By Andrew Ripemoff
As we lick our wounds today, we libertarian-minded conservatives recognize the overwhelming global celebration of joy accompanying the election of Barack Obama. And whether we want to admit it or not, it was a truly historic landslide. From young to old, black to white, it seems EVERYONE went into that voting booth unified and ready to anoint the Chosen One.
Well, not everyone. Roughly half the country, 56 million Americans, do not want him in office. But you get my point.
We’re here to celebrate today. We’re not going to whine, moan, or move to Canada. Why? Because we are patriots. Because we love our country. Because we don’t have updated passports.
So we will be respectful to the office and offer our congratulations to President-elect Obama. And while we look forward to his promise of the planet healing, and the waters receding, we’ve driven past Cherry Creek Reservoir recently, and frankly, we haven’t noticed a change at all.
But we’ll give him time because this is a historic occasion. Personally speaking, I was moved at the election night bash in Chicago. Especially afterward. As a white man, sitting there on my couch, seeing Joe Biden walk out onto that stage, my heart swelled with pride at seeing a European-American reach the second highest office in the land. Tears streamed down my face as I thought about our struggle, and what the historic election of Biden as VP meant to my people.
FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! We interrupt this column for an important:
MARK UDALL’S JEAN SIZE UPDATE.
Our new Senator-elect wears size 34 jeans in length. This according to Rocky Mountain News political reporter Lynn Bartels, who broke the news in a gushing November 5th article.
"But what about his WAIST size?" you ask. "We demand to know Mark Udall’s waist size!" Have no fear.
Bartels is on the case. Size 34 in the waist too, she reports. So just to recap: the Rocky Mountain News is reporting that Senator-elect Udall is now wearing size 34 jeans in the length and in the waist. Further details when they become available.
Bartels’s colleague, Mike Littwin, was also full of essential insight post-election. Reporting from Chicago, the wordsmith described the historic transformation:
"We were in one place one moment. We are in another the next."
A clunky sentence? Yes. But I can’t decide if he’s trying to describe Obama’s victory, or recall a wild night spent eating mushrooms. The flowery praise continued:
"We followed Obama, or maybe Obama followed us, through a door, and now there’s no going back."
(See what I mean about the mushrooms?)
But no Mike, we didn’t follow anybody. YOU followed. You followed your way through a door - a door that led you into a mythical room known as "Poor Writing." And now, based on your most recent column, there is no going back.
Meanwhile, The Denver Post was much more subdued. In their typical nuanced manner, the editorial headline proclaimed:
"Nation Rides a Wave of Hope."
As in: "I hope he doesn’t raise my taxes too much," or "I hope he doesn’t appoint William Ayers as Secretary of Homeland Security."
There were even signs of hope found in the homeland of Obama’s father, where a villager in the town of Kogelo, Kenya, honored the new president by slaughtering a cockrel. And if you think this is strange, then you have obviously never been to Boulder County Democratic headquarters.
Back in Colorado, there were sacrifices of a different kind. Bill Ritter and state Senator Jennifer Veiga didn’t kill any cockrels, but they did slaughter Bernie Buescher’s political career.
In fact, the governor’s illegal property tax hike has actually turned into a political gift: it’s a bill that won’t ever become enacted into law, yet the vote for it helped cost Buescher his seat. Politically speaking, has there ever been a worse piece of legislation? I mean, besides SB-200?
Yet Ritter doesn’t get all the credit for Buescher’s demise. Based on his recent involvement, the Colorado Republican Party should give Tim Gill an award.
Gill donated $100,000 to a slimeball 527 group called "Colorado Values" which ran ads against Buescher’s opponent that were so offensive, it sparked a backlash. The ads accused Buescher’s opponent, Laura Bradford, of not caring about victims of breast cancer. The fact that Bradford is a breast cancer survivor apparently didn’t come up during ad brainstorming sessions. Anyhow, Metlife, Comcast, and the Colorado Automobile Dealers are also contributors to this 527, just in case you’re wondering who’s sponsoring those nausea-inducing political ads.
The lesson for Gill? The next time you blanket Western Colorado with a 4-inch thick layer of $100 bills, you may want to make sure your ad agency doesn’t piss off the voters. Because while folks in Grand Junction appreciate having rich arrogant Denver millionaires from outside the district force their opinions on them, the locals sort of prefer to make their own voting decisions.
But Buescher wasn’t the only liberal loss. Ritter’s Amendment 58 tax hike crashed too. As did the proposed Tabor-gutting Amendment 59, which he also endorsed (a measure that was the brainchild of Dem Golden Boy Andrew Romanoff). In fact, you sort of get the feeling that if Bill Ritter endorsed a ballot measure proclaiming: "The world is round," it would probably fail.
Still, the Obama victory may portend great things for our governor. Even if he was coy about his future plans in an Obama administration.
"Yes, I can confirm that I was offered a job" said the governor. "Although it is a great honor to be asked, I told the President-elect that I already have a job, and that I did not want to work as a copy repairman in the basement of the Department of Health and Human Services."
So even though it’s a day of sadness, the world will go on. And so will the Obama administration, which leads us to ask several important questions:
- Since President-elect Obama wants to spread the wealth around, can we demand it start with Tim Gill?
- Can we expect Udall to tell one of his love-struck reporter friends: "You know that pro-drilling stance I took before the election? I was just kidding about that."
And finally,
- If a candidate bases his campaign on "Hope," yet he spends $650 million on ads trying to destroy a true American hero like John McCain, can we have doubts about that sort of candidate?
Yes we can!