Tex

McCaskill takes Missouri. Montana and Virginia are left and Democrats lead in both...

Dems need the two seats to take the senate...

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"All I know is that I know nothing..."

Elphaba

The West coast is getting little attention for now, and the major races are way East of here.

This election is the most important mid-term election in the history of our country; or so say the pundits. Word.

MuadDib

McCaskill wins! And then there were two.

I'm beginning to fear the wraith of one Chief Justice Roberts on the upcoming abortion case.

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"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

jorgelito

Oooh, my head is spinning from all the races. It's hard to keep a track of.

You're right too Elph. And some of the nastiest races have been out that way too. I wonder though, even with a changing of the guard, will there still be real change or business as usual? Or will it turn into a stalemate? I understand what you are saying about bringing it back to the 2-party. But I'm of the mind that we need to get to a 3 or 4-party before things get real interesting.

Interesting that Lieberman won as an Independent. Are there any other independents out there?

Elphaba

For certain; no recount!?

MuadDib

Yep, Talent conceded and Montana is looking good. All eyes on Virginia now and I'll tell you that it's good have that lead going in to, what is sure to be, a trying recount process.

__________________
"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

Elphaba

Let's save these important questions for a new topic, once we know the makeup of the house and senate. I think we just showed that bunch that they can't count on "business as usual" from the People!

MuadDib

Bernie Sanders is also a Senate independent, but he is an independent like Lieberman and I wouldn't count Lieberman as a real independent. He's stated time and time again that he'll vote Democrat and that he is only an Indie because he lost that primary. Both are strongly Dem leaning, middle of the road guys.

I hope there will be change and that if there is a stalemate that it won't come from this new Congress. I don't really believe in a multiparty run-off style election system and even if you are behind I think we can agree it won't be happening here anytime soon. Regardless, we are talking about a real check on the executive and that's what this election was about.

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"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

Frosstbyte

Man, Montana is a hell of a nailbiter. This is really really coming down to the wire!

snowy

I will probably be up quite late tonight watching the election results come in.

It's been years since there has been an election in Oregon I've actually liked watching.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

jorgelito

Hmm. Agreed. Assuming the Senate also goes over (to the Democrats), then the next 2 years will be interesting.

Still Muad, I'm not letting go of my hope for mulitpartyism in the (hopefully near) future . I would like to see more independents, Green and Libertarians in the Congress etc down to the state and local level. I feel it will give better choice and more balance.

Even with this election, this Democratic "sweep" of sorts is real indicative of how the general populace feels about the need for change.

Elphaba

PNW voters bite their nails for much longer, yes?

jorgelito

Ok, so it looks like it's just Virginia and Washington left right? And that could go for a recount but it looks like Jim Webb has unseated George Allen.

Then that would mean that Dems take the House and Senate.

I also find it interesting that despite the sweep, many of the races were real close reflecting how divided/polaroze we really are.

Elph, I'm with you, I truly hope some balance will be restored, but I'm greedy. I wamt more change, evolution, cooperation etc..... we'll see.

Ch'i

Tester in the lead by 7,158 votes and Webb in the lead by 7,546 votes so far. Things are looking good. Shades of Missouri I hope.

Elphaba

26 pickups for the House being reported.

The undecided Senate races are:

- Montana: Tester/Burns
- Virginia: Webb/Allen

A 50/50 split in the Senate is possible.

analog

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elphaba Excuse Me? Review this topic and every post and you will find that you are way off the mark. And I don't appreciate that you have used the same frickin warning that you gave u2's topic. This topic is clean of BS of any kind. Explain your warning, Analog.

It's a pre-emptive warning to the denizens of the Tilted Politics forum. Many like it have been issued before, on many occasions. It's not a new concept. It's quite clearly a warning that things will not be allowed to get out of hand with the election uproar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MuadDib He said he was just heading off trouble. At least I hope that it's just a pre-emptive warning. It doesn't take a psychic to see that this thread has massive trouble potential.

Indeed, and also that the Tilted Politics forum in general is set to explode with post-election chatter.

I was here for the 2004 presidential elections, and we all got through that without letting the board become like every other mud-slinging flame-war site out there. We will do it again.

So like I originally posted- keep the respect level up, the shenanigans down, and we'll all continue to have the quality discourse of which we have come to hope the Tilted Politics forum is capable.

Thank you all,

- analog.

MuadDib

I think this will be an interesting 2 year regardless of how the Senate goes, but I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for it til that decision comes down. But even if we don't get them the fundamental structure of Congress has changed. We have more moderate democrats and less conservative republicans. This is going to move both parties right. Also we going to have Dems heading up more commitees. This could go any number of ways, but Congressional Dems and the Bush administration are now going to be forced to mix and the results will be interesting.

This "sweep" is clearly indicitive of the people's desire for change. But the breadth and depth of that desire is questionable. I think it's clear that this was a message about Bush and his White House. It is also a message about Iraq. That should be clear from the Dems holding their incumbents so this wasn't an anti-incumbent message. This also was not a sign of America moving to the left or okaying a liberal agenda. We are tired of the extreme right, but that doesn't mean we don't still fear the extreme left. This is election was not a mandate and if it was it was only a mandate for oversight and for some change. How the Dems handle this will be the key to '08. If they are responsible steward of the last six years and ask the much needed questions, give it the needed oversight, and restore Congress as a responsible check AND balance to the executive then we can talk mandates in '08.

As for the multiparty elections, I think that would be a good topic for us in a seperate thread. I will say that another party moving up has always meant another party moving down, shortly there after. It's just the way our institutions are set up to force a two party system. So to make this happen we would need to change a lot of procedure and a fair amount of Constitution.

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"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

ratbastid

I agree, MuadDib. This was more of a course correction than a validation of a liberal agenda. But I do think the Bush Administration can't ignore the lesson of this election.

MuadDib

Thanks, rat. I think that Bush 'can' ignore the lesson and there is a real possibility that he won't work with the Dems, especially if the Rumsfeld thing comes up. I think Rumsfeld really needs to consider resigning of his own volition to avoid this issue and keep Bush from either having to go back on his statement or bring this issue to a head. I think if it does come to a grid lock then it will only make things worse for Republicans since there is a clear American desire for some reorganization. The Pentagon needs an overhaul and the war needs some fresh perspective.

On that note though, I suppose if the executive and Congress become locked it's only going to help Dems in '08 so either way I think we have a great opportunity here.

__________________
"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751

ratbastid

Agreed, but there's work to do in the next two years. The Dems promised change, and they'd better deliver.

host

Let us review where we've just come from....and ask what a "liberal" agenda might look like....so we can recognize it, if it rears it's "ugly" head.

Nov. 1992: After 12 years of republican party presidents, democrat is elected.

Feb. 1993: Terrorists planted and detonated a massive bomb in a basement level of the WTC in NYC, seven died and a signifigant number were injured. Law enforcement investigated, made arrests and several convictions in US federal court resulted. The cases were successfully prosecuted by asst. US Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald.

Fall, 1993: Democratic controlled house and senate pass democratic president's rollback of republican era tax cuts that had focused on signifigantly cutting
the taxes of the wealthiest.
<b>Reagan reversed some of the drastic 1981 tax cuts that he had sponsored in the first days of his presidency, Clinton sponsored a much more modest tax increase that targeted primarily, the wealthiest taxpayers.</b>

Sept. 30, 1993. Last republican president's budget year ends. Treasury debt has increased, year over year, by $360 billion. Treasury debt has increased, since last democratic president, in 1981....from $1070 billion, to $4200 billion.

Nov. 1993: Republicans take control of the house in mid-term elections on the strength of new speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich's "contract with America".

May, 1995: Murrow federal building bombed by terrorists in Oklahoma City, 169 killed....arrests made by law enforcement, convictions in US federal court resulted, lead conspirator/bomber later executed.

1998: In a highly partisan charged atmosphere, conservative house republican leaders mount a campaign to impeach president Clinton for lying in a deposition taken under oath in a civil suit, financed by conservative republicans who have hounded the Clinton administration in 5 years of investigations conducted by a special prosecutor. The impeachment process moves to the senate, where republicans fail to obtain a conviction. At the end of Clinton's presidency, in 2001, the eight years of investigation of Clinton and his wife have cost $70 million, resulted in no findings of wrongdoing against the Clintons...and an X-rated report on Clinton's extra marital relations, before and during his presidency. The special prosecutor, highly partisan Kenneth Starr, is rewarded for his efforts with an appointment by the principle financier of the eight years of harrassment against Clinton, Richard Mellon Scaife, to the dean's chair at Pepperdine law school, on Malibu Beach, CA.

Jan. 2001: Clinton leaves office during a budget year when the $360 billion annual debt increase of the 1992-1993 republican budget has been reversed to a surplus in 2001. The surplus ended when SCOTUS installed president Bush pushed through a tax cutting program that included the mailing of tax rebate checks to taxpayers that totalled $39 billion, in summer, 2001. On sept. 30, 2001, the last Clinton budget year ended, with a total annual treasury debt increase of $18 billion. (This equates to a $21 billion surplus, without the tax rebate checks, and it would have been a signifigantly larger surplus, if not for the immediate effects of Bush sponsored tax cutting).

We cannot be sure of the position that the US would be in today, as far as the support that it would enjoy from other countries if the 9/11 attacks had been treated as a law enforcement problem, instead of with an aggressive, military, CIA, and DIA response.

We do know that the 2001 budget surplus had been reversed to a new accumulation of $3000 billion in treasury debt, in just five years, including a debt increase in the last year of $570 billion....including a budgeted $300 billion and supplemental appropriations of $270 billion for GWOT operations and Katrina disaster relief.

The US military is mired in wars in both Iraq and in Afghanistan, with little hope of accomplishing "the mission" in either country. When the US attacked Afghanistan in 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks, the ruling taleban, ousted in the US led military operations, had eradicated the Afghan opium crop, the largest in the world. Opium from Afghanistan now floods the urban streets of the west, and the taleban is poised to retake control of Afghanistan. US forces are suffering their highest rates, yet, of casualties in Afghanistan, along with increasingly resentful, foreign NATO sponsored troops. In Iraq, US forces are suffering their highest rates of KIA in two years, with no relief in sight.

Perhaps the most alarming consequence has been the undermining of the constitutional rights formally guaranteed to all US residents and those subject to US authorities treatment under the provisions of the Geneva conventions. US official policy with regard to respect for human rights and treaties and laws related to those rights have also eroded alarmingly.

The purpose of recalling where we've been, and where we are now, is to ask how a "liberal agenda", if one emerged....if such a "thing" existed...could be even slightly as harmful as the reversals from former fiscal, diplomatic, and military stability, that we've just experienced...in less than six years' time.

Could we afford this "liberal agenda"? Do the suspected "architects" of such an agenda, come into power, this week, with a past reputation for the kind of fiscal irresponsibility and mismanagement that would be required to impelement such an agenda, in today's period of federal treasury, fiscal crisis?

Please point to examples of such a record...of these "liberals". Please describe how America would be better (or worse...) off today...and the world....if the US had continued the pre republican control, pre 9/11 policies of progressive taxation and responding to domestic and foreign terrorist attacks with law enforcement, and surgical military strikes instead of with massive military operations, and occupations of foreign countries that include unilateral replacement of existing foreign regimes, in their entirety.

We don't seem any better, any more secure, any wealthier, or certainly....any free---errrr, from the shift to an intensely militaristic, intensively tax cutting, political policy emphasis. Nor do we enjoy a better relationship with the rest of the world, or a reputation as a diplomatic, "honest broker", in the ME, or anywhere else.

So....tell me....what have we gained from a signifigant shift to the right, that began with "the contract", in 1994, and ends today, with these election results. <b>If a shift away from "the right", is shifting towards</b> a "liberal agenda", given the past achievments of "liberals"....of control of military spending "creep", and increases in non-military federal employment....along with respect for the constitution and a record of judicial appointments of "mainstream" judges who reflect the tenor of the times and the sentiments of a larger majority....what have we to fear....from "liberals", hobbled by the yoke of a newly racked up, $3000 billion deficit and the wasting effect of a military mired in two major eastern fronts, a newly empowered Iran, stronger due to the destruction of their former enemy regime in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, empowered by lack of any signifigant US energy conservation or alternative development.....and by the Bush administration dismantling of the UN north Korean nuclear inspection program that would have postponed the current bomb development, by at least a decade?.... <b>IMO....if that is a shift towards a "liberal agenda"....away from the failed "conservative agenda.......bring it on!</b>
Have I missed anything?

MuadDib

No you're pretty close to dead on here. But I think we are allowing ourselves to talk in black & white neo-con terms. By defining liberal and conservative as the only terms we tie in all of the affirmative action, gun control, women's rights, environmental, death penalty, tax, wage, UN, etc issues with every political movement that occurs. This framing favors Republicanism (specifically conservativism) because it's the party-line liberal is far more rare than the party-line conservative. To put it differently, there are more people against everything than are for everything. This framing of the discussionis what helped boost the neo-cons into power in the first place.

I am a Clinton man, through and through. From that New Democratic perspective I am a believer in the third way. While everything you've said is correct I can't agree with presenting it the way that you do. Let's not define ourselves exclusively by how we aren't the 'contract'-ers. We can variously support some 'liberal' issues and not others. We can think (and state) that the Republicans had some good ideas even more good intentions. Most Americans believe that the difference between a Democrat and a Republican is negligible anyway and from an issues point of view they are largely correct. The difference is that Clinton attempted to make us the party of responsibility and accountability. And that leads me to say the first highly contraversial thing I've said in a while; the Republican party has been plagued by corruption and scandal for a long time (not saying the Dems are free from it but as a matter of degree I think it's distinguishable) and its largely in part to their business ties. Think K-street, think Haliberton, think tax cuts. While we are different parties in terms of what is more okay to stand for or not on social issues, by and large the difference isn't vast. That being said let's distinguish ourselves as the party of responsible government.

Wow that was a tangent, I'm honestly sure how I got there, but answer your original question, a 'liberal' agenda has been defined by neo-cons and it's been defined as pro-gay rights, anti-guns, pro-choice, anti-death penalty, pro-criminal rights, anti-tax cuts, tree-hugging, okay-with-drugs, Cindy Sheehans/Michael Moore supporters. Did <b>I</b> miss anything? Fact is that America is no more okay with all those issues lumped into one term (liberal) than they were 24 hours or 24 years ago. And by those terms America is not supporting liberalism in this election. But now I remember how I got on my tangent. We let them define us and only time and a strong effort to unbridle that generalization will change that. So what we have to do as Democrats is not be liberals on their terms. Don't claim it, don't say it, and certainly don't act like it ESPECIALLY now that we have some power. We won this cycle because we promised to do a job that wasn't getting done and we'll go far and be able to make some real changes if we exercise some restraint and fulfill our charge without over-stepping our grant.

__________________
"The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751