Don't Blame Me, I'm Not From Massachusetts

Back in the early 70s, I traveled around with my guitar case emblazoned with a bumper sticker that read: "Don't Blame Me, I'm From Massachusetts." And in those days, I was, and proud of it: the only state to not vote to re-elect Richard Nixon to the presidency. Yes, 49 states did so in 1972, despite the abuses of power that were already known, including the outlines of Watergate, and the bombing in Cambodia, as well as the violent and disastrous policies in Vietnam.

The rest of the country soon came to regret that vote. As they did their election of G.W. Bush in 2004, as well as the votes that made it possible for the Bushites to steal the presidency in 2000.

How soon will yesterday's election in MA be regretted? Not soon enough. As to why it happened, there was a vaguely interesting debate at Kos, between someone's mother who said it was all local politics and someone's father who said it wasn't. (Kind of tells you the age of the posters at Kos, though.) If it was something of a referendum on Obama, there's suspicion that race was involved (not too surprising in MA actually), and GOPers seem comfortable with that idea.

So the Senate seat of the man who championed health care for decades goes to a man who promised to kill that dream, and probably will. The minute hand just moved up a notch on my personal Doomsday Clock.

Well, at times like this the choice of responses narrows down to sarcasm or escapism. I choose escapism. Bye.