Lots of bullet points
By Sean Aqui | Related entries in Elections, General Politics, NewsAn amazing night. I was up until about midnight watching the results, but didn’t have the time for liveblogging. Justin and the gang did a great job, though; I found their updates more timely and comprehensive than CNN’s.
First, give credit to the pundits: the general consensus of predictions (including my own) were right on. The Democrats picked up 28 seats in the House and 4 seats in the Senate (Pennsylvania, Missouri, Rhode Island, Ohio), with 2 Senate seats (Virginia and Montana) hanging in the balance. We may yet see a Democratic majority there.
The Dems also picked up 6 governorships, and now control a majority of those, as well as making serious gains at the statehouse level.
Some random thoughts:
Party makeup: On the one hand, I’m disappointed that the Democratic gains took an especially heavy toll on moderate Republicans. That’s to be expected, since swing districts are pretty much by definition going to favor moderates in both parties. Santorum was a good scalp, and several Bush lapdogs went down. But Chafee, Steele and the like are the kind of people I’d like to see remain relevant in Republican circles.
Still, consider the long-term trends. In order to win, Democrats veered toward the center, electing conservative and moderate candidates in several key races. And the darling of the Netroots, Ned Lamont, got stuffed by the far more conservative Joe Lieberman. Nancy Pelosi may be liberal, but she will have to lead a caucus that will be decidedly more centrist than the one it replaces.
It’s also interesting that as the Democrats grow more moderate, moderate elected Republicans are growing scarce. That will give conservatives and the religious right even more of a hold on the GOP. Unless they find a way to counter that, Republicans may find themselves ideologically purer but increasingly out of power.
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November 8th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
While Santorum isn’t from my state, I was most disappointed by his loss. He actually sees radical Islam (and it’s goals) for what it is - the biggest long-term threat to America. Too bad most Americans close their eyes to it.
November 8th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
Chafee won’t stay relevent. He’s done as a Republican. But Steele should still have a career. A run for the House is possible in ‘08 — or Bush may appoint him to something right now.
November 8th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Mr. Aqui, thank you for that post. One other bullet;
My wife is in London this week, the headlines there were ‘Bush Crushed’. She said they seemed happier than we probably were at home. People don’t realize the impact we have around the world . My wife travels the globe in the telecom business [GIS networks] and our lives have been greatly affected. Example: she was on a plane 2 weeks after 9/11 to Qatar, was in Tel Aviv a few weeks before, and hasn’t been back to either location since [Thank God]. Since then she has been to the Middle East less often, but more likely to be in South America, and the west coast of the US.
Is business is down ? Yes and no, we are certainly losing business from outsourcing, but we seem to have lost our edge, our credibility on certain areas that we used to dominate. Is this due to white house policy and war in Iraq? I’m not smart enough to know that, but, I will say this, what we’ve done the last 3+ yrs seems to have the exact 180* opposite outcome than desired.
So they breathed a great big sigh of relief; ‘Finally, the Americans have come to their senses, was another headline.
November 8th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Excellent point on the makeup of the Republican party without as many moderates do they go further right? Will the moderates left in the House and in particular the Senate get tired of the RINO label and switch parties?