I think the untold story of the night is just how horribly we underperformed in the House. I don’t want to take away from our incredible victory, but it did not translate to huge coattails in the House,
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Or enough in the Senate.
And if we’re complaining – I’m sorry – but did Michelle’s dress bother anyone else? Her dress reminded me of a black widow, horrible symbology, under the circumstances!!
Ohhhhhh – now that you mention it, yeah it did.
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It’s her mate she’s after!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."She looked pregnant to me in that dress. Also, all the anti-gay ballot measures seem to have won. Be interesting when half the states recognize it and half don’t.
Be nice to have a baby in the White House. Not counting W, of course.
Even if Prop. 8 passes in California there is the problem that it conflicts with the state constitution. The constitutional amendment might be unconstitutional, unless all marriages are treated equally. That is, if all marriages in California were unconstitutional.
It’s ugly. It’s the kind of thing that disappoints me and shatters my faith in mankind. If only people had more frontal lobes.
I wondered about that too – whether maybe she was pregnant.
Bothered us a lot. She usually looks lovely, as do the girls. The bright red was too brash and clashed with Malia’s bright red dress of a different hue. The pattern was distracting and not flattering to her.
And now that you mention it, it did look like the pattern of a black widow.
This dress business may seem minor, but the photos are for the ages. She is now permanently fixed for history in the only truly unattractive outfit she wore during the entire campaign.
She is now permanently fixed for history in the only truly unattractive outfit she wore during the entire campaign.
LOL.
She should have worn purple. She kills in purple.
Bad choice of words, under the circumstances!!
The democratic women’s clothing was terrible. I didn’t think of a black widow; at first I only saw her from the chest up and I thought it looked like she had been stabbed in the chest. Jill Biden’s dress made her look like she’d been dipped in Grey Poupon.
I did like the way Joe and Obama together had red, white and blue ties without either one having the full suite.
Obama’s tie was the same as John Stewart’s.
Nothing compared to Cindy McCain’s brittle-looking outfits, including last night’s. Sarah was in black, fittingly enough!
Yeah, especially Michele Bachmann winning. Ugh.
But on the bright side, this was the first time since the Great Depression that a party had gains of 25 seats in two consecutive elections.
I can’t believe Stevens is ahead in Alaska. What an embarrassment to the people that they would reelect a convicted felon
I read somewhere that La Belle Palin can’t appoint herself in Stevens’ place if he is indeed re-elected and subsequently kicked out of the Senate.
There has to be a special election for the open seat. We’ll see what happens.
on TPM
Stevens is corrupt but he has deep roots – over 40 years as Senator. He “received” but he gave millions and in a small rural state the giving is more important than the 250K in gifts (considered normal for pols) he received.
Here in Michigan, we passes medical marijuana and kicked Joe Knollebgerg out of office. Pretty impressive.
And we passed the expansion of stem cell research! AND kicked 2 rethugs out of the house!
A good day in the wolverine state.
Crunching the numbers the margin of victory for Obama in the states he flipped (IA, OH, FL, NV, NM, CO, VA) is only about 1.2 million votes.
IN, NC, and MO are still too close to call, margin there combined is like 35,000 votes. It’s crazy.
The 140 million voters didn’t materialize. Turnout looks to be 123 million or so, almost identical to 2004. The GOP vote suppression efforts almost worked.
We nearly ended up in the hell of 2000 again, only this time with multiple states being too close to call and the GOP plan to sue, sue, sue was ready to go.
Only Herculean efforts by the Obama campaign and the people who braved those huge lines saved this one and put it out of stealing reach of the GOP.
Your vote counted this time, but I have to say there’s plenty of reason to suspect a whole hell of a lot of foul play.
Still…even the GOP’s effort wasn’t enough.
Obama won.
Now the fight really begins.
Long lines everywhere through early voting and on election day and turnout is down? How many machine votes didn’t register? How many were flipped internally in the machine.
We’ve GOT to get recountable paper media back.
According to a link I got from Chuck Todd, turnout was up, quite a bit.
http://elections.gmu.edu/Blog.html
I suspect that as people look at the numbers that Rethug voter suppression did work, down ticket.
perhaps that has something to do with the disgraceful performance of the house and senate over the past couple of years.
Blank checks, bailouts for the wealthy, legalizing warrantless wiretapping… I would not be surprised if a number of people voted for president and declined to make a choice for down ticket races.
I got off lucky, I have fattah for my rep. but if i lived a few miles north, it’d be murphy, and I would have left that space blank.
Things aren’t over yet by a LONG SHOT;
The count in Minnesota senate race is;
NORM COLEMAN 1210197
AL FRANKEN 1209079
With absentee and provisional ballots to be counted (along with 10 more precincts), with the difference between Franklin and Coleman less then .3% there is a mandated recount here.
More are probably democratic because they were more excited to vote this year.
Alaska is;
Begich, Mark 102998
Stevens, Ted 106351
With absentee and provisional ballots to be counted. ( And a mandated recount here also)
More are probably democratic because they were more excited to vote this year.
Oregon is;
Gordon Smith 509,566
Jeff Merkley 499,117
with 26% of the ballots to be counted, especially in and around Portland. (Recount probably also mandated, but I am not up on Oregon law)
And there is a report they haven’t included the early voting results from around Atlanta is the state totals;
From TPM last night;
And I believe they were supposed to be disproportionately African-American. And now WSBTV.com in Atlanta is reporting this: “Fulton and Gwinnett Counties failed to include any advance votes in their election totals by 11 p.m. Tuesday night. Officials at the Secretary of States office confirmed to WSB-TV Channel 2 that the votes were not being included in early returns. Up to two million votes may be going uncounted. ‘Something’s really wrong out there,’ said WSB-TV political analyst Matt Towery.” That could have a very big effect on the senate race in the state. So Saxby Chambliss may not be home free after all.
This election is far from over and the senate totals are not settled.
We have just won the most important part of it.
I live and vote in Miami County, Ohio. About 20 – 25 miles north of Dayton, Ohio.
The local rag, Piqua Daily Call, is in denial. Election must not have happened. State issues ? No results. County issues ? Vote tallying machines broke down. Obama ? 12 pt type. It looks like they had extreme difficulty getting their fingers to type his name. I wonder what the next four years will be like for these and other folks that suffer from this blatant racism ????
The county Dem HQ was loud & raucous last night and getting louder when I left.
Of course, we still have John Boehner as our rep (Boo !! Hiss !!) in Congress.
I am so, so happy that we have this one hurdle behind us.
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In your neck of the woods –
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."The wet rag slap in my face this morning is the possibility that gay marriage may be banned in CA. WTF!
Hate and fear. It still sells.
Right, filthy. Maybe only Bachmann’s victory is more disgusting.
Along with stem cell research I want some scientific studies as to why Republicans vote with their amygdalas and not their frontal lobes.
a bit disappointing overall, but still a good showing imo. we did a good job here in co.
obama and udall won, the odious musgrave got tossed to the curb by betsy markey, and a real progressive jared polis won a non-contest…plus the state went BLUE for the first time since ’92.
not a bad night.
In Minnesota I think the real story is Congressional reapportionment last time became an exercise in incumbent protection, creating five DFL seats and three Repub seats. One of each has flipped since then but those districts from the Twin Cities to the Canadian border are deliberately tilted to one party. It would take a retirement, health crisis or major felony to remove an incumbent Congressperson in the 3rd to 8th districts. The two major parties fixed it that way.