2006 Elections

Well, the Dems won the House and the Senate (recounts notwithstanding.) I guess I should come clean and say that I am a conservative, more Libertarian then Republican, but if there are no decent Libertarians, then I almost always vote Republican. Needless to say, I am disappointed with the results of the election, but not at all surprised. The Republicans didn't give anyone any reason to vote for them, and the Dems had the best sales pitch at all-- they weren't Republicans.

So our real choice was either to vote for Republicans, or to vote for something that wasn't (we're not sure what it is, but they seem to like taxation.) I actually voted straight Liberatarian (except I voted for Kinky Friedman for governor-- I liked the idea of a cigar smoker in office.) Texas is red through and through, so I knew I wouldn't be hurting anyone much, sadly, really-- I wished I could make the GOP hurt, you know, like if I was living in Missouri or something. The bastards dropped the ball on spending, immigration, tax reform, social security reform and energy policy. An idiot could run the War in Iraq, as evidenced by the idiots we already had running it. Sure, the economy is good, but that rarely has to do with a president and is mostly cyclical in nature.

(Note: Granted, government getting out of the way, in the form of lower taxes, always helps. But the GOP lowered taxes and made the tax code more convoluted, more confusing and more full of loopholes. The Dems always got it wrong on that-- tax cuts help everyone, but the tax loopholes benefit only the very rich. Ask Teddy Kennedy.)

So what the GOP did do right, it did right in the worst possible way, and what it did wrong it did wrong in the most spectacular way.

The fact is that the Republicans deserved to lose, and the Democrats won by default (because that's the way our two-party system works.)