A bluesman's take on Tuesday's election: "I been down so long it looks like up to me."

Just filed my analysis of Tuesday's elections for the Jackson Free Press of Jackson, Miss., which will run the article in next week's edition. Will also post soon afterward in Labor South.

In essence, I look at the low voter turnout--records were set in a number of states--and the disassociation growing numbers of Americans feel with money-driven Washington politics.

Here's an excerpt:

"What was their choice in Mississippi? Incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, (Haley) Barbour’s premier benefactor in Washington’s money politics? (Democratic) Challenger Travis Childers, who signed the immigrant-hating, white-supremacist Federation for American Immigration Reform’s pledge of no `amnesty' for hard-working-tax-paying-but-undocumented migrant workers?" 

The sad news is that the country is now jumping from the frying pan into the fire. An emboldened Republican Party, now in control of both houses of Congress, likely will do nothing (positive certainly) about major issues like immigration. Some pundits argue President Obama will take the initiative on this very issue and do what he can without Congress. I'm growing weary of expecting the president to do what he hasn't done in the past. After all, he's also the president who has overseen record numbers of deportations of immigrants.

Neither major party offers Americans much promise, although a handful of politicians here and there do. Like the old blues refrain says, "I been down so long it looks like up to me," and looking "up" may be our only choice right now.

A political friend once told me this about Republicans: "Give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves." Well, now that they've got Congress, they can only blame Obama for the obstruction that they themselves generally cause, and eventually this may ring hollow with the American public. Maybe that's the "up" in Tuesday's election.

Another is: What do Republicans do when they're not saying, "No"? Not much beyond offering more tax breaks to Wall Street and the rich, feeding the military-industrial complex, and spreading the divide between the wealthy and the rest of America even wider. If they ever were to can Obamacare, what plan are they going to offer in its wake?

People now get a chance to see the answer to those questions. That looks like "up" to me.