Haiku 041909

winter sun
brown spruce needles
facing south


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Recently, we read the following:


Huffington Post: “Tea Party Fallout: Independents Turned Off, Some GOPers Worried” (by Sam Stein)

“It's been two days now since angry conservatives hosted a series of tea parties across the country, and the fallout has some Republicans nervous. While the anti-tax sentiment of the protests may have been sincere, the images pulled from the events have often been offensive, embarrassing, or politically problematic. It is a development that has tripped up the GOP before. The rallies outside McCain-Palin events included some of the same bile that was seen at the tea parties: charges of fascism, terrorism and other malicious criticisms leveled at Barack Obama. And it did the Republican ticket little good in its efforts to bring moderate voters to the cause.

“Not everyone sees the connection. But some Republicans and Independents do view the fallout between the tea parties and the McCain-Palin rallies in a similar way: bad for the GOP. ‘It is not clear-cut that the tea-party phenomena helps the GOP, unless they have a specific measure or policy (like Prop. 13 in 1978, and income tax cuts after that) to coalesce around,’ said Steven Hayward, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute….

“Of course, because the series of nationwide tea parties were geared towards a specific day (Tax Day), the political ramifications of the events seem naturally limited. ‘Those tea parties will be long forgotten by, oh, say tomorrow,’ said Stu Rothenberg, of the Rothenberg Political Report...."


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And we thought:

…. Sam Stein’s piece says what we think about the Republican-instigated “tea parties”: bad for the GOP. The Republicans need to remember from whom Obama inherited the mess and backwardness that the country is now in: the Bush-Republican administration of the last eight long years. The long Bush-Republican winter of gross incompetence.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, McCain and Obama presented to the American electorate their respective programs of government. Each expounded on how he intended, in various fronts, to bring the U.S. out of the deep rut to which George W. Bush had driven the country. On 4 November 2008, three million more American voters chose Obama and his program over McCain and his.

It’s only been three months since Obama assumed the Presidency. If he and his team don’t get the country moving forward, as promised -- in education, health care, energy, and the economy – then give them the boot in 2012. Meanwhile, the majority of the American people gave Obama and his team a decisive mandate last November. For now, the democratic, i.e., American, way is to let them settle in and govern in the next four years….