After Midnight Election Blogging

It's after midnight, so this one is going to read from the top down.

12:30 a.m. Claire just took the lead! Webb, McCaskill and Tester are all on top. If their leads hold, we just ran the fucking table.

Stem cells just pulled into the lead too. Hoo boy. The urban vote is breaking our way.

Remember the Texas 22? That one Tom DeLay used to represent? Well, Democrat Nick Lampson just took that seat.

The Missouri Senate race was just de-Claired for McCaskill by NBC and CBS. Stem Cells surged too. We just went purple, people.

1:15 a.m. TALENT JUST CONCEDED. Claire McCaskill is the junior Senator from Missouri. So much for this one being decided by the courts.

Tester is hanging tough in Montana. He leads 50% to 47% and had a margin of 8300 votes, with 69% of precincts reporting. Tester's going to pull it out.

1:40 a.m. Webb in Virginia "the votes are in and we won." Virginia political expert Larry Sabato has declared Virginia for Webb.

I just heard on the web that an announcement from Tester or Burns will be made in about 15 minutes.

So far we have picked up 26 seats in the house.

We now control 28 of 50 Governorships, since we picked up the Mansions in Massachusetts, Ohio, New York, Arkansas, Colorado and Maryland.

Eight ball in the corner pocket and game over. We just ran the table.

2:00 a.m. and it is tme we start working on the boy king's vocabulary words for the next week. The first word he needs to learn the meaning of is Mandate. The second word on the list is Rebuke. Meanwhile, Karl is more Turd than Blossom these days, it looks like. Sweet, sweet revenge.

It looks like there will be a recount in Virginia, that one won't be known for a day or two. It also looks like the New Mexico 01 is going to have a recount as well. With 99% of precincts reporting, only a thousand votes separate Patricia Madrid and heather Wilson. Rejection of Wilson would be seen as strong repudiation of the Bush administration and its policies.

2:20 a.m. Local initiatives - Missouri gave our minimum wage workers a raise and amended the constitution to protect medical research from over-zealous prosecution by a wing-nut state legislature. And Colorado failed to legalize reefer. Try again, guys. How can anyone be against a plant that is a cure for PMS?

3:30 a.m. Montana is still pending. Billings, Bozeman and the indian vote need to be counted. It's a nail-biter but I'm feeling good about Montana.

4:30 a.m. Montana is still pending. Virginia is still holding for Webb and Tester is still ahead in Montana. In fact, Tester has widened the gap by a couple thousand votes.

I am headed off to get a couple of hours of shut-eye, but I will stand by this prognostication...Dems run the table. We have the house, we have the Governorships, and we are taking the senate.

Turd Blossom, I just made you my bitch.

An open letter to George W. Bush

The following open letter to George W. Bush was posted on the Democrats-dot-org website yesterday. I held off, because I wanted to save it and post it On Pat's Birthday.

Mr. Bush, you failed to protect our country from the attacks of 9/11 despite prior warning from the CIA. That attack occurred 9 months after you took office, as opposed to the month Bill Clinton had in office at the time the World Trade Center Bombing occurred in 1993. You had plenty of time to prepare for an attack we all new would come eventually and you still failed. This happened despite the fact that you placed more pressure on extremist groups in the Middle East the moment you took office.

You were unable to prevent a far more serious attack than the World Trade Center Bombing and you failed to apprehend the mastermind responsible, so why should we believe that we are safer in Republican hands?

In March of 2003 you made the decision to enter Iraq because you were certain that Weapons of Mass Destruction would be found along with terrorist connections. Again you were wrong, and have admitted as much. As a result almost as many Americans as died in the attacks of 9/11 have died in Iraq.

Following the capture of Saddam Hussein you said that things would get better in Iraq, but they didn't. (I'm sensing a trend here Mr. Bush.) Instead the situation on the ground continues to be unstable and ordinary Iraqis continue to go without necessities such as electricity and plumbing, which is just one more reason why those able to have fled. Last month was a record month for U.S. casualities in Iraq and I'm tired of losing friends Mr. Bush.

I see nothing within these many blunders to suggest that we would be better off leaving the political structure as is. I see reason to change things though. For one, you might be forced to fire an incompetent individual such as Donald Rumsfeld and you might in turn hire a competent individual like Colin Powell, not that I think he'd be thrilled to work for you again.

You won't find success through loyalty Mr. Bush. It's clear that you believe you will, but your lack of success must be telling you otherwise by now. One way or another Mr. President of the United States of America, Mr. Commander in Chief, you will have to straighten out the mess, otherwise future Americans will simply have to assume that you were the problem.

Posted by Marine on November 5, 2006 at 08:00 PM

I love the smell of desperation in the morning...

It smells like...Victory.

In Pennsylvania yesterday, Rick Santorum accused his Cemocratic opponent, State Treasurer Bob Casey of using the pension fund for state employees to fund terrorism. "Bob Casey has invested Pennsylvania pension funds in companies with ties to terrorist-sponsoring states and states that engage in genocide," Santorum said. "Bob Casey is aiding and abetting terrorism and genocide."

Of course, true to form, Santorum did not cite specific examples but referred to a report by the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank that has pushed for divestment from companies doing business in terror-sponsoring nations.

Casey, like state treasurers throughout the land, both Republican and Democrat alike, has called on investment managers to assess whether any companies in their holdings have business in terrorist-sponsoring countries. The issue is facing Casey is not unique. It is taking place in every state.

Instead of making each state repeat the process with their limited resources, perhaps the feds could use their resources and compile a list of companies involved with terrorist nations.

But I guess that would just make too much sense.

Santorum says it is not the federal government's responsibility to release such a list.

Entering the home stretch

Coming 'round the bend, with just eight days to go, the Democrats are strong and the Republicans have fallen back, just hoping to stanch the bleeding. The House is gone and the Senate is in peril. The issues they have counted on for leverage with the electorate are no longer theirs at all, much less theirs alone. In every single category that prospective voters were polled on, Republicans trail Democrats in the public trust; save on the issue of terrorism, where the public has equal confidence in both parties.

Democrats need to be tough and vigilant. The Republicans are going negative out of desperation, and it is getting ugly. Remember, they are the party of Lee Atwater, and while I normally hate to speak ill of the dead...I'll just say Karma can be a bitch.

But as Colbert says, facts have a well-known liberal bias, and facts are ruling the day this election. Negativity seems to have a blowback effect that they didn't expect, and the national party has gone so far in a couple of races that they have actually damaged their candidates. Anyone else notice that those horrible Progress for America ads have gone the way of the Edsel? (And not a moment too soon.) Fearmongering isn't working? All I can say is "Finally!"

And it doesn't matter how they try to shift the focus away from Iraq, it remains the yellow elephant in the room.

Keep up the pressure, Democrats. Man phone banks, canvas, donate to campaigns, light candles...whatever you can do. There is too much at stake. Defeat is not an option.

Kansas City Star Endorses McCaskill

The Kansas City Star endorsed Claire McCaskill for the United States Senate on their editorial pages this morning.

Many of us expected the endorsement, especially after the paper had to formally request Talent stop running misleading ads that deceived the public by atributing quotes to the Star that were actually made by political opponents of McCaskill.

The Star did not mention this in the endorsement, although it would have been fair to do so. They did however point out his dubious record of - ahem - achievements and his rush to the negative in his advertising.

Talent’s shrill, deceptive campaign ads — over-the-top even by lax political standards — have been disconcerting. Pressed about them last week, Talent oddly sought credit for not using them earlier. He added with apparent pride that other candidates had run even worse material elsewhere.

A "But Mom! Billy did it first!" defense doesn't work with parents and it won't work with the electorate either.

It is time for grown-ups to be in charge, and Claire McCaskill is a grown-up, not a petulant child.

It looks like a whole lot of people have had enough

If the election were tomorrow, the Democrats would pick up 35 seats in the House and at least 4 seats in the Senate, possibly the 6 they need to have a majority, and with it, cloture.

The political climate today is worse for the incumbent majority than it was in 1994 when the Republicans took over. Independent political researcher Stuart Rothenberg predicts "a Democratic wave" on November 7.

Charlie Cook, publisher of The Cook Political Report, was more specific. He predicted this weekend that Republicans are most likely to see a net loss of 20 to 35 seats in the House, and with them their majority in the lower chamber.

In the Senate, according to Cook, Republicans were poised to lose at least four, but possibly five or six seats.

The list of most endangered Republican senators included Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Conrad Burns of Montana.

They could easily be joined by Jim Talent of Missouri and George Allen of Virginia, who are fighting for their political lives in very tight races, analysts said.

These poll numbers had Bush on the campaign trail, but one has to wonder about the length of his coattails when his approval rating is mired in the thirties. He "spiked" upward to 37% approval after consistently polling about 33% for several weeks running. But really, anything Bush can accomplish for the party looks like it will be too little, too late.

The economy, once the Republican parties ace-in-the-hole, Americans favor Democrats to manage things better by a 47 percent to 34 percent margin. Likewise, they have fallen out of favor as the part best able to deal with the threat of terrorism, having seen their strong lead turn into a statistical tie of 40 percent to 39 percent.

But the most stinging rebuke of all: By a 12 percent margin, Americans now trust Democrats rather than Republicans to handle Iraq. The Newsweek poll found 45percent of Americans trust Democrats on the prosecution of the war, versus 33 percent who favor the Republicans.

On broad policy issues, 53 percent of likely voters said they favored Democrats, to 39 percent Republican.

Victory is within reach, folks. In fact, at this point, it's ours to lose. We have nine days to put Claire McCaskill and Jim Webb over the top in Missouri and Virginia. Nancy Boyda has nine days to close the narrow, within-the-margin-of-error gap and unseat Jim Ryun in the Kansas-02. Nine days for Sara Jo Shettles to continue building her base to unseat Sam Graves in the Missouri-06.

This is our year. A whole lot of news was dumped in the Friday news cycle. If that was just the beginning, and this week gets worse for the Republicans, we get the Senate too. Hell, we may even have a majority of Governors Mansions.