Post-Election News Nuggets

News nuggets you might have missed in the hurricane of what-it-all-means reporting after Tuesday’s breezy handful of elections:

·        TALES OF THE JERSEY BELTS:  New Jersey Republican Chris Christie won the right to be the eighth person to be governor or acting governor of the Garden State since January 31, 2001. His two main predecessors had famous unbuckled belt problems – Jon Corzine’s seat belt in a crashing SUV and Jim McGreevey’s pants belt with a male aide. Christie’s only apparent belt problem so far is a size issue, but he doesn’t take office until January. Look for him then to be belted by rising property taxes, government deficits and citizen anger.

·        YOU BET YOUR LIFE apparently wasn’t enough of a gamble for voters in Ohio, who approved casinos in the state’s four biggest cities. The election happened while authorities found 11 bodies and counting at the house of a Cleveland registered sex offender. Before the grisly discovery, authorities regularly checked to make sure the convicted sex offender was at home. He was, and so allegedly were his decomposing victims, who raised a stink that locals mistakenly attributed to a nearby sausage factory.

·        ARGENTINIANS YES,  HORSES NO  seems to be the rule of  thumb in South Carolina, where a court sentenced a man to three years in prison for repeated sex with a horse. South Carolina’s married Governor, Mark Sanford, who earlier confessed to repeated sex with a woman not his wife in Argentina, faces no such penalty. The horsing-around conviction may trouble the Republican party’s conservative wing, which doesn’t want to support bestiality but is generally committed to a buy-American policy. Also no word on the possible formation of  NAMHLA (North American Man-Horse Love Association).

·        DOWNHILL SLIDE CONTINUES for former Ohio Democratic Congressman Jim Traficant, who has been a football player, a member of Congress, a convict and now a newspaper columnist. Traficant, who served seven years on federal bribery and other  convictions will be writing for American Free Press, a Washington D.C. weekly, Editor & Publisher reports. So much for the notion that prison terms can produce reformed, useful citizens.

·        SAME-SEX NO, MARY JANE YES turned out to be the view of Maine voters who overturned the state legislature’s gay marriage law and endorsed a medical marijuana-enabling bill. Apparently according to the wisdom of Maine’s voters, committed gay couples who are now denied marriage licenses can get a doctor to prescribe marijuana to ease their pain.

###

Mainstream Media At Work

Heads We Win, Tails You Lose

Today is election day in some parts of the country and the mainstream media is poised to tell us what it all means – unless it doesn’t mean that, in which case they’ll still tell us.

Or they might tell us that just because it looks like the results don’t mean much is the exact reason they do mean a great deal. If fact, the only rock-ribbed certainty about today’s election is that the mainstream media will tell us something – after all, it’s what they’re paid to do.

Hopes that whatever we will be told might have some connection to what actually happened are merely naïve and betray no understanding of the principles that made mainstream media what it is today.

The most sacred of these principles is that no matter what, you gotta fill the space around the ads. If you don’t do that, you’ll lose audience, and losing audience means losing advertisers, which – steady yourselves for the unthinkable – means losing money.

Devotion to the Sacred Principle is what has driven the endless coverage of what amounts to two ho-hum governorships (New Jersey and Virginia) one gay marriage referendum (Maine) and the 23^rd Congressional District of New York, which no one, including many who lived there, had much noticed before.

In New Jersey, incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine of the Fat Wallet and Bald Pate is being challenged by Republican Chris Christie, who has hair and carries with him a memento of every donut in his life. An Independent, Christopher J. Daggett, is challenging both. Most popular sentiment seems to favor None of The Above, alas not on the ballot.

In Virginia, Republican Robert F. McDonnell seems to be running comfortably ahead of Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in a race that distinguishes itself in that unlike New Jersey, the winner might actually have the support of a majority of the voters.

And in that New York congressional race, the Republican withdrew to endorse her Democratic opponent after the full-moon madness of the Limbaugh/Palin GOP suggested that policy debates with Democrats would be squeezed out by time spent fighting off the RRR (Rabid Republican Right). To which Rush Limbaugh responded in elevated fashion by allegations of bestiality involving RINOs (Republicans In Name Only).

As for Maine, the legislature had earlier passed a law permitting gay marriage and the question on the ballot seeks to repeal that. Ayup.

All of which wouldn’t amount to much ad-padding, whether in print, on the air or on the web, assuming any of it was important enough to mention in a sane world, or even the mainstream media world.

So if there’s an election in your neck of the woods today, please go vote. Never mind the candidates or the issues. Even the mainstream media can’t tell us what your vote means if you don’t cast one.

Then learn the next day why you did what you did or didn’t do what you did or did what you didn’t because you wouldn’t or couldn’t as only the seers of the mainstream media can tell.

Bet you can hardly wait.

###

Moderate GOP Strategy Emerges

Move Over, Snail Darter!

Informed sources say moderate Republicans are giving serious consideration to a plan that would have the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declare them an endangered species.

The plan would have the Department of The Interior unit begin the long process that would protect embattled GOP moderates from predators, both human and Conservative Republican.

Rumors of the plan first surfaced when a moderate Republican candidate in New York’s 23^rd congressional district withdrew from the race and threw her support to the Democratic candidate in Tuesday’s election. State Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava decided to drop out when she found fellow Republicans favoring Conservative Party Candidate Doug Hoffman. She endorsed her former opponent, Democrat Bill Owens.

Scozzafava drew the attention of Conservative GOP predators by supporting abortion rights, union rights and gay marriage – sure-fire ways to attract Conservative Republicans on their nightly journeys from the 18^th century to feed.

Moderate GOP strategists found much to like in the Endangered Species Act strategy, which would allow them to mount defenses on several important fronts. Since the designation as an endangered species intends to preserve the unique qualities of a group, it would defend against moderate Republicans simply being absorbed by the Democrats.

Endangered Species Act designation would also help moderate Republicans defend their environment from the pollution spilling from Mount Limbaugh and other active brimstone-spouters.

Still, political observers were quick to point out that Endangered Species designation can take at least 18 months and often much longer, time that moderate Republicans don’t really have as they try to withstand repeated attacks from both Conservative Republicans and Liberal Democrats.

Besides the 23^rd district in New York, the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia are also up for grabs, as well as state referendums on gay marriage in Maine and on casinos in Ohio, all highlighting the dangers to another species, Mass Media Pundits. That breed of pundits feeds on controversial races, and in an election with few races of any sort, the lack of fodder is beginning to take its toll.

Observers say they are able to hear fewer and fewer pundits during the daily howl ritual, which must indicate that many are no longer able to feed.

While there has been talk of government intervention on the Mass Media Pundits’ behalf, many elected officials feel that this is a case where natural selection must be allowed a free hand.   

###