Snowballs And Quiet Revolutions

In New Hampshire, things aren’t working out as expected for the Democrats or the Republicans.

Last night’s Sanity Squad podcast examined what is a new reality.

Hillary Clinton’s expected coronation may end up with her being handed a broom instead of a royal scepter. Pretty boy candidates Mitt Romney and John Edwards are facing a new kind voter who cares about substance and clarity and not five o’clock shadow.

No matter the final vote tally, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee have successfully tapped into the conscience of a nation that has grown weary of the status quo.When Barack Obama points to Hillary Clinton and says she’s yesterday’s spoiled pizza in a new box, there is no mistaking his meaning. He’s appealing to a constituency that says we’re  sick and tired of the same old, same old.

When voters see Mike Huckabee, they see an average Joe. They might not like his religion convictions but they understand that if asked to look out for their kids, the Huckabbees are reliable and dependable. The former Arkansas governor is real. He’s been married to the same non beauty queen for a long time. He’s loyal, had some ups and downs with his kids and in the end, he always did the right thing. When he points to his opponents, everyone understands he isn’t one of them.

John McCain is another anti candidate. He’s hated by a lot of his party’s faithful because he worked with the opposition to get things done. He’s no Pelosi or Reid, those partisan (and corrupt) great pretenders. He knows who he can work with and who he must avoid. He’s perfectly happy with acceptable compromise- he isn’t driven by the need to kill anyone who doesn’t see the world through his looking glass.

The Anchoress found the few words that most perfectly describe the snowball effect of  ‘quiet revolution’ that seems to be picking up a head of steam.

A week into January and already we are watching the sensational, major collapse of “the inevitable candidate,” and it comes not via a grand “vast conspiracy” but via a simple caucus of midwestern “little people,” who live in the much-derided “flyover country” between the coastal corridors of power. You know who those “flyover” folks are – they’re the cornpone, white-bread, unsophisticated yokels and naive believers of endless caricature. Thanks to their “naive” belief in the election process, they actually believed they could walk off the heavily fortified Clinton plantation, and they did it. And in doing so, they’ve essentially given permission to other people in other states to walk away, too.

Unthinkable. Done. These same people went and walked over to the Obama side, and suddenly the semi-interesting idea of a female president was supplanted by the truly exciting idea of an exotic fellow with a Kenyan father, a caucasian mother, a Muslim name and a childhood spent in Indonesia. Oh, and he was precocious enough as a kid to write a kindergarten essay detailing his presidential ambitions!

I said the other day that Obama was the “Moses of the Democrat party” leading the Democrats out of captivity. But it cannot be said enough that the people of Iowa made that possible by just standing up and doing the deed.

On last night’s Sanity Squad podcast, we discussed these matters and more.  Dr Sanity, ShrinkWrapped, Neo, and ourselves discussed what we believed will be a ‘transitional’ type of government, irrespective of who wins the elections in November.