As I look back at the Electoral Map shown on all the major networks, the sea of Red States (as if to symbolize the Confederacy) covers nearly the entire Continental United States.

Well folks, we are back to the same ole same ole in American politics. We’ve returned to the days of Nixon and Reagan/Bush. A time when Black folks were required to cut white voters slack on corrupt politicians with little or no interest in Black America’ s affairs. If we got spoiled during the so-called 'glory days' of the Clinton era, we ’ve been pimp slapped back into reality in the Bush Jr.era. With George W.Bush ’s re-election, we’ve continued this tradition of lower standards. And to add insult to injury, we ’ll have to take the greater of the two evils not just in the White House but also in a Republican controlled House and Senate. GW will basically have carte blanche in his rule over America for the next 2 years and maybe four.

What went wrong? From the start, it was a dumb and huge risk on the part of the Democratic Party to make this election North versus South, Conservative versus Liberal by running a Yankee Liberal against a Confederate Conservative. And this is exactly the way far too many Southerners viewed the election. Perhaps the Democrats relied too heavily on anti-Bush sentiment, failing to realize that Presidential Elections really have gone, not only Hollywood, but Medieval.

In 2000, we pitted South v/s South (Conservative Confederate Thief v/s Confederate/Yankee Hybrid Liberal) and should have won by a large margin based on Bush ’s inexperience and Gore ’s incumbency, but it was stolen. I must say that George W. Bush the Texan transplant “out southerned” Al Gore, the native Tennessean.  Yet, we could ’ve still won this year if we took Ohio. That ’s the state we needed. But,the Ohio Democrats failed to deliver their state. Voting fraud aside, the Republicans ’ beat the Democrats at the get-out-to-vote effort. The GOP mobilized what I call the CSS (Confederate Southern Sentiments) areas of Central/West Central and Southern Ohio, which border Indiana (former KKK headquarters) and Kentucky respectively. CSS areas have a strong presence in Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. In Ohio, the Republicans won every county in these areas by large margins 60–75%of the vote. They knew they only needed to have respectable numbers in the Cleveland-Akron-Canton-Youngstown Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area, which accounted for 1/3 of all the state votes, as well as in the counties of Franklin (Columbus), Montgomery (Dayton), Lucas (Toledo) and Hamilton (Cincinnati). These areas combine for a total of nearly 60%of all Ohio votes. The Republicans gained a good percentage of votes in these areas by playing the conservative/religious/CSS card. They essentially neutralized the black vote because an overwhelming majority of Ohio ’s black population (11.5%of the total) lies in its large urban areas. Bush won Hamilton (located in CSS territory), lost Lucas with decent numbers, and basically split the other three counties. He gave Kerry a solid asswhopping in all other rural and semi-rural counties averaging 60%of the votes. He won Ohio by less than 150,000 votes.

But even if Kerry had won Ohio, he still would have lost the popular vote by at least 3 million votes which would have been a reversal 2000's election outcome. In general, Kerry won the urban and suburban liberal and centrist vote, but lost the suburban/rural conservative vote miserably. He only achieved modest numbers with conservatives. What does it all mean? That we still live in a conservative nation filled with working class rednecks. Some 100 million spread out from Maine to Florida, Maryland to California, but concentrated in the South and Midwest. And if the Democrats are to regain the White House it cannot dismiss Confederate Southern Sentiments by selecting a Northeast candidate liberal or not. Four of the last five presidents, Democratic and Republican, have been native Southerners or Northern transplants to Dixie.

The re-election of GW in my opinion really parallels the re-election by the Black residents of Washington, DC of Marion Barry as its mayor although DC is just a microcosm. I mean let ’s take a look at this folks. GW is an egotistical “former ” alcoholic with a DWI record and recovering cocaine addict with an AWOL record in the Alabama Air National Guard. Barry was a former crackhead, adulterer, and womanizer at the time of his re-election. GW has a corrupt and inept administration of cronies. During his reign we have had Enron, a national security lapse resulting in 9/11,a rollback of civil liberties mislabeled The Patriot Act, failure to capture Bin Laden, a bogus war on Iraq, illegal war contracts awarded to the Vice President Cheney ’s former company, Halliburton, and an economy in decline.

Barry ’s first administration was filled with graft, cronyism and to some extent was dysfunctional although hampered by a patronizing Congress.During his reign DC hired a number of police officers with criminal records because it failed to do full background checks. The city lost over 100,000 residents to the suburbs because of high crime, poor schools, and crumbling infrastructure. And we all know that the city ’s finances were left in shambles. But,again Congress plays a role since they control DC ’s financial appropriations. Yet as the first and long-time chief executive officer under DC Home Rule, Barry accepted this unfavorable relationship with the federal government. As we can see neither politician deserved to be re-elected. But they both were. Hell, Barry was just recently elected to the DC City Council from Ward 8. Why is that? What does that say about the American people?

Conservative whites both poor and wealthy in the whole Southern United States and a majority of the Midwest were determined not to let Yankee liberals in Northeastern and Western states and the metropolitan islands from coast to coast determine who will be their/our President. They made this choice even when that President will do nothing for them or even do them and future generations harm. The disenfranchised and poor residents of DC were determined not to let white America dictate who would lead them even when Barry could do nothing for them.

Both were presented with poor political choices.

But regardless of choice, this is a dysfunctional nation. This nation lacks a soul. America was soulless from day one but over time and with Black peoples presence it was able to have some semblance of a soul. Now,we (Blacks) are just as sick as our oppressors. And this is just a nation of people that are pimped by its elite. This nation offers no real political choices. Kerry was no better than Bush. Bush prefers to rape the country in front of everyone. Kerry wants to sweet talk or “run game” on the nation while he sodomizes it. Either way, the people get F@%*#$in the end!

Peace from the shotgun house, - Jupiter “Gadfly ” Hammon  - Soul on Fire

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