Political thoughts

I watched Mike Murphy, a Republican political consultant, on MSNBC this morning - he said when Republicans ask him what he thinks about the fall Congressional elections, his response is "build an ark." Honestly, it bothers me a LOT less that McCain might win, knowing that the Dems are likely to make significant gains in Congress - I think that is likely to have a more lastly impact than a Democratic president. Though, of course, I would prefer both.

I'm particularly gleeful over the collapse of Karl Rove's vaulted "New Republican Majority." Ha! All partisan preferences aside, Americans do generally prefer progressive policies, like government regularion of the food industry, but they are distracted (quite deliberately) by rhetoric - patriotic, family values, whatever. And Americans do have more "conservative" tendencies in these areas (American exceptionalism, and so on), but that rhetoric is a lot less relevant to actually running the government than policy decisions are.

ADDENDUM

Well, shoot. My friend Mary pokes a big, gaping hole in my argument about Congress v. the presidency:

I would agree, except for the sticky question of Supreme Court justices. The President gets to choose, and it seems like even if we have a Dem Senate, they'll give in (they certainly gave in on Roberts, Alito, etc etc!). They have no backbone! I am excited about the prospects of getting more seats, but then I was so excited in 2006, and I am deflated - these damn Dems gave in to telecom immmunity on FISA, and pretty much everything else W has asked for, including huge funding for the Iraq war, and other than the brand new housing assistance bill, haven't passed much that's help to anyone.