Election Aftermath Thread (1 Viewer)

[LSSpam]

Pelosi openly vowed last week that there will be no impeachment of Bush under her watch. The far-leftists at MoveOn, DailyKos, Democratic Underground are already declaring war on her.

It'll be interesting to see how she handles them.

Best case scenario actually. You're going to see every moderate Republican jump ship if the Dem leadership moderizes. Bush and the base is a proven loser now where it matters most, in home state elections. Many of the Dems elected were center-left, virtually no far-left. It's a centerist country and anyone with any brains would be figuring that one out now. Guys like McCain gave it the ol' college try to protect their party and, now that they gave the token effort to prove their loyalty, need to figure out quickly they're better off working bi-partisan with the new moderate Dems then sticking to their far-right base.

 

[MayberrySaint]

And the big winner is GRIDLOCK!!!!

It is probably the best thing that could have happened. It is imperative that this government slow down or reverse the expansion of government (wishful thinking I know). A much bigger threat than radical islam to this country is our enoumous debt and the fact that China holds so much of the bonds. Without Chinese support, our financial situation would be ruinous...anyone remember 18-20% interest rates from the early 80's?
Hopefully, the two parties can work together or at least halt this debt increase...if not, I am extremely worried about our financial solvency.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Undocumented workers/illegal immigrants got a big win last night.

That's one of the few areas that Bush/Pelosi/Reid are in agreement.

 

[LSSpam]

And the big winner is GRIDLOCK!!!!

It is probably the best thing that could have happened. It is imperative that this government slow down or reverse the expansion of government (wishful thinking I know). A much bigger threat than radical islam to this country is our enoumous debt and the fact that China holds so much of the bonds. Without Chinese support, our financial situation would be ruinous...anyone remember 18-20% interest rates from the early 80's?
Hopefully, the two parties can work together or at least halt this debt increase...if not, I am extremely worried about our financial solvency.

Well expect taxes to get a lot more progressive. If the Dems have any sense they'll only repeal the portion of the tax cuts which apply to the wealthiest tax bracket.

 

[HouDat]

So who wins? Who loses? What happens in Louisiana? New Orleans? What do you think?

Winners:

Conservatives - Because of the candidates Emanuel courted to run for the Democratic Party in this election cycle, Conservatives actually have a voice in the Democratic Party and should help moderate the party and nudge the American "center" further to the right. Several Democrats elected last night were pro-life, had police and military background and such and should provide for some interesting discourse which will only benefit America in the future and help shape healthy debate

When will both parties open their eyes and see that this is what America wants, by and large?

They don't want polarizing types like Ted Kennedy and Tom DeLay (despite what the people of their respective voting districts/states manage to do every election day). They want your John Danforths, your Daniel Patrick Moynihans, etc. - people who aren't completely detached from the world outside the beltway.


Unfortunately, however, by the time the official winners in the senate races are declared, and the warm 'n fuzzies between Bush and Pelosi have ceased echoing via the day's soundbites, it'll be business-as-usual in DC.

 

[Hoyasaint]

The Democrats, from a national leadership perspective (though the candidates who won were center-left) still haven't quite figured out that this is a centerist country. And yet the Reps absoloutely got trashed in midterms.

And that is why the republicans lost this, because they forgot this is a centerist country.


Which is exactly what most other poster's comments were or were alluding to.

 

[TPS]

>>You forgot to add Chuck Schumer to your list of winners Steve. He recruited most of the Dem candidates and was really the brains behind who to run in this. His star is going to be pretty bright in the Democratic party now and he'll have some weight to throw around. He'll probably start by getting NY it's terrorist fighting funds back it lost to middle America in that ridiculous redistribution of political influence... errr... I mean funds.

I left out a lot of people in the winner and loser categories. I have my opinions, but I already know them. I'm more into what everyone else has to say. For Schumer, he headed up the Senate Campaign (Emanuel headed up the House campaign). The people who will take the red seats (except Maryland and Rhode Island) have vastly different views than he does. Jim Webb, should he win (and most likely he will), was Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan and only recently switched to the Democratic Party. His counterpart in the election, Senator George Allen, is a BIG, BIG, BIG, BIG, BIG loser. He was a very solid candidate for President and would have been very difficult to defeat in a general election should he have gotten the GOP's nod. But his fortunes have been swept away with the anti-war current. The battle for the Repubilcan nomination in 2008 should be a bloodbath. Because extremists hold most of the caucus and committee seats for both parties, it's going to be difficult to get a centrist such as Pitaki or Giuliani through the process. A guy like Bill Frist could easily get through the process but well may not be electable by the nation.

TPS

 

[Mr. Paul Caruso]

Murtha as Speaker?

God help our fighting men and the war on terror.

 

[LSSpam]

When will both parties open their eyes and see that this is what America wants, by and large?

They don't want polarizing types like Ted Kennedy and Tom DeLay (despite what the people of their respective voting districts/states manage to do every election day). They want your John Danforths, your Daniel Patrick Moynihans, etc. - people who aren't completely detached from the world outside the beltway.


Unfortunately, however, by the time the official winners in the senate races are declared, and the warm 'n fuzzies between Bush and Pelosi have ceased echoing via the day's soundbites, it'll be business-as-usual in DC.

Well it's a neat phenomenom.

During the 90s, particularly with Clinton in office and the 1994 midterms, the policy the Republicans engineered was "motivate your base". If you got your base to turn out, even if you lost the independent vote, you'd win due to turnout. Thats how the Republicans have dominanted the past decade even when they seemed to be incredibly unpopular on the whole. They simply beat Democrats pants off in terms of "getting out the base".

This unfourtantly lead to a polarization in politics. In order to motivate your party base you had to pander far-right (or left if a Dem) to reach the people who would be most "outraged" and then play off the evils of your opponent.

Dem's learned this lesson well while Bush was in office. The result, percieved by many (and correctly) was that they were polarizing as well, moving far left to "energize their base" and that basically politics was going to crap. All of this is true.

What's positive about this election was that the far-left and far-right basically cancelled each other out. The relative hatred between the two extremes has them about as "motivated" as they can concievably be. In every single election R's carried 90% or more of the R vote and D's carried 90% of the D vote.

In every state that switched, it was the independent vote which carried the election.

All of this is off the top of my head and out of my butt though

 

[LSSpam]

A guy like Bill Frist could easily get through the process but well may not be electable by the nation.

TPS

Frist vs Clinton hurrah!

You'd think both parties would have figured things out in 2004 when a dead rat should have beaten Bush in the election but Kerry managed to lose.

McCain 2008

 

[Saintlybum]

I fear it will be the same old song by a different group. Nothing really changes, we are just given the excitement of new players every so often.


Jaded much? Naaaaa not me.......

 

[gboudx]

The Republicans became what they were sent to Washington to get rid of, and the people that voted them in turned on them. They earned this whippin'.

I was really disappointed in the Texas governor's race. Perry got about 40% of the vote and the Democrat, Chris Bell, received 30%. The two independents split the rest of the vote. I was hoping for a stronger showing from the independents. All this shows is that 40% of the people in Texas vote straight ticket Republican and 30% vote straight ticket Democrat, and nothing will change that. If the people won't change the way they vote, then why should the politicians change the way they behave.

It was clear Perry was gonna win. Neither independent was strong enough and Bell seemed to start real politicking too late. You have a point on the straight ticket voting. As I waited in line, I noticed many people taking like 10 seconds to vote.

Don't blame me for Perry. I voted for Werner.

 

[MikeyF]

Hastert's handling of the Foley debacle is what galvanized the support that the Demo's needed to re-take the House and probably the Senate.

Ethics are the reason the Republicans lost the support of most Americans...

 

[TPS]

>>In every state that switched, it was the independent vote which carried the election.

That was a key point on MSNBC and Fox last night. It was indeed the switch from the independent voters (most of whom tend to be moderate to slightly liberal) from the "worried about the War on Terror" that swept the GOP out. There were very many house results that were in the 51-49% category where the incumbent didn't lose either.

The blue dogs will hold some sway in both the house and the senate again. They were mostly invisible lately except in McCain's Gain of 13. But they'll keep the party in check.

>>Frist vs. Clinton

I don't know about Hillary. I'm not sure what she can do at this point. She's another one that the far left really doesn't much care for. Her voting records is decidely more DLC than it is blogosphere. But because she is the lightning rod that she is, I don't think she'll ever be able to get elected President. I think the doors are wide open on three fronts: Control of the House come 2008, Control of the Senate 2008, Control of the White House 2008. There is no way to figure out (today) how the new muddled realities will play out and what situations (as a nation) we'll be facing during the election cycle. I don't think it's necessarily gonig to be the heavyweights that we all expect that end up on the two vying tickets for the general election. McCain will alienate many of his moderate supporters (guys like you and I for instance) becuase he's going to have to go hard-right in order to get through the nomination process. While he is great at talking the talk about coming back to the middle, it well may be that he gets too much out there during the primary season that will become soundbytes that could really hurt him among the swing voters. Similarly, unless the Democrats are serious about winning, they can't do it either. A guy like Obama (a fantanstic orator), who most likely couldn't win the presidency because of his youth race and liberalism, could still use his faith and force the far-left to bite their tongues and promote him to the top of the ticket. He would energize the Democratic Party to levels unseen prior, but it would take time for that to show up at the national level.

TPS

 

[DadsDream]

The Democrats succeeded by completely reversing fields.

They beat Bush I to death with "It's the economy, stupid."

The economy is booming. Unemployment is low. The Dow is over 12,000. They had to get everybody to ignore that and focus on something else.

"It's the Iraq War, stupid."