wherefore art thou mccain, circa 2000?

there have been a number of things in politics that have been bothering me recently. they mostly have something to do with limbaugh.

first off...why in the world is the democrat party backing an ad that labels limbaugh as the de facto leader of the republicans? i listen to him every day (for comedic relief) and can tell you that he is not the leader. sure, he has a lot of blindly loyal followers. but he's not interested in actual politics. he's just interested in making money. (almost every story he talks about is a segue to one of his sponsors. after the 08 elections he said republicans should've bought lifelock because their identity had been stolen. ) personally, i don't think he believes half of what he says. if he were really interested in "bringing conservativism back", he would run for office. instead he chooses to sit behind his mic and blab about how hard it is for republicans. that's where the money is. i don't blame him....i'm lazy too, if i got paid millions of dollars to talk and only take calls from those who agree with me, i would do that too...instead of actually being the change i talked about. (my apologies to ghandi)

secondly....it's scary the misinformation he's spewing and his followers are gobbling up. (notice i said followers, not republicans. not all republicans are dumb enough to follow him. it's true, i know them) he said that obama is failing because the economy hasn't recovered. now, i'm not an expert at economics....not even an economic hobbiest. (is that a word? i dunno....stay with me though) but i know that it takes more than a month to turn the economy around. he mentions how far the dow has dropped since the election....but fails to mention how that avalanche had already started in september. bush was president and mccain had the perceived edge because of palin. am i the only one who has a problem with that?! rhetorical question, i know i'm not. it also bothers me that he says he wants obama to fail. i was never a fan of bush, but i never wanted him to fail. i never wanted the iraq war to fail. i hoped against hope that bush hadn't led us into a war for nation-building purposes. even when it became clear...i didn't want the troops to fail. i may be the lone leftist who says that, but i don't care. failure on those levels mean loss of lives. who the hell wants people to die, especially for a baseless war?

the failure that limbaugh wants obama to have means loss of jobs, money and would bring about civil unrest. do people not realize that a functioning society needs a middle class?? if we were to continue down the unregulatory road we're on, all of the middle class would become lower class as the rich became richer. do they need to crack open a history book to know what happens when the majority of the population is poor? i'll save them the effort: they riot. they loot, riot and threaten the rich. this is why pure, unadulterated capitialism doesn't work. you need programs in place that will keep a happy, sizeable middle class.

fdr knew that. he funded government programs that gave jobs to the unemployed. that's how we got the hoover dam. should we stop the electricity flow from the dam because it's a product of the government? i wonder how that would go over in the west. not well, i imagine.

to end this long winded rant, i will say that i'd like to see the republican party reform itself. the neocons hijacked your party and appeals to the lowest common denominator now through wedge issues and inflammatory speech. please become a party with intellectuals again. don't hold palin up as your idol. please find someone smart with something to say (not bobby jindal. you don't want kenneth the page running your party) please become a worthy opponent again. 2008 was too easy. don't make 2010 the year you effectively become over-ripe roadkill.