As goes the special election in Michigan’s 19th State Senatorial district, so goes the nation.
I remember talking to voters in this district back in 1980, with Jack Germonde and R. W. Apple, at an old diner that only served coffee, donuts, and burgers. You could tell something was in the air. You could tell the Reagan revolution was coming. People were angry. Regular people, gritty people, blue-collar workers with plastic crucifixes on their dashboards.
L. Ron Obama
Brooks? Is that you?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Cock punch? Neck punch? Cock punch? Neck punch? Oo, I can’t decide!
Wait, I’ve got two hands!
Motherfucker.
Speaking of Coates, is he the only writer for the Atlantic who isn’t a complete and total wanker?
MobiusKlein
Just got back from voting here in SF, but I couldn’t figure out which of the 5 ballot propositions, or two city wide races was the Bellwether for repudiating or supporting Obama.
I think it was the naming rights for Candlestick park, but I could be wrong.
WereBear
Gritty people? Is that like salt of the earth?
MikeJ
@MobiusKlein: Are they going to name the park Barack Karl Marx Adolph Hitler Muhammad(pbuh) Pelosi Hussein Obama Park? Because if not, I’m against it.
Mark S.
Well, if Michael Meyers of TargetPoint Consulting says it’s a bellwether, that’s all I need to hear.
gwangung
Dude, I don’t care who he writes FOR; I just care that he’s an utterly cool, thoughtful writer who brings a different, nuanced perspective that’s badly needed to the table.
Let’s celebrate that.
General Winfield Stuck
Not if they drove a Mercedes Benz.
BB
Be still Chris Matthews’ fluttering hyperactive heart.
Mark S.
Did you know?
I did not.
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck:
parksideq
@DougJ: Slightly off topic; I posted this in the Open Thread but I don’t know if you saw it there since it’s way at the end. The Watertown Daily Times’ front page is tracking NY-23’s results, and it looks like Owens is ahead for now. Just wondering if you had any insight on how it might go based on the counties that haven’t turned in their numbers yet.
My take: no matter who wins it’ll be good news for Senator President McCain.
Just Some Fuckhead
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Fallows.
Chad N Freude
@Mark S.: So a Republican win in MI means a castrated football player will have a bell placed around his neck?
slag
I’m just glad the left coast is doing things right tonight. At least on the issues being tracked by 538.
freelancer
You want anger?
take a look at the simian rage in the art for this worthless cnn piece.
parksideq
@slag: Both coasts seem to be doing it right. Maine is starting to look like it will uphold its marriage equality laws. (GOS link)
Chad N Freude
@kommrade reproductive vigor: @Just Some Fuckhead: The Atlantic drives me nuts. Literate, intellectual, Fallows, Coates, and then … Ambinder, Douthat, McArdle. The Dr. Jekyll of magazines.
Mike G
You could tell the Reagan revolution was coming. People were angry. Regular people, gritty people, blue-collar workers with plastic crucifixes on their dashboards.
People who voted themselves the biggest economic rogering of a lifetime.
Hope that culture war and racial-resentment glory was satisfying while you lined up for unemployment or scrambled for near-minimum-wage service jobs, all you working class Reaganbots. The Repig party bigwigs were laughing their asses off as they harvested your votes while picking your pockets.
El Cid
Well, if we can’t have real journalists outside the notable exceptions, at least they’re predictable in their idiocy, hallowed be Reagan’s holy resting place.
This is all proof that Democrats need to reject their more crazy fringe liberal hippie impatient naive wing and run directly to the right, so that the magnificent victories of 1994 – 2006 may be revived and the right people will continue to be listened to.
Chad N Freude
@freelancer: Devolution in action. I think we’re doomed.
slag
@freelancer: Hooray for the media. Making these elections about healthcare in spite of all evidence to the contrary. I truly believe the majority of the media are anti-empiricists at heart. Which explains their infatuation with the young earthers.
SGEW
52% reporting, with the current margin only 2,400 votes (less than 1% lead!), yet th’ Times calls it for Bloomberg, and TPM reports that Thompson conceded?!?
What the fucking fuck?!
MikeJ
Damn. Maine is close with 22% in:
No 56659 50.62%
Yes 55267 49.38%
WereBear
@SGEW: What if Thompson wins when all is said & done? I couldn’t figure that out either…
valdivia
ugh they called it for Christie, that for me is the one I did not want to see go to the R’s. Fuck.
General Winfield Stuck
@Chad N Freude:
Janis got her Mercedes in the sky. I knows it.
SGEW
Also: Can I just say that New Jersey now has a Governor that actually looks like a guy from New Jersey? Haven’t seen that in a while.
parksideq
HuffPo, via AP, calls Jersey a Christie win.
I’m more shocked by that than I probably will be by any other results for tonight.
parksideq
I see @valdivia beat me to the punch.
kwAwk
For the life of me I can’t tell if DougJ is being serious or sarcastic……….
slag
@parksideq: Fingers crossed! This institutionalized inequality situation is just a goddamn albatross.
It’s got people like Andrew Sullivan saying this kind of stuff:
Dumbass.
Splitting Image
I’m of the opinion that the real bellwether is in Maine. Not only is it the one thing on the ballot that will make a real difference to people’s lives, but it’s the one thing that will help determine whether Republicans will be able to stonewall all of the changes we want until 2016.
Personally, if Maine ends up supporting gay marriage and the horses’ asses in the Noise Machine and the RNC start leaping around claiming tonight was a victory for “conservative values”, then as far as I’m concerned they’re admitting that none of them cared much about gays getting married in the first place and have only been fighting it out of sheer spite.
Will
@Splitting Image:
Agreed.
SGEW
Bleh, 80% reporting, Bloomberg ahead by 3 points, 20,000 votes. Dammit all! So god damned close!
Sometimes I hate this fucking city.
Parakeeta
Uh, so you met with Jack “Germonde?” Who is that? I know a Jack “Germond.”
kth
@kwAwk: uh, pretty sure he is joking. The idea that a single state senate race, in Michigan or wherever, is a bellwether, harbinger, portent, or omen, is patently ridiculous.
Comrade Darkness
@Splitting Image: have only been fighting it out of
sheer spite.self hatred.Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck: Her and Bobby McGee.
General Winfield Stuck
There is no bellweather. This is all just standard fair the first year of a new presnit implementing new policies that the public is not used to yet. Add on to that a economic meltdown and eight years of the unitary monarchy.
If it is a bell weather, Here is something to think about Obama hand wringers. Maybe Obama is pissing off the right people to get them to come out and vote wingnut. Maybe it is because he is being successful at it with the right policies and giving the fucktards the chapped ass. And maybe, just maybe he knows what the fuck he’s doing.
kommrade reproductive vigor
That’s right Mr. YAFWA*, things were so much better when the GOP was in control of Congress and the White House and the only qualification for a top admin. post was a conviction that Roe v. Wade and gay people were the cause of all Earth’s woes. Gee, I really miss those days!
I’m paraphrasing, but someone here said if Sully got one hundred ponies he’d whine because he didn’t get two hundred. Best description of the man I’ve ever heard. That doesn’t involve foul language.
*Yet Another Fuck Wit from the Atlantic.
Anya
@parksideq: Fuck million times – this was the race I most dreaded going to the R. WTF is New Jersey thinking voting for this corrupt ass.
Chad N Freude
@kth: Every candidate, every proposition is a chicken entrail smothered in tea leaves. All election results are portentous portents.
Comrade Darkness
You could tell something was in the air.
Were the media newspeople as full of shit as they are now?
valdivia
@General Winfield Stuck:
what you said.
but i think it would be pretty funny if after all the stuff they pulled in NY23 the dem wins. I would take that after the loss of NJ.
Hunter Gathers
The Sarahpocalypse inches ever closer……..
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck:
Maybe we should emigrate to the South Pacific.
arguingwithsignposts
Can I just say that if the people of New Jersey vote for the asshat Christie they deserve what they get? Also Va. and McDonnell. Seriously, I’m from Texas, and if the majority of voters are so idiotic as to think that Rick freakin’ Perry is some kind of viable candidate, then fuck them. Same with Christie and McDonnell. Screw those folks. They almost deserve what they get. If I weren’t a DFH, I’d wish they burn in hell for their idiocy.
Dammit, I hate these assholes.
Martin
All the remaining votes were cast in the Goldman Sachs precinct.
SGEW
@Anya:
If the Governor of New Jersey was neither corrupt nor corpulent, he could not be truly representational of his constituents.
(Hey, don’t get me wrong about Jersey, I’m not biased against them, or nothing, honest. Why, I’ve even been to New Jersey, several times. In fact, some of my best friends are from New Jersey. Yeah.)
gnomedad
Didn’t you leave out “It was a dark and stormy night”?
jwb
This is definitely the way to get my election results.
jcricket
@arguingwithsignposts: Yep – same with Virginia. Not that Deeds would have been great, but the whole “I’m an independent so I’ll just switch who I vote for every election or two” thing from the moderate is lazy asshattery at its finest.
And then these people wonder why nothing gets done in their states.
Losers.
flounder
You already got voted off the America’s Next Pundit Island. Give it up.
Charity
Well, shit. I live in a state with a Republican governor now. He’s going to give back all the stimulus money, cut women’s health programs, and give tax cuts to everybody who doesn’t live in Trenton, Camden or Newark.
I’ll give my tax cut to Planned Parenthood in New Jersey. They’re gonna need it.
Sanka
Corzine outspends Christie 3 to 1, Obama comes to campaign for him three times….
But, of course, the White House sees no importance in these elections.
General Winfield Stuck
@Chad N Freude:
Or just get Bobby Mcferrin on the radio.
Comrade Darkness
Politisite: Election results – 63% of Precincts reporting, NY-23 Cong race, Owens at 49% vs. Hoffman 45% #election #results #tcot #NY23 #nygop #p2
Hm. But three precincts apparently had voting machine trouble and won’t report until tomorrow. Boy, won’t that just feed the paranoid schizzos out there.
JR
#39 General Winfield Stuck
I know everyone likes to believe Obama’s playing some sort of expert political chess game but if “knowing what he’s doing” means he’s purposely electing pissed off wingnuts to power then I would love to know how that helps Democrats. Electing wingnuts sure worked out well for the country last time. Are you suggesting Obama’s purposely electing people he knows will do great damage to the country so Democrats can come in and save the day? How much damage is Obama willing to let the country endure as part of this supposed political calculation? How is that not his very own Shock Doctrine?
Or maybe he just doesn’t know what he’s doing and dropped the ball on this one.
Sanka
Good to see how charitable you are with your money. You must be a right wing racist….
jwb
@Sanka: Yes, the pie is delicious tonight, isn’t it? I’m very fond of cherry.
jwb
@Comrade Darkness: Diebold vs. Acorn in a cage match recount.
General Winfield Stuck
@JR:
What in fucking hell are you babbling about?
SGEW
Aargh! Fuck you Michael Bloomberg!
Shit.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@arguingwithsignposts: All I know is it’s been a while since a Republican was caught sticking his little bishop in a non-Baby Jesus-sanctioned orifice.
I want those fuckers crowing in front of cameras when the news comes down that John Boehner has been caught practicing illegal charms on a goat.
Comrade Darkness
@JR: I think Obama has democrats he can’t work with and that’s occupying his attention at the moment. I, for one, assume he doesn’t control every little local election, but I’m a fairly sober-minded person.
And since I don’t want to open a third bottle of wine this evening, that probably won’t change.
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck: OK, I laughed out loud at that one, so I guess you’re ahead by 3.1415926 %. But my negativity is stronger than your optimism, and things will get progressively worse, i.e., worse for progressives.
jwb
@JR: Or maybe off-year elections usually go to those out of power? I mean, if you want to make this into good news for John McCain that’s certainly your right, but really I wouldn’t get your undies in a knot because the other team, down by 10 in the middle of the first half, goes on a 6 point run. Take a timeout for sure and assess the situation, but it’s certainly not time to change the game plan yet.
jaquestraw
After campaigning for corzine in person 5 times in 2 weeks obuma states he did not see the election results LMAO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0s4Gj7kGss
General Winfield Stuck
@JR:
What I am saying is that these elections are mostly about local politics that only relate to Obama in that outside crazy wingnuts are stirring up the local crazy wingnuts to come out and vote in elections nobody would otherwise vote in.
The only state that has bearing on dems is NJ, where the dems are so crooked and inept at governing a very blue state it causes loyal dem voters to hold their collective noses and put a gooper in charge. Has zero to .1% to do with Obama.
The Other Steve
If Hoffman doesn’t get 63%, he’s lost the crucial McHugh challenge.
jwb
@jaquestraw: Yup, that’s mighty fine pie there.
kwAwk
I don’t even think this is about Obama anymore. The congressional Dems are taking way to damn long to get healthcare reform passed, which is making both Obama and the congressional Dems look bad.
General Winfield Stuck
@Chad N Freude:
Well, somebody has to do the worrying. I’m just glad it’s not me cause I did enough of it in my younger years and it never caused one single thing to go right.
El Cid
The fact that Republicans won several local elections means that the American people and all good journalism types have rejected Obama’s attack on our non-soci_alist values and Democrats had better urge Harry Reid to find even more excuses to weaken and delay health care reform, perhaps this is better taken up in 2013.
Hunter Gathers
Deeds was a boring, shitty candidate.
The fact that he didn’t beat McDonnell to death with his bat-shit crazy paper he wrote in his mid-thirties means he’s gutless.
Corzine sucked so bad that Jersey elected a clearly currupt ex-Bushie, who won’t get re-elected. New Jersey govenors are almost always shitty or dirty (much like my home state of Illinois).
Of course that doens’t mean we won’t be hearing about this shit for the next 6 months.
kommrade reproductive vigor
There is the most unflattering picture of Christie on Yahoo!s front page. It looks like it was taken with an old camera phone and he’s peeking out from between some red curtains with his mouth hanging open. Looks like he wandered on stage during a play while in search of the bathroom.
Meanwhile, the high-caliber reporting is rolling in:
GASP!
Really, maybe I should be upset about the results. But frankly Virginia just confirmed what we DFHs in Maryland think of them. However, it pisses me off no end that people can pull shit like this out of their asses, send it off to proofreadNOW and call themselves journalists.
^/codgerrant^
Morbo
Indeed, congratulations to New Yorkers on your new dictator for life.
Zam
This daily show breakdown of media coverage fucking rocks
LD50
@JR:
Why do you think Obama can determine the results of local elections? I’m what Makewank would call an Obamabot, and even I don’t think that.
General Winfield Stuck
@JR:
@General Winfield Stuck:
And sorry JR. This was a over the top on my part/ You were being sincere, I think.
mcd410x
You know what Bush2 would have done with off year results like this … act like he won and pound the Dems even harder.
Comrade Darkness
@The Other Steve: There is something to that. 63-65% is standard for an R up there.
jwb
@kommrade reproductive vigor: It doesn’t sound like they even bothered to look at how the demographics of those who voted this election matched up with the demographics of the 2008 vote. Is that true? Given the margin, I’m guessing that McDonnell would still have won had the turnout been comparable to 2008, but really that’s the only sort of analysis that would make any sense in terms of trying to discern shifts in voter sentiment.
Comrade Darkness
@Morbo: Am I the only one who keeps expecting Bloomberg to pull of the fleshy mask to reveal he is Berlusconi’s evil twin brother?
Randy P
Well, in my tiny borough in the Philly suburbs the Republicans once again swept the mayor and council races.
Dammit.
Like NY-23, local politics in this county has been almost exclusively Republican going back to Civil War times.
The outrage is lacking in these little local races and the corruption is a lot better hidden.
Oh well, at least we elected Sestak to Congress in 2006, throwing out crazy Curt Welden. So maybe there’s still hope.
I choose to take NY-23 as a bellweather. Assuming Owens stays in the lead.
Brian J
If the Democrats have anything to worry about, it’s losing the House, or coming close enough to it to have their majority not make a difference because of Blue Dogs and others, and fielding crappy Senate candidates so that the majority drops by a lot. Anything less than 20 in the House would, I think, be fairly insignificant, since it’s likely that the results of that would be more moderate-to-conservative districts flipping back once again. Anything more than 30 might signal trouble, since there aren’t that many of the aforementioned districts. In the middle is hard to describe.
But the presidency? I think that’s safe, unless Obama starts to implode so badly that Roy Moore of Alabama could be elected. For one thing, conditions could very well be better once we enter 2012. Not great, necessarily, but better by enough of a degree that any sort of problems aren’t enough to ding him. Besides that, exactly who is going to (a) go through the Republican primary process without the field being heavily splintered and (b) come out as appealing to the American people without a bevy of lies transforming his or her image? I can’t think of any names that come to mind, although if I had to pick, I’d say Pawlenty if only because he doesn’t come across as stupid as Palin, as smarmy as Jindal, or as creepy as Huckabee. But really, if that’s the best they got–and maybe it isn’t, as I said–then I think we are fine. The most substantial criticism lobbed at Obama the first time around–that he was experienced enough–doesn’t fly the second time around. Anything else requires deeper thought than the electorate might be up for, I imagine.
Moonbatting Average
Remind me again what influence McDonnell, Christie, and Bloomberg have on national policy?
jaquestraw
@jwb
I would outbake you anytime
parksideq
@Anya: And to think that I was considering leaving Brooklyn for Jersey City. I’d rather keep Bloomberg than get Christie.
SGEW
@Comrade Darkness:
This image will now haunt me for days.
Davis X. Machina
@kth
Amen. I remember when Harris Wofford won a 1991 special election in PA — he ran for John Heinz’ seat after he died in a helicopter crash — basically on the single issue of health care reform, and how this signified that Dems were on a roll, and could ride this issue to a new New Deal majority.
He got beat by Rick Santorum in ’94. And we’re still waiting on health care reform.
parksideq
@slag: I stopped reading Sully on November 5th. My doctor says my blood pressure’s never been better.
jwb
@Brian J: Lots of ways Obama could lose the election in 2012, the two biggies being either health care not passing or the economy not recovering suitably. But at this point I would say that he’s still more likely to win with margins larger than 2008 than to lose.
kwAwk
None really but these races will provide political momentum for the Republican. Had we won these races we would be saying ‘See, Obama is on the right track!’ but since we lost Republicans will be saying ‘See, Obama is on the wrong track!’
The problem is really that Dems fielded poor candidates in these races. Kos was right to basically say that Corzine had no business being re-elected.
Deeds sounds like a decent person, but that ole conservative message of tax cuts are the cure for all that ails you seems to still have that old magic. Atleast in Virginia.
Ash Can
Wow. Owens is hanging in there. He’s up 49% to 45% with three quarters of the NY-23 precincts reporting.
Jason Bylinowski
@kommrade reproductive vigor: “People who said they disapprove of Obama’s job performance voted overwhelmingly Republican, and those who approve of the president favored Deeds, the Democrat.”
And in other news, water still wet.
Davis X. Machina
They’ll try to find a non-politician politician — Petraeus? — to heal the rifts in the GOP, just like when they grabbed Eisenhower in ’52, when the party was torn between the paeleos (Taft) and the coastal goo-goos (Warren and Dewey).
jwb
@kwAwk: “None really but these races will provide political momentum for the Republican. Had we won these races we would be saying ‘See, Obama is on the right track!’ but since we lost Republicans will be saying ‘See, Obama is on the wrong track!’”
Would that were the case! Had the Dems swept all three races it would still have been taken as evidence that Obama had overreached and needed to come back to the bipartisan center of enacting GOP legislation.
Brian J
I know that. I thought I made that clear–about the economy, at least–in my first post. I guess not.
I guess I should be more clear: the biggest threat to Obama, I think, as you and others have said, is health care. If he doesn’t pass something, he’ll have to do something else really incredible to have a chance at winning, unless the Republicans simply implode. I say this because a bunch of people seem to think the economy will be doing much better in 2012. That doesn’t mean everyone will be better off even if the numbers are better, of course, but if it’s doing well enough so that people feel as if it will get better for them soon even if it’s not that way now, I’d say it’s likely to work to his advantage. But, as others have said, there’s no guarantee things will be better.
Ash Can
…And apparently NBC has decided it’s seen enough in NY-23 and has called it for Owens. Let’s have a big hand for the Club for Growth!
Midnight Marauder
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
As though there’s ever been a flattering one ?
jwb
@Davis X. Machina: “They’ll try to find a non-politician politician.” Well, if the GOP could actually find somebody sane, would that really be such a bad thing? But I just don’t think the party at this point is capable of doing it, and I think the only thing that could bring about a move in that direction would be if they got absolutely walloped in the midterms in 2010—and I just don’t see that as at all a likely scenario.
jwb
@Brian J: Sorry, I guess I didn’t read your post carefully enough.
Midnight Marauder
@Ash Can:
The Club For Growth: Killing The Conservative Resurgence Since
2009Forever.General Winfield Stuck
I believe it was 2007 when dems picked off a couple of wingnut seats in special elections and that was a bell weather.
And in 2011, if the reverse happens for goopers that would be a bell weather. But the first midterm of a new presnit, especially when the WH changes party hands is almost always a loser for the incumbent party in the WH. The recent exception of course was 2002 after 9-11 gave the country collective PTSD.
But it is unlikely the wingers will win enough to take back either chamber of congress, UNLESS we have a double dip recession, then all bets are off, at least for the House.
But the reverse could happen also, if we start creating at least some new jobs next year before summer, that would mitigate dem losses considerably, because of Obama’s high personal appeal and approval, I think.
Interesting times we live in.
jwb
@Ash Can: Assuming the results hold up, which I must say I’m more than a bit surprised by, I can honestly say that I would prefer to have taken the NJ governorship.
GambitRF
Hoffman almost prevented the first Democrat being elected in the district since 1840. Conservatives are back!!
jaquestraw
This is what the real leader of the us political system has in store for us ….http://prisonplanet.com/
Moonbatting Average
@jwb: Why? I mean, unless you live in Jersey, of course…
jwb
@General Winfield Stuck: “Interesting times we live in.”
I’m pretty sure that I’d prefer boring.
parksideq
@Ash Can: If I didn’t know better, I’d say they named themselves “Club For Growth” as an ironic measure. But we all know wingnuts have no sense of irony.
jaquestraw
Here is the link to your unelected leader http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOjckJWqb0A&feature=player_embedded
parksideq
@Moonbatting Average: Due to Jersey’s results, this New Yorker hopes that Christie’s tenure scares us enough to not vote for Giuliani next year.
kwAwk
And who’s fault is that really? Perhaps Bush was never held accountable to a notion of having to come back to the center because he made it fairly clear time and time again that he had no intention to do so.
It is Obama who portrayed himself as being the great unifier. It is also Obama who has insisted that things must be done in a bi-partisan manner.
Perhaps its time for Obama to say that there are things that need to be done and we’re going to do them with our without the conservapulicans.
jwb
@Moonbatting Average: Lots of friends who live in NJ and the governor has actual power in appointments and such; whereas one more wingnut in Washington versus a Democrat who is likely to be ousted in 2010—really who holds that seat doesn’t matter at all.
Josh
Via Sully:
http://washingtonindependent.com/66474/ny-23-watertown-mayor-its-over
The mayor of Watertown says it’s over, Hoffman lost.
jwb
@jaquestraw: Loving that pie, man. Did your mother teach you how to bake?
General Winfield Stuck
@kwAwk:
Perhaps it is time for you to improve your concern trollery.
Just one O-bot’s opinion.
Brian J
@Davis X. Machina:
That’s actually not a ridiculous scenario, if for no other reason than some clown on the right–K. Lo, perhaps–brought up the idea of actor Gary Sinise running on the Republican ticket in 2012. What they feel he brings to the table, other than some alleged ability to win, isn’t clear. But besides Patraeus, who would that person be? And would Patraeus even do it? I seem to remember his comments that people would be surprised at his political affiliation many months back.
Nicole
Boo, Bloomberg, boo. What is the matter with NYCers? The man buys off City Council to subvert the will of the voters and we reward him with another term. Seriously, we suck donkey balls.
Morbo
Sully on Colbert.
Ash
God, I hate these local elections. Democrat/Republican doesn’t matter in these things. It’s only “who I like and could do a good job vs. who I think is sucky”
kwAwk
lmao Is this the Obama Party or the Democratic Party we speak of?
Just because Obama wasn’t my first choice for President doesn’t mean that I don’t want the Democratic platform to succeed.
jwb
@kwAwk: “And who’s fault is that really? Perhaps Bush was never held accountable to a notion of having to come back to the center because he made it fairly clear time and time again that he had no intention to do so.”
That’s not actually how Bush ran in 2000. He was the man who worked with Democrats in Texas. He was not held accountable because it wasn’t in the interest of the MSM to hold him accountable; they did not want him held accountable because he was doing what they wanted.
“It is Obama who portrayed himself as being the great unifier. It is also Obama who has insisted that things must be done in a bi-partisan manner.”
This is true, and I would say it is still an open question as to whether Obama’s plan will work out. But he is following a plan and in 2010, it will get an initial assessment, and in 2012 it will prove either to have been sufficiently successful that he will be reelected or to have been a failure and he won’t be reelected.
Brian J
@General Winfield Stuck:
It’s likely that the Democrats will lose seats in the House because a lot of the districts they won in 2006 and 2008 aren’t Democratically partisan districts. The margins the Democrats won by most likely weren’t huge and thus it would take only a small push in the opposite direction for the seat to go back to the Republicans. This doesn’t mean that the Democrats aren’t at fault for losing the seats, of course, but rather that some very minor events, particularly local, could make a big difference in some races while having little to no impact on the national mood. The Democratic majority in the House right now is so massive that a loss of up to 20 seats would, I think, be pretty much nothing to worry about, provided it isn’t the first event in a barrage of bad news.
General Winfield Stuck
@kwAwk:
This has nothing to do with my comment.
And neither does this.
General Winfield Stuck
@Brian J:
I don’t disagree with anything you say here.
tammanycall
Because of the movie “Outrage”, whenever I see a reporter use the phrase “confirmed bachelor” to describe a politician, my brain says “closeted gay man”.
Ash Can
@parksideq: Hell, they don’t even have a sense of reality. They evidently think nothing of sacrificing erstwhile-safe GOP congressional seats upon the altar of ideological purity. If they want to keep doing that, they can be my guest.
I was reading speculation yesterday — I can’t remember where — about which “RINOs” the Club for Growth wackos might go after next, and Mark Kirk’s name came up. I’d absolutely love to see that happen. The North Shore bluebloods would kick the carpetbaggers’ asses up and down the lakefront for the duration of the campaign, and use whatever was left the morning after the election for compost.
And a correction: I got that bit about NBC calling NY-23 from a GOS diary and, whaddya know, those excitable kids over there jumped the gun. So no actual call yet, but Owens looks solid nonetheless.
Cain
@kwAwk:
So, voting in the opposite party is going to make it better? Especially when said party doesn’t even want to do health care reform?
cain
Moonbatting Average
Jeezus… Maddow just segued to Tweety who looks like he’s about to gag on air, and is transparently reading the TeLepromteRz… Has he been like this for a while? I don’t watch cable TV news all that much, but damn, it was uncomfortable to watch.
kwAwk
aye ye ye. Are we really going to get into the business of bitching about the media and how unfair they are to us at the height of our power? If so then I think we’re doomed to go the way of the Republicans.
Look. The American people respect strong leaders. Even ones who are doofuses like Reagan and Bush. Obama is going to need to show some strength on this healthcare bill and get it done and get it done soon. Especially if they are still planning on following it up with immigration reform, which would be a miserable plan in an election year.
Too many cooks stirring the pot on healthcare right now. To many special interests to please, to many constituencies. The Dems need to realize that this isn’t going to be passed without pissing somebody off, so them might as well bite the bullet and pass a good plan and let people get pissed off. People, once they get used to the new system will appreciate it and won’t want it changed.
This is what scares the Republicans. They know that once a public option is passed the people won’t let it go away so they’ve lost the issue for perpetuity.
Pass the damn thing already.
kay
Well. I’m pleased. Picking up two House seats is a fine result in an off-year election.
What do we hate about Owens? That’s his name, right?
kwAwk
General, concern trolling as I understand it is the notion of someone of an opposing viewpoint making a case about how things are going wrong for a political side.
We’re on the same side here. I assume we both want Democrats to succeed and a strong HCR package to pass. You’re tossing the words concern trolling at me makes it sound like you believe that because I wasn’t an Obama supporter from the get go that we are somehow on opposite sides a year and a half later.
General Winfield Stuck
@kwAwk:
Whatever you say Mr. Quack.
Fern
@tammanycall:
My brain says that, and i didn’t even see “Outrage”!
kay
@Ash Can:
Fox just called it.
Fox News Projects: Democrat Owens Wins Race for New York’s 23rd Congressional District
Take that as you will…
parksideq
The Club For Growth proves once again that it can throw elections. To Democrats.
Hoffman concedes; Owens is NY-23’s new congresscritter.
Moonbatting Average
@kay: Assuming Owens wins, the Dems only pick up one House seat. CA-10 was already Democratic (Ellen Tauscher). All the same, teabagger tears are still sweet, despite their being overly-steeped and tannic.
parksideq
Whoops, kay beat me to it.
@Ash Can: The next target of Operation GOP Electoral Bulimia – Charlie Crist.
Brian J
@General Winfield Stuck:
I have very little to base this on besides gut feeling, but if for some reason the Republicans take back the House in the next few election cycles, I think they’d do such a piss poor job of legislating that the Democrats would win it back soon after.
tammanycall
@Moonbatting Average:
But the CA-10 seat goes from a Blue Dog (Tauscher) to a Progressive (Garamendi). That is significant.
Brian J
@Ash Can:
I know nothing about Kirk, so tell me, what exactly has he done to displease the hard right?
Regardless, as a Democrat, it’s certainly amusing to see them sacrifice their own. If they go after Kirk, killing his possibly legitimate chances to win in Illinois, then the Democrats don’t have to worry about that race and can focus on getting to 67 or at least closer to it.
Brian J
@tammanycall:
Did some of your comment get cut off? Did you mean to say, “That is significantly good news for John McCain!”?
Midnight Marauder
Now that the dust is settling, doesn’t the Owens win kind of negate–at least in terms of the media narrative (like they ever gave a fuck about real world implications tonight)–the seeming momentum of a few hours before of the GOP gubernatorial wins? I mean, no less than 24 hours ago, this place was the site of The Great Teabagger Uprising of 2009 (Part XLVIII), and now…Owens wins? What do we even know about this guy? Sarahgeddon was robo-calling people and telling them to vote “Sarah’s values.” And somehow, Stephen Hawking Jr. lost to the no name Owens?
Surely, Obama’s approvals will shoot to 70% tomorrow, no?
Midnight Marauder
+8.
Also.
Davis X. Machina
Voted for the House’s ACES environmental bill, IIRC.
parksideq
@Midnight Marauder: One way to look at tonight’s results is that Democrats actually expanded their majority in the House of Representatives. Even still, this is excellent news for conservatives.
I can’t wait to hear right wingers like Malkin and Erick the Son of Erick claim that Hoffman lost because he wasn’t conservative enough. Always remember: conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed.
Ash Can
@kay:
I understand he’s a Blue Dog, so I’m sure we’ll be tearing our hair out over him soon enough. In the meantime, though, I’m enjoying a few good laughs at the expense of Dick Armey and his band of fools.
@Brian J: Davis X. Machina gives an example. Kirk is fairly moderate as Republicans go these days, and we know that none but the most frothingest of lunatics get the ideological purity stamp of approval from the de facto GOP leaders.
tc125231
@parksideq:
Or, as Horse Badorties might have said, “–Old blowhards never die, they just keep jabbering away.”
jcricket
Actually I think the meme will be that they still won because they purged a RINO and that the lesson is support the Conservative (big C) earlier and harder, b/c if people only got to know Hoffman better (instead of wasting all that time flirting with the fake Republican lady whose name I can’t spell) Hoffman would have won.
Again, win-win for Democrats.
Can’t say the same thing about Virginia and New Jersey. While I don’t think it proves we need to run more Russ Feingolds, it does prove that if you fail to make your case to the people and fail to differentiate yourself from the Republican, Obama and general D-leaning demographics ain’t gonna save you.
jcricket
@tammanycall: That’s at least one more net seat for the Ds this time around. The governorship’s hurt, but this is nothing but a bunch of local elections in an off-year. No messages for anyone to take too much to heart.
Steeplejack
@gwangung:
Yes, even if the formatting on his blog sucks. I hate that “reply to” multiple-indenting thing. Much better to use the Balloon Juice hyperlink “go backward if you dare” thing.
This blog has ruined me for all other blogs.
Steeplejack
@Mike G:
Full Danny Thomas spit-take LOL. Okay, I’m at about +4, but still . . .
Bob (Not B.o.B.)
I live near the Michigan Senate District 19. The Democrat essentially did not run a race against the Republican, Mike Nofs who at least comes off as a moderate. He even had some union endorsements.
Even though he was a shoe-in, he still ran a race that included anti-Detroit race-baiting. Way to take the high ground.
MNPundit
@gwangung: I guess, I stopped reading him. I just couldn’t relate to half the stuff he was talking about.
Which is a shame, he is a good writer. But I cannot bridge the divide between our experiences.