post-election Blue(s)

A few quick thought before getting into the "river of steel" for the commute home:

The U.S. shifted toward blue (Democratic) last week, although Florida is more purple than blue or red. The lone dissenter on the Hillsborough County Commission, a Democrat, woke up Wednesday to discover she's now a Congresswoman in a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. That means the people who beat up on her during all her time on the county commission will have to deal with her to get favors from Congress. I can hear them pleading for bipartisanship, a word that does not exist in the Republican dictionary. Yuk, yuk,. . .

In our county we had a race between two lightweights for a seat in the State Senate. One of them (my kids know her from high school) ran what had to be the ugliest, nastiest, smear campaign in the country and I am happy to report that she lost. There were several other races that went to the victims of extremely negative campaigning. This year, a lot of voters just got sick the negative ads.

Judging from letters to the editor of the local paper, a common reaction among die-hard Republicans is, okay, let's see what kind of a mess the Democrats can create in the next two years. Two years to untangle the mess than has been created in the past six years? That's asking a lot but here's the curious thing: Some of the Democrats are more conservative that the Republicans they beat. This is going to confuse the people who can't think or speak of public issues without relying on the "liberal" and "conservative" labels.

I just finished Woodward's book, State of Denial. Everybody should read it but I caution you that it will not leave you feeling optimistic.