Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Owen Paine sez on 05.20.12 @16:14:
...yes the ever more empty "fatal center "
where all hope plunges down and down toward citizen despair
and corporate joy

Not that I'm a big fan of citizen despair and corporate joy, but there's a cartoon in there somewhere, likely involving a metaphorical Abyss of some sort.

Meanwhile... this may be only marginally on-topic, but there was a simultaneously exhilarating and nauseating op-ed in the Washington Pravda... uhh, Post this morning by some guy named Matt Miller -- a chattering head on NPR, on a gabfest called Left, Right, and Center -- headlined After Americans Elect, We Still Need A Bolder Vision. Miller craps on nearly a third of a page pissing and moaning about how Americans Elect has collapsed for now, after failing to astroturf a "third party" centrist candidate into the current Presidential freak circus.

I couldn't get more than a quarter of the way into it before I was forced to throw it back into the recycling bucket, simultaneously elated by the implosion of Americans Elect and revulsed by Miller's cheerleading for their butt-naked astroturfing pretending to be a third-party movement.

Yeah, that's right, pretty much every time a Post op-ed has caught my attention, it's because a word or phrase of interest has jumped off a page as I was tossing that day's edition into the the recycling pile. I snatched today's op-ed off the pile after spotting the name "Americans Elect" on the page, as I'd always been interested in the doings of Americans Elect in much the same way as I was interested in the doings of Evel Knievel back when I was in high school (as in "wow, guys, y'think he'll really plow himself this time?").

Miller's column was pure meadow muffin, but the news of Americans Elect doing its Challenger imitation really did me good.

Next up: No Labels!

that no labels toon
for me at least
is a four bagger

fluggen-knockworst my boy

the ameri-cans s'elects band wagon
tumbling endlessly down the center aisle abyss sounds about right

show some rim watchers with big ears and trunks making oliphanty cracks

op sez on 05.21.12 @08:28:
fluggen-knockworst my boy

show some rim watchers with big ears and trunks making oliphanty cracks...

Well, I was thinking more of a symbolic Donkey arcing halfway over the Gaping Abyss Of The Center, just as he's beginning to fall, one hand outstretched as if "reaching out across the partisan divide" (or some shit), having a Wile E. Coyote Moment -- you know how Wile E. Coyote is able to continue running madly past the edge of a tall mesa, magically suspended in the air, until it suddently dawns on him that he's waaaaaaayyy out there in the air all by himself, and instantly begins plummeting to the highway below? Well, kind of like that. And, yeah, an elephant standing not at the edge of the Abyss, but a substantial distance back, leaning forward with an outstretched hand, also as if Reaching Out Across The Partisan Divide.

Jeezus, that's a lot of writing up there. Actually, the image in my mind right now is much more simple and elegant; trust me.

sounds more like a tar pit lure then
an abyss slip
as you conceive it
fine

the donkeys demise in the abyss
would be only too welcomed

alas only idiotic political figments
like a fatal center "party"
actually plunge into the abyss

the americans elect band wagon ?
once the fools career over the edge and down and down

the center aisle t slowly closes over the gap
so donkeys and elephants can dance or tussle
among each other without limits or limitations

the center aisle
dance floor
or no contact grapple mat

its there for both performances

There's a crisis of governance because there's an unbridgeable gap between the polarized parties. How will we ever cut the deficit so that we don't yoke future generations with government debt? And how will we restore civility to the national conversation? I think this is going to take some hard sacrifices and adult behavior from both sides. WHO will be OUR David Broder?

it is said his sect is rich
and godly

evidently pure as well

raskob and mellon
were perfectly
convinced

As they pocketed
WORKING CLASS
VALUES

yet to be other
than circa
golden pond

Americans Elect died because it couldn't muster support beyond Miller, Mustache Friedman, and Great Broder's Ghost.

As most are unfamiliar

Golden Pond [KY] was home to
the best moonshine

ever produced on this planet
precisely pure
150 hot and
smooth

after decades of crisis and near crisis
legitimacy fades

new forms evensuch as op's
arise