Tea Leaves

So it has finally arrived, the day we have all longed for -- ached for -- our chance to answer all of the insults, condescension, patronization, and abuse we have had to endure from those who supposedly work for us. It is our opportunity to get in their faces like we attempted to do at the town halls, rallies, and demonstrations but were rebuffed, sneered at, and ridiculed by the politicians and their hand maidens in the media.

We now queue up outside our polling places with our imaginary torches and pitchforks, mentally burning Obama, Reid, and Pelosi in effigy, waiting, waiting for the returns to roll in.

But there are two things troubling me on this glorious morning: How big will the massacre be and what will the spin be on November 3rd and beyond.

The first question will be answered in half a day. We will know if the left and the MSM suckered us into believing our own hype and/or was it enough to anger the opposition into showing up to stem the tide. One of the thoughts I have been wrestling with is that when Morris, Hannity, and all of the other conservative pundits go overboard in predicting 50, 50, 70, 80..even now 100 house seats, are they/we being deluded? Or, looking at it another way, are the commentators on the left merely feeding this frenzy in order to make any result less than 70 seats in the house seem like it was not Custer's Last Stand or The Bataan Death March?

As stated, we will know by this time tomorrow. And one supposes that, irrespective of the magnitude of Dem detritus swept our to sea, there will be some Dems saying/thinking "it coulda been worse" and breathing a sigh of relief.

But with that spin comes another: casting the newly elected members of Congress in the role of blockers of any progress whatsoever and saddle them and the Republicans as instigators of gridlock. The mantra is already starting over at your favorite cable news site:

Political gridlock is supposed to be good for business. If bickering lawmakers can't agree on anything, the thinking goes, they can't pass laws and regulations that make the economy worse.

So will the midterm elections, which are expected to leave Congress at least partially controlled by Republicans and squaring off against a Democratic White House, be a help to the economy?

Don't count on it.

A standoff between the Obama administration and emboldened Republicans will probably block any new help for an economy squeezed by slow growth and high unemployment. Congress might also create paralyzing uncertainty for investors and businesses by fighting over taxes, deficits, health care and financial regulation.

"We expect massive gridlock and little cooperation," writes Brian Gardner, Washington analyst for the financial firm Keefe, Bruyette, Woods.

This mantra will also be spiced up with the additional thought it was Tea Party petulance -- the product of unhinged racist wing nuts -- that unleashed these unthinking, reactionary politicians upon a Washington charged with the the task of doing the people's business. In massive payback for our trashing their darling Child Emperor and sullying their reputation as purveyors of truth and reason to an unwashed public, they will visit the guilt of our choices upon us again and again the next two years.

This is old news, of course. It has ever been thus. The late Peter Jennings fussed about the 1994 tsunami:

"Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It's clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It's the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week...Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words: the nation can't be run by an angry two-year-old."
-- ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings in his daily ABC Radio commentary, November 14.

..re-reading those words makes one wonder who really was throwing the tantrum.

Oh well, whatever happens today, be sure to vote and be of good cheer but keep you musket at the ready and power, and shot in goodly supply. This will not be Appomattox nor Yorktown. It will be more like the moments after the red coats fled off the common at Concord or the denouement of Pickett's charge. As Sir Winston Churchill said in his famous speech in November 1942:

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

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