When The Frost Is On Everything

Winter has settled early in Minnesota...causing premature brain freeze. It's November and the temperature is expected to reach a balmy 18°F. No, that is not the wind chill. 

Did anyone happen to catch FACE THE NATION on Sunday morning? There was a seriously good lineup: Bibi Netanyahu, Claire McCaskill, and....wait for it.....Mitt Romney.

Mittens stole the show. Tan, smiley, and flip, he said the President should "take a breath," and let the "Republican Congress; the Republican House, the Republican Senate come together with legislation to put on his desk which relates to immigration." And what legislation would that be? The one they passed in the Senate  but Speaker Boehner would not let the House take up? Mittens called the possibility of an executive order "extra-constitutional," and a "poke in the eye at the Republican leaders." Is he serious? I almost hope they run him again....just for the entertainment value. The man has a hermetically sealed vacuum between his ears. 

We, the People elected President Obama because he was no-drama. I know I keep saying this, but it keeps getting truer. Despite what the Republicans claimed during the last election cycle, the economy has improved, the markets are at an 8 year high, more people have jobs, more people have health coverage, more troops are home, and consumer confidence is up. Does this sound like a President who has failed his nation?

No one wants to send troops back into the Levant except John McCain and his paralunatic fringe. The vast majority in this nation don't see same-sex marriage as an issue....and unless SCOTUS makes it one, it will settle in. And no one is going to tell millions of people they can no longer have health care; ACA is a fait accompli. No, it's not perfect....it's just a beginning. 

Which brings to me interesting observation for the month of November. We, the People of L'Etoil du Nord, sent Mark Dayton back to the governor's mansion and Al Franken back to the Senate. Senator Al had more than a 10 point lead on Mike "gimme-them-scissors" McFadden. The Governor's margin was a little smaller, 6 points, but enough to make him unquestionably the governor. Listening to the adverts from their opponents, one would think Minnesotans hated them both and felt both had failed in their jobs. But they didn't. 

Senator Franken won his second term not because he distanced himself from the President, but because he continually pointed out the successes of this administration. He ran on a platform that acknowledged more could've been done, but there was real progress in the economic state of the Union. His campaign centered on what was working and where the challenges were and how to address them. If Minnesotans went to the polls at all in the election, it was to make sure our voices continued to be heard in the Senate. The class clown the GOP expected was not what they got. They got a Harvard educated, excessively intelligent, nose-to-the-grindstone kinda guy all Minnesotans deserved: a guy who put the welfare of L'Etoil first. 

The ones who lost, if you really wanna take a close look, are the ones who distanced themselves from the good that was done, that refused to speak up on behalf of a President who led exactly the way people wanted him to lead. The ones who lost are the ones who allowed the GOP fear-mongering to dominate their campaigns. Oberbobemober, who ran no campaign that I could discern, allowed John Kline's ads to trash him as well as the President with absolutely no response whatsoever. There was no one to say, "Hey, CongressClown Kline.....people who were unable to get heath care now have insurance." There was no one to ask, "If you are in a heavily agricultural district, why don't you give a damn about groundwater and pollution?" Not having a response is like handing the guy the election....which is exactly what the party did.

So, here's the deal: I'm going to try like hell not to write about politics for a little while. Frankly, we got what we elected and now we have to live with it. Nothing we can do until the (G-d save us!) 2016 election cycle from hell kicks in. Next week will be the long anticipated kitchen remodeling blog, complete with pictures, to get us into the mood for Thanksgiving. And I promise not to post any boring pictures of the world's most brilliant and erudite baby girl....who, at not quite one month, is already reading the NY Times at breakfast and doing AP math. 

Deal?

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Global warming is really a misnomer....it's all about climate change.

Our climate is changing.