Today was I day I was dreading and hoping would come for some time now. I got pulled over for the first time in my life. Apparently I “rolled” through a stop sign. The city where I live, Belleville has a reputation for being one of the worse ticket givers in the tri-county area but one reason I’m as ok as one can get with getting a ticket is the fact that I’ve done a hell of alot worse. I’m a good driver most of the time but I have my moments of “creative driving” shall we call it.
So even though it sucks getting a ticket, I realize the consequences for taking the easy option a lot time and learned if anything to completly stop at this one stop sign and be more observing. With this being a political blog, it would be wise to look at what caused a negative action in the past (election) and what we can learn from it.
The 2000 Election
Who Lost It?
Janet Reno, Attonery General- The 2000 election was so close anybody and anything could be said to “sway” the election in Florida. But one would be hard pressed to blame Al Gore losing than Janet Reno. Her actions during the Elian Gonzales/Cuba drama turned many Cubans away from the Democratic Party and for George W. Bush. While every vote mattered, her actions (turning of Latinos…a forwarning?) lost the state of Florida to George W. Bush.
The 2002 Mid-Term Elections
Who Lost It?
Russell Feingold- His vote aganist the Patroit Act, and other like minded votes help turn the image of Democrats as weak on terror but strong on privacy rights. In 2002, just a year after 9/11, liberal Democrats misread the nation’s signals and allowed themselves to look weak on terror. They paid the press that fall.
The 2004 Election
Democratic Primary Voters- John Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards. Howard Dean would have lost by a large margin. John Kerry was of one the worst candidates the party has ever selected (and that’s saying something). Who did Bush and his team fear…John Edwards. His consistently likable personality and ability to talk to the middle class was a great oppertunity wasted on the party. They picked the guy everyone voted for because they hated the other guy instead of the actually likable guy. If the ticket had flipped, George W. Bush would have been a one term President.
The 2006 Mid-Term Elections
George Allen, Senator from VA- One word a racial expletive and he lost his bid for re-election and the Senate for Republicans. In the Webb-Allen race is was the last straw for Virginia voters who voted out their native son and former governor but the smallest margin in a Senate race that year.
Who knows what 2008 will look like. Obama will be hard to beat, and Clinton may still win this thing but regardless if we do not learn from our mistakes we will repeat them. And after the ticket I recieved today, I can’t afford to.
