2009-09-30

Teabagger Retrospective

It's not very often that I get to pat myself on the back for an accurate prediction, but here goes.

Almost two months ago, I left this comment at Sadly, No! predicting that the Teabag Town Hall-apalooza would  turn people away from the conservative movement.  That rather than showing America what strong principled convictions the health care reform opponents had, it would instead showcase them as mouth-breathing k00ks.  It would reveal them to be <shudder> uncivil and thuggish.  I even followed that up with this obtusely ridiculous prediction:
Here’s an interesting note about polling – both daily approval trackers (Gallup and Rasmussen) show an uptick corresponding to the start of Operation Stand and Shout for HMOs. I’m leaning towards “there ain’t enough data points yet to formulate any conclusions” but there will be soon.
That was August 4th.  Now a lot of the liberal media did in fact play the astroturfed FreedomWorks Dick Armey BS as grassroots and these nutjobs got a lotta teevees time - and my prediction was based on the assumption that the American public isn't made up completely of tools - a shaky assumption at best.

BUT, I win a gold star.  It's cookie-time for Dragon-King:
A slew of recent polling data points to a conclusion that might have seemed hard to believe amidst the town hall craziness in the dog days of August and early September: President Obama's numbers have not only stabilized but actually seem to be showing a modest uptick. And by several other measures the political landscape for Democrats isn't nearly as bleak as it was being portrayed just a few weeks ago.
 It's more modest gains than I had hoped for and it took about twice as long as I expected to become evident, but I am an optimist at heart.  An optimist eating a cookie.