Salutations, dullards & rubes and THE REASON (first official blog posting)

So here it is. My very first blog. I've seen them. I've read them on occasion. I understand that a few people who write them even got political party convention access. I'm a little intimidated to keep typing, considering all the attendant, blog-related pressure. But I will press on.

I'm not sure yet what the ultimate incarnation of this weblog will be. I suspect that it will have a few rants about American politics and policy. I have the occasional opinion. I might even try to offer a few constructive suggestions for how to change the troubling, increasingly polarized cultural dynamic in this country. There may be a movie review or two. Maybe a little venting about issues in my life that I don't care to verbalize with an actual human-type person. Perhaps even a little anonymous raging against the dying of the light. After all, this blog isn't called "andirant" for no reason.

I'll be general to start- sort of a dip-my-toe-in-the-pool post to get in the swing of things. I live in California, bastion of liberalism, the bluest blue state not on the Eastern Seaboard and I like it here. I feel comfortable here. Mostly.

You see, I'm a transplant. And a transplant from the South, no less. And if there's anything about my adopted home state that I find irritating of late, it's the pervasive mentality that all those red state people who voted for Bush are either stupid or just "don't get it." Now I voted for Kerry. Not so much out of enthusiasm for the guy but (like so many others) because of an almost tangible distate for the incumbent.

But I know a lot of people who voted for that incumbent. And almost none of them are stupid. And with few exceptions, they "get" it. Let me clarify . They "get" the concept that our country faces incredible challenges at home and abroad. They get that our our national conversation has turned into a shouting match. They get that the things that unite as a people are fast being overwhelmed by the things that divide us. They are aware that the world is being re-made and that not everyone likes the new look.

What they don't "get" is that their entire worldview is wrong, that everything they believe is unworthy of anything but contempt and that their support for President Bush will lead to the destruction of the America we know and love. They don't "get" that.

Many of my more liberal friends and associates subscribe to the notion that the above description of President Bush's supporters is pretty much spot-on. They either shake their heads with confusion or cluck sympathetically at the dullards and rubes who handed President Bush another four years.

The arrogant assumption on the left that the people who supported President Bush this time around were either suckered, psycho or sinister has permeated the collective consciousness. Thus, the e-mails circulating that have a map which refers to most of the US as "Jesus Land" or the e-mail that includes a (false) study indicating that the average IQ in blue-voting states is substantially higher than in red ones.

When you boil it down to the most basic level, this kind of highbrow, self-deluding name-calling of the opposition is the adult equivalent of one kid losing a race at recess and saying "Well, you may have won the race, but I'm in Honors Math and you're not, Dumbhead."

Whatever, Math Boy. You wanted to win the race. You trained hard for it. You could almost taste victory. And you lost. Talking about your math class doesn't change the fact that you lost. And you're not fooling anyone, except maybe yourself. Maybe you should take a look at why you lost and focus on improving your technique for the next race. Telling the winner and everyone who cheered him on that they're Dumbheads isn't winning you any friends and it's distracting from the job at hand- winning the next race, winning races consistently, leaving that other kid in the dust.

Clunky, extended metaphors aside, I think my point is clear. Senator Kerry did not lose the race because President Bush's supporters were lemmings who jumped off a political cliff. Kerry lost because (well, there were a bunch of reasons, but for the purposes of this discussion) the Republicans, and more generally, the conservative movement, found a way to connect with voters, to convince them that they shared those voters' values and understood their concerns, more than the Democratic Party did.

That's it. That's the reason. Not because the Democrats didn't effectively get their message out. Or because Republicans used dirty tricks or fear tactics. Those things may all be true but they're not THE REASON. The Republican party won a pretty convincing win this time around and that kind of broad-based victory at local, state and national levels is not the result of strategic errors or dirty tricks. It is the result of a fundamental inability to connect with huge segments of the American voting public.

Now what to do about that? Well, this first post is getting a little long, so I'll have to hold off on that one for now (I swear I'm not wussing out- I just have other things to do right now). Frankly, I'm not sure I have any answers, but I know that to come up with good answers you have to at least be asking the right questions.

More questions to come.

-andirant