Election 2006

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Wow... the GOP got massacred... I knew the Democrats would take the house.. but it appears they will also take the senate by 1 seat.

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Two seats, if Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats. Right now its 49 Republicans and 49 Democrats, and I don't know how likely that is to change. Of the two independents, Sanders will definitely caucus with the Democrats. Lieberman has stated that he will, too, but I think that he was supported by the Republicans so we'll have to see (unless someone with a TV has heard anything more definite than I).Edited to add:Looks like Senate control is going to be decided by Montana. The latest results I have been able to find indicate a difference of 586 votes out of over 350,000. Probably going to be a recount?-

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Well.. it took 4-6 years... but at least the American people finally got a clue and kicked these scumbags out of office...

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Twelve years, since the midterm elections in 1994.Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

Hi, holmes.I'm not sure what the benchmarks would be. The voters, in my opinion, didn't really vote for the Democrats as much as they voted against the Republicans. But then, I'm not sure the American public has much more than a vague idea of what they expect from the government anyway. My guess is that the Democrats will muddle along for another 10-40 years until the public gets sick of them, too.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

Actually, a proportional system for the legislature would be better; then even minority voters like myself could be assured that our votes would be pooled together to elect at least one member of a party that holds our positions. The problem with your scheme (and the ITV method) is that no minority candidate will actually be elected -- the minority candidates will still be eliminated, the votes then being distributed among what are still the non-preferred candidates. Minority viewpoints would still be excluded from the legislature.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

I just saw the news:
Allen and Burns have graciously conceded. Pretty decent of them; if I was in an election that was that close, I think I would have called for a recount just to make sure.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

It looks like 59.6% of the eligible voters decided to sit this one out.Whatever their margin of victory, it appears that the Democrats do not represent a majority of Americans.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

Perhaps. In the former Soviet Union, everyone had to vote and the Communists won every election.If we had democratic elections that encouraged a variety of different platforms, encouraged people to vote according to their beliefs, and produced a government that represented the majority opinion, then I bet that the winner would be a European style social democratic coalition. And that would be even if people didn't have to vote.*Sigh* But we don't have the luxury of living in the world we would like. We are forced to live in the world as it is.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

An article about Trent Lott's comeback mentions that Mitch McConnell has been chosen as Senate Minority Leader. Unfortunately, that is probably going to be true. Not that I have any against the Republicans being a robust or vigorous minority; I think it is unfortunate that the Democrats' anemic performance as the minority party will compare unfavorably to the Republicans' performance. The Democrats have certainly failed in their duties as minority party to be vigorous and robust during that last few years.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

I dunno, RAZD. I read the actual liberal press, and the actual liberals have been complaining for years (since the Clinton years, in fact) how the Democrats have been mainly playing it "safe" and refusing to provide any real opposition to Republican policies. Now it could be that I don't know what I'm talking about, but I am repeating what actual liberals and progressives have been writing.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

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But the point is that whenever a democrat did say something that it was buried in the news and downplayed. If a democrat position did make it to the news the next three or four days would be complete coverage of the republican position.

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That may have been your point, but it certainly wasn't mine. My point was that there was a definite lack of vigorous opposition by the so-called "opposition party" during the Republican years, a situation that the current Republicans are claiming won't be repeated. According to the actual leftwing media (as opposed to the mainstream media, about which we have no disagreement), there really wasn't any real opposition. Any dissent was made by individuals acting, usually, against the the advice of main body of Democrats and sometimes even criticised heavily for their stances.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

I pretty much diagree with the sentiments expressed here. The way it works in other countries, political parties have specific platforms that they promise to implement, and more or less detailed policy positions that they are on record as holding. There may be some disagreement with various parts of the the overall program, but there are mechanisms for maintaining what is called party discipline, and, generally, if a politician doesn't like the platform they can join another political party or start their own.There is a reason for this. This gives the voters reasons why they should choose one party over another. Voters go into the voting booth with a good idea of what the consequences of their votes are going to be.You might not be aware of this, but in the U.S. barely half of the eligible voters will vote in an election, and much less than that in midterm elections. There are undoubtably a lot of different reasons for this, but one of them is that the main policy platform of each of the two main parties is that they are simply not the other party. Few people voted for the Republicans in 1994 because of the "Contract on America". They voted to get the Democrats out of power. I doubt anyone voted for the Democrats' policies this time around -- hell, I don't even know whether the Democrats even have any policies. They voted to remove the Republicans. Not only is this rather uninspirational to the electorate, but it doesn't seem to me to be a good way to go about choosing a government if you think that the state is actually supposed to be promoting and implementing national policies.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

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That may have been your point, but it certainly wasn't mine.

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It was in addition to yours not contra nor modifying.

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My bad.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus