Talk Elections

I sincerely thank the voters of America for tonight's results.

Hear, hear.

American voters threw out the three worst Senators in the country tonight. For that alone, they deserve a huge 'Thank you'.

Why, you're only going to bitch about something Democrats do in two weeks anyways.  For God's sakes, if you'rethat happy then at least change your avatar.

Some good candidates won, some good candidates lost, some bad candidates won, some bad candidates lost... in the end we missed out on a Senator Kean or Ford, which is a shame... but we got a Senator Casey and look could still have a Senator Tester... nothing new really :) 

Ok, well let's see what you do with it.

Good point... but we're still waiting on the Senate MT is very very close.

A step in the right direction for the United States!!

Cheers to you all!

Indeed!

Yes, great work people and greetings from Austria :)

The sad thing is, there are about dozen policy points that America needs from Democrats that the American people don't want.  Americans voted out the GOP because grumbling about the war in Iraq and pervert congressmen is the current fad.  Once the Donkey gets the White House in 2008, and is in a position to make a difference, will the two years they are going to get in control of Washington be enough?  What I'm talking about:

-Reduced dependence on foreign oil
-Reduced greenhouse emissions
-Universal health care
-A real, living minimum wage
-A balanced budget

It would be nice to see the US join the rest of the free, civilized world, but unfortunately that's not what the American people want.  The American people are a bunch of reactionaries that only voted Democrats into power this time around because it was the fad thing to do.  In 2010, when Democrats are trying to make America a better place, the people will go "WTF?  Change?  AAAAAAgh Noooooo!" and vote the GOP right back into power.

You know it's true.

In my state, we sent a Democrat to Congress from a conservative district, re-elected a Democrat governor for the first time in a generation, and returned the state Senate to Democrat hands.  And yet this "moderate" state votes overwhelmingly to ban same-sex marriage AND civil unions, and to re-enact the friggin death penalty, which we haven't had since the days of covered wagons.

Just because there's a momentary fad does not indicate any change whatsoever in the political leanings of the country.  The callouses on Americans' knuckles have not gotten any thinner in the past two years.

At least a good number of MODERATE democrats won in the new seats, vice the leftists.  I wonder if JFern will still be happy with that?

Maybe they're secret 'leftists', MODU.

And the UK thanks voters of America too :). Well, I'm fairly sure I speak for most Brits :)

Dave

HAHAHA . . . that might also be true.  :)

Well, it looks like you will control both the House and maybe even the Senate. If the Dems screw up like the Republicans, you may face a backlash like the ones faced by the Republicans yesterday. Who would have thought that I would have the move to Canada to find a conservative government. Like Canada, this was a more a vote against Republicans as it was a vote for Democrats. Much like the vote in Canada. Just my guess, that is.

Congratulations to the Democrats.

The people sucks. Even if it vote for you... (lol)

A good reason why I don't support dems like you.

^^^
And let the debate on 08 begin.

Congratulations are in order. You guys had some amazing wins.

I say we have more 3 politicians come forward to announce their intent prior to Christmas.

Not so sure about that.  Oh, don't misunderstand me.  I am glad some of the good guys won for a change.  Burns and Santorum were bad eggs, IMO. (Though Santorum really was quite gracious in defeat and I respect that a lot.)

But the WORST senators weren't up for re-election.  Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn are the worst of the worst.  Can you think of anyone in the Senate who is more theocratic?  Cornyn, maybe?  Hell, even Orrin Hatch can play nice with Ted Kennedy once in a blue moon.

Democrats won 2006, big. But they haven't won the 2008 Presidential race yet, not even close.

maybe not, but this win will make 2008 a bit easier in my opinion

Ahh.....the Fox News talking points....

Isn't it funny how every single one of these Democratic challengers was blasted by his/her oppoentn for being a "liberal" during the race and now all the conservative blowhards are saying that all fo the Dems who were elected are conservative ones?

It's called trying to get your candidate elected. You don't tell potential voters that your opponent has veiws similar to yours, and that his/her being ellected wouldn't be too bad.

No one voted for me.  And I'm not really a dem, but I find them to be the least sucky party in the USA currently.

Is the death penalty thing binding?

No, thank the Good Lord.  And with Doyle and a Democratic State Senate, it won't happen any time soon.

The marriage amendment is binding, and it depresses me that 59% of voters in my state are that mean-spirited.  Which was the main source of my earlier depressed rant.

Now we celebrate with a bit of this:

http://www.neuvel.net/Audio%20files/yubnub.wav

Ah. Good. Did any county vote against it?


IMO the problem with the gay marriage/civil unions/etc/etc issue in the U.S at the moment is that the gay rights movement stupidly allowed people opposed to gay rights to define the terms of the entire debate. Too late to do much about it in the short term, long term is hopefully different.

I'm shocked Arizona voted against the marriage amendment. That is awesome. We finally took that thing down somewhere and in a pretty conservative state to boot....but why the hell did Wisconsin vote for it by such a wide margin? Strange.

I haven't been able to find any numbers on that.  I'm sure Dane County went No.  For the marriage amendment, it passed in every county except Dane and Lafayette (southwest of Dane).

Both Catholics and Evangelical Protestants are very large groups in Wisconsin.  With all of the Catholics, the one that surprises me is that the death penalty advisory passed.

I thought about arguing with my fellow church members why the marriage amendment is counter-productive, mean-spirited, and bad government, but I didn't see much use in it.  Give folks a chance to "score one for God at the ballot box" and they take it.  Maybe it eased their guilt in voting Democrat, I don't know...

Yeh - especailly when the Democrat in question DOSEN'T have similar views to the Republican, as most of the Democrats who were elected yesterday. I'm not trying to be smug, but all of the idiot republicans trying to parrot the Faux News talking point that a bunch of conservative Dems were elected yesterday are full of it.

A ton of progressive democrats were elected yesterday. Nothing more, nothing less.

My impression of Arizona has always been of a libertarian state, voting Republican because of immigration issues and taxes but very socially liberal. I think the gay marriage ban referendum corroborates that opinion.

I don't really think so.  I just think that gay marriage seems to be losing its overall potency as an issue in the North.

()

Haha.

Where are the people claiming because now :P

Victory celebrations aside, I strongly hope the Dems will deliver more than a mere protest vote and prove that maybe the left isn't nuttier than the religious right or the chickenhawks after all.

Screw you, America - once again you've failed to vote a single Libertarian to Congress. Once again you've screwed us all over by voting for Republicans and Democrats. I hate you, you mother f**king retards! You go to hell, you go the hell and you die!

Oh, and please vote Libertarian in 2008. ;)

When the Libertarian Party stops being batsh**t crazy...then it will find office. (As I think you also believe)

They should stop bothering to run Presidential candidates and focus on races they can win, such as in Arizona and New Hampshire, where they might be able to snag a couple of seats in the state legislature and work their way up.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but no one on this forum seems to have heard of Duverger's law.

Yes I do believe that - I was just being facetious.


I would support that too if it weren't for ballot access issues - in many states we need a major race candidate to get a certain percentage of the vote so we can actually get our candidates on the ballot without the hassle. Otherwise I agree with the sentiment. We should first off stop running in so many congressional races where there are already two major party candidates, concentrating only on those that are uncontested. And as you say we need to concentrate on state-level legislature races as well.

I agree with you. The problem with most third parties in the U.S. is that they try to build from the top down, rather than the bottom up. But I think the other problem with the Libertarians is that most voters just don't agree with enough of their policies. Like me, they see the wisdom in the libertarian outlook on some matters but not on others. They might get more votes if they moderated their views on some issues, but I expect they'd be accused of selling out by many of their current supporters if they did so.
The big problem I have with full-bore libertarianism is the almost naively touching faith they have in the goodness of mankind and the infallibility of the free-market system.

Well that and the fact that they seem to think they're more enlightened...ie even though the average american (or even a near average one) doesn't want policy x y or z...or a total reduction in government...we're gonna do it anyway...WE know best.

I sometimes wonder how much that has to do with the name based off of an ideology...sounds silly yes, but it seems hard to be a conservative, or a liberal, or a centrist in the Libertarian Party...which is run by hard core ideological purists unwilling to compromise to build a libertarian leaning big tent.

Barnarik shall rise again.