The Most Important Political Victory in Fifty Years

Three reasons:

1. We expanded our strength in the Senate. For some time, conservatives have been talking (and talking, and talking, and talking) about the so-called "nuclear option" to end obstructionist fillibusters on justices. Problem is, you still need at least 50 Senators to vote for the procedural change, and we didn't have that-- Snowe, Collins, Chaffee, the Senator from Brigadoon, and most likely John McCain wouldn't go along with the plan.

Well, we now have 55 Senators. Hopefully, the new ones will decide that we cannot continue with a minority of Senators imposing a veto on judicial appointments.

Actually, given Bush's mandate, the Democrats might stop fillibustering now, but I wouldn't count on it.

2. Had Kerry won, the Democrats would have been associated with economic prosperity for the next fifty years. Clinton inherited a quickly-expanding economy and got out of Dodge just as the wheels came off the wagon. Leaving Bush, of course, with a recession.

Now the economy is growing again, but it hasn't quite begun growing like the gangbusters late nineties economy we've now (rather foolishly) sort of come to expect as the new normal. It might soon get to that level.

But imagine if Kerry had been elected. Now imagine the economy taking off, as it will probably do, in January.

Imagine the talking points. Republicans = recession. Democrats = rampaging prosperity.

Honestly, that could have all but killed the Republican Party. I've had nightsweats over that scenario for two years.

Now Bush will preside over an expanding economy for the next four years (knock, knock, spit, spit). Driving a stake through the heart of the rhetorical value of the mantra "the Clinton boom."

Ummm, that last sentence is pretty inelegant. You know what I'm getting at.

3. We will continue to perservere in the War on Terror, and psychopathic Islamofascists will not think they've "won" by influencing our election-- except, perhaps, in the way opposite to the one they'd intended. This, of course, is most important of all, because this isn't just about politics, this is about the security of the United States of America.

Our enemies are now on notice: We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not give up until we have won this war.

Bush said it, and we as a nation mean it.

Four more years of hell, Al Qaeda.

Cry.

posted by Ace at 02:04 PM

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