Now That the Fur Has Settled a Bit

Two days have passed since the election and the glow of satisfaction is just beginning to fade.

The world appears to approve of the U.S. election result with the most common sentiment I’ve heard being something along the lines of “it’s about time you guys came to your senses.”

The economic woes haven’t miraculously repaired themselves however and that appears to be what will be dominating Obama’s time for the foreseeable future.

In very late breaking election news, North Carolina has gone into the Obama column while Missouri and the second district of Nebraska are back in the “beats the heck out of us” category although McCain leads in both. That makes the current totals Obama – 364, McCain – 162, Too close to Call – 12.

Clearly Barack is not expecting everyone to get in a circle and sing Kumbaya given his appointment of Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff. Emmanuel is a “make it happen” kind of guy. If at first you don’t agree with him, he’ll drag you kicking and screaming over to where you need to be.

Over on the Republican side the persecution of the innocent has begun and the morons are emerging from the woodwork. The persecuted innocent is Sarah Palin who, while she may not have been much of a help, certainly shouldn’t shoulder the lion’s share of the blame for the McCain debacle.

The moron is Tony Perkins of Focus on the Family who’s screeching that clearly the Republican Party needs to shift further right and expunge any and all moderates. Tony cites the wins over gay marriage in California, Florida and Arizona as evidence for that idea but doesn’t mention the anti-abortion defeats in California, Colorado and South Dakota.

Here’s the deal, a majority of Americans don’t like the idea of calling legal unions between gays marriage. They no longer appear to have a problem with extending full legal protection to gay couples they just don’t want to call it marriage. How about that as a reasonable compromise? Provide the same legal protections and just call is something else. That would pretty much eliminate the sole issue the GOP has.

I can’t think of a worse idea for the Republicans than to shift to the right. Obama won this election by spreading his appeal into the center. In the final analysis it’s the moderate center that determines elections.

If I were the Republicans the thing that would scare the hell out of me from election night would be the fact that voters in the 18-29 age range voted for Obama by a margin of 2-1. Add that to the fact that younger voters are more likely to be less religious and more secular implies that letting religious fruitcakes like Perkins steer the Republican ship is an absolutely insane idea.

But enough of that nonsense, let’s talk about something important. What kind of dog is Barack going to get his daughters?