Tarnished franchise

I voted in this election a week ago.

And, no, Rush, I didn't pull some sort of vote-fraud trick. Oregon elections are now done almost exclusively by mail. I don't think I've gone to an actual physical polling place for years. The ballot shows up, you spread it out on the kitchen table, scratch your head with the eraser end and you fill in the little ovals, then stuff it in the envelope and stick the stamp on (you think the State of Oregon is gonna pay for the postage? Shame on you, you tax-and-spend liberal, you) and you've exercised the franchise. You don't get the little sticker, but nothing comes without a price.

This year's ballot was notably free of freaks and whackos (unlike last year's special election where the idiot factor went to eleven). And, as always, there was no real "race" in any sense of the word. The Oregon Republicans are an utter shitshow; in thrall like the rest of their party to the Teatards and Christopaths in a state where oligarchic fucktardry and bible-belting are about as popular as the clap. Outside of the unpaved parts where the Morlocks clutch their Rugers and their Bibles it's a blue, blue Oregon, so I never feel like my vote really counts for much.

Another grain of sand on the beach, maybe. At least I voted against the piss-poor anti-GMO measure.

Thninking about this election perhaps the most depressing part of this entire electoral season here in the Beaver State has been the Strange Tale of Monica Wehby.

The linked article does a good job of detailing how this woman's candidacy - which, given her vita, should have been a strong one - fell apart. She seems like she had some real personal flaws that her party should have picked up on. But they're a shitshow, remember? So, yeah.

That's not the depressing thing. Here's the depressing thing; Wehby's stand on the "issues".

They are, per her website and in order:

"Jobs" - which are, apparently, a problem but not a problem because of the rapacity of financiers and rentiers, regulatory and fiscal policies that favor capital flight, offshoring, and outsourcing but because of "...needless red tape, mindless regulation, tax increases...top-down, government bureaucracy...and mandates that come out of Washington D.C." Republican, right? Plutocracy, good! Regulation, bad! To grok these gomers you gotta think like a damn third grader.

But that's the good part. Things go downhill from here.

"Term Limits" - since the best solution to a Congress that has largely either given away its authority or is paralyzed by Dr. Wehby's party's insistence that no government is better than letting the Kenyan Usurper actually govern is to ensure that the Congress is packed with political neophytes. Can't see how that'll go wrong.

"Guns" - This one is actually labelled "Constitution/2nd Amendment" but since the only specific part of the document specified is the one about the bullet-launchers I thought I'd just correct the header to reflect what this is supposed to say to the guntards.

"Health Care" - because our emergency rooms are SO Awesum, we don't need no Obamacare negro welfare handout!

Yeah, the actual text that's in there is different, but the actual text is so bizarrely freaking meaningless that it might as well be written in cuneiform. Here's the good doctor's position on "health care":

"Monica was a prominent opponent of the ACA in 2009, when Obamacare was rolling down the legislative track. She was enlisted to be in a television commercial that ran nationwide, warning people about the dangers of that bill. Monica got a lot of hate mail for that ad campaign and had to change her home phone number, but her warnings have come to pass."

Try and figure out what the fuck that means, if you dare. You note the lack of actual ideas on, you know, "health care"? Yeah, me, too. Basically it seems to mean that "Doctor" Wehby's position on "health care" is the GOP bog-standard issue; if you have no insurance, don't get sick. If you do get sick, die quickly.

I can't make anthing else out of that hot mess. Moving on...

"Veterans" - are SO Awesum! SO Awesum that Dr. Wehby will put the "needs and care" of these "brave men and women front and center". Absolutely, positively no kidding but did she mention that not to the point of unbalancing the budget (see below). Sorry, Joe, sorry, Molly, we have to "live within out means". Because...Greece!

"Balanced Budget" - because "(i)f we don’t do something to end this fiscal insanity our entire country will end up like Greece or Detroit!" Never mind that neither one has any similarity to the federal government (which this person is supposedly wanting to get involved in running) in that in the EU Greece doesn't control its financial destiny and neither does Detroit in the US...unlike the, you know, actual US.

More GOP nonsense, like comparing the US government - that can change its income by law - with a "household" where trying that with your employer would get you, like, fired. This is third-grader economics and the second-worst zombie idea in fiscal policy but beloved of GOP rank-and-filers so, there.

"Education" - abolish the Department of Education! Again, there's a bunch of other goofy verbiage, but Doc Wehby pretty much just wants to complain about the Feds getting all up in the grille of local schools telling them that they have to educate those damn negroes an' retards an' stuff. Oh, and Common Core!

"Foreign Policy" - Big Stick.

Seriously; Doc Wehby quotes Teddy as a way of saying that our troops are So Awesum! that we need to throw them large amounts of taxpayer cash. That's it; we're not even talking third-grade level here, we're down somewhere in the preschool years or on the backside of the planet Mongo or something. Based on this the woman needs to be kept away from anything even faintly resembling foreign policy, or foreign food, for that matter. What the hell she'd do with falafel is a horrifying thought.

"Natural Resources" - drill, baby, drill!

Again, the cuneiform reads

"We know how to strike the proper balance between meeting both our economic needs and our environmental responsibilities. But for some time, however, the natural resource policies coming out of Washington have been seriously out of balance and the result has been tragic for the state we love."

but you know as well as I do that for a Republican the "out of balance natural resource policies" that have been "coming out of Washington" are the ones that keep you and me from clearcutting the damn trees and damming the damn rivers and, shit, man, God gave us the fucking stewardship of Mother Earth and what the hell good is "stewardship" if you can't bend ol' Mom over when you're feelin' frisky and sink some shaft into that hot, gooey, natural resource-y goodness, amirite?

And that's it. That's all our supposed-Republican-Senator will do if we send her to D.C.; cut the funding for everything but aircraft carriers and petroleum subsidies and make sure that your basement arsenal is safe from the BATF.

Any concern about the going-to-hell condition of Oregon's highways and public buildings? Any interest in figuring out how Oregon's rural counties manage to stay in business? Any mention of Senatorial responsibility for keeping the nation out of fucking land wars in Asia? Or any other foreign affair other than hitting dusky heathens with a Big Stick?

Not just no but fuck no.

Of course not; the woman is a general-issue Republican. She could no more stake out a thoughtful position on things like taxation, inequality, public policy, foreign affairs, and social issues than she could show up at the New Century Club naked and do the haka.

This candidate's policy positions should have made her untouchable outside the lunatic Bircher Right and a handful of Oregon plutocrats. Given what she says she believes in she should legitimately get no more than, say, 12-15% of the vote - 20% at the very absolute outside, the same level of support that the really off-the-wall nutbar got last November.

But she won't. I'll bet you right now that she'll get damn near 45% of the popular vote; nearly half. The looney and filthy-rich 20%...and another damn-near-quarter of Oregonians who should know better than to vote for this lunatic Bircher.

Tomorrow we'll see if I'm right, but that means that damn near a quarter of adult Oregonians who should know better will have voted someone whose published beliefs would make their lives harder, meaner, and more chancy.

Mind you, it could be worse.

Hell, it IS worse - in Iowa the idiots there are going to elect a moron pig-deballer who believes that the UN wants to take away our golf courses and the climate change is a scam to make us wear sweaters.

Seriously. And that is the state of our nation circa 2014 where the best lack all conviction, while the worst are fucking bull-goose-looney whackadoodle nutbars who have not just their own opinions but their own facts. Even in Oregon, where the worst are among the best of the worst, they're still the worst.

And so many of Us the People insist on trying to make them our Masters.

We. Are. SO. Fucked.