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  2. Kinda Late Night Election Blogging

Kinda Late Night Election Blogging

By mikethemadbiologist on November 7, 2006.

Random thoughts below the fold.

  • John Sweeney, R-NY, has lost. Hitting your wife isn't liked by the electorate.
  • I wasn't a huge Jim Webb fan, but he was vastly superior to Sen. George "Macacawitz" Allen. Once again, it looks like the asshole Green Party siphoned off just enough votes to give the Republicans a victory. I would love nothing more than to take their Free Mumia posters and shove them up their collective backside.
  • We're taking the House. Big.
  • Sen. Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum is history.
  • Another thought related to Webb: Iraq was necessary as an issue, but not sufficient. If Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, who are probably more liberal than Webb, could win in Virginia, why couldn't Webb beat an asshole like Allen?
  • Bernie Sanders (Vermont) will be our first Senator. There's a tradition in the Senate of being 'walked down the floor' to be sworn in. It's usually done by a mentor. Whom will Sanders pick?
  • As of 11:24pm on my computer screen clock, it looks like the Democrats will get 49 seats, possibly 50. I think Missouri, Virginia, and Tennessee are all going Republican. I hope I'm wrong.
  • The hideous South Dakotan abortion ban seems to be headed to defeat. The Coalition of the Sane rejoices.
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    "Once again, it looks like the asshole Green Party siphoned off just enough votes to give the Republicans a victory. I would love nothing more than to take their Free Mumia posters and shove them up their collective backside."

    LOL! Don't like the treehuggers, eh? ;)

    Tennessee is close, and most of the not-yet-reported precincts are around Nashville and Memphis, which has the usual big-city-Democrat bias.

    So... if you make some very simple assumptions (Corker/Ford ratio stays the same in Davidson and Shelby County, ignore everything else), Ford comes out ahead.

    But we'll see. It's gonna be close.

    Funny that Ford, in general, is to the right of Lincoln Chafee, the Rhode Island Republican who lost out. Of course, this year, it doesn't matter one whit who the individual is. All that matters is whether or not Bush is going to have his party in control of one or two houses of Congress.

    "Once again, it looks like the asshole Green Party siphoned off just enough votes to give the Republicans a victory. I would love nothing more than to take their Free Mumia posters and shove them up their collective backside."

    So yeah, the Greens shouldn't be able to run any candidates because the Democrats, as we all know, are entitled to everyones vote in a democratic system. Any attempt to give voters more than two choices can only be regarded as regressive and anti-democratic. Shame on them.

    I'm just going to love it when the Democrats totally sell out their liberal/progressive base and move to the right. Already Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi are backpedalling on Iraq and universal health-care, and it won't be long before the +$7.50 minimum-wage hike goes down in flames while their own wages get raised and they capitulate on the next "free" trade deal. We may not be dealing with as egregious a situation as before for the next two years, but this isn't a revolution of any kind. It's Clinton-era Republican-lite in the making.

    By Tyler DiPietro (not verified) on 07 Nov 2006 #permalink

    Tyler -- it would be really nice if we had the freedom to vote for the people we thought were the best choices.

    If, somehow, we could put in a "first choice" and "second choice," so that insta-runoffs could be done, it might be reasonable.

    But, right now, anything, anything that helps Bush's party retain control of either house of Congress is a vote of confidence in the path Bush has us on. His Republican base has been extremely supportive of him even as it becomes more and more obvious that not only was the war sold to us on false principles, but it was incompetently managed to a mind-boggling degree.

    The only plausible way Bush could have any breaks put on him is Democratic control of the House and the Senate, together with the magic of partisan politics.

    As I said on my own blog, this time around, the Democrats could have put up Bozo the Clown in the Senate race, and I'd have voted for him-- because that is the only vote that says "restrain Bush." Heck the Republicans could have put up Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln himself, and I'd still vote for Bozo, simply because of the disaster of the presidency, and the fact that "his" party is gonna back him up.

    ...could have any breaks put on...

    Oops. That sounded more mafia-enforcer-esque than I meant. That should have been "brakes", not "breaks".

    -Rob

    Hey, have any democratically minded people ever considered forming a shadow/fake ultra-rightwing party (i.e. the Gun-toting-NASCAR-driving Jesus Party) to siphon votes away from the Republicans the way the Greens siphon votes from the Democrats?

    Remember the poll that said there were 17% (I can't remember the actual number but it was pretty high) of Republicans thought their party wasn't conversvative enough? I think there's a market for that.

    Once again, it looks like the asshole Green Party siphoned off just enough votes to give the Republicans a victory. I would love nothing more than to take their Free Mumia posters and shove them up their collective backside.

    . . . Or not.