Elections Blog

Trent Lott won by a single vote over Lamar Alexander:
After an intense evening in which both men lobbied colleagues during floor votes, the Republican caucus elected Lott, a one-time whip and majority leader, by secret ballot. Lott will be the GOP’s second-in- command to Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who was elected unanimously to be the [...]

[Read more →]

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] [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

I hope you’re all sitting down for this.  It seems that TIME Magazine covered both the 1994 and 2006 elections, and they used entirely different covers!
It gets worse: the entirely different group of reporters, artists, and editors covering this entirely different election in an entirely different era reached entirely different conclusions!
Now if that’s not worthy [...]

[Read more →]

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, [...]

[Read more →]

I think it was…if Bush had pressured Rumsfeld to resign prior to the midterms, by a couple of weeks, at least, it would have given the Republicans a good talking point to take into the midters, one that showed a belated willingness to listen to critics and make a change.  Another who thinks the timing [...]

[Read more →]

…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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

…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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

I just got an email message from the head of the California GOP.

While Republican Governors and Senators were falling throughout the country in the worst year for Republicans since 1974, you played a vital role in insuring the re-election of Governor …

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

This morning Sullivan makes exactly the same point I did two days ago about Rush Limbagh and Hugh Hewitt, though he managed to be a lot more diplomatic and used far fewer “fucks” than I.

The one thing you learn from this: Hewitt and Limbau…

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

Rick Moran says Tuesday wasn’t a good night for all moderates and centrists; those with an (R) next to their names got killed.  And that’s bad news for all Republicans, he convincingly argues:
It’s official. The Republican party is now as ideologically monochromatic as a political party can get. With the defeat of a dozen northeastern and [...]

[Read more →]