I am still trying to figure out why Kentucky vote Rand Paul (R/TP) as their new Senator. How he will represent the people of Kentucky remains a mystery to me.
On the other hand, it looks like we won’t have any (known) SS war re-enactors in Congress this year, nor professional wrestling executives.
Also, Christine O’Donnell looks to have crazied her way out of an election victory (as, it appears, Sharon Angle has done in losing her Senate bid against Harry Reid). On the other hand, Michelle Bachmann is angling for a House leadership role, God help us.
Blanche Lincoln (D) is out. As a Blue Dog, that doesn’t change a whole heck of a lot.
Alan Grayson (D) has lost his seat in Florida, badly. He drew a lot of national support for his refreshing nasty criticism of the GOP, but a goodly amount of national fire for some nasty advertising. Regardless, Florida wasn’t going to be friendly this year, and all the blogger-love in the world doesn’t mean diddly in one’s own district.
While some GOP felons are seeking redemption, James Traficant demonstrated that Dems can’t expect the same breaks.
Louisiana has reelected their lack-of-family-values Vitter (R) back to the Senate.
A shame that Russ Feingold (D) lost his Senate bid, while John McCain (R) won his. Though, honestly, I’d rather see McCain in office than the guy he almost lost to in the primaries.
It’s interesting to note that there will be no blacks in the Senate this term.
It’s also interesting that if Dan Maes doesn’t hit 10% of the vote for Governor, the GOP will lose its “major party” status here in Colorado. Which basically means that the GOP candidates will get shuffled down in the listing amidst the Greens and American Constitution Party and other fringe groups. Thanks, Dan!
It appears that Jerry Brown will once again be “Governor Moonbeam” in California (why anyone would even want that job surpasseth all understanding), and Boxer will return to the Senate. Kind of admire Brown, really don’t like Boxer, but glad to see Fiorina and Whitman go down in flames.
Looking around at the various analyses of who turned out, who didn’t, etc., some broad conclusions:
- It’s the economy, stupid. Whether it was successful framing by the GOP, poor arguing from the Dems, or whatever, the fact that the economy is still doing so poorly (regardless of who’s to blame) was a key point in zapping the Dems.
- Things are grim for the Dems, no doubt — the House lost, the Senate barely held onto. It’s worth noting that it’s not the blow-out that some Republicans and pundits were predicting — but it’s not a happy time.
- Did the Dems fail though a failure to tack far enough to the center, or a failure to tack far enough to the left? Or a failure to communicate what they actually managed to get accomplished. Expect to see massive infighting over the issue, even as the GOP spins it as, well, duh, their being liberal-socialists whose evil Kenyan-Marxist agenda must be erased.
I’m not looking forward to the next two years. And so it goes.
Resume-truthiness-challenged Mark Kirk (R) won in Illinois.
Debate-challenged Jan Brewer (R) won the governorship in AZ.
Very disappointed that Russ lost here in Wisconsin. This AM the progressive radio guys were doing some, rather calm, analysis of what happened, at it seems clear that the difference was the rural vote turnout.
It seems that the rural voters tend to be more conservative generally, and in states like Wisconsin far more likely to be white and lower information voters. Combined with the really negative campaigning that played to their fears and (R) campaigns that outspent (D) by three to one in many districts.
That tends to be true for rural voters everywhere — conservative by nature, usually with a libertarian twist (except for farm subsidies, of course).
Glad to see California voters (a) continued to try and keep elected officials out of the redistricting process, (b) brought some much-needed sanity to the budget rules for the legislature, and (c) soundly rejected the efforts of Big Oil to water down their anti-climate change law.