Stickybuffalo.com

Okay, it’s here. Or, at least, the election which is the one genuine substantive event at the end of more than a year of posturing and jockeying and godawful TV ads is, at last, now less than one calendar year out. Indeed, a mere ten more months of this horse-race horse-shit and we’ll be home free, probably pining away for all the fun and excitement.

At least, if we happen to be political “journalists” who apparently genuinely do savor this grotesque farce known otherwise as the American presidential campaign.

For everyone else, how about one post to take stock of the prospects, as realistically as possible this far in advance. And then, ideally, just tuning it all out (again, as much as possible) for several more months.

First of all, the Republican nominee for president will be Mitt Romney. I don’t think this even really qualifies as a “prediction” at this point, so much as an observation. Romney will be the nominee, obviously, and all the chatter about other “possibilities” can be ignored. Who is actually a credible threat to defeat Romney at this point? How can anyone else in the race be taken remotely seriously when, even setting aside their own inherent clownishness, we’ve now been through months of one rival candidate after another popping in the polls, reigning as a nine-day-wonder, and then sinking back to irrelevancy. Bachmann, then Perry, then Cain who was such a complete cartoon by himself as should have put an end to anyone taking these wannabes seriously… and in any event, by that point the pattern was so obvious that people could (and did) make a ridiculous suggestion like “Newt Gingrich will probably be next,” and be proven right.

(more…)

Okay, let’s establish one basic, rock-solid point as the 2012 presidential campaign can now begin in (calendar-based) earnest.

Further empowering Republicans will not help. Period. Any commentary on contemporary American politics which ignores, fudges or contradicts this reliably-proven fact is simply engaged in imaginary make-believe, and should be disregarded completely.

This is not hyperbolic bias or partisan propaganda, this is a realistic description of the one entirely-safe given among all the variables of our society’s political options. This is certainly not spite-driven wishful thinking on my part; I don’t like the implications of this reality and wish that it were otherwise, but wishing won’t make it so.

And this is not an assertion that we, therefore, have no alternative but re-electing Barack Obama, nor is it an assertion that doing so would, by itself, automatically help with any of our nation’s challenges either. Those points are debatable, at best. The idea that America can achieve any kind of progress on its varied grievances by further empowering the Republican party of 2012, however, is just plain delusional.

The only possible exception is of very specific and exclusive relevance, limited to the modern Republican party’s very small real constituency of corporate barons and well-connected profiteers. They may experience significant benefits from giving more power to Republicans, though even that’s questionable at this point; in any event punditry or “analysis” which discusses the prospect of further empowering Republicans outside of an explicit context of this limited constituency will be nothing but noisy, unreal disinformation. (more…)

Y’know the speaker of the House? Yeah, that guy Boehner. Right.

Well apparently it may actually be more accurate to pronounce it “boner” after all, in light of this lovely little story from the PD today.

Public records show that a top aide to U.S. House Speaker John Boehner was making the key decisions on Ohio’s redistricting process during backroom meetings in a downtown Columbus hotel room.

The public records, which were released by the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting as part of a report entitled, “The Elephant in the Room,” show that Tom Whatman, executive director for Team Boehner, Boehner’s political team, was calling the shots on how to configure Ohio’s new congressional districts.

The records also show an exchange in which

[Ohio] Senate President Tom Niehaus, a New Richmond Republican, is discussing changes to the congressional map sought by two members of his Senate leadership but assures Whatman that Boehner will get the map that he wants. “I am still committed to ending up with a map that Speaker Boehner fully supports.

Oh, nice. Nice. I’m not sure what impact this will have on the GOP map and Democrats’ efforts to block it. But this definitely can’t hurt our cause, or help theirs…