It looks like it might happen…

If present trends continue, on November 6th we just might be looking at the dawn of four (or even eight!?) years of the age of Romney/Ryan. It would appear the people of this doomed nation (or the ones who vote anyway) were sound asleep during the years 2001-2009.

I’ve been bracing myself all week for this possibility. Give me a bushel of nasty-tasting lemons and I’ll whip you up a couple of pitchers of the juiciest, sweetest-tasting lemonade it’s ever been your pleasure to sip.

For someone like me, the very idea of Mitt Romney in the White House is irresistible. All of those delectable morsels of unintentional comedy offered up for the taking on a silver platter! For those of us who make our names chronicling the utter catastrophe of American politics, this is something to look forward to indeed.

Then there is the schadenfreude aspect. There will no doubt be a certain element of shameful glee on my part witnessing the people who choose once again to go down this idiotic road getting everything they deserve. I know more-than-a-few people who were economically pulverized during the reign of George W. Bush, who plan on voting for Mitt Romney on November the sixth.

It really is an amusing thing to behold.

Some people just aren’t very careful about what they wish for, are they?

And then there is the man on whom we pin all of our hopes. My first reaction to the President’s troubles is to shout out, “I told you so!”. But, that would probably be a lesson in utter futility. Call it a hunch on my part, but he probably doesn’t read my blog (He should, you know. He really should).

But it’s not too much of a stretch to conclude that he does read Paul Krugman. The moment the details of the administration’s stimulus package were announced in the early months of 2009, Krugman wrote that it will help the economy—but not enough. As it turns out he was absolutely prescient.

Krugman said from day one, the package just wasn’t big enough. He said a huge mistake was being made in allowing a bunch of politicians to put it together. I’ve said this too many times to count: we ignore Paul Krugman to our own detriment.

If you look at his columns going back ten years, hindsight will tell you he has been right about absolutely everything. If it had been me being inaugurated on 20 January 2009, the first words out of my mouth upon taking the oath of office would have been these:

“Get Krugman here! STAT.”

As I write these words, rumors are rampant there will be a major role for Paul Krugman to play in Obama’s second term, if there is a second term. Do not abandon all faith!

We should never lose sight of the fact that, although Barack Obama did get a lot wrong, he got a helluva lot more right. When he was handed the keys to the White House nearly four years ago, around 750,000 jobs a month were being swept away into the economic abyss. He has successfully stemmed the tide and reversed it. We are now at 33 months of straight economic growth, and November’s numbers promise to be more encouraging than usual.

How can it possibly be, we seem set to go back to the policies that brought on this calamity in the first place? Are we really that freaked out about having a black guy living in the Executive Mansion? It sure is weird.

Memo to the base:

I know what you’re thinking, and I can relate. Barack Obama has not been what I would call “a progressive’s dream.” But aside from that, it must be said, at least he’s been trying to do the right thing….I think.

We can pray all we want that in his next term (Please, God!) he’ll become the reincarnation of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and we can hope that when he no longer has a reelection to worry about he will become the fighting liberal we know he is to his core.

These are not by any means unreasonable expectations. But four more years of Barack Obama—in any capacity—are light years more preferable than one minute of Mitt Romney in the White House.

Time to get out the vote!

Tom Degan is a fifty-four year old video artist but now makes his name by writing about politics and current events on his blog, The Rant. “I was a Democrat, until they became GOP-lite. I am now nothing—a man without a party, as it were. That’s okay. I like the solitude. I am the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom….Okay, I’ll fess up. That’s a bald-faced lie. But I did get a ribbon of sorts when I was in the Cub Scouts.” Tom lives and resides in Goshen, NY, the most Republican little berg north of the Mason Dixon line. He’s “the most popular guy in town.” That’s also a lie. “I love children, little baby duckies and Glenn Miller’s recording of Moonlight Serenade. That’s the truth. So there.”

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Editor: Jennifer Spesia

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