Wednesday, November 6, 2013

In the Center of Fall



In the land of the Houdahenians, the Tuesday past elections were not of notice. We watched to some degree, and cheered the defeat of Mr. Cuccinelli in our northern mountain of conceit, hoping like most sensible people that his loss was due to his state rape law, the mandatory internal vaginal sound measure that proved so unpopular that it was eventually withdrawn. No pun intended! It's not clear what it means. A man at least as twisted in his approach to women's rights was elected the new Virginia Attorney General, and promised more objectionable laws pertaining to women's lives. The voting patterns in Virginia are also distressing, with most of rural Virginia standing with Cuccinelli, including all the counties in the beautiful southwest, the heart of bluegrass country. Why would women anywhere in Virginia vote against their own well-being? (Here's one theory: far too many Virginians still adhere to a religion which teaches that wives must "submit" to their husbands in all things, and in Virginia white men voted in the majority for Cuccinelli.)

Then there's the nullification rant by Ron Paul which accompanied Mr. Cuccinelli's sorta concession. Libertarians won 6% of the vote in this election. Would their absence have given McAuliffe a resounding win, or somehow allowed Cuccinelli to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. One would think the former, although conservative pundits are already using the muddled Libertards as an excuse. Charlie Pierce posts pictures of the Antietam battlefield to refute Mr. Paul's glib reference to a political theory which grounded secession and the gawdawful civil war, which the Pauls, father and son, would certainly have sat out in France or Argentina, pontificating all the while on the idiocy of war and the bravery of the southern patriots.


Over at Edroso's place Roy quotes a conservative groucher who predicts nothing but horror from the DeBlasio win in New York City. Up there it's going to be the '70s again in short order, according to this mope. I watched about half of Mean Streets before flipping to DeBlasio's victory speech. I will admit that he sounded somewhat in the rosy vein. It may be that New York will continue to be New York. It always has. The grouser wailed that real estate values are going to fall. As Edroso remarks, this'll be good for smart investors. There is nothing like New York City, not even San Francisco or Paris. That won't change any time soon. And probably drug dealers will continue to refuse checks.

Here, Kirby is starting to spray. He is very soon for his little "operation," before his balls get to be the size of cantelopes. The brothers are mystified by his odiferous doings. Momma has retreated to a rug upstairs amongst all the stuff we've stored in what used to be the best room in the joint, just to get away from all the noise and agitation. I've got a storage shed laid out on the ground, so maybe by Christmas or New Years or Easter we'll have some place to put all the stuff we don't use but can't throw away. What do you do with hundreds of cassette tapes, anyways. Even sorting through them is a pain, yet down in the pile somewheres is a couple of tapes of a wonderful New Mexico fiddler, and another one or two of Cyril Stinnett, the most amazing left-handing fiddler from central Missouri. Can't very well let that stuff vanish.

Our neighbors, meanwhile, lost their last cat to wild dogs. None of ours are allowed outside, and I'm tempted to keep the .22 more at the ready. I'm pretty sure I've seen these dogs--a nursing brindle pit bull mix and two adolescent pups who follow at her heels, wild as hell. She's surely teaching them to hunt, and they'll be nailing the odd fawn before long. Dogs in a working pack are some serious stuff. Meanwhile the leaves drift down, at last daylight savings time is over, and this is the best time of year. I've got lots of stacked and covered fire wood, and plenty of split red cedar for kindling. Getting to be time to go get that winter bottle of Dewars. There's about one good shot left from the Aught-twelve edition.

[For more on Mr. Stinnett see http://mofiddledance.org/profiles/cyril-stinnett/ ]

Update (11/11): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/09/virginia-attorney-general-race_n_4247571.html
As I've said before, joining the chorus of many liberal commentators, Republicans really do not believe in democracy. The process is just a Rubic's cube to be manipulated as necessary.

6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Tuesday night I confidently went online to the Virginia Board of Elections website to see how the election was going for Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General. All the polls leading up to the election showed Terry McAuliffe, (D) ahead - not by much, but consistently ahead. I had a panic attack when I found him down by 20 percentage points. For the next 3 hours, he slowly inched upward each time I checked until he finally pulled ahead about 10:30 pm and was declared the winner. The Lieutenant Governor's win by the D candidate was never in doubt.

    But now let's look at the Attorney General's race. All evening, Obenshain (R) was ahead until most folks had gone to bed. Thus, Bill wrote in his blog that Obenshain had won. However, upon checking the official website Wednesday morning, I found Herring (D) ahead by 500 votes! I happily posted that news as a comment on Bill's blog with a snide comment about "Dewey defeats Truman." I checked again at noon Wednesday to find Obenshain (R) now back ahead by 500 votes. I deleted my comment above.

    Later that afternoon, I got an email from Herring's campaign. They will be fighting to get provisional ballots counted. In the middle of October (yes, OCTOBER), Virginia voter rolls were purged of 40,000 folks. In case of errors, these folks couldn't just call up their local registrar to correct their status. Instead, they had to physically reregister in a very brief window of time. Many folks who didn't get/read/respond to the notice and tried to vote, were allowed to vote provisionally. These votes will be tossed out if the people don't take care of the paperwork quickly. Today, Obenshain (R) is ahead by 700 votes out of over 2,000,000 cast, 49.90% over 49.87% for Herring (D). It's not over.

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  3. As of 11/10 (Happy birthday Marines!), Obenshain leads by only 55 votes, and both candidates are listed at 49.88% of the total. Corrections continue, and there are 3000 provisional ballots left. Will they be counted?

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  4. 11/11 at 11 pm. Mark Herring (D) now leads the Virginia Attorney General's race by 117 votes.

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  5. Today, 11/25, the Virginia State Board of Elections certified that Mark Herring (D) won the Attorney General's race by 165 votes out of over 2.2 million cast. Mark Obenshain (R) has 10 days to decide if he wants to call for a recount that will be paid for by the state since the margin (under 0.01%) is so small.

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  6. 12/18 Mr. Obenshain (R) conceded this afternoon. He did call for a recount hours after my previous post on 11/25, and that recount was held this week. By last night, Herring's lead climbed from 165 votes to over 800, and only a few over 100 votes were still contested. In the last few weeks, Republicans talked up an obscure rule in Virginia law that would have let them ask for the House of Delegates (solidly Republican) to decide the election if they could have proven significant fraud. Let's give them credit for not trying to go there. Congratulations, Mr. Herring.

    However, before the celebration, realize that Mr. Herring now has to resign from the Virginia Senate where the Ds and Rs are tied at 20-20. Mr. Herring's district is a tossup, so there's still drama ahead.

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