The 2012 Presidential Election…The Day After

I took yesterday off to run errands, vote, and relax. One day away, and my inbox went from empty to full. Not as daunting as the day I returned from a week long vacation, but still…full. Maybe that’s why I hardly take my PTO (personal time off) days. The dread of facing my inbox. 🙂

I made good on my commitment. Donuts for the office and warehouse, just like four years ago, to celebrate Obama’s victory. The new director said, “Obama donuts? I’ll pass.” Then, I heard he had one later. Mmm hmm. The CFO, who was there when he said that, interjected, “Who cares? It’s donuts!!” Ahahaha. Non partisan! Anyway, it was a nice treat for everyone…especially the guys and gals back there who don’t make that much more than minimum wage. Plus, I bought the donuts from a small business owned by Cambodian immigrants. For some reason, Cambodians own a lot of the donut shops in the Bay Area. Money well spent. I made people happy, supported a small business, and stimulated the economy!

It took a while for everything to sink in. I was on Cloud 9 last night…after being on pins and needles for the last month or so. When Ohio was still “too close to call” I was on edge. And the Blue Moon beer I was drinking wasn’t taking that edge off. Then, I heard it. He won Ohio, and the networks called it. Obama was reelected and is the 44th President of the United States. Big sigh of relief…until Romney wasn’t prepared to concede because Ohio was too close.

Karl Rove was writing like a mad man on FOX and asking the network to rescind the call. One of the anchor ladies went back to the numbers guys who stood by their call. Wow, that was awkward.

It was about an hour and a half before Romney conceded. The reporter at the Romney campaign said he only had an acceptance speech written. Man, that guy has some balls. I guess he took that 90 minutes to write his concession.

I am absolutely and positively relieved. The American people saw through this liar. One of my favorite Conservative blog friends Terrance at Tocqueville’s Muse said this about Romney:

“Mitt Romney is a solid businessman, a good person, and a real leader. But liberals managed to paint him as the quintessential evil capitalist.”

I respectfully disagree. Mitt Romney is not a good person. He is a bad person, and I saw right through him from the beginning.

• A good person does not physically bully a classmate by pinning him down and cutting his hair just because he’s different (gay).
• A good person doesn’t mess with his staff’s heads by giving them different bonuses just to keep them on edge.
• A good person doesn’t coldly walk away from a dying person who asks him about medical marijuana.

He’s not a good person, and no one can convince me otherwise. Maybe people have him confused with his father, George Romney, who was a great person. I guess, in this case, “Compassionate Conservatism” skips a generation.

Now that America has chosen Obama to finish the job he started four years ago, the real work begins. The fiscal cliff is fast approaching. Gitmo is still open. Soldiers and innocent civilians are still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. Liberals like myself are going to keep pushing him on these issues.

A lot of the issues, especially the looming fiscal cliff, will need to be dealt with in a bipartisan manner. John Boehner said that he was willing to work with Obama. I’m skeptical given their history of obstructionist actions. However, if he is sincere, then I hope they do work together. There is going to have to be some give and take.

One of the places where they can start is taking a good hard look at the bipartisan Simpson Bowles Plan. At least look at it with an open mind. See it as a starting point, which is good because they don’t have to start from scratch. Both sides need to do something to avert another recession.

As they talk about working together, I’m going to take this opportunity to rest up a bit from the hell that was the 2012 election season. I’m happy we were able to stop the train wreck that was Mitt Romney. I liked that despite all of that Super PAC money, the Koch Brothers and the like could not buy the election. It reminded me of 2010 when Meg Whitman spent $150M of her own money and lost.

The fact that billions were spent on this campaign is disgusting. That money could have helped real people. I listened to Karel Saturday night before the election as I waited in the drive through line for my cheeseburger and fries. I liked what he said – keep campaigning to one month before the election. Other countries do this. I’m sure everyone in all the swing states will be on board with this one. I think there should be a spending cap too.

Anyway, the election is over, and I’m happy. Even though I’m a political junkie, I’m spent. This election made my head almost spin off completely. Time to relax and celebrate because sooner rather than later, I know I’ll be putting on the boots to wade through the crap that is US Politics.

Mitt Romney and My Crack-Like Addiction to Politics

I’m trying to unspin my head tonight. I don’t know what it is about politics. I was waiting for my partner at the dentist office. I told myself, “no more politics” as I perused his magazines. Most were Time magazines, and I focused on finding the rag that would keep my mind off of the election. Us Weekly with “Housewives tell Us Teresa’s Dirty Secrets” splashed on the cover. Perfect. The Real Housewives of New Jersey is my guiltless pleasure. I read the article happily, which of course didn’t take long. I looked for other Us issues after I was done flipping through the pages filled with fashion and celebrities. It was welcome fun and fluff.

And then there it was. Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital on the cover of Rolling Stones magazine. Like a true junkie, I just had to pick it up and read it. I wasn’t able to finish it because my partner was done, so what do I do when I get home? Before eating dinner, I find the article online and read the rest of it. Where is the nearest Politics Anonymous meeting?

The author, Matt Taibbi, talks about what Bain Capital was all about – taking over companies were struggling. What “happened” to the companies wasn’t their concern. They could go bankrupt, and Bain Capital would still get paid. All that was a given and not surprising.

What shocked me, though, was how good a guy Mitt’s dad was. The article touched on it briefly, saying how George Romney was one who “nurtured communities.” I did a little research on George Romney on Wikipedia. He was nothing like his son.

• “Romney successfully appealed to the Federal Housing Administration to make housing available to black workers near the Ford Willow Run plant.”
• “By 1950, Romney was a member of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, and criticized racial segregation in Detroit’s housing program when speaking before the Detroit City Council.”
• “However, whenever he felt his salary and bonus was excessively high for a year, he gave the excess back to the company.” I nearly choked reading this one.
• “After initial wariness, he developed a good relationship with United Automobile Workers leader Walter Reuther, and AMC workers also benefited from a then-novel profit-sharing plan”.
• “Romney was one of only a few Michigan corporate chiefs to support passage and implementation of the state Fair Employment Practices Act”.

After snapping out of my crush on George Romney, my first question was, “What the hell happened to Mitt?” My sister and I talked about this before. Mitt suffers from “spoiled rich kid” disease. Everything was handed to him, unlike his dad who struggled. That makes sense. It’s hard for Mitt to sympathize, and empathy isn’t even possible because doesn’t know what it’s like. That’s why he says things like, “Borrow money if you have to from your parents” when he talks to college students. I don’t think the idea that their parents don’t have the money to lend crossed his mind.

Of course, the article also gives me more insight into Mitt, the man.

“Over the years, colleagues would anonymously whisper stories about Mitt the Boss to the press, describing him as cunning, manipulative and a little bit nuts, with “an ability to identify people’s insecurities and exploit them for his own benefit.” One former Bain employee said that Romney would screw around with bonuses in small amounts, just to mess with people: He would give $3 million to one, $3.1 million to another and $2.9 million to a third, just to keep those below him on edge.”

Another great quality to have in a president. Screwing people…and screwing with people’s heads…just because he can.

This is just great It’s two weeks from the election, but it’s going to feel like the longest two weeks ever. I’ll be on pins and needles, just like in 2008.

Frankly, I’m tired. I’m tired of lying jerks (yeah I said it) like Mitt Romney taking up space in my head. I’m tired of being scared that a high school bully (who never grew out of it) might become the President of the United States. I’m tired of learning new, repugnant things about him that make me loathe him more. I’m just tired.

In two weeks, I can exhale. Until then, I’ll be mentally marking the days off the calendar and unspinning my head here. It’s going to get messy.