Here are the results of the scientifically accurate exit poll I personally conducted to determine just how Ron Barber was able to apply the smack-down on Jesse Kelly in last week’s special election to fill out the remainder of Gabrielle Giffords’ term in the House.
I was guardedly optimistic that Barber could squeak though, but who knew that he would whup Kelly way worse than Giffords did two years earlier? What, were all the Tea Party people away at the national convention in Selma, Ala.? (The guest speaker was Joe Arpaio, doing his best Bull Connor impression.)
There were lots of theories out there, and some of the theories were out there.
The results, presented in ascending order of probability, have been tabulated, collated and, because it’s 109 freakin’ degrees outside, hydrated.
0.03 percent of those polled think it had something to do with aliens. Not the brown hordes who are reported (on Fox) to be streaming across the border to steal our jobs and voting privileges, but rather, you know … aliens. Like Jeff Bridges in Starman, who could impregnate a woman with just one close encounter. Or maybe like those in the sci-fi classic They Live, in which Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David stage the longest fistfight in cinematic history, all over a pair of sunglasses.
1.64 percent think that the same people who rigged the redistricting process rigged the election. The redistricting was rigged?!
4.28 percent believe that it was grandpa backlash. There were reports of people walking up to random old white men all over southeastern Arizona and angrily asking, “Are you Jesse Kelly’s grandpa?” There was no actual violence, because everybody who was asked that, including Jesse Kelly’s grandpa, answered that question with an emphatic “No!”
5.27 percent believe that it was, indeed, the aforementioned brown horde streaming across our southern border to vote for Ron Barber. Some people believe that these people were promised free socialized medicine, lavish welfare benefits and an opportunity to see the rubber stamp that Barber would use to sign on to the Obama agenda. They were all picked up at the border by public school buses that were being driven by anti-American union members.
6.09 percent attribute it to a diabolical delayed effect from Martha McSally’s TV ads during the Republican primary. Remember that death-stare, never-blink, I’ve-flown-in-combat look? She was hypnotizing people into not voting for Kelly so that she could run in the general election in November. Adding fuel to the conspiracy is the fact that—considering many people thought Kelly was the frontrunner in this election—the phrase “Vote for Martha” is an anagram from “harm t’ fave” … with letters that spell “root” left over. That’s just eerie.
10.22 percent think that Kelly was doomed the first time he attacked Social Security. There are those who believe that if a politician were to walk 50 miles out into the desert and whisper something negative about Social Security, he/she might as well stay out there, because there is no future in his/her future.
There was a significant difference in the approach of the attack ads on each side. While Photoshopping Ron Barber’s face next to President Obama’s might get the blood of a few crackpots boiling, Kelly was destroyed by his own words coming out of his own mouth, saying really stupid things about abolishing the corporate tax, slamming the middle class with a 23 percent value-added tax, lowering (and then eliminating) the minimum wage, and, of course, getting rid of Medicare and Social Security. That stuff might fly with your base, but if everybody in that base can fit into the bathroom at the Rialto Theatre, your base ain’t gettin’ you elected.
Look, we all agree: The Dems shouldn’t have put Social Security in the general fund back in the 1960s. Over the years, the Repubs have had their opportunities to fix that, but haven’t had the stones to do so. The system is heading towards a cliff … blah, blah, blah.
Just raise the retirement age. Next question.
11.07 percent think that Republicans nominated the wrong person. Some (many against their will) preferred McSally. Others, latching on to his “rah-rah America” approach and his ties to the world of rugby, liked Dave Sitton. And those with the 90-day supplies of canned goods in the shelter would have preferred Frank Antenori.
11.39 percent really hated all of the commercials. They hated them from both sides, but since Kelly had a ton more money flowing in from out of state, people hated his more.
50.01 percent embrace the wild notion that maybe Southern Arizonans aren’t all nuts, after all. While certain pockets will elect the likes of Frank Antenori and Al Melvin, overall, a majority of Southern Arizonans think that some government programs are OK. They don’t hate public education or think that teachers are the societal equivalent of those little cakes they put at the bottom of urinals, to be pissed on, at will.
Perhaps there is hope after all.
This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2012.
“1.64 percent think that the same people who rigged the redistricting process rigged the election. “
How about just the same people who’ve been rigging elections here for years? All you need is Brad Roach and a crop scanner, at least if the numerous TW articles detailing the process and the never-ending lawsuit from the election integrity activists is correct.
…are correct. Pardon my grammatical slip.
Tom, a word about Social Security. The FICA tax is currently capped at approximately $107K of earned income. Remove that cap, tax all earned income and Social Security is secured for ages to come. When the person fortunate enough to earn a million a year is taxed at 10% of the tax on the 100K earner, we have (1) regressive taxation and (2) a problem keeping Social Security funded. And probably 99.4 % of Kelly’s voters (1) earn less than the FICA taxable maximum and (2) don’t know they’re being taxed regressively. And the Republicam moguls, local and national, aren’t going to enlighten them anytime soon.
Remember all of those folks born right after the troops got back from WW2? I believe they call us “baby boomers.”
Well a heck of a lot of us are now getting to the age where Social Security is a necessity to augment the retirement funds that we worked 45 years or more to build up, but were wiped out when our bought and paid for legislators decided to let the banks and wall street manage themselves.
We paid into that fund for 2/3rds of our life and it’s only reasonable that we get to collect that now. For many, it amounts to around $1,000 a month. That’s $12,000 a year and I believe anyone earning that much is considered to be at the poverty level.
If you are lucky enough to have even a part time job and continue working after 67, you might get $20,000 a year total. Try supporting a family, owning a home or being able to afford to own a car and put gas into it with that.
Anyone who thinks that eliminating Social Security or privatizing it and letting those same banks/wall street run it are using those same sunglasses as in the “They Live” movie. Might as well put the foxes in charge of the chicken coop as well.
As far as I’m concerned, any politician of any party that starts screwing with something that I’ve paid into all of my life deserves to have to live on bread and water and buy their clothes at Goodwill like many of us older folks.
And for the younger set who think, “That won’t happen to me,” big surprise, yes it will.
Many companies are finding ways to let their older workers go so they can replace them with young ones at half the salary. You too will someday be one of those older workers holding on to the short, dirty end of the stick.
More like a year’s supply of dried beans and rice and home-canned veggies, Tom.
Kelly sabotaged himself when, despite there being video and audio of HIM talking about dismantling the Social Security ‘Ponzi scheme’, he implied that it was, gosh, I don’t know, a computer-generated imposter saying those things. The disturbing thing about the election is that he was able to dupe so many thousands of people to vote for him – many of them probably TWICE. Then there was that appalling commercial with his grandfather.
Tom is his usual glib self and anyone who likes clever writing has to appreciate that. His points, tho, are as usual easily challenged. To select just one, choose his comments that ‘Repubs didn’t fix the SS – General Fund merger’. Tom ignores that it took nearly forty years for Gingrich et al to get back in control of the House. At that time the mess had been fixed with that temporary solution engineered by Reagan and Tip O’Neill (sp?). A few recognized that it was a disaster waiting to happen, but it took another ten years before the disaster became plain enough to raise the issue. W tried to work out a solution, but he put the solution ahead of the problem instead of just raising the alarm, so fault him on that. Now, tho, we are stuck with a President and his party that refuses even to recognize the problem, as do most of the comments here. The fact is that the ‘trust fund’ accounting gimmick is part of the 16 trillion dollar national debt, and the trust fund cannot be tapped unless the general fund taxpayers take a huge increase over and above the FICA rate, and/or China agrees to keep lending us the money to pay off our Seniors. Kelly’s pointing out the Ponzi scheme that SS became is completely correct, when you realize the trust fund is part of the debt. Too bad Tom either doesn’t get that, or doesn’t dare point it out.
Want to raise the minimum wage to to living wage? Tie the pay of Arizona state legislators pay to it.
If you want to see SS get fixed convert the federal workers retirement plan to SS along with medicare.