YOU HAD TO KNOW IT WAS COMING . . . AND IT DID

So, the Republicans have taken control of the Senate . . . and in a big way.  Talking heads now will speculate about what that means, blow lots of hot air (and even more bullshit), and in the end will say little of importance.  You had to know it was coming, but what will it change?  Not much.  Gridlock will still be the order of the day with Congress passing measures the President will veto.  Forget about Congressional override of the vetoes 'cause that's not likely to happen.  The shoe is now on the other foot with Democrats having to become an obstructionist party, something the Republicans are very good at.  Democrats are less proficient at obstruction, but they'll likely toe the line and do fairly well at it.  What changes come about will be minor.

Second term presidents are often faced with the same thing now facing Obama. In many ways, he's been facing it all along . . . the frustration of trying to lead his own divided party and at the same time deal with a right wing dominated Republican party.  We'll never know if he would've made a good President; all we know at this point is that he hasn't been.  The divisions won't end with this Republican victory in Senate races, might even grow more intense.  If you are a Republican, the victory gives you some cause to feel confident that you can be even more of a thorn in Obama's side, and in the side of Democrats who are now in the scramble mode.  They just took a serious ass-kicking, so now it's time to do some self evaluation . . . and that will cause some real squabbles within their ranks.  If they don't make some adjustments, they're looking at another loss in the 2016 elections.

This could be a good thing for Democrats in the long run.  They need to change, and that's a fact.  They need to forget the Clintons and Bidens and any other old school candidates and start looking for people who can deal with a rejuvenated Republican party.  I don't see anybody in their ranks at the moment who can pull that off other than Brian Schweitzer, former governor of Montana.  He's a moderate to right kind of Democrat, a practical man who is often a critic of his own party.  He can run against a Republican candidate and at the same time run against Obama, and that's what the next election is going to come down to.  Obama has been disastrous to Democrats, and that should be obvious by now.  Since Schweitzer has been a critic all along, he's tailor made as a candidate who can run for office promising change . . . and I think that's what voters are going to want.  The answer to our problems isn't going to the right, to the hard line Republicans.  They never have been able to run government.  But voters need a choice other than either the left leaning Democrats or the right leaning Republicans.  We need someone in the middle because that's where most reasonable thought comes from . . . and never from the extremes.

THE GOOD RACE: CHRISTIE VS. SCHWEITZER

I've been both a Republican and a Democrat, and in that order.  I quit the Republican Party back in 1992 when Bill Clinton ran for President, haven't voted for one since . . . in any election.  To make a long story short, the Republicans pissed me off when they allowed the right wing fundamentalists to take over their party.  I swore then to never vote for anyone with the big R behind their name again, and I haven't.  But if Chris Christie runs for President in 2016, and the Democrats come up with another candidate like Obama, I will break that vow, bite down hard, take a deep breath, and vote for Christie.  The only thing that will change my mind is if Brian Schweitzer wins the Democratic nomination, in which case I'll probably stay with the dumocrats and vote for him.  I might have to think hard about it, though, 'cause at the moment I don't see a lot of difference between the two men. Schweitzer looks like a moderate to right leaning Democrat, and Christie looks like a moderate to left leaning Republican.  I like both men.

I'll cut Obama some slack when it comes to his mediocre performance as President because he had one helluva mess to clean up when he took office.  I'm not sure anybody could've fixed all the problems left by the Bush bunch when they left town.  We were left with too many Republicans still in office, plenty enough to keep screwing things up.  Put plainly, right wing Republicans could fuck up a one car funeral procession, much less a highly complex government.  If I end up voting for Christie, I'll have to overcome some deep-seated resentments toward his party, but I think he's capable of bringing about some change.  The same is true of Brian Schweitzer.  He's not a mainstream Democrat, and that's what I like about him.  He too could bring about change in the country, and in his own party.

You can bet the liberal leaning Democrats will fight Schweitzer's candidacy, as will the right leaning Republicans who'll fight Christie's run for the Presidency.  I'm hoping lots of Americans are like me, sick to death of both sides - the extreme left and the extreme right.  Liberals tend to be naive, out of touch with what's practical and achievable.  Conservatives are limited by narrow mindedness, sort of a brain freeze when it comes to critical thinking.  And if you can't think, you can't run anything.  It's hard to lead anything when you're systematically limited by an obstructionist stance, and if there's anything Republicans do well, it's obstruct.  It's likewise difficult to lead if you work from a stance of considering too many options.  That's another brain freeze thing, I think - not being able to decide what to do, which way to go.  Liberals tend to struggle with that.

I loved Harry Truman because he was a practical man - perhaps not the brightest President we ever had, but he didn't get bogged down by either restrictions brought about by not being able to see the problem (Republicans) or by seeing too much of it (Democrats).  Bill Clinton had that quality about him, some of that Truman practicality.  And I'm seeing some of that in both Christie and Schweitzer, and so far, I like what I see.  I'm not optimistic at this point that either man can win the nominations of their parties, but I hold out some hope it might happen.  For once in my life, I'd like to vote in a Presidential election where either candidate would be acceptable to me.  Maybe that's just a dream.