Now that the election is out of the way

No Republican candidate has won the presidential election without carrying the electoral votes of Ohio for the last eleven elections.  Ohio is the swingiest of the swing states.  Mitt Romney is getting positively creamed in Ohio - as many as 10 points back in the popular vote, which is an enormous deficit in this day and age.  In all the other swing states, where the election is decided (you can color in huge blocks of the country in red and blue even before anyone is nominated for President), Romney is not doing much better.  Romney could save us all a lot of trouble by giving his concession speech now.

He's a dull and irritating candidate, prone to smug and derisive remarks about anyone not born into privilege the way he was.  The people who will vote for him are those who see the "R" next to his name and check the box.  That's it.  He generates no excitement whatsoever.  He looks like a guy who should be wearing a fishing vest in an L.L. Bean catalogue. 

In Brazil they're holding the annual Miss BumBum contest.  This is a beauty pageant which focuses on the best butt in Brazil, a nation known for fabulous backsides on prominent display at all their beaches and carnavals.  One gifted gal from each of the 17 federalist states of Brazil is nominated for the final runoff (back off?) in Sao Paulo.

In the United States this week, the nation will rivet its attention on a contrived "debate" between Barack Obama and....the aforementioned Mitt Romney.  This will be the dullest debate in the history of the known world.  President Obama can be articulate when he is reading a speech or reciting one from memory.  As an extemporaneous speaker arguing on the spot, Obama makes used dishwater look positively incandescent.  He is halting, banal, predictable, play-it-safe, and yet still manages to say absurd things that make no sense.  Romney, apparently, has put together a bunch of "zingers." Oh God, please spare us.  I am sure these will be delivered in a natural, flowing way, and won't look at all contrived.

I think two old-line WASPS (McCain, Romney) getting steamrolled in a row by a gifted minority politician marks a decisive turning point in the history of the country.  James Kunstler at Clusterfuck Nation says that Romney is the Millard Fillmore of the Republican Party, playing the same role as the hapless Millard (Romney is Willard, don't forget) played to the Whig Party; namely, ushering them into extinction.  The remnants of the Republican Party will then scatter into ultra-Right Tea Party and White Supremacist factions, with Wal-Martians moving into the power vacuum.  That sounds about right.  It was primarily white trash that formed the operative legions of the Third Reich.

Maybe Barack, with no future election to hold him back, can start to boogie - have some fun, go a little crazy.  Get street, you know?  Sure hope so.  If we can't have a Miss BumBum, we should at least be allowed that.