It's the economy, stupid.

I have been pondering this for the past few days. The tighter the economy gets, the less people give two shits about Iraq or Iran. I think that the reason that Bush and the Republicans have managed to win for the past four or five elections is because people had the luxury of being freaked out about terrorists. Same thing with abortion and gay marriage. Except for a few hard core fundies, nobody cares about that stuff enough to vote for the GOP as long as they think it is against their economic interests.

The other day I heard John McCain say on NPR that 'Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists' were the greatest threat the world faces today. And I thought to myself, "Good luck with that, asshole." People don't CARE about that any more. They care about not being able to afford to fill their car up with gas; they worry about the price of food and the fact that they can no longer afford their house. I have a friend who is an assistant manager at Starbuck's. This time last year they were doing 25% more business than they are this year. Which doesn't make sense because the area around her store just finished adding a huge condo complex recently. She thinks it's because people aren't buying lattes any more. I can tell you the horse business is slowing down big time. Turn out at shows is less, horses prices are down, etc. Another friend works for a small-ish local custom homebuilder. He told all his employees that as long as they could hold on til the Democrats win in '08, things would be fine again. He was a hardcore Republican, but told them that he could not afford to vote for the GOP again. He pretty much hinted that, regardless of personal beliefs, he wanted all them to vote Dem in '08, too.

Anyway, unless the Republican Party catches on to the fact that people don't feel like they have the LUXURY of worrying about terrorism and abortion and gay marriage and things like that, they are going to get killed in '08.