Planet Mitt

I once had a job where I answered phones all day.  It was really fun and when we worked on weekends we'd play spades sometimes when the phones weren't busy.  If you get a bad hand in spades, you can bid nil and then instead of trying to win tricks you're trying to not win any.  There's a bonus if you succeed in not winning any and a penalty if you don't.

I'm wondering if maybe Mitt Romney bid nil on this election and forgot to tell us.  I've been thinking for weeks that people shouldn't rush to judgment so quickly every time Mitt does something stupid.  There's still so much time left, and three debates and all that.  But man, there's a limit to how much stupid you can make up for in debates, especially since the President is awesome at debating and Romney spent a year arguing with that clown car full of idiots (and Ron Paul). 

The other side of the argument is expectations for Mitt in the debates are so low that anything short of setting the building on fire or actually killing a poor person on live TV will be a win for him.  I don't know though, I think he needs some new ideas.  Romney campaign people, get ready to start writing (assuming you can read and write which, judging by the campaign you've run so far, may be a poor assumption).

Idea #1
Replacement Mitt.  Do you know how much I used to hate NFL referees?  If you had asked me, just last year, if I believed trained chimps could do a better job officiating games than the NFL referees, I would have said "of course!  They certainly couldn't be any worse!"

Now?  I mean, holy crap!  I was one of those people who thought I wouldn't miss the referees.  The last time I was that wrong about something I was telling you that Charlie Crist was going to be the next Senator from Florida.  Charlie Who?  Exactly!  How much better would Mitt look if he let Rick Santorum take his place for a couple of weeks?  Rick Santorum makes Mitt Romney look like Franklin Roosevelt.  How do you think Mitt got the nomination in the first place?  There may not be enough time left for Mitt to pull this strategy off successfully, but it couldn't hurt to try.

Idea #2
Helper monkey.  The best part about the helper monkey strategy is Mitt wouldn't have to change anything else.  Look, Mitt's biggest problem is still that nobody likes him.  Now imagine you're watching a Romney speech.  Everything is the same as always.  Mitt's spouting nonsense talking points, not really saying anything, wishing someone would come along and change him into a real boy.  All of that is still happening, but also, there's a little monkey running around getting Mitt juice and holding up his cue cards.  How much more would you like Mitt at that point?  A lot more, you say?  Exactly.

Idea #3
This is a little something I like to call "pulling a Sting".  Remember WCW in the mid 90's after they started the NWO.  Before the NWO, Sting was one of WCW's top stars.  Once the NWO came along, Sting stopped talking for like a year.  He just hung out in the rafters of the building pointing his baseball bat at Hulk Hogan. 

Wouldn't Mitt Romney be better off if he shut up until November and just hung around Obama events pointing a baseball bat at the President and looking menacing?  It certainly couldn't make things any worse.  Although, with Mitt, a regular wooden baseball bat wouldn't really be appropriate.  I'm thinking more like a cricket mallet made of solid gold.  No wait, cricket is a little Europeany for Mitt.  I've got it!  A lacrosse stick made entirely of diamond! Not diamonds.  Just one huge diamond, cut into the shape of a lacrosse stick.

Idea #4
Go to war with Iran right now.  I've watched as much election coverage as anybody who isn't paid to watch election coverage and I only know two things about a Romney administration.  First, he'll cut taxes for rich people.  He's been super clear about that.  Second, we're going to war with Iran.

But why wait?  Mitt's got tons of money.  He could easily put together his own army.  It wouldn't be as good as the US Army, but it'd be better than the Kiss army, and that's probably good enough to deal with Iran.  Or at least good enough to deal with Iran the way Mitt would, which would just be bombing them and waiting for good things to magically happen after.  And even if this doesn't get Mitt elected, he still did half of what he wanted to do.

Idea #5
Mystery candidate.  We'd have to be pretty stupid to fall for this, but luckily, we are pretty stupid.  Mitt drops out of the race and they replace him with a mystery candidate.  It would be just like old game shows where contestants had to choose between the perfectly adequate prize they could see or the mystery prize in the mystery box.

Which candidate do you want?  You want the one in the mystery box!  You know you do.  Nobody can resist the mystery box!  We'll be disappointed when we find out that it's still just Mitt in the mystery box, but by then it'll be too late and we'll be kind of relieved because at least it wasn't Newt Gingrich.

Idea #6
New ideas.  Mitt could start learning stuff and embracing policies and ideas that actually make sense.  He could start saying intelligent things and acting normal.  He could....I'm sorry...no...this definitely won't happen.

Idea #7
Free iphones.  Everyone who votes for Mitt gets a free new iphone.  It's just that simple.  I'm surprised he hasn't thought of this yet.  I'm pretty sure Karl Rove's super pac has enough money to buy everyone in America an iphone.

Idea #8
Bacon.  Did you hear about the upcoming bacon shortage?  I don't know if it's real or not, but I'm pretty sure millions of Americans are terrified.  If Mitt can present a comprehensive plan to save us from a baconless future, he'll win by 10 points.  Now, Mitt has yet to present a comprehensive plan about anything, but bacon is simpler and more delicious than the economy, so maybe he can pull it off.

Idea #9
The Republican party could engage in a long term strategy of voter suppression focusing on minority communities, young people and other core Democratic constituencies.  Maybe some kind of weird push for new voter ID laws based on completely false claims of voter fraud.  Something like this, if done effectively, could easily push states like Ohio and Pennsylvania over into Mitt's column.  I wonder why nobody in the Republican party has thought of this.  Hmmmm.

Idea #10
Planet Mitt.  This one is pretty self-explanatory.  Mitt can use his fortune to turn Mars into a habitable planet and then move all of his supporters there, where he can be president of them.  Actually, this might work out pretty well for everyone.  Let's go with this one.

I Was Wrong

Even though I'm super smart and totally awesome, sometimes I'm still wrong. Around this time last year, I said the Washington Wizards would surprise everyone and get to the second round of the playoffs. As you may have heard, later that season, Gilbert Arenas brought a gun to work and the Wizards traded their entire team. They wound up with the first pick in the draft.

Similarly, last spring I picked the Seattle Mariners to win the AL west. I did a few paragraphs for every team, so I didn't expect to be right about everything, but man did I get that one wrong. I stopped watching after a while because I couldn't take it, but it's possible Seattle lost all 162 of their games last year. I think they may have also managed to go a whole season without scoring any runs. Swing and a miss for me (and the Mariners, many many times).

Why bring these things up now? I wanted to have some take on the midterm election results, but with the three cable networks hosting a combined 174 analysts for eight hours each, I really doubt there's an angle they missed. I can't imagine I have anything to say that wasn't shouted over 10 other people on cable TV at some point. So, I'm left searching for something that's specific to me, and that brings me to what I was most recently wrong about. Charlie Crist.

A little over two months ago, I boldly predicted that Charlie Crist would win the Florida Senate race convincingly, and his win would usher in a wave of successful independent candidates. I still stand behind the logic I used to draw that conclusion, which was basically this:
1) Polls consistently show people are angry with both parties.
2) Independent candidates can do well if they already have strong name recognition, which the current Governor of the state certainly does.
3) Crist honestly seemed like the best candidate.
4) I also thought the Democrat would drop out and endorse Crist at some point. Swing and a miss there too.

That was my logic, and I would have looked pretty good if my prediction had panned out. Instead, Crist lost by 20 points to tea party favorite and department store mannequin Marco Rubio. Whoops. I tried to figure out where I went wrong and came up with the following:

First of all, Crist was an awful candidate. I don't know what his deal really is, but it seems clear that Florida voters see him as a slimy politician who would do anything to win and has no loyalties other than to himself. I don't know how Florida voters think this makes him any different from every other politician, but one way or the other, they didn't vote for him.

Secondly, Marco Rubio turned out to be probably the most reasonable of all the tea people. To be fair, it didn't take much. Being the most reasonable tea person is like being the coolest kid at bible camp. Still, Senator Elect Rubio looked like a rocket scientist Tuesday night compared to the likes of Carl Paladino and Christine O'Donnell, and that was a pretty good reflection of how the whole campaign season looked.

Most importantly, I ignored the fact that this election was happening in Florida. The Florida that gave us George W. Bush because they couldn't figure out how to vote correctly. The Florida that sent Katherine Harris to the House of Representatives...twice. The Florida that has three sports teams based in Tampa Bay even though Tampa Bay isn't an actual city.

Obviously, Florida shouldn't be allowed to vote anymore. I honestly don't know what we're waiting for. More importantly, I'm never making a prediction for a Senate or House race again, because I'm from New York, and all the other states are crazy.

As for the rest of the midterm results, I have one thought for each party. Humble advice for the road forward.

Democrats
Try growing a collective spine. If it doesn't feel good after a few months, you can always go back to your natural state of cowardly compromise. But, just for a little while, why not try deciding on some principles and then not voting for anything that doesn't match up with those principles. The Republicans did that for two years and do you know what happened next? They mopped the floor with you.

This obviously starts with the President, who's been especially timid since Tuesday. I'm never happier with the President then when he's doing his "why are you people so stupid?" tone of voice while calmly explaining why he's right and everyone else is wrong. I want more of that. Republicans are going to call him arrogant anyway, he might as well just come out swinging.

Republicans
You have to do stuff. I know you don't want to, but you're going to have to. The Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. If you want a shot at winning those in 2012, you have to pass some legislation through the House that people like. Then, you can go to the voters and tell them how the big mean Democrats killed all your awesome legislation and if they just hand the rest of the government over to you, they can have their candy.

Also, you have to find a decent candidate for 2012, and I'll get to that next week.

The New Center

I have a theory. Now, I watch Glenn Beck at least a couple of times a week. Glenn has a lot of theories, I think the last one involved Woodrow Wilson secretly traveling back in time to start the slave trade. My theory isn't a Beck-style, category five crazy theory. I'm a bit more of a moderate, and that's sort of my point, this is a theory about moderation.

I've been trying my best to get engaged with the 2010 midterm elections, my efforts are meeting with limited success. The Democrats are undisciplined, somewhat cowardly and really failing to zero in on a message. Ya know, they're acting like Democrats. I can't imagine a way a party could more thoroughly squander a huge majority, but I'm sure the Democrats can.

Meanwhile, the Republican party seems to have been taken over by crazy people. Their nominee in Nevada, Sharron Angle, can generously be described as totally insane. Of course, she still has a decent chance of winning because she's running against Harry Reid's politically dynamic combination of unspeakably boring and unimaginably ineffective. Should be a real barn burner out there.

The Republicans in my current (but, thankfully, soon to be former) state have nominated Linda McMahon. Seriously, the wrestling lady. I swear I'm not joking. But she also still has a decent chance because she's got about a trillion dollars and she's running against a Democrat who kept telling people he served in Vietnam even though he didn't.

I've also noticed the Florida Senate race. Florida has the rare three-way race going. Independent and former Republican Charlie Crist vs. tea party Republican and former hair model Marco Rubio vs. a couple of Democrats who can't even poll at 20% in a pretty 50/50 state. Crist leads the real clear politics average of polls no matter which Democrat you plug in. This brings us to my theory. I think Crist is the leading edge of a big wave of successful independent candidates.

Look at where we are right now. People are rightfully fed up with both parties. The imagineers at Fox News keep telling me the Republican party will win back a majority in the house and maybe the Senate in November. How many times do you think people will go back and forth like this before they realize nothing ever changes? I think Crist wins by double digits in November, partially because he won't be weighed down by the stupidity of either party. That's why I think he should change his campaign slogan to "I'm Charlie Crist, and I don't like either of these guys". I also like that slogan because it's a little punchier than Marco Rubio's "I'm Marco Rubio, and I'll say whatever Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin tell me to say".

In the past, independents struggled because they couldn't raise any real money and they didn't have enough name recognition. Next time you go vote, take a look at the candidates on your ballot after the two major parties. It's a veritable who's who of who the f*ck are these guys. People generally aren't fans of voting for people they've never heard of, or giving them money.

But Sean, you protest, Ross Perot had money and everyone knew who he was, and he still only got just under 19% in the 1992 election. I can't argue with you there. Sure, part of what Perot was known for was his trademark bat-shit insanity, but still, he was well known. So what's different now?

As usual, part of the problem is the internets. An independent candidate doesn't need the party establishment to raise big money anymore. Even major party candidates do a decent amount of fundraising on the internet. I'm not saying an independent can get even with the big parties on money, but I think they can get close enough, if people know who they are. That brings us to culprit number two.

Cable news. People are more well informed about politics now than ever before. Well, maybe I wouldn't say we're well informed, but we're certainly more informed. I live in Connecticut and know who Marco Rubio and Sharron Angle are. Do you think I would have known who they were in 1992? Probably not.

So, here are the factors:
1) People are genuinely fed up with both parties
2) Fundraising is way easier now than it was even 10 years ago
3) Name recognition in politics is almost universal at this point
4) I say an independent is about to destroy both big party candidates in a pretty visible Senate race in Florida

Over the next five/ten years, I think we'll see a wave of moderate, reasonable politicians running for office as independents, and winning. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2020 Senate looked something like 43 Republicans, 41 Democrats and 16 independents. Of course, this means Congress will do even less than it does now. Impossible, you say? That sounds like a challenge.

Further down the road, maybe this even gets us a new third party, which will inevitably become just as corrupt and ineffective as the current two parties. I said I had a theory, I didn't say it was a good thing.