True Colors Come Out After the Election

You'll have to pardon me for not having written in a while. It's been a very busy week-plus, and besides, the election just ended yesterday.

What's that? I can hear you saying, "Dave, the election was back on the 7th." Well, the election finally ended here yesterday, when Dan Maffei FINALLY got a shot of reality, realized he wasn't going to defeat Jim Walsh for Congress, and finally conceded. I'm not sure this was the last race to be decided, but it's gotta be one of them.

I really didn't want to have to write another political column. I have had non-political column ideas piling up these last few weeks, so they will probably all come out in the next week or so in a mass display of prolific writing. However, I keep getting fed these obvious opportunities to let the lunatic fringes have it, so here we go again.

See, it's so much fun to watch the hyper-partisans respond to an election; this is a prime exercise in people-watching. Once again, it was proven that when Democrats lose an election, they immediately cry foul. Yes I know, the Dems won the Congress, both the House and the Senate, and therefore you would think they would be elated, especially Maffei. After all, his campaign was only about the Democrats winning the Congress, it wasn't about him or what he would do for the people of Central New York. So, mission accomplished, right? Well, no. See, when the votes were tallied on the night on November 7, Walsh led Maffei by about 4000 votes, or 1 percent. All that was left was to count the absentee ballots, which usually fall to the Republican. CNN and the AP called the race for Walsh by Wednesday afternoon.

However, neither Maffei, his campaign manager, nor his supporters could accept this. Maffei refused to concede, this despite the local county Democratic chairman saying it was impossible for Maffei to win. Maffei's campaign manager, Mike Whyland, said there would be a recount, and he then stuck his foot in his mouth by proclaiming, "All it takes is one little old lady to transpose one set of numbers." Typical of the liberal playbook; when you lose, it's because people are stupid, or in this case old. As for the people who had done nothing but parrot Maffei's talking points in the letters page for months? Well, now that they actually had to think of something to say, their true colors came out...

One blamed the Post-Standard for endorsing Walsh and called them "a bunch of Republican lackeys." This despite the fact that the P-S endorsed MANY more Democrats. Another writer said that the P-S withheld printing the results of the flawed Zogby poll because they wanted Walsh to win. Still another said Walsh won because of gerrymandering and if you can't win your hometown then you shouldn't win the election. Well by that measure there shouldn't have been such an uproar over Gore in 2000, considering he lost his "home state" of Tennessee. As for drawing districts to win you elections, ask all those Republicans who lost supposed "safe seats" how well that practice works. If the Dems have control of the Congress in 2010, I'm sure they'll gerrymander the districts into something more to your liking. Another letter writer went so far as to proclaim conspiracy theory by saying Walsh won because the Republican line was first on the ballot. Because apparently, undecided voters have such short attention spans (and low IQs) that they won't go past the first line when they read who the candidates are. And as the days went on, we were treated to more of the obligatory "how stupid are you people" letters from upset liberals.

Funny thing is when control of the Senate was on the line and Conrad Burns and George Allen, both Republicans, were within one percent of their competitors, they both did the honorable thing and conceded. They didn't scream for a recount, they didn't blame "little old ladies", they didn't blame a newspaper endorsement or where they were on the ballot, and most importantly, they DIDN'T BLAME THE VOTERS. They realized they weren't going to win and they congratulated their Democratic opponents on defeating them. That is why I am still proud to be a Republican; when we lose, we are gracious and we hunker down to figure out why we lost (and John McCain is leading the charge on that). When Democrats lose, they criticize everyone else but themselves and spout conspiracy theories.

That much is funny; what isn't is what the national liberal Democrats have said since they won. Liberal columists are giddy, refusing to believe their centrist colleagues who say it wasn't so much that the Dems won but rather the Republicans lost. Some no doubt view this as a mandate for impeachment. Molly Ivins is pleading with the Dems to NOT be bipartisan. Paul Krugman of the New York Times, perhaps the most liberal columnist out there, proclaimed that Reaganite conservatism was dead, "because the movement is fundamentally undemocratic; its leaders don't accept the legitimacy of opposition." Funny thing... aren't you guys on the same side of the ideological fence as the old Soviet Union? Yeah, there was a nation that accepted opposition... And then in the next paragraph, he threw out the obligatory racism charges against Republicans... and may I say that I guess that shows how accepting you are of YOUR opposition. On the other hand, we have good ol' Cal Thomas on the right wing side, proclaiming that the terrorists were the big winners of the election and that conservatives need to re-embrace the religious right in order to get the majority back. Uh, Cal? Nobody apparently bought that on Election Day, they're not going to buy it now. Let those of us who actually know what America wants (like McCain) fix our party's problems.

I know a lot of people are saying that we in the middle were the big winners in this election, because a lot of centrist Democrats won seats. That may be true but the leaders (Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Dean at the DNC) are still liberals. What happens the first time the liberals want to push through a typical liberal measure, destined to be vetoed by Bush? Will the centrists put partisan loyalty above their core beliefs? Only time will tell.