I need to put the Presidency aside for a minute (it's way too awful to think about). Another thing to get worried about is the Senate results. Alan Keyes' staunt-pro-life, anti-gay, anti-income-tax, pro-war-hawk platform collapsed in Illinois, and I'm proud to have casted a vote against it (and for Obama). But it turns out that many white men in red states won by running essentially on the same platform.
NBC interviewed John McCain last night. They congratulated him on his win, and Tim Russert (my favorite, god bless him) jumped at the opportunity to ask "there are many very culturally conservative Republicans entering the Senate, how will that effect more moderates like yourself?
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" McCain dodged it by pointing out moderate Arlen Specter was re-elected, a move that does nothing to address the new major problem of the Republican party.
That problem, which was hinted at during the Republican Convention, is that the party is going to be split between big-name moderates like McCain, Schwarzenegger and Giuliani, who are pro-choice, pro-stem cells, pro-balanced budget and centrists, and bible-thumpers with the most regressive set of social and cultural views imaginable on the other. And the second half of their big tent took a huge win last night. If 1994 was the year that the House ran off to the Right, 2004 may be the year the Senate did. Let's look at some of the winners in the Senate for 2005:
Ed says:
I disagree that they can simply steamroll through the senate now. They have 55 seats, which is certainly a sizeable advantage. However.
1. They no longer have Zell Miller, who made the split deceptive in the past term.
2. Specter, Gregg, McCain, Lugar, Hagel, Murkowski (assuming she wins), Chaffee and Collins are more than enough of a moderate cabal to be ignored.
3. And you have others like Norm Coleman, Gordon Smith and John Ensign who are in office by a fucking thread due to luck or accidents, and there is no way they will stick their neck out for the really far-out shit even if they believe it.
4. Some of the Senate untouchables (Ted Stevens) who have been in office for 40 years and are gods in their home state have absolutely no desire to rock the boat with this kind of stuff and have never played along in the past.
So while the Republicans definitely made huge and important gains there, the party in the Senate has not yet been handed over to the lunatics. The moderate part of the party is far too big to ignore for the purposes of passing legislation, and there is absolutely no way in hell that the Senate lifers or Republicans from relatively liberal states are going to vote for shit like prayer in schools, banning sex ed, national sales tax, etc etc etc.
So basically all that happened yesterday is that 5 or 6 lunatics who no one will pay attention to got elected. I'd pay good money to see the look on Ted Stevens' face when DeMint walks into his office and starts talking about replacing the government's sole source of funding with a regressive tax which will make annual tax receipts unpredictable and wildly uneven. The prevailing attitude in the Senate remains one of preservation. The people who have been there forever are just mailing it in, and they're not about to start seriously entertaining the rantings of people who have been in office for five fuckin' minutes and think they have a mandate for their lunacy.
Ed says:
Also, the Bunning campaigns in 1998 and this year are among my favorite in recent memory. It's not very often that a candidate (his democratic challengers) can openly question whether or not the incumbent is mentally ill….and NOT have it be considered a slander.
Democrat: "Bunning may seriously be insane"
Media: "How could you say such a thing! Wait…..yes, this is in fact a distinct possibility"
mike says:
hahahaha.
"We believe that Bunning may suffer from a mental condition called 'out-of-his-fucking-mind-itits'."
Could you believe he read off a tele-prompter out of state for the debate. Left or right, how could voters not have ripped him to shreds is beyond me. I wonder how fawning the local media coverage was.
What's your take on the loss of Daschle?
kat says:
southern republicans completely mystify me. it's like the wack politics of louisiana have bred and are spreading intensity throughout the confederacy.
granted you didn't ask me, but i think south dakota felt ignored by daschle who seemingly had more important things to do.
Max Ballstein says:
You can't be 42457 serious?!?