An Open Letter of Sympathy to Republicans

Dear Republicans,

Even though I have been registered as an independent since 1972, I have always voted for democrats.  This means I have often had to endure the embarrassment of watching many unqualified or uninteresting candidates lose.

Howard Dean, Mike Dukakis, John Kerry, Jimmy Carter...it doesn't matter whether they were good men or not, qualified or not.  What killed them politically was the fact that they couldn't sway the voters, couldn't perform well in debates and didn't accurately measure the pulse of the public.  So I and other democrats trudged to the polls with heavy hearts, knowing all the time we were voting for a candidate who would lose by a landslide.

And so it is without any sarcasm that I say "I feel sorry for you" because you're going to lose this election. Your current crop of candidates doesn't have a chance.  You're a house divided.  Believe me, I've endured the frustration and dissatisfaction that comes from watching my party and/or my candidate totally blow it by going in too many different directions at once, all of them silly and unimportant.

You folks on the right are going to wake up on the morning after election like a person with a hangover on New Year's Day who spends the next week wondering "What was I thinking???"  Herman Cain? He's like the bad prom date you want to forget.  Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry - you realize these people were utterly unelectable, right?

So now you're left with Newt, Santorum and Romney. Newt scolds everyone and arrogantly points out how smart he is every time a microphone gets near his mouth.  Santorum, who thinks he's Joan of Arc with testicles, and chastises Obama for wanting kids to go to college.  And Romney, who is the closest thing you can come up with to a candidate with mass appeal.  (Just so you know, my democratic friends and I wouldn't worry if Romney wins- he is, after all, a centrist democrat).

Oh, and let's not forget Ron Paul and John Huntsman, the only two intelligent candidates you have/had. One of them you kicked to the curb in favor of Newt and St. Rick, the other you just ignore.  Which is your fault, not the fault of 'the liberal media' or democratic organizers. Ron Paul would give Obama a serious run for his money, but...aw, what the heck, you guys are gonna do what you're gonna do. Just like we did when we ran hopeless candidates.

So, I'm sorry. Unless hell freezes over, you're going to lose and it won't be a close election.  Despite what the fear mongers want you to believe, Obama is not Satan in disguise and a lot of Americans have come to realize that.

My condolences

The Republicans Are Right, But...

One thing you hear from republicans and conservatives constantly is that federal regulations eliminate jobs and are a drag on the economy. If only we didn't make our factories and businesses comply with EPA and OSHA and other workplace regulations, our economy would be booming.

They're right. But...

In 2009 I spent 3 weeks in China, traveling from Beijing down to the beaches on the South China Sea near the Vietnam border and back up to Beijing again. When you land in Beijing airport, there is a huge, scrolling electronic sign that advises you of all the diseases you might catch in China and what the symptoms are: thyphoid fever, cholera, dengue fever, CSARs, bird flu, yellow fever and - really - bubonic plague. Everybody except the poorest of the poor drinks bottled water because of cholera. I stayed in 5 star hotels (in China it's either a 5 star or a 1 star, nothing much in between). Every morning when they cleaned my room they brought in a fresh supply of bottled water. So you can't even drink the water in a five star hotel. The pollution in Beijing creaated a murky brown haze that hung over the city. We had planned a boat trip down the yellow river, but parts of it are so polluted from factory runoff that your eyes burn and you can't breath in certain places on that waterway. People work long, long hours without benefits, there's no social security, the state spies on you and you do what your boss says or else.

Why? Because the Chinese don't have the EPA, OSHA, a Clean Air Act, public health initiatives, etc.

Get the picture? Sure, we can bury China's economy overnight and get ours booming like crazy if we remove regulations. But you won't be able to drink the water, breath the air, complain about the dangerous working conditions or long hours at your job and when you're too old to work, you'll be on your own. If you lose a hand on an unsafe machine, you're also on your own.

So you choose: regulations or quality of life. Sometimes you have to compromise in life