Stop Me Before I Vote Again

But why should anybody else want a donkey win?

So the Republicans lose -- to punish Bush/Cheney -- toss the bums out.

I used to like that idea. After all, it's about as close as you get to ye olde chopping block, round these parts; and over a few in-and-out cycles, at least both party elites come to respect the fury of the electorate.

We done just that in my youth -- we forced out LBJ and Nixon through extra-electoral means -- and then the ballot box took over and whacked Ford and Carter.

A nice run, eh? But where'd it end -- with sir Ronnie of the runny red dye, Ronnie the master of unstately greed manor.

Now chop chop chop, its nothing rare -- the Poles seem to have been into a one-try-and-you're out bit, ever since the Stalinoid curtain fell. But this one-trick pony will never be enough by itself, as the Reagan counter-reformation proved so well. If the whole damn deal is drifting right, tossing one party out for the other just makes the swing of the tick-tock tighter. If you set a course to hell, and along the way move into ever tighter zig-zags -- by my plane geometry, that only gets you to the fiery furnace all the faster.

If we want to break out of this ever-narrowing corridor to Hades, we need a bust-out strategy, and a party that wants to win every race every time can't bust out of its own barf bag, let alone chart a 180-degree course back home.

Want a sea change? Want a major shift in the power balance between contending social groups? Well, that'll take a catastrophic event, nothing less. My best guess, if you give the party of Reagan rollback and reaction enough rope -- yes, 4, 8, 12 more years of Dick Cheney (nothing in the constitution says we can't have the same veepire till he croaks ) -- give him enough running room, and boom! we'll have a blowout that'll make Hooverville look like Scarsdale.