Nov 07 2006
Politics Commentary
Doesn’t look promising for the Democrats retaking the Senate — at least they’ve got the House. That’ll mostly slow down the mess, and will give the Democrats (who would do nothing either way) an excuse as to why they’re doing nothing. That’s promising for a Democratic win in ‘08, for better or for worse.
Lieberman got re-elected, and now he’s not pretending to be a Democrat. Not like he did a good job of pretending before, but at least he hung out with you guys.
Looks hopeful for a Democratic Congress lead by Pawlenty. I hate Hatch. Hate him hate him hate him. And splitting the executive and legislative branches is consistantly best for the country, particularly since there’s such a strong party-then-country atmosphere in both parties. (Of course, both of them say that it’s Party-then-Country because only their party can save their country. Whatever.)
I’m kinda shocked by how close the Bachman/Wetterling and Gutknecht/Walz races are. The Dems would have carried that race easy if they hadn’t run Wetterling — she was a horrible presence in debates, and left herself wide open with that “I’m not going to run ’cause the numbers say I won’t win” comment. Bachman is such a horrible evangelical-pandering whackjob that only by choosing an equally whackjobish (yet in such a uniquely liberal way) candidate could they have lost it.
And I’m proud of Minnesota — first Muslim in Congress. Take that, our Brave New After 9/11 World.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Why doesn’t taking the Senate look promising? The Dems won 51 seats (the only competitive seat they lost was Tennessee). Sure, Virginia will be recounted, but with an 8000 vote lead, it’s unlikely that Allen can make it up - and with so many watching so closely, Florida-style cheating is unlikely as well. Democrats control both houses now. Additionally, they took six governorships from the GOP and lost none, and got new legislative majorities in nine different state bodies. Again, the GOP got nothing.
Even in the Great March Forward of 1994, the Dems took four congressional seats from the Republicans. I don’t think a party has been routed like this politically since the Civil War! Even the talking-head spin that “conservative Democrats” made the day doesn’t hold water. The most conservative Democrat in the Senate races was the one who lost - Harold Ford. Tester and Webb are both more liberal than Harry Reid, and Brown and McCaskill are straight-up liberals. The new Democrats are for the most part no farther to the right than the previous ones.
I honestly don’t care much about the Lieberman race. Sure, he had a whole bunch of netroots panties twisted, and it’s disappointing that we lost that one, but it’s not a real loss… he’ll still caucus Democrat, and he’d still be blathering on tv about how bad the Democrats are even if he lost (probably moreso). Lamont is just a casualty in a much larger and very successful battle.
Locally, I’m really glad for the Walz win. He’s a phenomenal candidate, exactly the sort of citizen representative we need in Congress. Gutknecht was never that bright to begin with and became a creature of the Beltway money machine long ago. Good riddance. I’m disappointed but not surprised about Wetterling and Hatch. Wetterling, for all her netroots popularity, was never a good campaigner, and Hatch was just awful. Klobuchar stomped Kennedy nearly 2:1 and Hatch couldn’t even beat a putz like Pawlenty? The DFL HAS to stop picking gubernatorial candidates on the seniority system. The worst thing about it is we now have a rabid sociopath like Bachmann in congress, to the shame of Minnesota, and two more years of Pawlenty’s nonsense.
But I’m not going to let the little disappointments drag me down. Yesterday was a great day, a triumph for reason.
I posted this comment earlier in the evening, and things weren’t looking good at that point. I nearly fell out of my chair this morning when I saw they actually pulled out the majority at the last minute.
I did figure that Pawlenty was a dead man about a month ago. He’s seriously burnt all his bridges over his tenure. The problem was picking Hatch to run — that actually galvanized the Republicans to get out there in force and pulled some of the paleocons (like me) back behind him. I can’t believe much else got him into the next round.
And I am really sorry about Bachmann, too. That’s just not cool, man.
It’ll be interesting to see what that “triumph for reason” translates into in the next two years. I’ve been running under the assumption that the reason there haven’t been bribed/corrupt Democrats is because there wasn’t much value in bribing or corrupting them. If the Democrats can keep their nose clean for two years and manage to actually accomplish something reasonable and positive, I might re-consider my disdain for them.
But, on the “triumph for reason” platform, there’s also the exciting Instant-Runoff Win for Minneapolis. The gradual acceptance of that voting method is the beginning of the end of the two party system, and it’s being fought tooth and nail by the interior hacks of both parties — it’s taking true grass-roots efforts to get them onto ballots in ways that the party bosses can’t shut them down. Because of that, we won’t see it national any time soon, but it’s coming.
I disagree that there is a strong party-before-country problem in the Democrats. There definately is in the Republicans- which means, naturally, that the Republicans accuse the Democrats of the same thing. It’s called projection.
In fact, a problem I see is too little loyalty to the Democratic Party by elected Democrats. Which is where we get people like Lieberman- Democrats who bash Democrats. And, we get a conventional wisdom that it’s OK to bash the base of the Democratic party.
A split goverment is a (partial) win for Republicans. The Republican theme is that goverment can’t do anything for you- so you might as well vote for a Republican who’ll cut your taxes, charging you less for the nothing Goverment is doing. So all the Republicans have to do is keep the goverment from doing anything, and they can “prove” their point.
If you think the goverment can’t do anything for you, I’ve got one word for: Katrina. This is what happens when the goverment doesn’t do anything: people die. Same with 9-11.
The Democrats can pass all the legislation they want- Bush will just veto it. And the Democrats are no where near being able to override a veto. So, there is no chance of the Democrats being able to undo some of the damage the Republicans have done. No outlawing torture, no outlawing warrantless spying on american citizens, no repeal of the PATRIOT act. No liberal judges to balance out all the ultra-conservatives on the court, no undoing of NCLB, no undoing of the “healthy forests initive” or the “clean skies initiative”. Let alone postive stuff like single payer health care, reducing college tuition, or raising the minimum wage.
Also, don’t expect any sort of withdraw from Iraq. The only card the Democratic congress has to play on that issue is to threaten to defund the occupation- which will lead to an incredible hue and cry about the Democrats sabotaging our troops.
The best thing the Democrats can do at this point is to investigate- investigate all those no-bid contracts, investigate all the pre-war propoganda, er, intelligence, etc. Get the facts out. And wait for the next administration to pull the plug (which they will, whatever party wins).
In fact, in general, this is the best thing the Democrats can do- investigate. Weild that suponea power.
Brian
You’re assuming, of course, that the Democrats won’t be able to reach across the aisle to overwhelm the veto. Right now, the Republicans are in a major ideological divide: the evangelicals and “neocons” are all but gone (I know of no self-identified “neocon” anymore — down from about a half dozen), and “moderate Republicans” (the inappropriate new name for “paleocons”) suddenly moving to the fore. Republican congresspeople were desperate to highlight their anti-Bush and moderate stances (the few that they had) during the last election, and I don’t see a reason why that will stop.
I bet you’ll see a renewed interest in bipartisan co-operation for the Republicans, because it’s their ass on the line if they don’t. Part of the question is whether the Democrats will be willing to work with these fair-weather friends.