Official Post your 2006 Senate Election Prediction Maps

[Rob]

Republicans: 56 (+1, Minnesota)
Democrats: 43 (-1)
Independents: 1

Kean will win New Jersey.

No

Oh...but he will.

No

I hope we remember this disagreement com election time.  It'll be interesting to see who actually wins.

Boss Tweed.

[Rob]

And, just for laughs, more Brown-bashing from Ben:

That sounds about right, but I think OH and TN will be closer. I didn't know Goodman was running, though.

Maybe TN, but Brown is going to get crushed in OH.

Remind me to completely disregard anything this guy says about Ohio Senate races in the future, thanks.

[Rob]

Senator-elect Brown is a great man.

I never understood why so many "populists" supported Hackett over Brown, when there really wasn't much difference between the two on policy (gun control is the only one I can think of, off the top of my head).

It must be style over substance- Hackett was an Iraq War veteran with rural roots, but Brown was an evil liberal from a big city. Oh, well. Brown thrashed Mikey anyway, so I'm happy.

[Rob]

I'm sure he'll do just as well in the Senate as he did in the election. He's a smart guy.

But, still, we face the question: why do "populists"/communitarians seem to be the only ones outraged at Brown's "betrayal" of Hackett? The Kossacks were, at first, but they came around. Now it's only a few with positive social scores and negative economic scores.

[Rob]

You avoided my point, that personally Brown is a prick.

I know you think that, and I know why you think that. I was asking a different question entirely: why are populists the only ones who still hold it against Brown? This has been amazingly consistent on Atlas- the only ones still attacking Brown over the Hackett affair are communitarians. Not liberals, not libertarians, not conservatives. Only populists.

I could answer you by saying that it's because my quadrant has ethics and yours doesn't but that would be as silly as the points you keep making.

I'm not trying to make any "point", and I'm not arguing over the Hackett affair itself. Still, for the record...

To be completely honest, I don't care about it one way or the other. I may disagree with his tactics in that instance, but I think he'll be an awesome Senator regardless. Apparently, communitarians are so holy that they can never forgive him that, and no longer care about his positions on the issues.

[Rob]

Here's my guess as to your question: it is perceived that Brown backstabbing Hackett was a liberal backstab of a communitarian, and feeds into the argument that liberals only tolerate communitarians in the Democratic Party and will seek to get rid of them the second they don't need them. And those of you on the left certainly act that way. Liberals are thus ecstatic that a liberal won out instead of a communitarian, while conservatives and libertarians alike would've supported DeWine over a Democrat from any quadrant.

Thanks for the response, WMS- I was genuinely interested, not just baiting you. This is pretty much what I was thinking, although it still doesn't make perfect sense (like I said, Brown and Hackett weren't that different on most issues...).

I don't like Brown at all, and I'm not a communitarian.

I wouldn't expect a conservative to care much for Brown.

[Rob]

I bolded a word up there for ya.

I wasn't saying that your dislike of Brown doesn't make sense (I know why you hate him, and it isn't necessarily because of his political beliefs)- I was referring to communitarians in general. Image really does matter. Sad, but true.

this little thread gives some good background on why communitarians might be suspicious.

This is a fascinating article, but I don't entirely agree with it. I see no reason why the old-school communitarians ("lunch-pail Democrats") shouldn't be able to coexist with the social liberals and doves that McGovern brought in. What will unite them? Economic populism. Hell, for US Senate in Pennsylvania, I supported some joker who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade and opposes embryonic stem-cell research (albeit with serious misgivings ).

I'd also note that while liberals may be intolerant of communitarian Dems, they often have the same attitude toward us. They should recognize that they are now a distinct minority in the party, and admit that social liberalism has netted impressive gains for the party across the Northeast and West Coast.

[Rob]

You actually think I'm a conservative or just throwing in rethoric? I'm a proud liberal.

I always thought of you as a moderate-conservative who only identified with the US Democrats because the GOP is so batshit crazy. Also, your worst disagreements of late have been with liberal "hacks."

I don't know much about your ideology, to be honest.