Death by inbox

Not really death.  I exaggerate slightly.  How about — death of free time due to out-of-control in-boxes, both paper and electronic?  That pretty much sums up my morning.  I now hasten to read the day’s news stories.

I have to admit that, since the election, I’ve been feeling a little flat when it comes to blogging.  Before the election, even though my writing doesn’t penetrate much (or at all) beyond the conservative blogosphere bubble, I still feel as if I’m doing something.  Maybe I’ll write a post that gets emailed to someone who was on the fence and . . . voila! . . . another Romney voter.

Except that that dream didn’t work this year.  Indeed, if anything, I hope I wasn’t part of the conservative “depress the vote” movement.  It’s very hard to believe that 3,000,000 McCain voters sat this one out.  Did they decide that Obama wasn’t so bad?  Were they so demoralized by McCain’s defeat that they’ve given up on elections?  Or was Romney’s campaign too conservative to excite anyone but the base?  Or perhaps his campaign was too extreme?

I find the latter possibility hard to believe, given how unutterably prosaic Romney’s campaign was.  Could it really have frightened away some sort of lukewarm conservative to the point where he’d rather have Obama win than take a chance on Romney?  Still, this is the third primary in row that’s seen the voters hew to the bland man, not the conservative man.  Perhaps America’s Republicans have really become Tories, which means that they’re to the left of center, but not to the far left of center.  Maybe we in the rearguard failed to see that the center had shifted while we weren’t looking.

If the center has indeed shifted left, now what?  Do we drag it back?  Can we drag it back?  Or do we submit to our role as Tories, meaning that we exist to restrain the Left’s worst economic, national security, and border security excesses?

Good questions all, but in the absence of any answers I am, as I said, feeling strangely flat and disinclined to write.  Insulting Obama, while always vaguely pleasurable, seems rather pointless now.  My insults from the previous four years did nothing to stop his election.  My insults, if any, for the next four years will be pointless.  (Don’t worry.  I’ll still dig at him.  It’s kind of like scratching an itch — I just have to do it.)

Once I’ve gotten my day’s reading in, I’m sure I’ll be more energized than I am now.  Otherwise, you can assume that I am slumped over my computer keyboard, despairing and inert.  I will have a reasonably processed inbox, though, so that’s something.