Republicans Almost Certainly Will Take Senate

[Guest bottomboykk]

Mac Cleland (sp?) in GA just lost his seat to a Republican, which makes it nearly impossible for the Dems to retain control. Still within the realm of possibility, but highly unlikely.

 

Not a good night for America. Buckle your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy ride for the next two years.

[Rick Munroe]

>It's going to be a bumpy ride for the next two years.

 

If you're right, it's a lot more than 2 years. They'll push through fanatical far-right-wing justices & then we're fucked for decades. Sometimes I can't believe how stupid, complacent, hateful & fucked-up this country is. :'(

[Spida]

Would that make it one extra Republican? I thought there was at least one Rep. That said he would either swap sides or become ind. like Vt. (Jeffered?? spelling not sure of).??

 

Scary night in my opinion, and even a more scary two years!!

[KY_TOP]

>If you're right, it's a lot more than 2 years. They'll push

>through fanatical far-right-wing justices & then we're

>fucked for decades. Sometimes I can't believe how stupid,

>complacent, hateful & fucked-up this country is. :'(

 

Luckily many Justices become very independent once on the Court, just look at some of the present Members appointed by Republicans.

 

My favorite Eisenhower quote was:" Everyone makes mistakes and most of mine sit upon the Supreme Court"

[+ deej]

It's gonna be a long night all around now that the prediction mechanism has been declared unreliable by the prediction mechanism itself.

 

"Hey! Don't trust us! Our numbers are bogus!"

 

Harrumph.

[BewareofNick]

Don't be too sure just yet. Less than 50% of the vote is in

 

-Truth Justice and the American Way-

[Rick Munroe]

>Luckily many Justices become very independent once on the

>Court, just look at some of the present Members appointed by

>Republicans.

 

From what I've read, the ones that Bush has been trying to push through this past year are more extremist & farther to the right than any other justices appointed by previous administrations.

[trilingual]

If I wake up tomorrow and the Greedy Old Plutocrats have won control of the Senate, that's certainly gonna help me make up my mind about where I plan to spend my upcoming retirement! It won't be in the Unenlightened States of America.

 

Forget about Hallowe'en. November 5, 2002 may go down in history as America's true "Fright Night."

[BuckyXTC]

While all the votes aren't counted yet, as of this posting, I fully expect the worst scenario. In fact, I've become accustomed to it. You can rarely go wrong underestimating the intelligence of the American voting populace when it comes to sorting out even their own real self-interest.

 

It's no accident that Dubya has spent the last few months beating the war drum.....I mean, after all, what else could he possibly talk about? Much easier to focus on the evils of Saddam than look at his own miserable record of neglect and harm of the economy. The lovers of all things Republican like to accuse Democrats of scare tactics, but they are in fact the master of that ploy. Keep folks focused on threats abroad and they won't have much energy to think of the real threats to their well-being at home.....namely things like having meaningful employment and affordable health insurance and decent schools for their children.....the list could go on and on.

 

With the fall of communism, the hawks had to find a new enemy so they could keep the taxpayers pouring money into the military industrial complex. Our government always seems to conjure up an endless cast of enemies to justify pissing away our resources on things that make fat cats richer and average folks in debt.

 

Anyone remember what one of Bush's first acts as president was? It was to sign a bankruptcy reform bill that made it very difficult for consumers to get out of credit card debt through personal bankruptcy. Now why would Dubya do a thing like that? Well, could it be that the $1 million dollar campaign contribution from MBNA "inspired" him? (MBNA is one of the major credit card banks who will send credit cards to just about anyone with great introductory rates, then jack the rates up dramatically after that period is up.)

 

For all the lip service to improving education in this country, the Republicans won't do it because it isn't in their best interests. They need a dumb, uninformed electorate to keep them in power. Looks like they've got it.:-(

[Guest Slammy]

This site is the best. All the threads are so adroit. Bill Maher was just on CNN and he is horrified at the people of the US, who just don't seem to know what the problem is in this country. And all your posts are correct. Bush is always placating his extreme right wing, and the justices will be scary. Also, the religious right will take a stronghold and their favorite bogey man along with abortion, is gay rights.

 

And for all the Log Cabin Republicans, they better look around the cabin and examine who they are living with. Imagine wanting to belong to a political party that doesn't want you, but wants your vote. Like having a lover who only wants you to pay the bills, but won't sleep with you.

 

I think the only thing that will bring this country to its senses is a financial disaster, worse than now. That is what happened in the great depression. Hoover had no idea of what to do. And Bush has no idea of what to do, but the people all think he would be nice to have a beer with. I like having a beer with the super in my building, but I don't want him as my investment banker.

[Guest Love Bubble Butt]

Although I'm an independent, I am very, very nervous at the prospect of the Republicans gaining control of the Senate. Rick is absolutely right on. I forsee at least two justices retiring: William Rhenquist and Sandra O'Connor.

 

Replacing Rhenquist with another ultra conservative (yes, a label) will have no net affect. O'Connor, however, is a whole different story. She has often times been the moderate swing vote that has prevented many overly conservative rulings. But when she is replaced with another ultra conservative, we can expect most, if not all, rulings going to the far right.

 

The effect is definitely going to last MUCH longer than two years. Actually it's frightening.

[Rick Munroe]

>Bill

>Maher was just on CNN and he is horrified at the people of

>the US

 

I love Bill Maher. I'm horrified, too. I guess the optimist in me always assumed there had to be intelligent people left in this country but our numbers are dwindling fast. And any gay man, out or closeted, who voted Republican is an asshole. Pardon my French.

[KY_TOP]

The Democratic Party needs to find some leaders. As long as the Leaders are still crying in my Beer "Gore" (get over it already), we're too embarrassed of you "Clinton", and Mr Anti-moving Anything "Daschle" I guess we really shouldn't be so surprised.

 

As far as the Economy, people are not blaming Bush, they're

blaming the Terrorist attacks.

 

Democratic Party... Were are your leaders?

Unless someone steps forward it will get worse.

 

You got to admit, in this election Bush stepped forward and lead his Party.

[jackhammer91406]

I thought I was depressed earlier today when I posted. This evening has just taken me to the bottom again. For the life of me I can't figure out what these people are doing in their voting. I am amazed at their willingness to turn aside their own logic and reasoning! Oh well, I have a full plate already, but even if I get my act straightened out, is this a place i was to be anymore anyway?

Jack

[Bilbo]

Well, y'all know that the lady does not have to retire. I've even heard it speculated that she won't retire until the other lady justice does. And I've not heard (though perhaps I haven't been listening in the right places) that she is ill enough to force herself to retire against her wishes. I hope that next week she in innundated with stacks of snail mail letters praising her job performance and encouraging her to stay in there for three more years!

 

And, remember early last night's key phrase, This is a 50 - 50 country. I imagine that many of the Senators won by a fairly narrow margin. Keep those cards and letters coming, folks. Keep up the preassure on them to be moderate Republicans! We can, though we often aren't, be just as big mouthed as the nonreligious wrong.

[Guest Ruben]

I have a question for all the Democrats on this post.

 

Do you ever listen to yourselves talk, do you ever read what you write? Do you ever think about what you say? Do you realize the kind of words you use?

 

I hear as much hatred, as much prejudice, as much bigotry and intolerance from you as I have ever heard from any other people.

 

And I suspect that some of you will respond to this post with words and sentiments that prove my point.

[Guest Fin Fang Foom]

nyah nyah nyah nyah nyaaaaaaaaaaah nyah

 

I love my life.

 

And Bush.

 

Ecstatically yours,

 

FFF

[Guest Bitchboy]

It's a victory for selfishness. What bothers me most is that those who vote with their wallets are proud of it. They might use the influx of terrorism to our country as the justification, but it's really the same old "give me mine and fuck the rest of you" philosophy that's been prettied up for consumption. Truth told, my life will probably not change in any dramatic way, but I will have a heavier heart. Sometimes things just suck in a bad way.:-(

[Guest Merlin]

The Dems really did not have a message beyond their usual message of hate. Hate the rich, hate corporations, hate Christian, hate hate hate. They tried to make something out of the cyclical economic downturn, but thoughtful people know that Bush did not cause it; it begain during Clintons last year. The attempt to blame the downturn on the tax cut was economic hogwash. More broadly, the Dems have never given us a hint of where they want to take the country. They hate the rich and corporations, and consistently work to destroy them. But socialism doesnt work, so what is it the Dems want? They give lip service to Democracy, but consistenly work for a one-party system. The Republican half of the country realizes that the free enterprise economy works very well and there is no alternative. Its preservation is of primary importance.

[BewareofNick]

>The Dems really did not have a message beyond their usual

>message of hate. Hate the rich, hate corporations, hate

>Christian, hate hate hate.

 

Your lack of understanding here is very telling. Hate is the province of conservative Christians. (Please note that there is a big difference between conservative and mainstream Christianity. Unfortunately, the conservatives have done a great job of tying the two together.) The message of the Christian Right, and by extension now Dubya's GOP, has always been one of hatred. For decades it was hate the blacks. Then it was hate the Jews. Then it was hate the gays. Now it's hate the Muslims (with gays thrown in for good measure). I don't hate Conservative Christians, but I am scared of them and what they will do to our country. I hope John McCain and a few other GOP moderates will jump ship and become Democrats to tip the balance in the Senate back to Democratic control. I am scared of where this country will go.

[Guest bottomboykk]

Shows the maturity level of a typical Republican!

[Guest Kenny021]

.

"From what I've read, the ones that Bush has been trying to push through this past year are more extremist & farther to the right than any other justices appointed by previous administrations"

 

Exactly. Especially some woman (can't remember her name)which the Democrats refused to pass on. Now they probably will be renominated and shoed in by the Republicans.

The only hope is that Bush will be so extreme in his agenda that the country will finally see what he's all about and HE WON'T BE RE-elected IN TWO YEARS. But as for the next two years...WE'RE FUCKED.

[trilingual]

Once Bush gets his extreme right-wing judges appointed, this nightmare will last a lot longer than two years.

 

Sorry, guys, but to me this feels like Germany, 1933. And that German minister that Schröder sacked for saying that Bush's tactics were the same ones Hitler used got it exactly right. They're identical. Hitler also beat the drum of war to distract the voters from his real agenda.

 

James Carville said something intelligent on CNN last night, which is that all those Americans who didn't vote because they didn't think that politics and this election had anything to do with them, are about to find out just how much they're affected by their own apathy. It's going to be an extremely bitter lesson for an awful lot of people. What's sad is that much of the damage the Greedy Old Plutocrats are going to do will never get undone. . .

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>Once Bush gets his extreme right-wing judges appointed, this

>nightmare will last a lot longer than two years.

 

Before we all hit the panic button, let's remember that the Democrats still have at least 47 seats plus Jeffords, and that not all of the Republican senators are right-wingers. Bush is still going to have a tough time getting extremists onto the courts. Yes, with Democrats controlling the committees it would have been closer to impossible than to merely tough, but it's still going to be quite difficult, and he stands more to lose from long, acrimonious approval battles over judges than the Democrats do.

 

>Sorry, guys, but to me this feels like Germany, 1933. And

>that German minister that Schröder sacked for saying that

>Bush's tactics were the same ones Hitler used got it exactly

>right. They're identical. Hitler also beat the drum of war

>to distract the voters from his real agenda.

 

Well it's nice to know we're all keeping things in perspective. Bush, so far as I could tell, did not lead the Republicans to regain control of the Senate by whipping up anti-Semitism, by railing against international capitalists (hardly!), or by calling for racial purification. And don't forget that Hitler's ascent was partially powered by the miserable state of the German economy; he hardly needed to "distract" the voters from it.

 

Whatever you think about the merits of the case for going to war on Iraq, I hope you're at least clear in your mind about who the real fascist is. He's the guy who just won 100% of the vote in his election.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

For an alternative explanation to the theory that Democrats lost the Senate because Americans are stupid, check out this quote from Andrew Sullivan's site. He called the results less a vote for Bush and the Republicans than:

 

"a vote against the hollow negativism, cowardice and mediocrity of the current Democratic Party. They have nothing to say; and that matters. Their predicament is deeper than this result suggests. Since Bush passed his tax cut and since September 11, the Democrats have been cornered. A purely defensive strategy - taking both issues off the table - led them to this result. An offensive strategy - against war and for raising taxes - would have delivered an even worse one. Or they could have come up with a tough but different anti-terror plan and a positive economic message. But they didn't. So they lost. One other factor is the blandness and decrepitude of their leaders. Daschle and Gephardt are pathetic. McAuliffe is a nightmare. When the Dems needed new blood, they found Mondale and Lautenberg. This is not a party with self-confidence or much of a short-term future. Bush, because of what he did and what the Democrats did not do, now has a remarkable mastery over the polity."

 

Put aside the fact that it's Andrew Sullivan saying it, and ask yourself if it isn't true. Take away a reheated paranoia about the coming of Armageddon if the "extremists" take over the Senate, and what did the Democrats have? What was the Democratic position on the war? What did the Democrats want to DO about the economy, other than scapegoat the President? What kind of vision for the future did you hear the Democratic leadership espouse this year? I think for many voters the election was between the devil you know and the devil you don't know. Just because the voters decided to go with the devil they knew doesn't make them idiots.

 

It's also worth remembering and learning from some outright blunders the Democrats made late in the game. Dancing on Wellstone's grave not only disgraced his memory but cost the Dems the sympathy vote and what should have been a narrow victory in Minnesota, and I suspect it hurt them even more in some races outside the state. And I hope somebody sits down and analyzes the before/after poll numbers in states where Al Gore stumped for Democrats. I'd be curious to hear what they look like. I read that all he could talk about was his being robbed in 2000 -- to the point that it was embarrassing for the candidates he was campaigning for (it was as if they weren't evn there). Please tell me this isn't who we're going to pick to go up against Bush in 2004. Democrats need to get moving on making themselves electable, not sit back and hope that the voters are just a little less "stupid" next time around.