No idea what is going on with the election other than that Russ Feingold, a civil libertarian hero, has lost. Maybe he could have used some help from those principled libertarians at Reason magazine, but they were too fucking busy attacking Cuomo to notice much of anything else.
Bob Barr endorsed Feingold. Matt Welch, Nick Gillespie, and other Koch stalwarts- not so much. They do have time for a farewell, though. Thanks for all the help, principled libertarians! Maybe a couple more smooth Nick Gillespie videos about Obamacare could have made the difference. Wait, what?
But don’t you dare call Reason magazine a bunch of ineffectual Koch stooges, though. Because then you are just OVER THE FUCKING LINE QUESTIONING THEIR INTEGRITY.
BTW- I see that McKinley is ahead of Oliverio. Again, this would not surprise me at all, for reasons I have mentioned before. I predicted he would lose, as he was an asshole through and through. Thanks for the Republican majority, Mike, you douchebag.
Hunter Gathers
I, for one, welcome our new teabigot overlords.
Good times ahead, fellow travelers, good times ahead.
At least until they default on the debt.
The Grand Panjandrum
So far 25 Blue Dogs have lost. Isn’t that the real victory here?
Just sayin’.
beltane
Russ Feingold was far and away the most principled person in the Senate. The fact that he was rejected by the voters in favor of a protector of pedophiles tells me more than I want to know about the state of this country.
Jules
I love your “fvck Reason magazine” posts.
What a bunch of tools.
And yeah, Feingold makes me sad and Jesus, CO did you people really vote in Buck?
freelancer
You tipped the Bartender, I assume?
+9
I for one, await, with baited breath, Radley Balko’s sensible synopsis of the night’s results. This, surely, is a victory for those who oppose paramilitary police worship and wish that the entire right-wing authoritarian paradigm of “If you’re not doing anything wrong…” would just fuck off and die.
inkadu
I salute your ignorance.
I voted and have kept my head down all day. Forgot to turn off my phone, though, so learned via text message that the Tea Party tide hadn’t reached my shores. Other than that, I’m hoping to learn about the horror of it all in dribs and drabs over the coming weeks, months, and years until, finally, Rand Paul is elected president and what’s left of the United States starts fighting over gasoline, fertile women, and cartons of cigarettes.
Tomorrow I’m getting a kitten, which is as good a way as any to cope with political nightmares.
Jebediah
OK, I can’t call them Koch stooges. Can I call them stooge cocks?
beltane
@The Grand Panjandrum: I’m really fed up with Kos’s focus on Blue Dog losses tonight. It’s like bragging about cutting off a hand because you had an annoying hangnail. I don’t think he grasps the enormity of this disaster for the future of the country.
Suffern ACE
@beltane: He’s the kingmaker. Any of his candidates win?
fordpowers
and.
still can’t smoke legally in california.
Double middle fingers for all these jerkoffs.
inkadu
Also, haven’t heard many Teapartiers complaining about the Citizens United decision. What part of “Corporations are People” is a core principle laid down by our founding fathers? I look forward to their support of a re-introduction of the Disclose Act in the next congress and a constitutional ammendment to nullify that idiotic decision.
Kitten. Noon tomorrow.
jwb
@Hunter Gathers: I think we can be pretty sure the Goopers won’t default on the debt. If they do, then we’ll know for sure that the corporate overlords have lost control of the teabagging element, since they would stand to lose substantially in the ensuing economic chaos. Of course, that would serve them right. On the other hand, many others would suffer far more, so I can’t wish it.
Soprano2
I keep telling myself “This, too, will pass” to get past all the Republican chest beating and crowing, but it’s hard. One small consolation is that Teatard Sharron Angle lost.
Cris
Prop 19 is going down. I am pissed off at cowardly stoners.
Yes, I said cowardly. I’m not falling for the old “hurrr potheads are too stoned and forgetful to vote” lazy thinking. Some 40% of Americans have tried cannabis at least once. So 120 million people know, first-hand, that interdiction is unjustified. But they will not stand up for it, for themselves, for their children and friends whom they know are using it.
Stoners outnumber the NRA and the AARP. But the latter two know how to get their way.
Cain
@fordpowers:
So why didn’t it win? I’d like to know what the analysis of that was. I thought all the young bucks would be out there ready to make joints legal…
cain
JWL
Cole: You’ve got it backwards.
You blame voters for the democratic party’s incompetence.
jwb
@Suffern ACE: Do any of his candidates ever win?
Ross Hershberger
The Blue Dogs were a pain in the ass but they were marginally better as nominal Democrats than what we have now which is full on unmedicated raving assholes in many of their places.
Ideological purity is attractive but I’d rather win ugly than lose and score a moral victory.
jwb
@inkadu: Why would they since the decision benefits them? The teatards are nothing if not self-serving.
mai naem
Well, amazing what a wittle xeno-latino-phobia can bring out in voters. Jeez, it looks like my Rep Mitchell lost. Also looks like the Dems lost 2 other seats in AZ. Jeezus. I guess AZ is a deep red redneck state. I am disgusted.
Rock
Did Buck win?
Well, this is about as depressing as I imagined it would be. I’m impressed by the willingness of Republican voters to vote for anyone with an (R)…I mean the numbers that people like Angle and Buck and Tancredo pulled are shocking.
It’s probably important to keep in mind that the Republican party had more significant defeats than this very recently and it wasn’t the end of the world for them. In particular, the turnout numbers will be a better judge of what really happened. If the Dem voters simply failed to show, then there’s some hope for 2012 I guess.
jwb
@Soprano2: I found 2004 far worse. 1994 was bad as well.
suzanne
Prop. 203, AZ’s medical marijuana initiative, is down 49/51 right now. Maybe we can pull it out…..
ron
new zealand is looking nicer and nicer by the hour. and itll be summer there soon too.
wengler
I for one can’t wait to see the first teabagging budget sent down the pike. I’m pretty sure it will consist of two lines, the first saying Defense: eleventy trillion dollars and the second one saying everything else: nothing. The attached amendments will reduce the income tax burden for the rich down to -1 percent and attach “user fees” to sidewalks, bicycles and anything deemed “public transportation”.
Let the revolution begin!
inkadu
@beltane: Yesterday’s GOS slogan: More and better Democrats.
Today’s GOS Slogan: Fewer and deader Blue Dogs.
Silver lining and all that.
taylormattd
Don’t worry John. The bloodletting has already commenced.
It’s obvious, don’t you know, that democrats lost in droves in the rural/conservative parts of Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania because they didn’t sufficiently push more liberal legislation, like, for example, the public option.
ron
@jwb: they almost all won in 2008.
morzer
@ron:
On the other hand, you’ll have to put up with Peter Jackson and a butt-load of fucking hobbits.
You Don't Say
Quarter of Alaska in, Murkowski leading.
Edit: Write in leading. Could be Mickey Mouse.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Cain:
Probably because young voters traditionally don’t turn out to vote in midterms. Which is why I was so pissed off at them in an earlier thread and mentioned I wouldn’t give a shit if young people are busted by CA cops for marijuana if it turned out the exit numbers showed that young adults stayed home in numbers.
Also, many mainstream, nominally liberal papers, like the SF Chronicle and the SJ Mercury News, wrote annoying concern troll-ish editorials against 19. I’m sure those helped to appeal to older, lower info voters.
Honestly, 2012 is a much better year to try and get voter turnout.
KG
So, how long until the teabaggers start bitching that the GOP turned its back on them? Seriously, when the GOP in the House actually has to govern and do things like raise the debt ceiling (or let the country go bankrupt) or start cutting programs that are actually popular or raise taxes on some portion of the population… how long will it take? Because that’s going to be fun.
NR
@taylormattd: Yeah, passing something that two-thirds of the country supported would have spelled electoral disaster for us. Good thing we didn’t do such a stupid thing!
Ross Hershberger
I thought I read they were worried about Barney Frank. I didn’t follow that race, but it looks like he’s got an easy 57/40 lead. Good.
Comrade Kevin
@fordpowers:
You wouldn’t be able to, even if Prop 19 did pass. It would still be illegal under Federal law.
Amanda in the South Bay
@taylormattd:
I’ve always thought they needed to be much more aggressively economically populist. Drive a wedge between them and the GOP, and emphasize that its in their best economic interest to vote Dem.
I don’t know if that means supporting the po wholeheartedly, but in general supporting the prez and the party on HCR more aggressively.
beltane
@Suffern ACE: No. And we lost a good Dem to every Blue Dog that went down.
taylormattd
@NR: oh NR, YOU ARE SO RIGHT. Those people in conservative parts of Tennessee, Virginia, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania totally don’t give a shit about the economy. They were enraged by the lack of a public option. You know what else? They were PISSED that Gibbs said “professional left” and they think Rahm is evil.
Economy, meh.
Rock
@JWL: I’m tired of hearing about the Democratic party’s incompetence. They lack the cohesion of the Republican party and their own news network. That’s the big difference between the two parties in effectiveness. I don’t think Republican leadership is particularly more competent than Dem leadership.
And, let’s be honest here, the Republican party has a political advantage in that they are more willing to lie and deceive than the Democrats are. It makes campaigning far easier.
inkadu
@jwb: You give them too much credit. Cynicism is beyond their intellectual capabilities. Most of them, anyways. The successful TP candidates tonight, from what I hear, are mostly the career types who are taking advantage of the movement to gain power. The true believers are too kooky for the general public.
That said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a witch.
ron
@taylormattd: actually i live in a part of PA that voted for gore, kerry, obama and elected sestak to the US house and a democrat to the state house. ALL the democrat candidates lost. every one of them in a democratic district that includes the city of chester. democrats didnt turn up. when i voted i was the only one there the entire 5 minutes. when i was leaving 1 person was walking in. i suspect turnout in philadelphia was also very light.
Lowkey
@Cain: Well, I suppose that the friends of the buddha are less frightened at the prospect of their illegal indulgence not becoming legal than the friends of the firearm are at the prospect of not being able to buy a pile of assault rifles at a gun show without having to show ID.
Being laid back does not make you instantly summonable.
Politically Lost
On prop 19 from an anecdotal point of view; I’ve listened to several hard core liberals recently say things like, “I can’t in good conscience vote to allow it to be freely available…”
From my perspective many people still have an icky feeling about “illicit” drugs. They know the arguments for decriminalization, but can only picture the horror of teenagers getting all crazy on “the pot.”
It’s fear, plain and simple, however unfounded.
Violet
You can follow Alaska election results here: http://elect.alaska.net/data/results.htm
Amanda in the South Bay
WTF, has Fiorina pulled ahead with Boxer?
db
Hell yeah!!! I want to hear more from an angry, drunk John Cole…. blogs with more reason than Reason magazine.
fordpowers
@Cain:
idk really. people are lazy. especially if it doesn’t really mean a damn when its still illegal on a federal level.
ron
@morzer: ill take fucking hobbits over teabaggers.
Paula
@Politically Lost:
Yeah, I have some experiences in the same vein.
Annoying. I felt the need to justify my vote among people who were reliably liberal.
danimal
@jwb: The numbers say that we lost more House seats today than in 94, but that year felt exponentially worse to me.
The American people made a huge mistake today, IMHO, but the polls indicate they really want the GOP to act as sensible adults. Since the GOP is absolutely unable to do so, their day in the sun won’t last long.
94 was stunning because a LOT of quality progressive candidates lost; this year we lost a lot of Blue Dogs in red districts. We’ll survive without them, especially with a Senate majority and a president who isn’t likely to triangulate everything under the sun.
Ross Hershberger
Just when I thought he couldn’t get any more ridiculous, Breitbart names a mild mannered Princeton professor as part of his Axis of Evil.
Thanks, Andrew, for being the funniest thing in this grim day.
KG
@Amanda in the South Bay: more red counties reporting at the moment, nothing to see here.
Nick
My Democratic State Senator in Queens won reelection tonight (and Dems picked up the last Republican Seat in Albany in the borough)
At the victory party, the cheering was louder when the Republicans won the House, and a laugh erupted when someone suggested we “send the n*gg*r back to the projects in Chicago where he belongs”
These were Democrats…just sayin’
Amanda in the South Bay
The latest numbers at the Merc’s website have Fiorina a smidgin ahead of Boxer?
jwb
@inkadu: I’m not sure. I’ve got a teatard neighbor, and he seems to channel Rush more than anything else. So if Rush tells him he shouldn’t be upset about the corporate spending, he won’t be upset about the corporate spending. The other thing I’ll say about the teatard movement is that they are very efficient about getting their message out to the peons. I don’t know the mechanism they use, but would that our communication was as effective.
Amanda in the South Bay
@KG:
Hopefully, it sorta freaked me out for a moment.
gene108
I’m watching C-SPAN right now and there was a phone call from a guy, who says he usually votes Democratic, but voted Republican this term to “send a message” he wasn’t happy with the way things are done in Washington and had a “warning” for Republicans that if they tried to make Obama a one term President, by being obstructionist, he’d vote against them too.
I am dumb founded at this man’s “logic”, since the Republicans could care less about his vote, as long as they are in power now and can wreak havoc on Obama before 2012.
Eljai
Did anybody just catch that exchange on MSNBC between Laurence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow over Boehner’s sobfest? O’Donnell was saying that though he doesn’t agree with Boehner on anything it shows that Boehner has a pulse and then Rachel pointed out that Boehner cries. A lot. He cried when he begged congress to pass TARP. God I love her.
ron
the failure of prop 19 i predict will result in some hilarious and original skits of stoners too high to go vote! comedic genius!
gene108
@Amanda in the South Bay: C-SPAN host said Boxer edged out Fiorina.
Cris
Not buying it. Not when several states were legalizing Medical Marijuana during the Bush years, even though the same argument about Federal law could be made.
Cris
@ron: Comedy gold!
jwb
Alvin Greene is flirting with the crazifactor: 28% with 97% reporting.
SiubhanDuinne
@inkadu: Kitten pictures, plz. Many. Soon. Kthx.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Cris:
Realistically, I don’t see how the Feds could flood CA with a bunch of agents if Prop 19 passed. Holder, et al could talk tough, but I dont see anything bad happening.
Spaghetti Lee
Well, I agree with “this too shall pass.” 2002-2004 were, in my opinion, darker days than these. But they passed.
Violet
@Eljai:
Saw it. Rachel is awesome. Once Boehner is Speaker, I think his bizarre orange-ness and general appearance of being drunk most of the time isn’t going to serve him well. If he cries all the time in addition to that, it’s not going help.
mai naem
I am just wondering how nuts does Alaska have to be that even with 2 Repub candidates splitting the con-servative vote the Dem is losing. This from this the Number One Welfare state in the country. Also too, all these states that votes in these nutcases who are for smaller government – can we cut all fderal money that goes to these states/districts? I mean really shove the smaller government bit up their arses.
fasteddie9318
In the long run, this is probably needed. Death throes of the empire and all. One last hurrah for the reactionaries before their precious way of life goes up in smoke. That’s the hopey-changey version of events.
On the other hand, there are too many systemic problems that need to be fixed, and won’t ever be, if this country is going to move forward. Public campaign financing–not a chance in hell. Sensible congressional redistricting that eliminated gerrymandering and added representatives to make the House more responsive to its constituents–forget it; the Republicans would be signing their own death warrant and the average Republican voter doesn’t even understand what the fuck I’m talking about (it’s fascinating how all these originalists and Moses-wrote-the-fucking-Constitution idiots don’t ever seem to consider the possibility that the goddamn Federalist Papers might be relevant to figuring out the intent of the founders of the country). How does anything else ever seriously get fixed without first fixing what’s structurally wrong with our legislative branch?
You Don't Say
Get ready for a boring speech from Reid that could kill any enthusiasm anyone had for his victory.
Mouse Tolliver
They’re talking about a recount in Colorado. Buck surged ahead by 30,000 votes. Now they’re saying this was possibly a miscount.
frosty
@ron: Arrgghh… turnout in my part of the “T” in the middle of PA approached 2008 levels. There’s the difference right there.
That whole Likely Voter enthusiasm thing. Looks like it was right on the money for PA.
jwb
@gene108: People are just unhappy right now and anxious. They also don’t have time to wade through all the political shit that is being thrown out. When you get this sort of anxiety coupled with a political landscape that makes it hard to figure out what’s going on, you end up with a lot of people making decisions based on their gut rather than logic. And, I think, what you can say is that people’s guts are telling them that two more years like the two we had are not what they want. But I think that’s about the only conclusion you can draw.
RalfW
It’s pretty scary in Minnesota. Long-term incumbent Oberstar in NE part of the state, a long labor/Dem stronghold, is trailing by a 1/2 point. Both the MN state House and Senate may flip to GOP. And the evil, angry GOP candidate for Governor is closing in, but still behind.
Can’t sleep. Must watch the entire car crash and all the aftermath.
Berto
the proofs in the pudding.
Let’s see what the Rs can do with 46 votes that the Ds couldn’t do with 59. if much, Cole owes the ‘dirty f’n hippies’ a BIG mea culpa.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jwb:
If this means we have to combat their lies with our lies, I don’t want to have anything to do with that!
/fapfapfapfap
Ross Hershberger
I wonder if 2 years from now the electorate at large will remember that from 2008 – 2010 some things got done, then for the next 24 months basically nothing thanks to the GOP. If they did, they might take it out on the Republicans in 2012. But I’m betting that this will all be a distant dream by then.
jwb
@Just Some Fuckhead: No, not talking about the content of the message, I’m talking about how efficiently they get the message out to the foot soldiers.
Cris
Is there any chance that he won’t be Majority Leader in the 112th?
bemused
@RalfW:
I’m up too worriedly waiting. I still think Oberstar will win. Who would have thunk we’d need to worry about Oberstar!
I don’t blame him for calling the Chip supporters booing on capntrade flatearthers but that probably fired up a few more ignoramuses.
seabe
John!!! We’re just as drunk as one another! Awesome! Cantor’s my rep; imagine my night.
inkadu
@jwb: The teaparty is almost entirely composed of peons. They’re raging paranoid about Big Government because a black man is running it (instead of the usual low-level resentment that somewhere a black person is benefitting from a federal program). That paranoia is easily masked by a thoughtless faith in Core Principles and Founding Fathers worship.
I think about how it must be in their heads. They hear about the Citizens United ruling and they get upset, because they know corporations aren’t people. But then Rush Limbaugh tells them that Unions aren’t people either, and they beat up my uncle Larry in the parking lot for not turning off his lathe in the middle of a cut when the lunch bell went off. So we don’t want to help Unions, do we? The founding fathers never intended that, surely! And off they go. Sheeple.
@SiubhanDuinne: My girlfriend is the Director of Kitten Photography. Will post some soon, I am sure.
GregB
The South will rise again!
President of the Neo-Confederacy Jim DeMint is firing shots straight across the bow of the GOP-er establishment.
Any chance he’ll unilaterally declare war on Iran, Yemen, Mexico and Illinois after he marches on the White House and deposes the foreign usurper Mooselim Kenyan?
Citizen_X
On CA Prop. 19: I understand it losing, but I don’t understand the movement of the polls in the last couple of weeks. All along, it looked like it was cruising to passage, and in the last 2 weeks, boom! It loses 10-20 points in all demographics. How could people’s opinions change so drastically? Did they get stoned and turn paranoid about legalization somehow? Did they all watch Reefer Madness, and get scared that pot would turn California women into sex-crazed jazz fiends? What?
Suck It Up!
@gene108:
Stupid. Americans.
asiangrrlMN
Holymotherfuckingshit. Crazybatshitcrazy Tom Emmer is less than 2% behind with nearly two-thirds the votes counted. I may just have to leave Minnesota. Really. Fucking Pawlenty wasn’t bad enough?
ETA: Seriously. Tom Fucking Emmer?
ETA, part deux: I’mma stab out my own eyes with my rusty pitchfork.
ETA, part three: TOM FUCKING EMMER!
Suck It Up!
@Citizen_X:
Its proof that when people are close to real change, they cower and go for the same ole same ole? Proof that this country prefers baby steps?
who knows.
Cris
@Citizen_X: Did they put on their Silver Shamrock masks?
Demz Taters
@suzanne: With four more years of Jan Brewer, we’re going to need it…
Evolved Deep Southerner
@jwb: Yo, I live in South Carolina and I voted for the crazy fucker. Would you rather me have voted for Jim DeMint?
(Just playin’. Voted for the Green Party candidate in that one. Can’t remember their name, though. If they hadn’t been there, I’d have left it blank.)
MobiusKlein
@beltane: Part of the blue dog problem was their continual attacks on other Democratic leaders.
Anoniminous
It’s going to be an interesting 2 years.
I think the following is worth some contemplation (from the BBC):
Ross Hershberger
@Citizen_X:
If they’re at all like me they got cornered at a party by some bakehead who wouldn’t shut up about hemp, Zappa and the Dead. They decided ‘No. Screw that. Let them live in fear for all of my lost party hours.’
Yes, I know. Medical, safer than beer, prohibition, criminals, taxability & all that. But my party hours…
You Don't Say
This is as animated as I’ve ever seen Reid.
morzer
This is worth viewing, since Carl Paladino has managed to offer the craziest closing to a concession speech in years:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/bat-wielding-paladino-concedes-you-have-not-heard-the-last-of-carl-paladino-video.php#more
I don’t know whether he’s drunk, delusional or simply having a brain seizure, but he looked like a stoned owl.
jwb
@asiangrrlMN: Are the outstate votes coming in and sending Emmer higher?
Bob L
@MobiusKlein:
and just no political sense. So what if they are conservatives they still need to blue in the political pie fights instead of always making it clear they would rather be on the Red team.
suzanne
Classiest concession speech of the night: Harry Mitchell says he’s looking forward to spending time with his grandchildren and going to Costco. :)
I spent so many hours working for that campaign, and it sucks so hard that he lost. But what a great guy. Really.
vaux-rien
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Actually I could imagine the new Congress voting to fund 50 or 100 thousand new DEA agents for California, it might have been our best chance at getting any further stimulus.
Citizen_X
@Suck It Up!: I think that’s part of it.
People keep saying, “the public option polls at two-thirds support!” Yeah? So does pot decrim and (sometimes) legalization. And then when it gets close to becoming a possibility, voters wimp out.
jwb
@Evolved Deep Southerner: No, not at all. John C. just mentioned the possibility of Greene hitting the crazifactor in an earlier post, and I was scanning the results only to find that he might indeed hit the target square on.
mai naem
Well, say what you will about Reid but I am freaking proud of him. Also think, he will retire next time around which may give him the freedom to do what he wants this time around. Also think he’s a decent smart person with institutional memory. I know Chuck Schumer’s better on teevee and media and I love Dick Durbin but I don’t see how Schumer or Durbin could have done any better with Senators like Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberprick, Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson.
Also too, whoever mentioned Evan Bayh I agree that Bayh is setting up for a primary challenge to Obama.
One more silver lining I think Princess Sarah aka Snowhillbillie took a hit today. Maybe, just maybe this is the beginning of the end of Caribou Barbie.
ron
@jwb: thats what the liberal media is for! they are in the tank for the democrats, or thats what all the wingnuts i know keep telling me.
Mnemosyne
@MobiusKlein:
I have to agree with you there. How many times did we see Steny Hoyer undercutting announcements that Nancy Pelosi made? WTF was that all about?
My cold comfort is that most of the Blue Dogs who ran against the president lost their elections. Too bad, so sad.
asiangrrlMN
@jwb: TOM FUCKING EMMER?
Oh, sorry. Yes. Damn them. Crap. 1%. Looks like the two unreported counties are…red. Fuck me. I’m devastated.
jwb
@Anoniminous: Free ponies and all that.
inkadu
@fasteddie9318: Was listening to some pinko economist on the radio saying that the United States is in the midst of some serious structural changes. Until a party puts forward and the people accept some radical structural solutions, they’re going to keep cycling parties at every elections.
He outlined the three legs that the middle class stood on:
– Wealth creation through home ownership
– Access to affordable quality education
– Availability of jobs.
All three of those things are fucked, and are lucky to remain fucked, which makes this crisis structural and not cyclical. Since this guy’s a pinko, his proposed solution was an increase in government spending for public infrastructure, education, etc., and an acceptance of the fact that being a United States citizen might not mean that you’re rich, but that it could qualify you for a good quality of life.
We’re at least a few decades off from people accepting that as a viable political philosophy.
Mnemosyne
@mai naem:
Damn, I hope so, because Bayh would get his goddamned ass handed to him.
RalfW
@asiangrrlMN: Uh, yeah. I have a closing on a home scheduled for this Friday in Minneapolis. Thinking about ditching the earnest money and running for Canada.
Tom FUCKING Emmer, the angry Tim Pawlenty.
The main hope is that St Louis county is pretty reliably blue and very slow to report (22% of precincts in). But the MN House and Senate are gonna be bad, maybe real real bad.
jwb
@ron: These aren’t the sorts of messages that come out through the MSM. These are more viral ploys. But when you start seeing the same sign pop up in yard after yard within a day of each other you realize there is an infrastructure in place (and these signs have been popping up almost since after Obama’s inauguration). There are other things as well, but that’s the most visible sign of infrastructure.
Nick
@Citizen_X:
a-fucking-men also this too.
I hope hippies learned a valuable lesson today, that just because people say they support your policies, doesn’t mean they’re going to do anything to help bring them about.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
Sorry to hear it. OTOH, perhaps a nasty dose of GOPitis is what it needs to make America realize that snake-oil may taste nice but it makes your ass bigger and ruins your complexion.
RalfW
Oh, and if you want to throw up in your mouth a little, Evan Bayh is on the front page of the NYT calling for Democrats to become 1980s Republicans, since that’s what passes for being on the left in America now.
asiangrrlMN
@RalfW: True. Stevens County is very blue and VERY slow in reporting in as well (27%), but still. FUCK TOM FUCKING EMMER!
@morzer: No. We had eight straight years of nasty GOPitis. This guy is even worse than Ratface Pawlenty. I’m crushed.
Suffern ACE
@Citizen_X: It polls well when people who don’t think about it every day answer questions in surveys, but falls after people hear counter arguments about “Your kids are going to be taught about pot in schools.” Or more subtle messages.
Martin
And CA looks like it might only lose one House seat to the GOP, in CA-20, but it’s not determined. So, 32 of 53 Dem House seats here were solidly held.
And we have the 3rd highest unemployment rate in the nation at 12.5%. So fuck y’all who couldn’t hold the line. So we’re going to have, what, 20% of all Democrats in the House?
mai naem
@Mnemosyne: I have had discussions with a couple of friends. None of us would be shocked if Obama decides not to run again and just say “heck with it, these morons get the leadership they deserve.”
Bayh reminds me of Landrieu. Has a Dem family legacy where they use the name but really are DINOs and would switch parties except they know that they wouldn’t get those legacy Dem voters if they switched parties. At least man up and become an indy like Lincoln Chafee.
One more silver lining – E-Meg spending a gazillion dollars which could have gone somewhere else.
Bob Loblaw
@Nick:
And I hope the other side learned its valuable lesson of the day and realized that failing to pass the hippies’ policies, whether they’re popular or not, in favor of the conventional shit they tried did them no favors either.
It’s a perpetual motion machine of suck.
You Don't Say
I’m off to bed where I’ll dream of a Murkowski win sending a gigantic Fuck You to Bailin’ Palin.
asiangrrlMN
.6%. Please, someone, kill me now.
Nick
@Bob Loblaw:
Not all of what they passed was “conventional shit” if it were, we wouldn’t have had HCR
Ross Hershberger
TPM’s calling Reid’s win a ‘comeback’. If the polls were wrong all along, for reasons having to do with the difficulty of getting Nevadans on the phone, then what has he ‘come back’ from? bad data?
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
It looks like we kept Schiff here in the Fightin’ 29th. He may be a Blue Dog, but he’s an actual sensible Blue Dog — voted for HCR and everything. Not great on civil rights, but on balance not a terrible guy.
TVL
Carly, eMeg went down. Not so bad from the CA point of view. Next up getting a ballot measure on 2012 to secede from the union. You guys are fucked.
Martin
@TVL: Nah. So far, it looks like little change in the State Senate and Assembly (of course, if the fucking SOS site would come up, I might be able to not guess at it) so I’m going to predict that with 23 and 25 passing, and with a Dem in the Governors mansion, that CA gets the economy back on track faster than the rest of the nation and leads the charge to victories in 2012.
Anne Laurie
@Citizen_X:
__
Dunno… who’s got a competing financial interest worth paying Diebold to “correct” the voting tallies? Maybe the outside Organized Crime Cartels have finally reached total synchronicity with the unacknowledged Republican crime cartels?
gene108
@jwb: Republicans have a unified message – taxes bad, government bad, abortion bad – which their base can rally around and generally seems to agree with.
The Democratic base doesn’t muster that same level of uniformity in what they stand for, so creating an effective unifying message becomes very difficult and gets more easily drowned out by the right-wing noise machine, which is already better organized and funded than anything on the left.
In 2006 and 2008 the Democrats and the Democratic base had a unifying message: George Bush was bad, vote Republicans out of office.
This smoothed over any and all other differences.
EDIT: When Republicans really lost their base in 2008, was when they had to propose something that basically amounted to “government good, government help”, i.e. the TARP bill.
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
In California — prison guards’ union and private prison companies. Since a full 10% of our state budget currently goes to prisons and the percentage keeps going up, you don’t even have to look for a conspiracy.
Nick
@gene108:
when has it ever?
When you have registered Democrats screaming racial and sexist epitaphs at Obama and Pelosi demanding they resign because they’re cowards to terrorists and tax everyone to death, I’m not sure what unifying idea they can come together on.
Spaghetti Lee
@asiangrrlMN:
Dayton’s up by like 1.6% now.
asiangrrlMN
@Spaghetti Lee: Which returns are you watching? TPM? NYT has him up by .9%
TPM has him up by roughly the same percent.
JWL
Cole: You enjoy looking down your snoot at people who dare criticize the democratic party establishment. It’s as convenient as it is lazy.
Wise the fuck up. It’s not the voters.
You don’t deserve to enjoy the Giants parade and celebration tomorrow.
Lock yourself up in your hotel room, order food and booze from room service, and curse all the dumbfucks across the country who don’t see things your way.
Nick
@JWL:
No, clearly it’s Russ Feingold and Alan Grayson, that’s why they lost.
JWL
@Nick:
Read what I wrote. It’s the democratic party establishment.
It couldn’t punch its way out of a soap bubble.
Nick
@JWL: I read what you won’t, and I don’t agree.
It’s the voters.
JWL
@Nick:
Nick, your wrong. What’s on the line in this country today is precisely what was on the line when FDR was running for office, or even Harry Truman. You will have it that they were both out of sync. They weren’t. And neither were those voters that rallied to the democratic tickets across the country in 2008.
gene108
@Nick:
Which is one reason Congressional Democrats have trouble surviving after the political realignment of the yellow dog Democrats becoming Republicans, while industrial-union votes from the Midwest disappeared as manufacturing jobs sent South or overseas, they just don’t have a central idea to sell to voters.
Democrats seem to win because people get dissatisfied with Republicans, but they don’t seem to win because people rally behind whatever ideals the Democratic Party has, since so few people can readily identify those ideals.
JWL
@gene108:
“..they just don’t have a central idea to sell to voters”.
That remark is hilarious, and not because it reinforces my abiding point about the shot callers in the democratic party.
If you haven’t already, you’ve got to read Hunter Thompson’s Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail 1972. Many years have passed since I last read it.
But I remember this story- and while it might have been spun from whole cloth, it rang true. The Good Doctor did have his sources.
After Muskie got trounced in a vital primary by McGovern, a well paid, ‘professional political consultant’ advised him (months into the campaign, mind you), that “We’ve got to give the people a reason to vote for you”.
Or something like that.
Thompson wrote that had he been Muskie, he would have had the ‘consultant’ thrown down an elevator shaft.
Selah. And good night.
jetan
@asiangrrlMN:
I’d rather lose with Russ Feingold than win with Evan Bayh. That may make me sound kinda Tea Party-esque, but it’s the way I feel.
TomG
Count me as one more libertarian who understands that on the important issues, Russ was on the correct side. We will miss him.
Socraticsilence
Am I the only one whose noticed that aside from Abortion (and maybe even on that now)- Bob Barr post-Clinton has basically been the “principled libertarian” the Pauls and Reasonoids pretend to be?
Socraticsilence
@gene108:
Part of the problem is that other than Health Care Reform- Dems have largely been playing Defense since LBJ (that’s what made HCR so ambitious- and what makes even the muddled version that got through a landmark achievement)- think about it- we fight to preserve and or tweak what was achieved in the New Deal and the Great Society- while the GOP tries to tear it down- in a sense the Democratic Party is conservative while the GOP is revanchist/reactionary.
Jgeekrock
Bs! Anyone who reads reason in SE WI probably already voted for Feingold (I know I did). Truth is, libertarians are outnumbered by a “moral” majority, especially in the western counties of this district. (my state assembly district (66) went 70-30 republican.) I was, admittedly, still surprised by the results as Feingold traditionally has very solid support from liberals in the city of Kenosha. Reason magazine couldn’t do anything about the local economy and I believe that is what tipped preferences for Johnson in the city.
Socraticsilence
@Martin:
Basically, this election underscores a key point I think people need to realize- the country is insanely politically polarized on a geographic basis-sure in a once in a lifetime election Blue states will turn red (Bush 2004 with a reasonably popular war and the glow of 9-11 not entirely faded) or Red States Blue (2008 when the strongest Dem canidate since JFK was boosted by the collapse of the financial sector in the month preceding the vote)- but by and large the 2000 map is the truth- at least until 2020 when AZ, TX, and the rest of the Southwest goes purple if not outright Blue due to the coming of age of 1st generation hispanic citizens.
Obama’s approval data reflects that- 45% or so nationally- but 50% in the midwest, 60%+ on the West Coast, 55%+ in the Northeast, 40% or so in the Mason-Dixon belt (extended from VA-to Kansas), 45% in the Mountain West (very disparate ratings) and like 20% in the Deep South where lets be honest a good portion of the voting population doesn’t think “one of them” should be able to hold elected office.
Gravie
F%$# Wisconsin. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame.
Carnacki
John, don’t know if you heard or saw about this not-so-classy moment from McKinley.
Mollohan received more than 2,000 write-in votes, more than the difference between Oliverio’s loss to McKinley. A bittersweet bit of justice for how he campaigned in the Democratic primary.