7:52 – Well, I’m here at Panera with Paul and Yvonne.  We just snagged food and a decent seat, and now I’m poking around on CNN.com looking for the streaming video feed.  Haven’t found it yet, though I imagine they’ve got to have one for tonight.  I did find the radio feed, though, so I’m not entirely newsless.  The problem is, I won’t have a chance to see some of my favorite bloggers, especially MKH, who’s a real life Ainsley Hayes…right down to being a total babe!  Here’s to food, friends and the Republic!

7:58 – Ok, I found a live video feed on Fox News.  I need to fix the driver issue I’ve got though.

8:03 – Trent Lott and Olympia Snow are reelected, and Katherine Harris is probably going to lose in Florida.  Turns out Lynn Swann is going to lose the Governor’s race in Penn.  I’d forgotten he was running.  I would have thought that a NFL player like him would have drawn more attention.  The Republicans have lost a seat in Indiana, but it was the most likely one to lose, so that’s not a big surprise.  George Allen and Jim Webb are running neck and neck.  There’s a good half percent between the two.  It’s been tight, which isn’t a surprise, really.  Allen gave the media too much traction with a couple of stupid errors.  I'm also really interested in the Maryland Senate race.  I'm hoping good things happen for Michael Steele.

8:26 - Well, the Webb/Allen race is seperated by .01% with 40% of the precincts reporting in.  I'm breathless with anticipation!  It's sad.  I'm also trying to sign up for a CNN account, but the confirmation email is taking freaking forever!

8:35 - Fox is calling the fall of Rick Santorum as of this point.  That's 1 Senate and 1 House seat, assuming that both of those calls are good.  Note, though, that I haven't seen any precincts reporting in on the Santorum race, so that's suspect.

9:26 - Well, it's been about an hour, and the Republicans are definitely losing some ground.  Doesn't look like Steele is going to win in Maryland, which is disappointing.  I'd been pulling for him.  In the House the Republicans have lost 3 seats, which is damned inconvienient.

10:00 - Well, it's pretty close.  There are still 4 Senate seats in play and the Democrats need 3 of them if they want to gain control.  I don't think that's going to happen.  It's tough for them to win in Montana, which is pretty red, and I think Corker will pull it out in Tennessee.  With a little luck, Allen might manage a victory too, but that's a lot tougher to call since the gap is less than 30,000 right now.  The two races I'm really happy about are Nelson's win in Florida...the Republican Harris is...less than impressive.  In the case of Joe Lieberman it looks like Joementhum is in full swing.  I'm glad.  He's a good man I respect a great deal.

10:27 - For something I wasn't expecting, GA-8 and GA-12 might just actually go Republican.  That might upset the Democrats!  They need 5 more House seats to take the House as of right now, but that would open things back up for them.  Added to that, it looks like Corker is gonna take Tennessee, and personally I think Allen's gonna pull off the victory in Virginia, though it'll come down to less than 25,000 votes, I think.;  Cross your fingers!  And no, I'm not Republican...but honestly, do you think Nancy Pelosi will honestly make a better Speaker?

Seperately, the SaveDarfur commercial that's been running during the returns is annoying me.  SaveDarfur is an organization that's very liberal...but exactly what is it they expect us to do in Darfur?  Did they want us to invade a nation where thousands of people are being murdered by their own government?  In case no one noticed, they don't seem to like it when we do that.

10:48 - Barack Obama is up on CNN...he's talking about Iraq and how we need to do a phased withdrawal to convince the Iraqis to take more responsibility, and the military needs to be involved in the decisions on this.  Well, aparently he hasn't been paying attention.  The Iraqi military is building up and every month more Iraqi forces are taking the lead on security in the country.  We're really only heavily active in Bagdad and Anbar.  Oh, and as for the military...the latest surveys indicate that 84% of the military wants to stay in Iraq until we're really done, and you've got guys volunteering to go back for a 3rd and 4th tour!

11:03 - Well, this is amusing.  Some time ago CNN called Maryland for Benjamin Cardin with like 3% of the vote in.  Oddly enough, with 41% of the vote, though, Steele is up by 25,000 votes.  Weird.  Boy, aren't they gonna look stupid if that continues, huh?

In other news, I'm going to call New York 26 before Fox or CNN...Tom Reynolds is up by 8 points with 3/4ths of the districts reporting in, and none of the remaining ones are overwhelmingly Democratic.  NY-29 is a little too close yet for me to comfort, but I think it's gonna be Kuhl.

11:14 - Well, Fox seems surprised that Michael Steele is winning, and they are somewhat surprised he's refusing to concede the election.  Well, duh...he's fucking winning!  Also in Maryland, Ehrlich, who's running for Governor in the same state, is projected as losing...even though CNN right now has him up by 7 points!  I smell a rat here...

11:27 - The Democrats have a majority in the House, barring a totally unforseen miracle where the Republicans pick up a chunk of seats on the West Coast.  That's about as likely as the Bills winning the Super Bowl this year.  No...more like St. Bonaventure winning the NCAA Tournament.  The Republicans are gonna hang on to the Senate, though.  That'll be split.  God help us, though, it'll be Speaker Pelosi.  They want to raise taxes, which they can do by doing nothing and just letting Bush's tax cuts expire.  Don't kid yourself...we've got half a century of data...taxes go up, the economy gets worse, taxes go down, the economy gets better.  They don't really believe that though, for reasons I don't get.  It could also have a major impact on the war...they can screw up funding for combat troops and the military.  Personally I think that would kill them in 2008, but they might honestly believe that doing it will help them politically, and they've shown already that they don't mind encouraging our enemies or disparaging our troops if it means they might score some political points at home.  Nationally, though, it'll hurt them, and if this election functions as the gut check and refocus for the Republicans that I think it will, messing with our troops will cost the Democrats in the long run.  The problem is, it'll cost more soldiers' lives in the short run.  We'll just have to see.

12:47 - Virginia's Webb/Allen campaign is all sorts of crazy close.  It'll almost certainly be a recount, because it'll probably be less than a 1% difference, so the recount rules of Virginia kicks in.  Technically Allen is down by 1700 votes, but there's a very populous and relatively conservative county that won't be reporting until tomorrow, and there are still absentee ballots that need to be counted...a lot of those are going to be soldiers, who also tend to vote more conservative.  Steele will lose, though he's still holding out some hope, it's a real long shot.  And in an act of insanity, the people of New York State elected a Comptroller back into office who is under heavy investigation for misappropriation of funds for what is definitely not the first time in his life.  He's already been caught before, and he's back at it again.  It's incredible.  I can only assume that most people in NYS didn't know about it.  After all, who pays attention to Comptroller?

12:58 - Well, it's time to take a nap, I think.  I'm going to say this.  I'm not happy about Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House.  I think we're going to see the Democrats now move farther to the left and try to push some very hard liberal agendas, which will cause a lot of problems.  Many of the Democrats who won tonight were conservative candidates, and the new guys aren't going to always be able to toe the party line.  The Senate, I think, is going to stay with the Republicans...since I think at least one of the 3 seats in play will fall to the Republicans, I think we'll have a split Congress.  Overall, with a few exceptions, there has been very high turnout, especially for a midterm election.  Fifteen years ago people said disinterest in politics would continue to grow...that's been reversed, and now the American people are engaged.  I think we've got some problems with heads in the sand on some things, at least from my perspective, but overall, I'm happy that people do seem to care. For now I'm signing off.  No matter how it turns out, it won't be the end of the Republic...and we'll see if the Democrats can surprise me and legislate responsibly after all.

Current Location: Panera Bread
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Fox News
Tags: congressional races, democrats, election night, elections, republicans

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