It looks like the Democrats have one a fairly comfortable majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and a very slim one in the Indiana House of Representatives. Control of the U.S. Senate is still under review, but it’s going to be a very slim majority for one or the other. According to the NCSL blog, the Thicket, on the state level Democrats have taken control of:
* Iowa House and Senate
* Minnesota House
* Michigan House
* New Hampshire House and Senate
* Oregon House
* Wisconsin Senate
* Indiana House
I think the message is that the Democrats fielded strong candidates in a lot of districts, but voters weren’t typically voting for the Democratic candidates quite so much as they were voting against the Republican candidates. This isn’t a failing of the Democrats; rather it’s just how it goes for candidates challenging incumbents. But, I suspect we’ll see the media try to package this election, summarizing it with some kind of pat “moral of the story.” In particular, I’m reminded of the supposed ascendancy of the “values voters” in 2004 — and talk of George W. Bush’s mandate. So, I wonder what kind of package this election will get wrapped in.
I heard two things in last nights coverage on MSNBC that struck me:
1. There was a LOT of talk about the Democrats fielding more conservative candidates and an underlying tone of the Dem’s having to go to the right to win. Hopefully this is not a long term track, but I am glad that we’re starting to show some compromise on a few key complicated issues. (Like abortion) Providing this compromise doesn’t mean that the country continues moving right of center. (Which will put us at odds with the rest of the World.)
2. The Dems are already starting to back-pedal a bit and making sure they aren’t setting themselves up for a complete failure in 2008. Howard Dean and several others were talking that just because the Dems won, don’t expect everything in the world to suddenly get better. There is still a Commander in Chief that has veto power in the way, and only slim margins in the Congress.
I think that after the exuberance of the past 3 months, Dems have to really stamp down expectations. There’s little chance that they can turn everything around in two years, and you can bet your bippy that Karl Rove and the rest of the neocons are going to start recording every little bit of video for later use when the War on Terror isn’t over, or the immigration issue isn’t fixed, or the deficit is still in the tank, regardless of who’s fault it is.
Personally, I’ve gone from “complete bitterness” to “cautious optimism.” I am pretty angry at the result of the IN-03 race, considering that if anyone would have paid attention to that race at the National Party level, Hayhurst probably could have taken it. And I fear that we might have missed a very rare opportunity to get rid of Souder, who is going to be even more of a lame duck than he was before with his party out of power.
“Cautious optimism” is good. I have much more hope now than I did yesterday, or a week ago, or a month ago. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I am letting myself celebrate a bit.
I’m down in District 9, where Hill took a nice lead over Sodrel, and you don’t know how happy that makes me. Sodrel was just flat-out nasty.
And yes, Doug, I agree that the people were more voting against the incumbents rather than for the Democrats, but at least it got some of the bad ones (Hostettler!) out of the way.
I can’t wait to see how the Republicans (ahem, Newt?) will try to somehow blame this on Britney Spears.
There certainly is a level of freedom in being completely out of power — (See, e.g., Joplin, J. – Freedom/word/nothing left to lose).
If the Democrats stay in power long enough, they’ll eventually fall prey to the same corruptive influences that got the Republicans.
At the moment, I hope the investigative subpoenas fall on the executive branch like snow. There are a lot of rocks that need looking under and a lot of disinfecting to do.
Hopefully Jack Murtha has a lot to say about how the House deals with the military. He has the respect of and listens to the folks in the Pentagon. Perhaps he and the military will be able to salvage the salvageable in Iraq and let go of that which is not.
For me, I think the ideal political structure is one where the Democrats control the Presidency and the Senate and the Republicans control the House. So, this is almost the inverse of what I’d prefer. But anything beats one party control — particularly where the one party is led by George W. Bush. (I might have to rethink my ideal political structure because I think one of the most pressing needs in the country is to address the spiraling cost of health care and health insurance. I don’t know what the ideal solution is — I suspect it is along the lines of single payer health insurance. In any event, I can’t envision anything getting done on that score with a Republican controlled House.)
Gigi,
Isn’t Newt due for a new wife? I hear Britney may be available soon.
Somehow, I’d hope she’d have a little better taste than that. I mean, after K-Fed, a girl can only go up, right?
I have faith in Britney’s horrible, horrible decision making. And, let’s not forget Britney urged us to “just trust George W. Bush in every decision that he makes.”
(Can’t believe I’m participating in turning this into a Britney/K-fed thread.)
I forgot about that. Okay, you’re right. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.
Okay! No more Britney/K-Fed talk! It stops now!
The “conservative Democrat” thing doesn’t really wash. Yes, you had some conservative Dems win in conservative areas (is that a surprise? All the Republican statewide office holders in the Northeast are liberals, and Ah-nuld had to run away from the right to get reelected). Casey, Ellsworth, and Heath Shuler are anti-abortion, but so’s Harry Reid. The Democratic party has never had purity tests, and it’s never thrown out even its most “conservative” members, unlike the moderate purges of the Goldwater/Reagan GOP. Hell, the modern Democratic party can only be described as liberal in comparison to the Republican radicals, although much of its base is liberal.
I heard this morning on NPR that the damned thing had crossed the Atlantic overnight like some horrible influenza strain, as the BBC moderator asked her panel whether conservative Democrats in the House might form a majority voting block with Republicans. But 1) there aren’t enough of them at any rate; 2) there’s no viable Republican agenda left; and 3) those shennagans are what the voters just tossed out.
I think the more interesting question concerns the medium term: if Democrats organize and act rationally, and with two years where an unpopular President and his even more unpopular Vice-President–now thrust into the unwanted limelight in the Senate–are the chief representatives of the Republican party, how do CNN and MSNBC react? Do we start seeing real balance on Hardball’s guest list? Does CBS turn back from the Katie Couric rightward shift? Does Russert have somebody other than McCain and Cheney as guests the next two years?
The most annoyingly false new spin is the “conservative Democrat” tripe they’re peddling on FOX.
Yeah, it’s a good thing we elected all those conservative Democrats, ya know like Sherrod Brown (who will be one of the most progressive senators in the country), Bernie Sanders (the first avowed Socialist to serve in the US Senate), and John Tester (who is pro-Roe, anti-gay marriage ban, and anti-Patriot Act). The House candidates, in general, were progressive as well. And, of course, we can’t forget about arch-conservatives Eliot Spitzer and Deval Patrick.
That bs meme is the new rightwing spin on the election: that the GOP wasn’t “conservative” enough, so the voters went to “conservative” Democrats. Because, ya know, these conservative Dems will be, what, more conservative than the Republicans they’re replacing? And I guess the flip side of this argument is that all Democrats before 2006 were flaming liberals, right? After all, it’s soooo shocking that states like Indiana elected conservative Democrats, not like arch-liberals Evan Bayh and Tim Roemer from the old Dem Hoosier guard!
Funny, too, how even our new Indiana congressmen were all liberal parts of liberal Nancy Pelosi’s liberal agenda… until they kicked the snot out of the GOP.
“Conservatism” is a funny thing. It means different things to different people. To some it means striving for a government that’s almost a theocracy. To others, religion has precious little to do with it. In fact, it’s a brand that has been used to sell a political party to a diverse marketplace. Now the consumers are noticing that the product isn’t quite performing as promised.
I think we’re going to see a deepening of the inherent rifts between various factions of the Republican party, all of whom will be trying to claim the “conservative” mantle for themselves.
Then again, in 2004 Tom DeLay predicted that the Republicans had established a permanent majority. So my prediction could well be as laughably wrong as DeLay’s.
If Lieberman would happen to side with the Republicans then would it not be a 50/50 split?
Who then has control? I know this is very unlikely but was just wondering. Nobody yell at me if I spelled his name wrong I really don’t care, it is close enough.
If Lieberman jumps to the GOP and causes a 50/50 split then Dick Cheney as the Vice President casts tie breaking votes in the Senate.
Lieberman reportedly made it clear to his constituents before Tuesday’s election that he would vote to organize with the Democrats,so it doesn’t seem likely he will be bribed somehow to side with the Republicans. But Dems should make it a priority to give Lieberman whichever leadership role he asks for,just in case he might be tempted.
As Doug posted above, “Conservatism†is a funny thing. It means different things to different people…
Vouchers for public school funding, anti-gay marriage referenda,new anti-abortion restrictions,abstinence only programs and faith-based initiatives paid out of public money,prayer in public schools,anti-labor union, anti- trial lawyer,anti-wages..and nothing for the common good unless a profit is guaranteed somewhere beforehand…. this is all what ‘conservatism’ has come to mean during the last few years.Hopefully, ‘conservatism’ will redefine itself with more of a classical look with Democrats calling the shots. Let’s hope the same for ‘liberalism’.