Looking over my first spate of diaries here, I see that I've been in what's considered the "Gloom & Doom" camp. Well, it's hard not to be gloomy and doomy with every new poll looking worse for Democrats and every pundit out there punditing about "anti-incumbent anger."
Well, today's diary will not be about Gloom & Doom. I want to talk about ladybugs. I have a certain affection for these little creatures that stems from childhood. When I find them in my house, I take care to coax them gently onto a finger so I can transport them outside or at least to the nearest potted plant. Over the past year, however, I've been doing a lot of this.
Living in Chicagoland, I'm used to having these little guys show up during warm spells well into November, but over the winter of 2009/2010, I was seeing them crawling along windowsills or drapes even in the dark, bitter days of February. Never before in my 61 years had I seen ladybugs in the dead of winter.
What do the plague of ladybugs in my house and this election cycle have in common? It's a very, very weird year...
One of the Gloomier, Doomier things I've read in the last couple of days was an article in WaPo about how 2010 is looking a lot like 1994. You have to get around halfway through the article to get to the part where 2010 may not be like 1994, but it's sobering nevertheless. When I get that sober, I know I need a drink.
Sometimes, in the middle of a glass of Cabernet, the oddest thoughts enter into my mind. Thinking of the ladybugs made me realize that not only is 2010 unlike 1994, it's also unlike any other year I can remember. We are as polarized a nation as we were in the 1960s, but the issues are very different. The economy is worse than it was in the 1970s, but the causes - and the culprits - are much better known. In the 1980s, a president who ran on a platform of hope and change was deeply unpopular two years into his term, but he was a Republican - and he had an opposition party who had shown a willingness to work with him. We have already covered the 1990s.
No, there's never been another year like 2010. Not even close. So all of the predictive models the pollsters and pundits are using to generate Gloom & Doom are based on a past that is on the other side of the looking glass from where you and I and Alice are now. And there's a ladybug crawling on the rim of my glass.
If I can have ladybugs in February, perhaps we can have a victory in November.