So Predictable, I Predicted It
Almost 2 years ago I wrote a comment on Simplicity’s old anime blog about Obama and politics on the night of Election 2008:
“There’s a part of me that is quite happy to see [Barack] elected because he’s african-american. I think it’s an important moment for our country. If he puts the country in front of party politics then we should be okay. However, if he allows congress to pass alot of left-wing bills then he’ll make the same mistake that Bill Clinton made and we’ll see the republicans take back congress in two years.
The other reason that I’m partly happy that Obama won was that the republican party lost it’s way once they got control of congress and the presidency and they needed something to snap them back into shape. This, I think, will be it.”
And sitting here the day after Election 2010, I’m feeling quite happy at little ol’ me getting this election almost completely right 2 years previously when many “experts” still didn’t get it right a couple of months ago. Congress and Obama did pass a lot left-wing bills and as a result, the Republicans almost took back both houses of Congress. The Republicans were also snapped back into shape; shedding it’s “Democrat-lite” stance that it held for the last decade and returned to their core values of smaller, less intrusive government and fiscal responsibility. As an added bonus, because it was the Tea Party movement that was largely behind this shift, we saw the further diversifying of the Republicans.
I’m also extremely happy at getting it right since it means the federal government won’t have the chance to make things even worse for the next two years and that might just allow the people to do the job the government can’t accomplish and get us out of recession and back working again. (Though Ben Bernanke’s desire to turn US currency into funny money could do the job that Obama can no longer do.)
Even if I was completely right and the Republicans had won back the Senate, I don’t know how far they could go in fixing the problems that Obama created in these past two years with Obama still being President. The only route that looks open to them is to try to control the purse-strings of the federal government, even if that means shutting down the federal government. Though the courts could still throw out the biggest drag on the economy that Obama enacted.
In closing, expect normal anime posts to resume shortly – I don’t like going off-topic here but I’d been so looking forward to this election that I need to write this post before moving on. What the country does in Election 2012 is a murkier subject. If the economy improves significantly and people attribute it to the actions of Obama then he will get re-elected, no question. If the economy gets worse or gets better with the perception that it was the Republicans that did it then Obama will probably not get re-elected. If the economy continues to stagnant, the presidential election will depend on how voters assign blame for the stagnant economy, how well the Republicans have stuck to their core and the quality of the individual candidates. I think the economy will continue to stagnate without Republican intervention.
I think the Republicans are on track to keep control of the House and gain control of the Senate in 2012, if they can stick to their principles and show that these principles are what the country needs. As for who the Republicans will nominate for President, I think the best choice would be a conservative governor that stuck to his/her principles and gotten their state going in the right direction. It gives the most convincing argument why they should be the President and executive office experience is a better training ground then the Senate for the Presidency. I personally like Huckabee as my pick though Christie, the governor of New Jersey, is starting to really interest me as does Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana.
Filed under: other news, rant
