Not to spark unseemly debate -- just a prediction

[_z_]

Looks like maybe the demos have the better hackers this year.

My libertarian state cantidate of choice is still hanging in there

[robspeed]

Looks like maybe the demos have the better hackers this year.

My libertarian state cantidate of choice is still hanging in there

ABC is saying the demos have won 33 house seats so far!! WOW blowout!!

man if we can take the senate now (still too close to call at the moment), botch will surely get the message at that point. hopefully madam nancy's smiling face on tv all night will be wakeup call enough... the work is just beginning.. its going to be a TALL order trying to "right" (*COUGH*) the ol' U.S.S. U.S.A.

[Guest]

The most intersting part, I think, of this thread is that no one voted or predicted the result: Demos winning both house and senate.

And, even though I was wrong, I am gloating. Notice I said I wouldn't gloat if I was right. Never said anything about gloating if I was wrong.....

[Timmer]

Schnell,

It almost follows suit; Clinton's second term, mid way mark, and dems took a lickin', Reagan's 2nd term as well, mid way mark. Not so fast on the senate, although Webb probably has it.

Tim

'69 2000

[Guest]

Schnell,

It almost follows suit; Clinton's second term, mid way mark, and dems took a lickin', Reagan's 2nd term as well, mid way mark. Not so fast on the senate, although Webb probably has it.

Tim

'69 2000

(1) VA is done. Webb takes it. To quote GWB in FLA in 2000: accept the results and move on!

(2) The second term loss justification is nothing more than Republican talking points. They sound nice, but are untrue. From Talkingpointsmemo.com:

Let's go ahead and pop this balloon before it takes flight.

Ken Mehlman, this morning on Today:

"[W]hen it comes to both the House and the Senate, we obviously always knew this would be a tough year. We had a combination of, not only the fact that it's the 6th year of the President's term, where typically you lose more than 30 seats. Also the nation's at war, where typically you lose seats, as Tim [Russert] pointed out last night. And the fact that a number of members unfortunately were involved in scandal.

Typically lose more than 30 seats? You might guess that Mehlman was not challenged by the Today hosts on this little flight of expectation-lowering fantasy. And it appears to be one of the GOP's morning-after talking points.

Here are the number of House seats lost by the President's party in the 6th year of his presidency during the post-war period. I pulled the numbers from the House website and quickly did the math:

1958: Eisenhower--Republicans lost 48 seats

1986: Reagan--Republicans lost 5 seats

1998: Clinton--Democrats gained 5 seats

So only once in the last half century has the President's party lost more than 30 seats in the second-term midterms.

The 1974 midterms, in which the Republicans lost 48 House seats in the aftermath of Watergate, occurred after Nixon resigned.

Of course, if Mehlman wants to compare the sea-change that followed the dark period of Watergate to the sea-change that occurred yesterday, I have no objections. Quite an apt comparison in many ways.

[Otis]

Dead woman wins county commissioner's race

S.D. candidate gets 100 votes; official says voters knew she was deceased

Updated: 11:41 a.m. ET Nov 8, 2006

PIERRE, S.D. - A woman who died two months ago won a county commissioner's race in Jerauld County on Tuesday.

Democrat Marie Steichen, of Woonsocket, got 100 votes, defeating incumbent Republican Merlin Feistner, of Woonsocket, who had 64 votes.

Jerauld County Auditor Cindy Peterson said she believes the county board will have to meet to appoint a replacement for Steichen. Peterson said she'll check with the state's attorney to be sure that's the process.

Peterson said voters knew Steichen had died. "They just had a chance to make a change, and we respect their opinion."

[KFunk]

As everyone shoulda known, we sure gave the republicans the boot in Ohio.

I actually had to work the elections, since they needed someone else.

Out of 77 voters in my precinct, only 3 voted for Blackwell for governor (Republican). Democrats dominated pretty much everything. I even know a few republicans that voted straight democrat, even for candidates they didn't know.

It's all due to some pretty bad corruption recently here. Taft the governor got convicted of corruption, along with other top republicans. Plus Bob Ney got convicted of taking money from Abramoff.

Most people were pretty suspicious of the election machines, but it turned out well. We had paper ballots that we filled in with ink pens, and were scanned by a machine. It would catch mistakes and allow you to fix them, so I saw several people get their votes right thanks to it. And from the results that obliterated Blackwell, its clear Blackwell didn't rig it (As well as running for governor, the guy was Secy. of State in charge of elections, in a horrendous conflict of interest).

The only thing I didn't like was that they didn't label the political affiliations of the Supreme Court candidates, and they were printed on the ballot weird. In all other races, the democrat was printed at the top, whereas the unlabeled supreme court justices had dems on the bottom.

Nobody had a clue which ones were dems, and it wasn't well advertised.

So yay, now we have a completely republican supreme court.....

And oh yeah, it was a complete joke that we had to ask all voters for photo ID thanks to new laws. As soon as they came in, we called them all by name. We knew them for all our lives, knew their parents and grandparents, and sometimes were closely related to them. But, you gotta show your drivers license! I even had to show my mom my driver's license to vote.....

[gwb72tii]

Whenever we meet, the first beer is on me!

Now, here's my prediction

the old line cronies - Waxman, Rangle, Conyer et al will revert to what they were before 1994 (the year Clinton lost a bigger landslide in congress than Bush did this year), hard line lefties bent on getting Bush, because he's the bogeyman. The next 2 years will be subpoenas, testimony in front of Waxman and others, basically the same old shit they've always done. And if thats what they do, what happened last night to the Republicans will happen to the Dems. The publics view of Democrats in Congress is no better than Republicans. The voters have just had enough of Republicans for the time being for being in power and doing nothing. Before the left gets carried away with this election, Republicans were defeated for acting like Democrats pre 1994, concerned about staying in power only and doing nothing to better the USA. If it were simply an Iraq vote, Lieberman wouldn't have standed a chance.

Republicans deserved what they got. Let's hope ypur party has the smarts to do better.

[robspeed]

Schnell,

It almost follows suit; Clinton's second term, mid way mark, and dems took a lickin', Reagan's 2nd term as well, mid way mark. Not so fast on the senate, although Webb probably has it.

Tim

'69 2000

(1) VA is done. Webb takes it. To quote GWB in FLA in 2000: accept the results and move on!

(2) The second term loss justification is nothing more than Republican talking points. They sound nice, but are untrue.

Not only that, if the congressional districts hadnt been gerrymandered by the republicans, the demos might have won 50+ seats. I think the screaming banshee (Dean) is correct in his 50-state strategy, and obviously his critics were wrong. i saw a repub say today that those are "still our seats" and warned democrats that they can easily take them back in '08, so watch out!! hopefully with more of the statehouses going back to blue, some of that can be cleaned up too....

[Guest]

Now, here's my prediction

the old line cronies - Waxman, Rangle, Conyer et al will revert to what they were before 1994 (the year Clinton lost a bigger landslide in congress than Bush did this year)

(1) I hope you're right that they become what they were pre-1994. What the congressional Dems were before 1994 was in charge for what 2 or 3+ decades!!!!

(2) The reason it was a "bigger" landslide in 1994 is that most seats have been even more gerrymandered since then (thanks Tom DeLay) and therefore there were less in play this year. In terms of the ratio of seats in play to seats lost, this is a bigger landslide.

[Timmer]

Also, on the Jim Lehrer show last night, PBS, analysts agreed; it was more of a republican loss than a dems win, most races were very close, no real landslides., republicans hurt themselves bigtime.

Tim

'69 2000