The Times They Are A-Changin'

The elections are over, and we’ve had a few days to clean up after the party. The political landscape has been demolished, leveled by The Big One we’d all heard rumbling for years. Every news source has beaten the details into the ground – and, God, the anticipation while Virginia teetered on the razor’s edge! It was like a Super Bowl event or something. Our heroes were down, but not out. They’d worked themselves up from a no-talent team with old sports equipment and a comical fat kid to the not-so-no-talent contenders they had become. Up against the defending champs, they blocked again and again, crushed by the precision Conservative team. But just when it seemed defeat was inevitable, the grouchy – but, in the end, noble – coach gave them a drunken speech that sent their spirits soaring. Somehow, they tie the game. There’s time for one last play! Do it, Virginia! The secret play! Quarterback Smash! Suddenly, Virginia’s out in front – will he make it? Can he do it? YES! The day is ours! The crowd is cheering, the world is alert, and the Dingy Dems have pulled it off! The crowd lifts the grouchy coach on its shoulders and marches off into the sunset, shouting “Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!”

But, we’re left with so many questions. Will Democratic control truly be better than Republican? Can a blue army fight better than a red one? Why had the main complaint on election day – corruption in Congress – come as a complete surprise? Why did I choose use a long and, in the end, flawed sports-movie analogy to illustrate the elections? In a phrase: I don’t know.

What do we know? The Democrats have sworn to reform lobbying in Congress, reach across the aisle, raise the federal minimum wage, promote stem-cell research (thereby curing Michael J. Fox), and lower the financial burden of higher education – the “6 in ’06” – while fighting to lower the price of prescription drugs and playing Robin Hood with energy, cutting of the flow of federal oil subsidies and using that money to fund research into alternative energy sources. It’s a tall order. To counteract this dramatic de-conservatisation of his nation, Bush has made his own set of pledges – among them, pushing forward with the controversial Terrorist Surveillance Act.

Liberals say this was a day long coming. Conservatives are saying the Democrats didn’t win, the Republicans lost. Morality, according to the Christian News, is now rapidly shifting. And Michael J. hasn’t been on TV for days. For everyone, it seems, the constant wind of change has once again blown over the stoic windmill of their lives, causing their giant fans to creak and whirl about against the – Ah, sorry. I’m doing the “flawed analogy” thing again…

The one question, though, that rises above the milieu is whether George W. Bush will be neutered, or if he’ll wield his mighty Tooth of Veto to fend off the Dem demons. Again, there are no answers. My forecast? The halls of the White House will smell of roast duck for quite some time......