The Other Froomkin on how the machines were set too soon in the 2006 elections. And here are 6 elections that might have ended up being decided by the House, if the Repubs had gone to this point with the majority. It was close, folks.
Showing posts with label 2006 Election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2006 Election. Show all posts
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Have to Be More Than the Other Guy
Good analysis of Tuesday's election results nationally here. I got elected to a school board once, primarily because the incumbent had aggravated too many people to get chosen again. IOW, all I had to do in the campaign was make clear that I wasn't worse than he was. That's the way elections are. Usually, they're judgments of the incumbents, not endorsements of the challengers. We knew all along that the Dems weren't putting forth a new view of themselves in this campaign, just saying "We're not Bush." Okay, it was enough. But now they're already arguing over what "we're not Bush" means. Why? Because they don't know who they are themselves. And, as this article makes clear, that's the difference between being a long-term viable party and just the default position when the Repubs get too extreme and overreaching in their don't-think-it's-over quest for total domination of our political system. They're weakened right now, so the Dems have a chance to develop a strong counter of responsibility and effectiveness while clarifying everything wrong about the Repubs. Or, they can immediately start cutting each other up, like that moron Carville is trying to do with his idiotic suggestion to dump Dean (can we finally admit that Carville is a third-rate Rove whose 1992 claim to fame was the last Repub implosion, not some genius result of his making??), and not get the right things done to offset the Busheviks and restore us to our historical path. (Demosthenes has the definitive tribute to Dean here.) The fate of the American Legacy is literally in their hands. Was this just a bump in the fall of our republic or an actual turnaround? The tools are there for the turnaround. The blame will be theirs if they fail.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Once in the Voting Booth
Billmon has a great CNN poll up showing that those of us who saw the Repubs holding on by hook or crook (mostly crook) last Tuesday weren't completely stupid and cynical (not completely). The dark-side inhabitants were actually gaining on the Dems among the voters who decided their votes in last 3-7 days before the election. These were clearly the polls that Rovev bragged about seeing, presaging his confidence. But for whatever reason--gay ministers, Michael J. Fox and Oxy-Man, Bushnev actually out campaigning, the phase of the moon--on election day, the ones who waited until then to make up their minds ended up breaking for the Dems, which theory always predicts but sure as hell didn't happen in 2004.
As Billmon notes, HOW THE HELL COULD PEOPLE WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE AFTER ALL THE CRAP THAT'S HAPPENED TO THIS COUNTRY??????, but we're not here to be petty or ungrateful for small favors. But, as he says, it also shows that this country's future hinged on those idi . . . citizens and could have gone the other way had, say, Britney announced her divorce earlier and gotten their attention distracted. The Dems have a lot to do to solidify the effort, and should have opportunities just to play the straight "responsible grown-up cleaning up the mess" gig, especially if they dig into all the private corporate corruption of the last 6 years, that will point the finger at the Busheviks as well but without getting into the "partisan" battle as much. But we were closer, folks, to an election that could have well earned the pessimism some of us felt, based on these voters' past behavior, than the final results indicated, and we're not out of the woods yet. (I'm not letting my mistaken prediction off the hook, I promise. There's more crow waiting in the oven.)
Still, let's enjoy it and support whatever reforms come. We got a reprieve that could, but hasn't yet, turn into a salvation. Maybe the Dems will figure out in the next couple of years how to convince those ninnies well before it comes to the actual push of the voting button.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Now this is just lovely...
...via Debate Link, I see Publius has a list of House committee chairs, past and future...
Ag Cmte: Tom Harkin (IA). Outgoing Chair: Saxby Chambliss (GA).Unlike David at Debate Link, I think Lieberman on the Homeland Security Committee is the sick joke, but man...Leahy replacing Specter, Inouye replacing Stevens (Inouye's not a favorite of mine, but Stevens was horrific), Levin replacing Warner, Harkin replacing Chambliss...that's just lovely. And it goes without saying that Boxer replacing Inhofe alone might save this planet...
Approps Cmte: Robert Byrd (WV). Outgoing Chair: Thad Cochran (MS).
Armed Services Cmte: Carl Levin (MI). Outgoing Chair: John Warner (VA).
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Cmte: Chris Dodd (CT). Outgoing Chair: Richard Shelby (AL).
Budget Cmte: Kent Conrad (D). Outgoing Chair: Judd Gregg (NH).
Commerce, Science, and Transpo Cmte: Co-Chair Daniel Inouye (HI). Outgoing Co-Chair: Ted Stevens (AK).
Energy and Natural Resources Cmte: Jeff Bingaman (NM). Outgoing Chair: Pete Domenici (NM).
Enviro and Public Works Cmte: Barbara Boxer (CA). Outgoing Chair: James Inhofe (OK).
Finance Cmte: Max Baucus. Outgoing Chair: Charles Grassley (IA).
Foreign Relations Cmte: Joe Biden (D). Outgoing Chair: Richard Lugar (IN).
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Cmte: Ted Kennedy. Outgoing Chair: Mike Enzi (WY).
Homeland Security and Govt'l Affairs Cmte: Joe Lieberman (CT). Outgoing Chair: Susan Collins (ME).
Jud Cmte: Patrick Leahy (VT). Outgoing Chair: Arlen Specter (PA).
Rules and Admin Cmte: Chris Dodd (CT). Outgoing Chair: Trent Lott (MS).
Small Business Cmte: John Kerry (MA). Outgoing Chair: Olympia Snowe (ME).
Veterans Affairs Cmte: Daniel Akaka (D). Outgoing Chair: Larry Craig (ID).
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Exit Polls
The last-days polls and exit polls magically came up very close to the actual vote this year. Huhhh. I thought they were so, so bad, because Kos told me so. I wonder what the difference was this election. . . .
Huh...
...go Missourians! I didn't think they had it in them! Claire wins AND stem cells win (even though MSN's front page currently says "Mo Stem Cell Measure Loses")? Sweet.
Can I Get Some More Sauce for This Crow?
Never been so glad to have this meal in my life. (Will wait until it digests to point out Bushnev ignores Congress anyway and his personal federal courts will back him. Oh, and that it looks like Lieberman may own the Senate. Let's just savor this for a little while. Enjoy.)
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
File Under "You Think?"
The San Fran Fed Reserve Bank pres has glommed onto the possibility that the increasing chasm between the rich and the rest of us in this country is enough of a threat to our democracy and way of life that, maybe, we should back off on some of the redistribution we've been giving to the rich and send some of it back the other way with our policies. Remember this as you digest election results tomorrow (and the weeks to come). It will be a major talking point a century from now when people describe why the US became a second-rate shell of its Legacy.
Prediction Time...
...well, now that berlin niebuhr has concocted his perfect brew of realistic conspiracy theories and The Butterfly has demanded her TV (and phones...and radio...) back, I guess it's time for me to weigh in on what I think will go down tomorrow (and the weeks that follow).
House
I predict Dems (eventually) end up at 227-208. Not the demolition some predict/hope for, but good enough.
Senate
Hawaii, New Mexico, West Virginia, Delaware, North Dakota, New York, California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Florida, Nebraska easy to Dems.
Nevada, Utah, Texas, Mississippi, Indiana, Maine, Wyoming easy to Reps.
Vermont easy to Indy Sanders.
Ohio: Sherrod "Not As Good As Paul Hackett, But Not as Bad as Dewine" Brown (D) beats Dewine
Rhode Island: Whitehouse (D) beats Chafee (though closer than the polls say)
Pennsylvania: Casey (D) trounces ManDog
Montana: Jon "Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam Loves Me, So I Must Kick Ass" Tester (D) wins by 4-6
Virginia: Sigh. I love Virginia...it's one of the prettiest states I've ever seen, and Charlottesville's one of my favorite places in the world. But until they throw the bigot out of office, I can't totally believe they will throw the bigot out of office. Allen (R) over Webb (barely).
Tennessee: Corker (R) over Ford. When racist advertising stops working, there will be no more racist advertising.
Arizona: Kyl (R) by 9.
Maryland: Cardin (D) easy.
New Jersey: Menendez (D) easy.
Washington: Cantwell (D) easy.
Michigan: Stabenow (D) easy.
Connecticut: Lieberman (SCUM) by 7.
And finally...Missouri: Talent over McCaskill by 2. Claire's made it closer than I thought she would, and I think she's made it close enough that the stem cell measure passes pretty comfortably (which is a major victory in and of itself), but I'm down enough on my home state that they'll have to prove something to me before I believe again...
Unless I'm counting wrong, that makes it a 50-48-2 (R) prediction...
Monday, November 06, 2006
Thank God it's almost over...
So congrats, politicians. I really wanted to care this year, I did.
Here in Missouri, Claire McCaskill raised $7,310,483 for her campaign and Jim Talent raised $21,477,711 (and this was as of the end of September!). What did this money go toward? Angry, venomous commercials that do nothing but make people depressed that they don’t have better candidates to vote for. Yeah, Claire looks like the lesser of two evils, and yeah, stem cell research will get me to the polls, but...once again this year, with Election Day tomorrow I’m looking forward not to making a difference and voting, but to getting my TV back and no longer having to watch commercials that do nothing but put people down or answer the phone to one of auto-generated ads (or be awoken from a nap at 8pm tonight because someone wanted to remind me to vote...yeah, thanks).
For yet another election cycle, we have lost sight of real issues. Once again, it’s all about money. And while I realize this is nothing new...it’s just that, every time I try to care, the life just gets sucked out of me again. What is wrong with this country (we’ve seen the warning signs and have done nothing about it) is that it is no longer about intelligence or innovation that gets you ahead. It’s who you know and how much money you have. If you’re in high school, that will make you popular. If you’re a politician, that will get you elected. We’ve been lagging behind other countries for a while now, and nobody cares. I want to believe that one day someone will get elected who actually has ideas about more than just how to get reelected. Someone who has ideas about how to save the environment and close the gap between the rich and poor. But that day will never come because those in charge (both corporations and individuals in power) will never let that person see the light of day.
Again, this is nothing new, but...*sigh*.
I raise my glass to you, Next Class of Elected Officials. Here’s hoping for mediocrity. It would be an improvement.
I think berlin niebuhr’s cynicism has rubbed off on me. Then again, I’m pretty sure I was born this way.
Could???
Boston Globe headline today--"Voting Glitches Could Put Races into Overtime."
Bet every dime you have, buddy. More DOJ officials than ever in our history at polling sites to clamp down on voter fraud. To stop voter machine hacking? Sure, like they could. No, to challenge anyone who gets a protest, and whose pre-election manuals are telling party zealots to get to polls and challenge every voter? Hmm. Of course, when your own state's Secretary of State has trouble voting because poll officials are disobeying the law, surely you'll have no trouble. Although, with the wide expectation of voting errors and fraud already part of the media narrative, then the challenges to elections that each house of Congress will get to decide (and coincidentally decide Repubs "win" every time) will have even more legitimacy and be harder to contest.
Have fun tomorrow.
[PS--I will so glad to eat every word I've said on this topic, come Wednesday morning. No one's looking more forward to that than me.]
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Wednesday's News Today!!!!
I've made clear I don't expect the Dems to do much to roll back the destruction of the Constitution performed by the Busheviks, but I've also made clear that slowing it down is better than doing nothing and that we have to vote Tuesday just to keep the Repubs from not even having to steal it. That said, keep in mind that, even if the Dems win the House and decide to do something, anything, to protect our democracy, they will be virtually impotent with our Pravda media, brownshirt talkshows, a President who will ignore everything they want to do anyway, and courts facilitated by the Dems who will say everything is okay. The only power they will have will be to investigate and, even if the idiot media covered those investigations, there will be too much going on, too many people protected by "executive privilege" and too much "he said, she said" to have much impact. Still, two years reprieve from total lockstep, along with Dems in the majority of governships, might slow things enough for reality to take more of a toll, as it did on Georgi's compadres, the Soviets. So, vote, hope for the best, don't get your hopes up, and hear Wednesday's news here first:
1. The Dems will win 20-30 seats more in the House. Only about 10 of those will be uncontestable. The rest will go to court challenge, the remaining majority of Repubs in the House will determine that the Repub candidates "won" their elections, and the House will remain in Repub hands.
2. The Senate will stay Repub. The Dems will "lose" at least 4 of 5 in MO, VA, MD, RI, and MT. (TN wasn't really ever going to happen, sorry.) Lieberman will win in CT and, if the Dems don't hit 51, after much anguish, decide that the offer of a choice committee chair seat by the Repubs will be the best that he could do for his loyal constituents in the state. He'd like to stay true to his party, but he can't put his personal priorities above those of the people who trusted him enough to elect him.
3. Protests over yet another theft of a key election cycle will be met with many protestors being arrested, tried, and convicted on felony charges and sentenced to federal prisons for considerable periods of time. The protest period will be short. The federal courts will uphold the convictions, and the President will have to decide whether to use the powers under the recently passed Posse Commitatus renewal to shut down all criticisms on the grounds that it weakens our nation in the face of existential threat. He, of course, won't know or be able to say the last part.
4. The undemocratic enablers in the press and punditry will be shocked, simply shocked. And will shut up. Feingold and Krugman will be found to have committed felonies on their tax returns.
5. Entertainers and celebrities of a liberal bent will initially think they live in a country with free speech. They are wrong and learn it quickly. Some will end up happy to do infomercials.
6. George Clooney will take Italian citizenship.
7. The war on Iran will start by January.
8. Someone will try to take out either Bushnev or Cheneyov and the real Hell will break loose.
9. Ice on the poles will melt before Jeb can finish his second term.
10. Those who can still write a century from now will speak of the US as we now speak of Rome.
Be sure to remember to vote Tuesday!!!
Monday, October 30, 2006
It begins...
From: [redacted for privacy]
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:38 PM
Subject: Vote Miscount in MO
[snip]
A friend of our family’s went last Friday to early vote in Maplewood at Sunnen Park. He voted for Claire McCaskill, but each time he, the election worker, and the election supervisor pressed the screen for Claire, the screen said he had voted for Jim Talent.
I sent this info along to a friend that works in Claire’s campaign. I have the name and number of the guy this happened to if you are interested.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
The Best I've Heard Yet
From Billmon, naturally. Here's how just enough close races will be parlayed into the Repubs maintaining both Houses even if they lose. He goes through some unfortunate crap about how it would take tons of people who couldn't keep their mouths shut to pull off voter fraud (the old "conspiracies can only happen with tons of people who couldn't keep their mouths shut" BS that always gets hauled out to shoot down real conspiracies with just a few people who find it very easy to stay quiet). But get past that and read the analysis. Then you can shock your family and friends when you predict what's going to happen on election night. (And these numbers are close enough overall that it could be very easy to pull off.)
Monday, October 16, 2006
Sigh...
Via C&L (and TPMcafe), we find this quote...pure Joementum...
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a lifelong Democrat and student of politics, blanked when asked if America would be better off with his party regaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives.For a man, Joementum, you sure are a crybaby.
A Democratic victory would immeasurably boost the influence of two Connecticut friends, U.S. Reps. Rosa L. DeLauro and John B. Larson, and provide a counterbalance to the Republican Senate and White House.
"Uh, I haven't thought about that enough to give an answer," Lieberman said, as though Democrats' strong prospects for recapturing the House hadn't been the fall's top political story.
He was similarly elusive about the race for governor. Is he voting for John DeStefano Jr., a Democrat and mayor of the city where Lieberman has lived since the 1960s?
"I'm, uh, I'm having," he stammered, then laughed and said his decision would remain private.
These are not hard questions.
...
Democrats now are the smallest segment of his support. A recent poll shows his support comes from 67 percent of Republicans, 45 percent of unaffiliated voters and 35 percent of Democrats.
Lieberman relies on talking points more often sounded by the Bush White House than Democratic congressional candidates, invoking patriotism and America's need to be vigilant in a dangerous world.
...
The Bush White House and Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell have abandoned the GOP's nominee, Alan Schlesinger, tilting the playing field toward Lieberman and away from Lamont, who trailed the incumbent 48-40 percent in last week's Courant/University of Connecticut poll.
Without the political knee-capping of Schlesinger by the Republican establishment, Lieberman probably would be trailing, since he relies so heavily on GOP voters. Pollsters say that every vote Schlesinger picks up will come from Lieberman's column. But last week Schlesingers' support stood at 4 percent of likely voters.
Lieberman's boost from Republicans fuels speculation that he might ultimately join the GOP, especially if Democrats reconsidered allowing him to retain his seniority.
"I will not be confronted with that choice," Lieberman said. "I will organize with the Democrats. And I am 100 percent sure, not just as a matter of hope, of speculation, but as a matter of explicit conversations I've had that the Democratic caucus will give me my seniority."
...
Lieberman minimized the validity of his primary loss, saying only 15 percent of all voters participated. But the turnout among those eligible to vote, Democrats, was 43 percent, a record for a Connecticut primary.
"The people of my party spoke in this state," Dodd said Friday after taping a commercial with Lamont on the steps of West Hartford Town Hall. "They spoke rather clearly in this matter."
Dodd, who has not spoken to Lieberman since August, said too many politicians fall into the trap of thinking elections are about them, not constituents who are worried about sending their kids to college - or seeing them home safely from Iraq.
"It's not about the candidates, it's about the people," Dodd said. "And when you forget that, you've lost sight of why we do this."
Lieberman and Dodd each say their friendship will survive, though Lieberman vaguely acknowledges that not everyone will forgive and forget.
"Time will tell," Lieberman said. "You know, besides being a senator, I am a man. I am human. And this has been a year that has had some very significant disappointments and some extraordinary moments of support and inspiration and encouragement."
If this article doesn’t make you suddenly want to donate your life’s savings to the Ned Lamont campaign, I don’t really know what will. Any self-proclaimed Democrat/liberal who votes for Joe Lieberman next month really needs to start reassessing life...as do the Senate Democrats who will once again embrace him and treat him as if he’s not stabbing in the back with every word that comes out of his mouth.
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