and trying to get work done in between.

The other thing I've been keeping in mind, amid the talk of historic and sweeping and mandate and a Roman helmet for America (look it up) is that, regardless of the shift in power, the 'Baggers grabbed hold of the House. It's been expected since last year, it fits a historic trend, and in the end, while they will rant and rage and do all the stuff they've done since the last election, they won't get squat done. They don't have the votes and, more importantly, many of the conservative Democrats who were part of the problem were replaced with people who were out-of-the closet conservatives. I don't think they're going to get many crossover votes. Furthermore, it's real easy to say you're going to cut spending and another to actually do it. There's no way the GOP can slash spending and keep giving the rich their tax breaks without making painful, politically unpopular cuts.

At the same time, the Democrats deserved this. It reminds me of a South Park episode, where Cartman fakes being handicapped so he can enter the Special Olympics and presumably win it easily. Only he finds out that he's so fat and out of shape, kids with disabilities are far better athletes than he is. I certainly don't want the Rand Pauls of the world in power, but at the same time if one's message is so weak that it can't beat the likes of Rand Paul, well, maybe you deserve to lose.

When Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, he didn't spend the first two years of his first term worrying about how Republicans labeled him. He didn't adjust his message for the Father Coughlin's and Huey Long's of the country. He took action. Some of what he did was ineffective. Some of it borderline unconstitutional (for which he was rightly rebuffed). But I think the reason why he was elected again and again is because he made the American people feel like he was working for them, doing whatever he could to get the country out of the Depression or at the very least ease the effects of it. He sure as hell didn't maintain that popularity by appeasing his opponents.