This is a silly novel.  I plucked it out from a spot that had thrown out a bunch of old books, and I now shall deposit it at a public spot where some anonymous person might pluck it up for their silly reading enjoyment.  I picked it up with two other books — one bad, one lighter silly and enjoyable.  Maybe I’ll mention that one later.

There are a few things I wish to say about Stuart Archer Cohen’s Army of the Republic.  Firstly, I wonder how many real names appeared in his first draft which were then crossed out and replaced to fictional names — perhaps partly way through his first draft.  Secondly, I need to note a manner I read this book — I skipped just shy of the first hundred pages and read them last.  I have a theory that a lot of novels would be improved and better served if the editor just arbitrarily knocked off a large chunk of the beginning and threw it past some expository elements into some action which can’t help but allude to the exposition.  Of course, were a novelist to take this approach, s/he’d end up constantly knocking off hundred page installments until we end up with a single page or two — and that is no way in furthering explorations of the human experience.

The last thing I want to say about this book has to do with a cover blurb.  Check this out.  “One of the first works of art with the courage to live up to our historical moment.  The Army of the Republic is brilliant, terrifying, and much too close to comfort.”  — Naomi Klein, Shock Doctrine, No Logo.  Okay.  Now, near the end of the book — and by “near the end of the book” I mean within the first 100 pages, on page 9 as the case is, the narration (at this point by the mid-20s guerrila fighter) describes a decoy apartment room.  The apartment itself has been purged of anything remotely political.  No Malcolm X posters, no heavy theory by trouble makers like Chomsky or Klein.  A few canned photos of ballet slippers and nature scenes hag on the mostly empty walls, and the bookcase is heavy with mindless historical romances we picked up from the Salvation Army for a nickel each. Hey!  He just name-dropped one of his blurbers!  Funny that.

I point to this bit of Political Pandering on the part of House Minority Leader John Boehner, an easy picking I gather, but ultimately a weirdly meaningless “Get Tough” messaging for cheap, easy points.

………………………………..

KING: We’re back with the House Republican leader, John Boehner. I want to spend some time on politics, but a couple quick questions first. The administration announced Friday night that it is going to make the H1N1 vaccine available to detainees at the Guantanamo Bay terror detention facility. There are shortages here in the United States for families who are trying to get them. I wonder if you think that’s a good idea.

BOEHNER: I don’t think it’s a good idea. The administration probably didn’t think it would be very popular either, that’s why they announced it on Friday night. We have prisoners in my own home county who are going to get H1N1 shots while there are vulnerable populations who want the shots who can’t get them. I just think that’s wrong.

………………………………….

Bleh.

A spokesman for Physicians For Human Rights, an international medical group, said there are “certain basic obligations the U.S. has to its prisoners,” and that vaccinations for influenza fall into that category.

“The fact that many prisoners within the U.S. don’t get timely access to basic health care doesn’t change the obligation of the U.S. to prisoners at Guantanamo,” Dr. Scott A. Allen of the rights group said in an e-mail from Rhode Island. “We should work towards securing H1N1 vaccine for all at-risk populations, and not towards lowering a public health standard for certain unpopular groups.”

Tuesday is Election Day 2009, and we’ll find out any number of things.  How much does Washington State like its gays and how much does Maine love its gays?  Actually polls show Domestic Partnership should pass through Washington fairly easily, with marraige in Maine a qubble that we shall see.

Other questions: what will be the dollar per vote amount for Michael Bloomberg’s third term mayorship in the city of New York?  Actually, this one is pretty easy to figure out right now — the two variables of the hundred million spent and the rought vote count are roughly set in stone.  As is the hypocrisy of arguing against the third term claim attempt as the “Necessary Man” by his predecessor, Rudy, against his third term claim as the “Necessary Man”.

What will the Virginia Republican Gubernatorial candidate’s victory signify, considering this will be the ninth straight time the opposition party took this seat following the presidential election?  Was Creigh Deed unlucky in having been tossed a false golden nugget in the form of the McDonnell college writings — another metaphor — the silver bullet that wasn’t diverting him from necessary campaigning steps?  Actually, Deeds made the honest mistake of not wanting to rely on the Obama electoral coalition, viewing it as full of too many unreliable voters, and trying with no success to cobble together something different.  The Democrat in Virginia might be unwittingly setting a pattern for some vulnerable Democrats in 2010 — assuming the voting pool will be terminally altered away from the Obama victory they rode the coat-tails on, and then making that a self-fulfilling prophecy by alienating Obama’s marginal voters.

Can a one time promising Republican candidate in New Jersey finally finally finally win a state election?  It’ll happen eventually.  It just didn’t happen in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, or 2007.  Actually the New Jersey Governor Corzine took the electoral strategy his Virginia brethern rejected: hide behind Obama, and call his opponent fat.  Well, that last one wouldn’t have worked for Virginia’s Deeds — the best Deeds had was to call his opponent a crazy fundamentalist.  That misfired.  It may be that Virginia is full of crazy fundamentalists in a way that New Jersey is not full of fat people, which is why calling his opponent fat worked out well.

And then there’s the one everyone’s watching, though the main fireworks have already gone off.  New York Special Election District 23.  It’s a good one.  The Republican — Dede Scozzafava — has jumped out in the fasce of Conservative Party (that’s the state party started about in the 50s or 60s by the Buckleys)’s embrace by the teaparty and Club for Growth and Sarah Palins and Dick Armeys and Glenn Becks and others.  If at first blush, the Democratic candidate’s chgance lay in riding to a division of the two Republicans, in its final weekend it becomes a contest to stake a claim to the “moderate” Republican voters — and really, both candidates kind of have an equal claim.  Proceed with caution, Democrats, for the possible new “Moderate” Democratic Congress-critter.  It is worth exploring the manner Democrats might end up painting themselves into a corner in bids of Respectability.  A longer campaign against Hoffman should exploit Conservative Party Hoffman’s very real weaknesses — what, Dick Armey is parading around with the carpet-bagging candidate proclaiming the local issues anc concerns “Parachoial” — but, unfortunately, things are so very truncated.

The post-moretems will be full of Republicans and conservatives puffing about the resurgence of the Republican Party and Conservative Movement, and liberals and Democrats calling this as a sign of party fracturing and moving out of victory-range for 2012.  Weirdly enough, I tend to think both and neither assessment look accurate.  I will suggest that the Democratic Party in Florida should proceed with the assumption that Marc Rubio will beat Charlie Crist in the Republican nomination fight.  This is interesting, in that Crist is unbeatable in a general election and Rubio — well, he might be unbeatable if we assume a somewhat peculiar midterm election voting pool skewed by Florida’s skewerence toward the aged, and might also not be.

There has to be other elections worth paying attention to.  Hill Valley, California has Goldie Wilson III up for an election to replace his father.  “Progress is His Middle Name.”

None of this adds up to a hill of beans.  Gay marriage will either edge forward slightly or edge forward slightly less slightly.  The House composition will be composed of either one more Democrat of a type you don’t necessarily like all that much or it will have one more Republican that’ll align with the right-wing fringe of the congressional coalition.  I’d call a rematch for a year from now.  Virginia will continue its truly counter-cyclical trending, and conveniently Republicans are claiming this as the one true national message election.  But this all leaves New Jersey as the one election that will determine a national message for the 2009 elections of one type or other.  A message to be taken with grains of salts.  The pressure’s on New Jersey to provide a verdict.  In fact, the verdict for the entire Obama Administration.  And, no I don’t beleive that last statement.

And then it’s off to this phony little election in Afghanistan.  Amusing to see Hillary Clinton claim “candidates drop out of elections in America all the time for all sorts of reasons.”