Now that the election is over

Again I'm late in writing about something. But should I lament that fact and just never write about it or should I say something and hope that it is still relevant? I choose to write about it. This is my blog and I can say anything I want. The main purpose of this thing is to get my thoughts down so that later, when I'm old and feeble (or older and more feeble as some may say), I'll be able to look back at this and say, "I don't remember thinking that but there it is in black and white." This is for me and my family. If anyone else happens to read this blog, I hope they enjoy it. If they don't, it isn't going to ruin my day.

Back to the election. This year, the Republican Party won a lot of races. They now have the majority in the US House of Representatives and have narrowed the gap in the US Senate. They also picked up a number of state governorships. Not in our state, though. Massachusetts remains a Democratic stronghold (although our local representative to the state legislature went from a Democrat to a Republican). There is a lot of hand-wringing and worrying going on in the Democratic party. There are a lot of people who tend to like the ideas of the Democratic party who think this election is going to be bad for the country. They may be right but I think in the end that the people who were elected will, for the most part, have the good of the country in their heart and do the right thing. Of course, as an old ad for the 1964 election might say, "Yes extreme right." And that worries a lot of Democratic-thinking folks.

There were a lot of exit polls where the voters were asked who they voted for and why. The people who were polled were categorized by age, sex, religion, ethnicity, political affiliation and many other things. The people who do polling will analyze those numbers for months and make many interesting conclusions about what happened in this election. But the most telling numbers I saw were that about 40% of registered Democrats voted and about 60% of registered Republicans voted. Those numbers are just what I remember seeing on TV and they may be off. I wish I could find a reference for those numbers. If I do, I'll add it here. But the point is - if Democrats are upset about the results of this election, they have only themselves to blame (not me, I voted). Instead of sitting down and worrying about how the election would go and now crying about the results, those 60% of Democrats who didn't vote should have gotten up off their lazy butts and voted! That's all it would have taken. Just get up, go out the door, get to the polling place and make some marks on a piece of paper (or pull a few levers).

I have no sympathy for them. And, like in 2008 when the circumstances were reversed, the Republicans at that time stayed home and didn't vote. They allowed the Democrats to win big in that election. So, stop your crying, people. A lot of you didn't vote. So, just shut up. If the country goes down the tubes, it's your fault - not the people who were elected.