Last Exit

Tonight's State of the Union address is basically the last exit on the politics highway before the bridge to the 2016 election.  Official announcements will start soon (Barack Obama announced in February 2007) and once one serious candidate announces, everything after that is about the election.  That's not to say this speech will have nothing to do with the 2016 election, but it's the last big political thing that isn't entirely about the 2016 election.  So, if you hate elections, this is pretty much it for you.

I watched most of the pre-speech coverage on MSNBC, just out of nostalgia for when they used to actually be a news network, but I managed to switch to Fox long enough to witness O'Reilly and John Stossel having a fair and balanced debate about whether or not the President (and his wife, for some reason) are true believers in socialism or if they're just dirty liars about it for political gain.  Bill thinks they're true believers.  I think Stossel's point was that it doesn't matter because what they want to do won't work either way.  Glad to see Fox hasn't changed.  Bill teased his next segment, which was about how you're not allowed to criticize Beyonce.  The inside of Bill's mind must be terrifying.

I switched to CNN for five seconds and their breaking news at the bottom of the screen was that Barack Obama was going to leave the White House.  Not that he had left the White House, but that he was going to.  Glad CNN figured that out for us.  I have to go back to MSNBC now because I just feel sad for CNN.  It's like how old baseball writers always talk about Willie Mays limping around in a Mets' uniform.  I don't want to remember you this way CNN!

I almost decided not to do this again this year, and after just about 20 minutes of cable news I'm already regretting my decision to do it.  We had better just get started.

8:53PM - 6 of the 9 Supreme Court justices just walked in.  The other three are apparently way too busy and can't be bothered with this kind of nonsense.  I'd like to criticize them for being childish and petty, but I think if I was a Supreme Court justice I'd want to be one of the justices who's too cool for the State of the Union.

8:57PM - I swear I just saw Paul Ryan do the John Cena "you can't see me" gesture.  You probably think that's ridiculous and there's no way it happened, but I know what I saw.

8:59PM - Rachel Maddow on the Supreme Court: "They're all wicked old".  Did someone give Rachel a "be less smart and more folksy" note at some point?  You're from Massachusetts, we get it.

9:00PM - MSNBC just gave us a 6 second shot of a pencil on a desk.  Apparently Congress will be waiving them to express support for freedom of expression.  Congress is super into freedom of expression, as long as you're mocking gods they don't really believe in.

9:06PM - Here comes the Prez.  I would love to see the President just walk in and not shake any hands one year.  He could start the speech with "I'm here to give a speech, not shake hands with dumbasses".  These are the things that would entertain me.

9:11PM - We're starting with a quick recap of the first 15 years of the 21st century.  They've been....less than optimal.  But guess what everybody?!?  We're turning the page now!!!  YAY!!!

9:13PM - "Our combat mission in Afghanistan is over".  He added "I mean, ya know, sort of, for now at least".  Then he used the phrase "this 9/11 generation".  Can that not be a thing?  Please?

9:14PM - If you had "strong" for the state of the union, you win the pool.  If you had anything else, you really haven't watched one of these before, have you?

9:15PM - We just got a clear "woo" for "an economy where only a few of us do extremely well".  Who let Mitt in here?

9:17PM - The lady standing next to Michelle Obama is named Rebecca, and she's pretty adorable.  Apparently she goes to community college and her husband works in construction.  I'm not sure how that got her next to the First Lady at the State of the Union, but she seems super likable so it's fine I guess.

9:20PM - I had to switch to Fox because MSNBC's stupid real time polls are blocking the bottom third of the screen.  The question they're asking is "Do you agree with what the President is saying?"  What does that even mean?  He's mostly just stating facts right now.

9:21PM - The title of this section of speech would most accurately be "I fixed the economy and if you idiots try to pass something that will break it again I will veto the shit out of that bill".

9:22PM - "We need to set our sets higher than making sure that government doesn't just screw things up".  You gotta walk before you run though, right?  Can we try not screwing things up first and see how it goes?

9:23PM - Rebecca's kids are named Jack and Henry.  Jack is a solid name.  I'm not wild about Henry, but I think it works in Minnesota.

9:25PM - George W. Bush left hundreds of post-its with Presidenting advice lying around the White House.  The one Barack actually listened to?  Call people folks a lot.  Folks love when you call them folks.

9:27PM - Obama says child care isn't a "women's issue", it's a national economic priority.  The Republicans seem to disagree.  They aren't big fans of paid sick leave either, and don't even get them started on equal pay for women.

9;29PM - We've reached the point in the night when Democrats applaud loudly for raising the minimum wage and Republicans try hiding under their desks.

9:31PM - The President is talking about better job training for American workers.  I know for a fact that he told Joe Biden to take care of that during last year's speech.  Great job Biden!  You suck so hard!

9:32PM - The President wants to lower the cost of community college to $0.  Republicans are a no on that for some reason.  I'm a no on that too, because I work at a non-community college and I need money to buy food.  I feel like free community college might impact my earning power a bit.  Do all the Republicans work at non-community colleges too?  I never see them at conferences.

9:34PM - Wait, now the President says Biden did do some hard work on job training.  Well then why isn't it fixed yet?  What else is Biden doing?

9:36PM - We seem to be in the middle of a multi-part economic plan.  You know what voters love more than anything?  Multi-part economic plans.  Just ask Mitt Romney, or John Kerry.

9:39PM - Seamless transition from curing cancer to protecting a free and open internet.  I feel like both of those things are important, but one is clearly more important.

9:40PM - He just did a solid minute on the space program.  Just because Congress is too stupid to understand the space program doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't get to have one.  He should have said that.  Why can't I write for the President?

9:43PM - Uh oh.  It's foreign policy time.  Everybody get your spare pair of pants ready.

9:45PM - Looks like the pencil waiving was isolated to one lady.  I couldn't tell for sure from the camera angle, but that's what it looked like.

9:46PM - Every time one of these guys talks about supporting the moderate opposition in Syria I'm compelled to ask this question.  Have we just not been writing things down for the last 50 years?  Is it not possible for us to access the history of what happens when we back the lesser of two evils in an unstable country in the middle east?  What could possibly convince us that it will work out great this time?

9:48PM - On Cuba "when what you're doing doesn't work for 50 years, it's time to try something new".  Marco Rubio countered "Oh come on!  Just like 20 more years and I swear it'll work!"

9:50PM - The President sure has said the word veto a lot tonight.  This is going to be a feisty couple of years.  And by feisty, I mean gridlocked and pointless.

9:52PM - Biden and Boehner look positively frosty tonight.  I'm assuming they were taking turns insulting each other's moms and then Biden took it too far because you're not supposed to call Boehner's mom fat because she has a glandular problem and it's NOT FUNNY!

9:54PM - On climate change, the President says it's OK if you're not a scientist, you just have to listen to scientists.  But what about that one scientist Fox News found who says climate change isn't real and that opinion has nothing to do with the six figure consulting fee he gets from the coal lobby?  What about him???

9:57PM - "It's time to close GTMO".  Yeah, but we're not going to, sooo....

10:00PM - I feel like openly arguing with political pundits during the State of the Union address is a misguided effort.

10:02PM - Standing ovation from Democrats for same-sex marriage.  Look at them growing some balls once the polls show a position is overwhelmingly popular.  I can't wait for Hillary Clinton to tell me again how she evolved.

10:03PM - I think seven years in is a little late for "a better politics" and "appealing to common decency".  I don't know if you heard buddy, but there's an election coming up.  There will be no decency.

10:06PM - Hey!  I haven't seen Cory Booker once tonight.  Is it maybe because he's too busy buying plane tickets to Iowa?  Booker 2016!

10:07PM - "I have no more campaigns to run...I know because I won both of them".  For the 100th time, condescending and sarcastic Obama is by far my favorite Obama.

10:10PM - Coming in for a landing and we go back to Rebecca one more time.  I'm a big fan of Rebecca.

While we wait for one of the five (you heard me) Republican responses, here's a quick list of things that seemed to mostly get left out of the speech, except for maybe a vague reference (I apologize if I'm wrong about any of these, I admit I drifted away a couple of times):

-Wall Street reform
-Gun control
-Police shooting unarmed citizens
-The fact that it's 2015 and we don't have hoverboards yet
-Al Qaeda
-Russia

I actually give the President some credit for the last one.  Hard to resist kicking Putin while he's down.

I mentioned five Republican responses.  I'll be watching the official Republican response from Joni Ernst, which I'm not looking forward to.  There will also be one from the tea people, one in Spanish, one from Rand Paul and one from Ted Cruz.  Rand can get away with that because nobody agrees with Rand on everything and he can only really represent himself.  Cruz is just a malignant narcissist.
So, Joni Ernst started by first pointing out that while we may not always agree, it's good to hear other points of view.  I see she was in the debate club in high school.  Then, she openly admitted that she has no interest in actually responding to the President's speech, which is annoying because what she's doing is literally called a response, but it's also refreshing, because at least she's admitting it.

Joni Ernst only had one good pair of shoes growing up.  It's a good old-fashioned Republican poor-off!  Later Ted Cruz will tell you about his great-grandpa who was a turd miner in Cuba.

Apparently Republicans are going to start calling the Keystone pipeline the Keystone jobs bill.  Shit that's good.  Damn you Frank Luntz!

Give Joni Ernst some real credit.  Giving a nationally televised speech while staring directly into the camera in an empty room after the other guy just gave his speech in a huge and full room is a crappy job, and I'd say she did it pretty well.  She's a Republican, so a lot of what she said was silly nonsense, but still, she said it pretty well.

2016 Election at the Jersey Shore

I wasn't planning on saying anything about the 2016 election for a while because, first of all, I tried predicting who would get the Republican nomination in 2012.  I picked Haley Barbour, and remember that time that Haley Barbour didn't even run?  I also wasn't going to say anything about 2016 for a while because it's 2013 right now and are you fucking serious?  

But, according to cable news, it's definitely time to start talking 2016.  Chris Matthews almost pissed his pants on live TV a couple of weeks ago when something happened that made him think Hillary Clinton was definitely running.  It even distracted him from Anthony Weiner for like five minutes.  Meanwhile, Fox News is like 2 steps away from having Rand Paul followed around by a reality TV camera crew at all times.  So, that's the way it is.  This is happening.

Well, this is happening in a minute.  But first, what's with all the outrage about Anthony Weiner?  Matthews held what would be best described as a week-long penis vigil on his show about it.  Meanwhile, Matthews' two favorite Presidents (Clinton and Kennedy) nailed interns like it was their job.  Kennedy seriously might have thought it was his job.  I'm not saying Anthony Weiner isn't gross, I'm just saying that if you're going to get outraged about this stuff (which I'm not), actually banging the interns seems worse to me.

Anyway, Republicans first.  For starters, I don't think Jeb Bush runs.  He's never seemed super interested to me, and he's had the opportunity to watch his dad and his brother be President for a total of 12 years.  Even if you hate the President, you have to admit that guy has a tough job most days, and I can't imagine watching two family members try to do it for 12 years has left Jeb with much of a taste for it.

I know these early front-runners rarely end up winning, but I do like Chris Christie for this.  People say Christie can't get the nomination, but I totally disagree.  Christie would wind up in the same position as Romney was in last time.  He'll be in a primary with Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and five other lunatics fighting to be named king of the clown car.  Santorum, Bachmann, Cain and Perry made Mitt look sane, reasoned, even smart.  And Gingrich was nice enough to make Romney seem like not that much of a dick.  

And by the way, Christie makes a pretty solid general election candidate.  I don't know a lot about Chris Christie in terms of what he actually knows, but if he turns out to be kind of dumb, that's not really going to hurt him in Republican primaries, or even that much in the general.  Meanwhile, I know Christie does all the superficial things that people love in Presidential candidates.  He talks tough, he doesn't take shit from anyone and he treats the press with the contempt that they've earned over the last 15 years.  I can't wait for him to go on Fox and sucker punch Sean Hannity.  

Also, if the Republican brand is anything, it's anti-government.  Specifically, the Federal government.  Ask yourself how the Republicans get the useful idiots in the tea party, who are mostly middle class people who, like almost everyone, are one lay-off from the poverty line, to protest against things like health care for poor people and slightly higher taxes for the wealthy.  They do it by equating everything they don't like to a robbery of freedom.  And since nobody is dumb enough to actually believe that more health care = less freedom, they inject the Federal government into the middle of the equation, so it's more health care + Federal government involvement = less freedom.  And that shit works like a charm.

So, if you're looking for a nominee from the everything the Federal government does = less freedom party, you may want to look for someone who isn't, ya know, currently holding a position in the Federal government.

And finally, if Christie ran against Hillary Clinton, I would absolutely vote for Chris Christie.  You can write that one down now.  Look, I even stopped calling him Governor Fatpants.  I will not vote for Hillary Clinton.  If Hillary Clinton, Rand Paul and a half-eaten meatball sandwich were running in a three way election, I'd vote for the sandwich.

You might ask, "hey Sean, you've always been a Ron Paul guy, so why no love for Rand?"  I just don't buy it.  People think Rand is a conviction libertarian like his dad, but I haven't seen enough evidence to believe it.  Ron Paul was never a serious Presidential candidate because he cared more about his beliefs than he did about winning, and you can't have it both ways.  Rand's level of ambition makes me think he's just another regular Republican who's trying to trade on his dad's name for extra votes by being a faux-libertarian and hoping people will believe it.  I don't believe it.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

Where were we? Oh yeah, luckily for me, I don't think I'll get the chance to choose between Hillary Clinton and a half-eaten sandwich because I don't think she'll get the nomination.  She's in exactly the same position she was in eight years ago.  How did that work out?  Now she's eight years older, eight years less exciting and eight years more oh my god why won't she just go away.  

First of all, for every independent voter who loves Hillary Clinton, there's an independent voter like me who wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton if you threatened me with violence.  A Clinton/Christie election puts people like me, who sprinted away from the Republicans once the tea people showed up, back in play.  Bad times for Democrats.  

Also, the far left doesn't like Hillary that much either.  Hillary Clinton isn't just an establishment candidate, she's THE establishment.  How does that play at a time when everyone hates the government (for both actual and made-up reasons)?  Not well, I think.  I'm not saying Hillary can't win, she's certainly the favorite, but I wouldn't put my money on her.

So who does get the Democratic nomination?  That's a tough one.  Normally the sitting Vice President would be a strong favorite.  And it's not like Joe Biden has never expressed any interest in running for President.  But, unfortunately, he's Joe Biden, so that's almost definitely not going to happen.  

What about Democratic Governors?  Can you even name a Democratic Governor?  I can name Duval Patrick (he's still a Governor, right?), but he really doesn't feel like a President to me.  Not everyone is cut out for the big chair, ya know?  Other than the Governor of the state I currently live in, I couldn't name another Democratic Governor, and I feel like most other people couldn't either.

Democratic members of Congress?  Yikes.  If Harry Reid ever runs for President, we should all probably kill ourselves just to be safe.  The Democratic nominee has to come from somewhere, but if he/she comes from Congress, it has to be someone who hasn't been there very long.  Which brings me to my pick.  Cory Booker.

Twenty years ago Booker would have been easily dismissed as way too inexperienced, but that's not the way it is anymore.  Barack Obama proved that if we like someone enough we're not willing to wait four or eight years while he gets more experience.  And if you hate Barack Obama, then I would submit to you that the fact that we're talking about Ted Cruz and Rand Paul for 2016 prove the same point.

Cory Booker is probably going to be a Senator soon, but when 2016 rolls around he won't have been in the Senate long enough to get that Senate stink all over him.  He's got executive experience as a mayor, and he's the mayor of an actual city, where people live, not some podunk middle-of-nowhere nightmare like Wasilla, Alaska.  And from what I hear he's a good mayor too.  Booker's good on TV, seems smart, he's generally pretty likable but he's also tough enough to not take the Republicans' shit.  

Plus, wouldn't an all-Jersey Christie/Booker election be pretty fun?  I feel like it would.  And as a citizen I'd like this election because neither one of these guys terrifies me, like a certain Mitt Romney did.  I think both of them would at least be an adequate President.  Imagine having two decent choices in a Presidential election.  Has that ever happened before?  The 2008 election doesn't qualify because of Sarah Palin.  1992 or 1996 maybe?  I can't remember if Bob Dole was really a decent candidate or not.  I'm digressing. 

Anyway, that's my call.  I don't know which side of the things I'd like to see happen/things I actually think will happen line I'm on here, but I feel pretty good about these picks.  So we're probably looking at Ted Cruz/Rand Paul vs. Joe Biden/Anthony Weiner in 2016.  Everybody get a helmet.