Giving up 60+ seats happens all the time? Pretending a problem is insignificant is exactly why dems lost so many seats.
OK, so my July prediction to start this thread was a little off. Of course, I wrote it with the assumption that Dems would be smart, but not defining a message, not forcing a showdown with Repubs over the expiring tax cuts and being caught flat-footed in the money race even though anyone with a brain could see Citizens would make a huge difference probably doesn't qualify as smart. So, I'm claiming a mulligan. Feingold and PA hurt, but Conn and DE and NV help ease the pain a bit. About 30 of the Dem House losses were Blue Dogs. Interesting. We have another Quayle. Ugh. Except for the first two of my 49 years, Daniel Inouye has been a senator from Hawaii. That did not change tonight. In Oregon: Wyden pulled out of Portland with a 100,000 vote lead and coasted. DeFazio will win by about 20,000 votes, besting a nutjob and hundreds of thousands of outside dollars. My district stays firmly Repub as Greg Walden won with about 75% of the vote. On Nevada, I was prepared for Reid to lose and not be too upset about it. I thought it'd be good to have a new Dem leader. However, when the Repubs nominated Angle, it was easy to get behind Reid again. Dems now have a leadership problem in the House. If Pelosi follows form, she'll resign... which leaves Hoyer as the leader. Color me unimpressed. Time for some new blood. Time for Repubs to make some tough choices. Good luck doing that without ticking off the base (Tea Party) or the independents who gave you tonight. If there's a silver lining in this for Dems, it has to do with the high probability of Repubs overreaching in the House and not having any strong Presidential nominees out there. John Boehner is now the face of the party. It's better than Steele, but not much. I wouldn't be surprised to see 2012 go in the exact opposite direction. All in all, I don't feel too bad, especially compared to past elections. If you would have told me in 2008 that you can trade the last two years of policy for the next two years of politics, I would have taken that deal in heartbeat.
By the way, the Green Party vote would have covered the margin in the Illinois Senate race and currently covers the margin in the CO Senate race.
In Alaska, Miller is sneaking up on Write-In. Total write-in = 39% Miller = 36% McAdams = 24% If it's at all close, this could get very ugly with a challenge to every write-in ballot. Ideally, this would be good for Dems if Write-In can pull it out under those circumstances... it would then be crystal clear to Write-In that she will never win as an R again and needs to forsake the base while targeting Dems and Indies.
I think you guys get so caught up in strategy you cannot see the big picture. There is no such thing as a sore winner and negative emotions are more powerful than positive. I called this crap 2 years ago and so did most other people. Conservative voters would actually show up to vote. Be happy. A democratic president and a republican house has historically been very good for US.
Also, hahahahah, for some reason the potheads did not have the initiative to get out and vote in California. Huge surprise.
So much for the Republican party being a "regional" party limited to white men in the deep south going forward as was said on this board. It's amazing what electoral victories do to people's sense of reality. Unfortunately I don't know if Republicans controlling the House will help or hurt us even more. I wasn't a fan of a lot of Democratic policies, but I'm not sure the Republicans have any I'll be a fan of either. This is kind of a "pretty much everywhere it's gonna be [suck]" time in American governance.
For you then this might be a good time. What divided government means is that pretty much the status quo of governance is now will remain. The current Bush tax cuts will likely be passed as is and the health care bill as is will likely remain.
I guess so but since 2000 I have been very skeptical of exit polling and IMO it is somewhat irresponsible to be declaring winners until at least half of the votes are counted.
Democrats changed the course of this country. They saved us from economic disaster and helped millions of people, particularly children. They reformed our financial system in an effort to prevent another financial meltdown and have reigned in much of the abuse done by Bush. I think it's great that they did all of this knowing it would be a bloodbath 2 years later. Instead of playing it safe and trying to maintain their majority, they went for changing the country for the better. And they accomplished more in these 2 years than the Republicans did in their whole time in power. I think as 2011 rolls in and our economy starts to grow again Republicans really don't have to do anything but sit on their hands and take credit. That's ok. Because what matters is that our lives will be a bit better. The challenge for Republicans now is to reduce the deficit and find ways to continue to grow the economy. That's a huge challenge. Cutting taxes will increase the deficit, and cutting spending will kill jobs. So how will they do it? I hope they can succeed, because unlike the conservatives here, I care moer about the country than politics, and I truly want them to succeed. However, I expect them to be partisan and play for the presidency and use their new found power to make more fluff than do anything substantial.
But new house speaker Boener has already announced a "new way forward": restoring the Bush era tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans. (I'm not sure if he'll also restore the higher Bush rates that the other 95%, like me, paid -- we'll see.) While I'm confused how a "new way" is based almost entirely on an old way... I'm cautiously optimistic.
