time to change political parties

Good lard, the Democratic Party sucks.  They lose a Senate seat, and decide to pack it in.  If the feelings we have surrounding this party is apt, I suggest they put it to a vote right now on who should organize the Senate Caucus, and hand title of “Majority Leader” over to Mitch McConnell — holder of now 41 seat, 42 if you toss in Lieberman for making his usual coy comments.

The Democratic Party Reaction is, if asked, I am liable to identify myself as a member in good standing of the Whig Party.  The Whig Party has a few things going for it.   Henry Clay had a decent and workable vision for uniting the nation — “The American System”.   The party ditched the idea of bothering with platforms, and just ran beloved Generals.  We had William Henry Harrison.  Zachoray Taylor did not disgrace himself in his 14 months of office.  At the mid-point of the twentieth century, the nation decided to give the Whig Party another whirl, and elected Dwight D Eisenhower — who gave us the Federal Highway System.  Harrison, Taylor, Eisenhower.

There is a strange quality to the current deliberations.  Politically it’s probably best for the Democratic House to pass the Senate bill, as much of a Rube Goldberg Device as it is (and it is a Rube Goldberg Device because it’s a contraptiond designed for 60 goddamned votes), and sell it as that flawed foundation we’ll get back to in the years ahead.  This has the advantage of being less noisy in the process, and it’s the noisiness of the proecess that’s killing everyone.  Policy-wise, I long desired that that thing is too far gone that the pared down items to be gotten through Reconciliation and 50 goddamned votes — your Medicare Buy-in down a decade and a few Insurance Reforms — probably makes for better actual policy.  Modest in some ways, more radical (I hate that word when describing these reforms) in other ways.

Unfortunately, watching the party I will go ahead and change registration to “Whig”.

For a time, I’ve had this generalized theory of how a throughline of a more or less  successful Obama Presidency, of two terms, would look — success being I can look back at it and think more highly of it than Clinton.  And the throughline throws as a given substantial losses in 2010.  It’s generically that pattern that holds for previous presidents — I see someone has unearthed what should be more widely understood about Ronald Reagan‘s presidency.  Actually, Reagan held three periods of popularity — coinciding with the 84 and 88 elections that they may, and a lot of area of unpopularity.  Likewise, Gallup lets us in that Obama has a lower approval rating at this stage in his presidency than anyone since Eisnenhower.  No, seriously.  A Political Life is not something for the squemish.  But the throughline gives us, though, the requirement of a Big Ticket Item in the first two years.  The Democrats seem bizarrely giddy to blow it.

… And, you know, not that I am a Democrat.  I am a member of the Whig Party.

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