This Week, Over the Water Cooler

Well, actually, we don’t have a water cooler at work. So let us say

"This Week, Over the Coffee Pot...."

Like the rest of you, even a week past the election, we're still discussing what went wrong for the Democrats, what went right for the Republicans, and where do we go from here -- ad nauseam.

The political reporter thinks the Democratic party must start looking to mid-America instead of focusing on New York and California. Good point. Lots of pundits say so. The sales staff thinks it is probably good for business. Looks like the stock market agrees. The union steward is red-faced furious and has been making snide comments all week. And the handful of Republicans at the paper are emailing jokes and winking behind the backs of the liberals -- although the information systems lady (the one that gets paid to tell you to re-boot) can’t contain her glee. But she has red hair and deep dimples so we let her dance around.

Personally, I think it was not so much a vote for Bush but an intellectual vote for capitalism and consumerism. We don’t have the great caste system of past years. Now anyone from any race and any neighborhood can see a future in America and they don’t want to give up that achievable dream. I also think it was too long a campaign. I think we have an emotional response to the challenger who was a nit-picking mother-in-law type, constantly nagging, constantly negating every single presidential action. It grated on our collective nerves until we unconsciously blamed the challenger for all the political ads and all the repetitive news reports.

At least that's my view. Hmm... maybe this site is my water cooler!