John Dingell.
If you want to know what the election was all about last night, it looks like this:
That’s Rep. John Dingell, who has served in the U.S. House for 28 terms. When he was elected, automatic transmissions were a big deal. A cell phone was something you used to call your lawyer from the hoosegow. Dingell is one of those career politicians who have made public service thier own lifetime entitlement. He has burrowed into Congress like a bedbug for 56 years. When I grew up in Michigan he was as much a part of the landscape as Detroit, and just as charming.
He represents the Socialist Republic of Ann Arbor, which decided to send him back for yet another term — barely — to make it 29 terms. Go figure.
He’s a hard-core liberal, a hero of the UAW, and has often been one of the most mean-spirited partisans in D.C. — and that is saying a lot. To win re-election he ran ads stamped from the Union sheet-metal shop accusing his opponent of being a Wall Street insider.
Considering how the UAW grabbed Obama bailouts with both hands, it’s amazing they have the gall to criticize Wall Street. But here’s the punchline. Dingell’s opponent was no Wall Streeter. He’s a doctor, and he seemed genuinely flummoxed that Dingell would run such a dishonest, ignorant ad.
But the lesson is: For Democrats, it worked. So Dingell is one of their stars today, one of the few bright spots in a gloomy forecast, along with Harry Reid, Barney Frank and the flashback to Gov. Moonbeam in California. He’s their “winner.” And with winners like that, who needs losers?
Most of the rest of the country has a different opinion. Elsewhere, voters were sending newcomers like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio to the Senate to send a message that the John Dingells of Washington are washed up. As Paul said in a genuine goosebump moment, “We’re here to take back our government.”
Obama doesn’t get it, or if he does, he is lacking the humility gene in his DNA. He thinks it’s all about the economy. But this time it really is all about him.
If Nov. 2 was a performance evaluation, he would be fired. But we can’t do that yet, so he is on probation, with one last chance to shape up. And his team is still loaded with John Dingells and Harry Reids and Barney Franks, who are still trying to push the car back into the ditch, or blaming Bush for putting the gas station too far away, to borrow Obama’s favorite analogy.
Good luck with that. Meanwhile, the rest of us are high-fiving, fist-bumping and sighing with relief that the Obama-Pelosi socialist, big-government train has been derailed before it can do more damage.
God bless America. God bless the Team Party. And God bless the Founders who gave us a chance to correct our mistakes every two years.
very well said.
Seems to me Dingell bought his re-election. On Oct. 27th, he announced $150 million for the Dearborn to Kazoo high speed train.