IDIOLOGY IS DEAD

Philosophy, idiology and partisanship is dead. The passion of the Obama campaign around "Change" and the classic social conservative free market McCain-Palen will be the last of it's kind. There will be no more passionate "Yes We Can" or "John McCain" chants coming from "followers" of the two ideological camps. Americans will listen to politicians in the coming elections with the arms crossed - asking only one question "Will you stop the spending or not?"

The basis for voting will now coalesce around one issue - too much spending by government costing us too much of our incomes. Very soon the political elections will turn on an entirely different axis - one of "tax payers verses the political class." Americans will fix it. The media will still chase after the professional politicians until voting day when they will stare at you through the TV and gasp "What happened!"

As California has done for 1/2 a century, it will start a new trend that will sweep the country and sweep incumbents (professional politicians) out of office. California - mind you! 65% of the voters in California - the ultimate "Nanny State" told their politicians (in the words of Shoeless Joe Jackson in the fill "Field of Dreams") to STICK IT! Here's commentary from a blogger who lives in California.

My kids (the 20-40 age group) will fix it. They are not victims of the 60's war-baby fix it with government money crowd. The "causes" will dry up. It's all about the money now. Americans will fix it - the new younger ones must lead. Through the bums out!

The election was yesterday. There were two results, one very bad and rather stupid, the other rather bad and very stupid.

The first is that California voters rejected all the propositions, in every case by a “No” vote of 63-66%. (The only exception was a final proposition which bars legislative pay raises during budget-deficit years. California legislators are actually reasonably well-paid, and it’s one of the few states that keeps pace with inflation, but even so, annual increases add up to well under $2 million total; the proposed 2009-2010 budget is over $111 billion. Yes, the entire state went to the polls to vote on a cost-savings measure that comes to less than two thousandths of a percent of the budget, or, if you like, less than one-one hundredth of a percent of the projected budget deficit, while refusing measures totaling about a quarter of the projected deficit.) Every major elected official, from both parties, had campaigned heavily to pass the budget-gap referendums, but they were polling strongly negative before the election; the defeat was not unexpected, but it’s a huge problem. It’s just not conceivable what the state is supposed to do now. The voters won’t raise taxes, they won’t even raise lottery revenue (after first voting in the lottery as a - stupid, fraudulent, and regressive - way to avoid taxes to begin with). They won’t cut programs. They won’t shift money between programs. They won’t borrow money. They won’t save money. What the fuck do they expect their state government to do?

We might pause for a moment, here, to recall that these are the same voters who signed petitions requiring a $70 million special election to recall the previous governor, only three months after they voted him into office, and elect Schwartzenegger, because that governor also couldn’t balance the budget. (Turns out it’s not so easy, is it, Arnie?) These, again, are the same voters who - at Schwartzenegger’s insistence - also approved a recent referendum requiring balanced budgets. (Turns out just saying so doesn’t make it so, does it, Arnie?) The problem won’t go away just because stupid people voted to blame someone for it. Now the same stupid people have voted to refuse to do anything about it, while simultaneously voting to actively make it worse. It’s just unimaginable - there’s talk that the state could default on its bonds, which would put it in banana-republic financial territory. Schwartzenegger says he might cut the school year, fire tens of thousands of schoolteachers, and sell San Quentin prison in order to raise money!