Did Florida redeem itself last night? It depends. Yes, there were enough Homo Sapiens to put Obama over the top, but the Neanderthals won far too many local contests. The miserable bastards of Martin County Florida voted heavily Republican and no Democrat, including Barak Obama came anywhere close to winning. I'm at a loss to explain it.
This is a small county, much of which is rural and much of it is state and federal park land. It's a county that prides itself as conservation minded and it shows, A recent poll showed than nearly 90% of us favor slow and limited growth and many favor no growth at all, but it's a county that regularly -- invariable votes for councilmen owned and operated by rapacious developers. That is to say they vote Republican.
I've regularly been chastised for hinting that Sarah Palin isn't qualified. People bristle at any criticism of Bush, at any suggestion that there is any option for the voter than to go straight Republican. Wealthy people, upper middle class people; you can almost see the reptilian nictitating membrane blink over their eyes at the suggestion that there is no official state religion, that the Constitution does not mandate that people pledge allegiance to (the Christian) God and that we stamp our mandatory faith on our coinage.
Yes a slight majority of Floridians voted for Obama. Counties containing Universities, counties with a high African American population, even Miami-Dade with it's very large Cuban population voted for Obama, but not Martin County with it's relatively large population of billionaires and multi-multi millionaires and a very large number of retired military personnel. This county votes in lock step with the people of central Florida: the people in the rusted out trailers and tar paper shacks and dead cars in the yard.
These fine folks also passed a constitutional amendment banning any kind of same-sex domestic or civil contracts, even though Florida law already prohibits same-sex marriage. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that a State with such a diverse population would have such an affinity for small minded, authoritarian and puritanical politics, but I am and I'm disgusted.
Yes, Florida voted for Obama, but. . .
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8 comments:
i intend to get involved with fixing the election process. i don't know exactly how yet- but perhaps looking into how things are gerrymandered. sounds like ya'll could use some diversity :) and i know of what you speak- i lived in central florida as a child. i think transplanted northerners had an effect in florida and virginia this year :) but don't think i am moving anytime soon :)
Not all the transplants voted for Obama. In fact I know only one or two native Floridians. I'm the only Democrat at my yacht club and close to being the only one in several organizations I belong to.
Maybe it's something in the water. Not Flouride of course - that's a Commie plot, you know.
I didn't call Florida for Obama, so I'm grateful that I see it in the "blue" column this morning. But, like you, with all the great news I'm reading this morning, seeing the pendulum starting to swing back from its unnaturally long period of being "stuck" on the rightward swing, I see a lot of disappointment in the finer details of what yesterday "might" have produced. Still, it's a good day. I hope that destroying the Guantamano concentration camp becomes a network TV event... and that we get to see the White House door slam against Bush's backside on Jan 20.
(P.S. I have just copied/ pasted the phrase: "you can almost see the reptilian nictitating membrane blink over their eyes" into a MS Word Document so I can re-read it, memorize it, and use it regularly in the future. Too funny!!!
I too live an a heavily infested Republican County. I am not complaining though. I got one neighbor to see the light and vote for Obama. I also got the wife of my best man, to vote for Obama. One at a time. All you hope for, is that smart people start to open their eyes, and really use their Noggin.
It's a slow process, but I'll take it.
Enjoy the day. It feels like Christmas Day to me.
Tsu-Bama-Nami!!!!
MrSleep
It does feel like a holiday, doesn't it? But I still feel surreal - like one of those movies where almost everyone you see has been taken over by an alien and you can't trust anyone. Any minute I expect people I've known for years to strip off their human masks to reveal green, scaly, Republican faces.
I also live in a state that just passed a const. amendment "defining marriage"...
Such convenient language -- to disguise bigotry and ignorance.
In AZ there were already laws prohibiting it, but those devote christians had to make sure... I'm sure it was the "godly" thing to do -- in a country with higher child mortality than any other industrialized nation.
it ain't the water n it ain't aliens. it's mind cntrol using tried n tru mundane marketing methods dveloped on oh so appropriately named "mad ave".
http://phobizone.blogspot.com/2005/07/politicsmarketingteaching.html
It is mind control, but that's what religion is. Tyranny over the mind is what Jefferson called it.
I think same sex marriage is already illegal in Florida too, but his was to make sure that no other civil benefits to committed couples could be engineered using contracts.
Until I was a college senior interracial marriage was illegal in many states; for the same goddamn biblical reasons -- the same goddamn biblical reasons slavery was the Christian thing to do.
No, this country has a long way to go to redeem itself and if it ever does, it won't have anything to do with bible thumping bigots.
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