My civic duty

If I heard Chris Matthews correctly last night, blogging is mainly supposed to talk about politics. I looked back at my entries, and I mostly talk about poker and puppets.

So today I'll try to make more of a political statement with some "talking points," as the kids today are calling them. Here goes:

• I vastly enjoy maps over listening to four people argue, and this is my favorite one. I especially like that you can click over to how it looked in 2000; for all the talk about how much has changed over the past four years, it looks surprisingly similar.
• I almost gave myself an epileptic fit last night as I flipped from channel to channel, looking for said maps and some sort of unity about the electoral college count. I found Dan Rather's forced folksiness the most annoying, followed closely by Brit Hume's smugness. I can't point to any one channel's coverage that I especially liked (I don't count watching Jon Stewart since that is a comedy show, Tucker!), but I probably watched CNN the most, since I did like their big board-o-numbers (mmm...shiny graphics!).
  
• I'm not pleased that Dubya won, but I am glad that somebody actually won this time, and won solidly enough that it doesn't look like there will be weeks of recounts, lawsuits, and explanations of pregnant chads.
• I don't live in Kentucky anymore, but what I have heard and what I saw when I recently visited leads me to believe that Jim Bunning is an embarrassment and a good example of how divided our country is right now. I want to believe that people voted this guy in because they voted for the Republican party, or against the Democrats and/or Mongiardo, but not actually for this guy. I really want to believe that.
• Dear Democratic Party: four years ago, Ralph Nader didn't steal votes from you; you lost votes and voters because instead of working for your base and representing the party's values, you took the liberal vote for granted, just assumed they'd vote against Bush = for you, and worked hard to move to the middle and swing undecided and moderate Republican voters. You lost that election. Period. Now, I bring this up because in the coming days, months, and years, you can play the blame-game again if you want to, OR you can start planting the seeds for a real groundswell in 2008. If you want my help, you need to ask, not just assume. I'm willing to help if you're willing to work with me. Sincerely, One of Many Prodigal Sons.
  

I hope Chris thinks that's enough. Now, back to poker and puppets!