To the Democrats:

Oh no! The cruel horde of deregulation and intolerance is come upon us again to ravage our countryside and pillage our homes; let’s run for it!

To the Republicans:

Congratulations on your valiant victory over the forces of pure evil embodied in those socialist heathens and anti-American terrorist-sympathizers and stuff. George Washington would be proud. And stuff.

To anyone left:

Here’s the deal: Despite the suffocating drone to the contrary, there’s no “wave of conservatism” spreading across the country. Might I remind you that the overwhelming majority of voters last Tuesday were the same people who selected Bush as president. Twice. That’s G. W. Bush: America’s id, living manifestation of our most carnal economic desires, and militant proponent of anti-intellectualism and the status quo.

And guess what: The core moral values among voters are still fundamentally what they were a mere two years ago. If we have to use the wave metaphor, this election was not the waxing tide of a conservative resurgence but rather the ebbing of the very wave of frustration with Bush-era policies that secured the 2006/2008 Democratic victories in the first place.

So if not a Republican reawakening, then what? How about this: “Obama’s refusal to pursue the shock-and-awe approach of his predecessor misrepresented his presidency as a miserable failure to the short attention span of the American voter, who was thus swayed by the Republicans’ (albeit misguided) calls for radical change.”

And by the way, am I really the only one who thinks Giannoulias could do a spot-on Anakin Skywalker impersonation?

Tyler Lutz is a second-year in the College.