All of a sudden, it’s looking pretty likely that the Dems will be declared the winner in the Virginia Senate race, giving them the Cinderella Story majority … barely. Which makes it a whole new ballgame again some more, and makes me feel a whole lot better about any Supreme Court nominations the next few years.
(I think it’s still too early to call it, but the coverage seems to suggest that Allen, still looking to the future, is afraid of being seen as a sore loser or someone who’d drag Virginia into a Florida-style election struggle. I think the stakes for the GOP are still too high, even with that, but …)
Not that it’s all smooth sailing. Ginny suggests that “Joe Lieberman just became the second most powerful man in the Senate,” capable of turning a 51-49 Senate into a 50-50, with Cheney to break ties, any time he wants (a la Jeff Jeffords). The reality is, of course, that’s going to be true of any Senator, and on any issue. Party politics aside, there are conservative
Dems who will cross over on some issues, just as there are liberal Republicans who will do so. Even without the cloture rules (and we’ll see how long it takes for the Dems to talk about “going nuclear” and the GOP to squawk no fair), the Senate is going to be a very tenuous balance of power.
The main thing the count will provide is the ability of the Dems to arrange the agenda and control the committees. It will be interesting to see, too, if the GOP starts bitching about the processes they put in place over the last several years that shut the Dems out of much of the picture. I’m willing to enjoy a bit of shoes being unexpectedly on other feet.
Regardless, neither side is going to be able to take anything for granted in the Senate. Which, frankly, suits me just fine.
Dave…
You are all underlinie…
Find the missing / ;P
Um … looking at this page, and the main page, in both FF and IE, and I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Everything under the “Geek Press” in the post above is the Dashed Underline thing.
An added note on the Senate thing. ElectoralVote points out that, after the ’94 GOP “tsunami,” a couple of Senators jumped ship from the Dems to the GOP — Richard Shelby in Alabama, and our own Ben Nighthorse Campbell here in Colorado.
Are there any moderate Republicans who might change colors (or go “Independent”)? That would make the Senate a lot more solid.
EV suggests that Spector (PA), Snowe (ME), or Collins (ME) would all be possibilities.
Spotted what you were talking about in IE, BD. Firefox isn’t having that problem (cough). It’s an odd anomaly, it seems, with the Acronym flagger (actually junked most of the post).
Ah. Figured it out. The acronym definition included quotation marks, which messed up the tags (in IE). Annoying. Fixed.
Yeah, I assumed that it was an IE problem when you didn’t see it. ;P
I figure it’s easier for Joe Lieberman to declare that he’ll take his ball and go caucus with the Republicans than for someone else to actually switch parties, but you’re right, anybody could pitch a hissy and hop over the rope.
Oh, and Allen conceded. So there we are for the moment.