Elections Blog

From Morton Kondracke:
Having failed to convince fellow Republicans of the merits of comprehensive immigration reform, President Bush now faces the even more difficult task of defending free trade against protectionist Democrats.
A tide of populism, protectionism, nationalism and xenophobia is washing over the country, fueled by right-wing radio talk show hosts, CNN firebrand Lou Dobbs — [...]

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In an article that talks about Nancy Pelosi’s efforts to move the congressional Democrats towards the center (and an article that spends almost an entire page talking about committee chairs without mentioning the Hastings-Harman dustup), we find the following buried nugget:
House Democratic leaders have extracted a promise from the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary [...]

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…but will she walk the walk? In a piece proclaiming that ending the war is her highest legislative priority (not winning, mind you, but ending - well, that easy, pull out all the troops tomorrow, and it ends - for Americans, and for now only - thank God for the Senate, and for Joe Lieberman), [...]

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More on the bid by Nancy Pelosi to give John Murtha the Majority Leader post from John Fund in the Wall Street Journal:
House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi’s endorsement of Rep. John Murtha for majority leader, the No. 2 position in the Democratic leaderhsip, has roiled her caucus. “She will ensure that they [Mr. Murtha and his allies] [...]

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Whatever one might make of the sincerity of Nancy Pelosi’s outreach to Republicans, one thing is certain: it’s business as usual in Washington.  First, Alcee Hastings, and now John Murtha.  Oh, I’m just a right-wing nut job ’swift-boating’ Murtha, right? Here’s Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post:
The videotape is grainy, dark and devastating. The congressman [...]

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To counter the pessimism of my previous post, I present you with this lengthy defense of the ‘consensus’ solutions being leaked from the Iraq Study Group and speculated upon by Gregory Djerejian of the Belgravia Dispatch.  If one were a cynic (who, me?), one might call the following a bit utopian:
With the nomination of Robert Gates [...]

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…despite what some of you may think; I’m an easy-going, live-and-let-live type who is all in favor of peace, love, and understanding. Still, sometimes the news is so bad that you can’t sugar-coat it, and Iran’s nuclear program is one such story:
New traces of plutonium and enriched uranium — potential material for atomic warheads [...]

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One of the more laughable post-election assertions by either side came from our good buddy Kos:
Lieberman has been neutered. If he leaves the caucus for short-term gain, he loses all leverage and power and harms his long-term interests. Yet he doesn’t stay in the caucus as a Democrat, but as an independent. And in that [...]

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The editors of The New Republic weigh in on the incredibly short-sighted (and just plain morally wrong) decision by Nancy Pelosi to put Alcee Hastings in charge of the House Intelligence Committee:
In one of her first important acts since Democrats recaptured Congress, Nancy Pelosi is about to make a decision that is both substantively foolish [...]

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Writing in the Christian Science Monitor:

With their votes, the American people asked for change. They cast their ballots in favor of a New Direction.
They called for greater integrity in Washington, and Democrats pledge to make this the most honest, ethical, and open Congress in history.
The American people called for greater civility in how Congress conducts [...]

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The answer: very little.
More than any congressional elections in history, last week’s turned on a single burning national issue. Control of Congress has changed because of deep discontent about Iraq. But Congress can, realistically, have little control over what we make of the mess we have made.
Democrats could have demanded the departure of Donald Rumsfeld, [...]

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…and it should come as no surprise at all that the next salvo comes from the hacks at firedoglake:
I was on a blogger conference call with Harry Reid the other day.  He asked what structural, organizational improvements the Senate Dems could make to improve coordination with the netroots activist community.  I told him it was [...]

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And that’s no surprise at all.  You don’t have to go very deep into this Gail Collins special to realize just how morally bankrupt the once-proud Grey Lady has become:
The Democrats will not be able to savor their victory for long. Americans are waiting to hear if they have any good ideas for how to [...]

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…marred only by the appearance of MoDo (transcript here).  Said MoDo:

MR. RUSSERT: Maureen Dowd, here’s the cover of Newsweek magazine. “Father Knows Best.” With Bush 41, Bush 43, and it’s subtitled “With Congress Lost, Iraq in Chaos, Bush Calls In His Dad’s Team. Can James, James Baker and Company Save the Son’s Presidency?” Very similar [...]

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Contra the ridiculous assertion by Kos that Lieberman has been ‘neutered’, he is, in fact, at the peak of his power:
The midterm elections provided radical left bloggers with, among many other results, their worst nightmare on Tuesday. They had succeeded, earlier in the campaign year, in helping defeat Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary in [...]

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The entire world understands what this election meant, it seems, except hard-left ‘progressive’ bloggers who are desperately trying to stay relevant. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York certainly seems to understand what brought his side to victory on Tuesday:
Mr. Schumer is no wide-eyed neophyte, and understands this election was mostly about his opponents. “I’d say [...]

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Some very interesting results from a post-election poll by Newsweek:
Just about everyone believes the Republicans lost the 2006 midterms more than the Democrats won it. Presented with a list of factors that may have contributed to the Democrats’ success, 85 percent of Americans said the “major reason” was disapproval of the administration’s handling of [...]

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Was Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy a stroke of brilliance, or did it cost Democrats an even larger margin in the House? That’s the question behind a raging post-election controversy. Ryan Lizza of The New Republic:
Some big name Democrats want to oust DNC Chairman Howard Dean, arguing that his stubborn commitment to the [...]

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Yet another voice adds itself to the chorus of those who do not see a defeat for conservatism in Tuesday’s results, that of Charles Krauthammer:
… [T]he great Democratic wave of 2006 is nothing remotely like the great structural change some are trumpeting. It was an event-driven election that produced the shift of power one would [...]

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It’s not only Alcee Hastings that should give us pause, says Radley Balko, as he calls for Pelosi to live up to her pledge to ‘drain the swamp’:
Here’s the challenge:  [Rep. Alan B.] Mollahan is, to say the least, “ethically challenged.”  There’s no sensible reason for him to retain his seat on the most powerful [...]

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