Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Another glorious triumph for the Club for Growth!

It appears that Bill Owens has won his election in NY-23. Fun facts: the Republicans haven't won a Democratic seat in a special election since 2001. And they have gone 1 for 12 for the past two years. Well, 1 for 13, including Owens's election.

The extent to which these elections had a "message" is debatable. The Republicans turned out to have better candidates than the Democrats in the governor's races tonight. But those candidates also ran issue-oriented campaigns that avoided La Palin and the pitchforks. A Republican Party that debated and campaigned like Bob McDonnell might well be one that can win elections. Perhaps today's results could lead to some rethinking on the right. We'll see.

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.