For all the grumbling and grousing coming from Americans across the country, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that everyone had torn into their holiday gifts early - and ended up with the worst presents ever. Unfortunately for the nation, the dissatisfaction has nothing to do with Americans' choice of last-minute gas station stocking-stuffers.
The complaining is actually coming from American voters who seem to have finally opened up their Election Day results - and realized exactly what was in the political packages they were sold this year.
The voters in Michigan and Ohio voted for new Republican governors in November - governors who have already flushed away millions of Federal dollars and thousands of new jobs building high speed rail lines. Californians brought back Jerry Brown as their governor this fall - who admitted on Tuesday, even before he heads back to Sacramento, that his state's budget mess is "much worse" then he'd thought or admitted to in the governor's race. New Jersey residents don't even want to talk about the money new Gov. Chris Christie cost them when he stopped work this year on a Federal tunnel project that was thirty years in the making.
In Arizona, they strongly voted to retain their current Governor Jan Brewer, who campaigned on a platform that included arguments against President Obama's Stimulus package. Yet when confronted recently by media organizations wondering why Arizona is pulling funds from its state aid to the poor, Gov. Brewer told the media Arizonans should be asking President Obama for more stimulus funds.
In Omaha, Nebraska, after being elected in 2009, Democratic Mayor Jim Suttle made deep cuts in the city budget this year - but that wasn't enough to get the city's finances in order. The mayor added several kinds of taxes in 2010 to try to balance his city's budget - and is now facing a highly questionable recall election early next year for attempting to be a fiscally responsible elected official.
The desire to exchange recently-elected office-holders isn't only hitting Americans on state and local levels.
In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, Americans are significantly less than thrilled with the new batch of Congresspersons they elected in November. After the landslide changes in Congress in both 1994 and 2006, voters expressed great confidence in the incoming freshman crop of politicians.
This year, nearly two-thirds of voters think the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives is either a "bad thing" or believe it won't make any difference over the next two years. Most simply say Republicans aren't doing enough to compromise with President Obama - a word incoming speaker John Boehner seems to reject even before he opens the door.
We can't say we didn't warn these citizens about what they might find when the TV commercial breaks stopped being filled with political ads and they finally took down their forest of yard signs.
Let this be a lesson to you, as you shop for last minute gifts this holiday season.
Be sure of the return policy on everything you purchase. Sometimes, you just can't take these things back for a refund.
