Here's some more sad news for Democrats. Most Americans are pretty darn happy. Let's be clear. Most of what Americans categorize as sadnesses are really annoyances. And most of those annoyances come at the tail end of something really good.
Take cell phones. They save time, money, and the environment. That's the fundamental reason why we buy them, because as cameras, they suck.
How many trips in the dreaded SUV do we save because we called from the road to make sure the family wants the 4th rotisserie chicken and bag of salad dinner this week? I got this job, not because I'm very good at writing. I got this job because I have better portable email than funnier people, and I don't belong to a union.
But it's the annoyances and little trade-offs that get people's attention. They tend to stick out in a crowd of progressions in our evolution as social beasts that have become taken as given.
That's why we read with mounting dread that the end is nigh because cell phones can give you head cancer (even though it's a flimsy theory). The fees for quitting a binding contract are draconian (even though you knew full well when you signed up, ya big baby). The police can track your whereabouts with your cell phone (even though they don't care about you because you haven't killed anybody).
Cell phone service also sounds like shit in most places, the Bluetooth headsets make us look like jerks, and it makes people do loud Bob Newhart-style routines in public. But who amongst us is impractical and politically-minded enough to give their phone up tomorrow? Hands?
OK, you three over there. Good luck. Tell Mr. Kaczynski we said hello. The rest of us understand that the good outweighs the bad, and best of all, no government agency planned this. We did. The people of Lilliput.
The government pretty much now functions as a tech support call center for people's complaints about their luxuries.
"He's emailing me junk."
"My health insurance makes it unaffordable to fill my mouth with extra calories."
"Their sales techniques were too persuasive."
So what does this mean for Democrats? The campaigns of Barack O Carter and the Horny President's Wife have been pretty pessimistic. In fact, they are virtually identical to the philosophical musings of recent presidential drop out John Two Americas, the only difference being that JTA doesn't have the pelt of BOC or HWPHRC, whose African and female hides are valued more in the Democrat political markets.
To them, we the people are drinking the vintage from where the grapes of wrath are stored and we need to be pacified by those who can. HPWHRC (a.k.a. HipWork) promises nothing less than a full redress of grievances for all Americans with a problem coping with life's advances.
Barack O Carter talks about the "Audacity of Hope" as if it takes daring to sit on your ass all day and dream. And his wife reveals that, until recently, she was cross with America for never ever considering black people for anything, even though she and her friends went to Princeton and Harvard, and pretty much did as they pleased.
I don't think it matters much for Democrats which one of these welfare staters wins. It's the Republicans race to lose, and it has been that way since the 60s. Different faces, from different places. Same results. It's the outlook, stupid.
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