U.S. Midterm Elections

[TimothyC]

I wonder what the odds of an impeachment of Obama are now?

Next to Zero*. There are enough members of the republican leadership who remember it exploding in their face 15 years ago. Also, without the votes in the senate, it's a totally pointless act.

*It's not Zero. It's only non-Zero if the President does something that forces national democrats to disown him.

[LadyTevar]

WV now has GOP Shelly Moore-Capito as Senator (they're celebrating as 'first WV female in the Senate'. I'd rather have had Natalie Tennant, or even another man than Capito)
Evan Jenkins, the Koch Bros puppet that switched parties last year just to run GOP ended 38yrs of Nick Rahall in the House of Representatives. As much Koch money as they spent, I shouldn't be surprised. Folks were getting force-fed "Rahall and OBAMA will Kill Coal!!" and other scare tactics. ALso blamed him for ObamaCARE (when 90% of WV Voters are now on ACA health care. But hey, that's the Affordable Care Act, not OBAMACARE_OH_NOES) Even the State Newpaper puts it bluntly: "Rahall was seeking a 20th term in office in a district as hostile toward President Obama as that of any Democratic incumbent in the House."

The only good news? Last year the local county schools were banned from financially supporting the county library system. The Kanawha County Library system is now going to be fully financed by a $3mil levy over the next 5yrs, costing only $1.36/month for those living in the county. They can finally start to build the new Library to replace the 1920s building it's in now.

[Covenant]

What are the Republicans going to be doing now, realistically? Not pie-in-the-sky stuff like demolishing the senate and replacing it with a massive republican vending machine or something. Like, there's really no chance of them actually doing an impeachment hearing, even if they saber rattle for the amusement of their tribe. Do they really have a plan of any sort?

I'm too far to the left for the Democrat objectives to impress me, but as far as I can tell even the Republican plans have gotten muddled by a bunch of tea party nonsense that can never be effectively put into practice. I just want whoever gets in charge to leave the ACA intact so that I can continue getting healthcare that does not cost an arm and a leg. I'd would bemoan the loss of these seats to the Republicans but both parties are laughably inept. I'm not even worried they'll accomplish anything the Democrats wouldn't have done some version of anyway, as nothing is basically what has been happening anyway.

[Guardsman Bass]

That whole night really sucked, aside from the minimum wage victories and the fact that the two "personhood" bills got defeated (although Tennessee passed a law stripping women of any right to an abortion under the state constitution, so it's not a total pro-choice success). I can't believe that fucking Sam Brownback got re-elected in Kansas, and am only slightly less incredulous that Mr. Rick "Head of a hospital chain when it committed the greatest Medicare fraud in history" Scott won in Florida.

This is going to suck for the next two years. I'm not sure they'll push for impeachment, although they'll certainly make noise about it. Expect lots of red meat bullshit that will get passed on a party-line and vetoed by Obama, such as 25 "repeal Obamacare" bills, a 20 weeks abortion ban, possibly a national right-to-work law, something restricting the EPA from regulating carbon emissions, and so forth. Expect another fucking wave of grandstanding by Cruz over the budget and debt ceiling when that time comes, unless he pisses off enough Republicans in the House and Senate that they break caucus and vote with the Democrats on it. Expect about four trillion Darrell Issa-style "investigations".

The real question for me is whether the filibuster will die, since Democrats are now going to make use of it. The political media in Washington tends to have a double standard when it comes to Democratic stridency, meaning that Democratic filibuster efforts are likely to meet with greater condemnation than Republican ones along with a lot of condescending, smarmy bullshit about how Democrats need to make the "tough compromises" (translation: fold over and give Republicans everything) so that the government can run. But all the same, neither party has been willing to decisively kill it off when they're in power, including the Democrats (who only modified it so they could get some nominees through, and then only after years of obstruction).

[Thanas]

Everytime I think the US electorate is not composed of troglodytes, they do their best to prove me wrong. But then again, given how Obama is unwilling to fight for anything, not surprised. People won't vote for pushovers.

[Broomstick]

I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you that Chicago had voting irregularities!

Someone apparently robo-called election judges in that area and told them they weren't qualified to serve, resulting in a significant number not showing up at all and polling places not being able to open. They did start sorting it out, but that resulted in three hour plus waits to vote in some places and the polling places remaining open past normal closing time. I think I heard on the news this morning the last votes in Chicago were cast around 3 am this morning or something.

[Tsyroc]

In my state (Arizona) we have a new Republican Governor to take over for our old (Jan Brewer) Republican Governor.

Republicans won pretty much across the board. It was kind of expected but still disappointing.

In my congressional district (District 2) the election is so close that it probably won't be settled for days. The same two candidates were up against each other 2 years ago and the election wasn't decided until 12 days later. The Democratic incumbent Ron Barber, who originally replaced Gabby Giffords, is up against retired Lt. Colonel Martha McSally (former A-10 pilot). I voted for Barber but don't really mind McSally too much except for my general negative feelings towards the Republican party as a national whole, and that she was supposedly supported by the Koch brothers. (What is it with those guys anyway? Are they trying to totally fuck the entire country super villain style before they die? Are they playing some sort of game that I don't understand.)

The other things of note that are somewhat interesting/amusing.

Once again Arizona voters strongly voted against pay raises for state legislators. Currently they are paid a little more than $24,000 a year in salary. The ballot initiative wanted to add another $10K to that. I've been in Arizona since 1987 and this sort of initiative has been crushed every time it comes up. It's kind of funny in a way, can you imagine if the U.S. Congress had to get pay raises through the electorate? What is sad about it is I can't help but feel that people don't want professional, full-time legislators running the state government. Either that or they are expected to make up for their pay by taking bribes. It always feels like one of those "cut of your nose to spite your face" type of votes IMO.

My "favorite" tidbit of this election cycle is the retention, with 58% in favor, of a judge who the state judicial review gave an overwhelmingly negative recommendation. Her retention as a judge is a prime example of uninformed voters. Personally, I expected her to be retained but I was sort of impressed that the votes to keep her were so low. I was expecting her to still get 70-80% since most people either skip or vote yes for all of the judges.

[Irbis]

Is it just me or is this a thing in your politics that no one ever "wins" elections, rather the other guy just basically loses and the winner gets the victory by default?

Yeah, all you see these days is tiny candidate campaign 'vote me' and massive S-PAC slander 'the other guy is pile of shit'. I wonder if the rock bottom opinion about politicians in USA isn't indirectly caused by hugs rivers of vomit these unregulated funds produce.

But then again, it might be caused by lack of choice. Is USA even democracy at this point? Sure, there are some differences between two parties, but they are so similar fractions in Communist Party of the Soviet Union shown about as much separation. Hell, PZPR, SD and ZSL in People's Poland were more different than Tea Party to typical Democrats and you could have 'freely' voted for these. About the only difference is that approved parties were financed by government to take part in status quo confirming 'election', not by private big money.

[Borgholio]

Ok this wasn't the best election but I'm far from the "doom and gloom" stage.

Firstly, national level. GOP has the senate by a few seats. Big deal. They were able to shut down the whole fucking government last time with a minority, so gaining a slim majority won't change much. They have not gained much more ability to obstruct and cockblock than they did before. So maybe nothing gets done these next two years. How is that different from much of the last 6 again?

California State level - Democrats swept all levels of government except for certain areas of the State Assembly. Sweet. Scratching my head on a few of the state props being voted down though.

Prop 1 - Increased funding for improvement and repair of state water infrastructure. Also provides funding for restoring wetlands and natural watershed environments. Passed with 67%. Good.

Prop 2 - Constitutional Amendment to provide a "rainy day fund" for budget shortfalls and require state debts to be paid down faster. Passed with 66%. Also good.

Prop 45 - Requires health insurance companies to get approval from State insurance commissioner before increasing rates substantially changing benefit plans. Failed with 60%.

Ok so people in this state want to allow insurance companies to do what they want without oversight? Yeah we can trust the insurance companies. :-/ Idiots.

Prop 46 - Requires drug testing for doctors, increases medical malpractice damage cap from $250k to $1.1m to adjust for inflation. Failed with 67%.

Now this one is a bit iffy. I don't have enough data to know for certain exactly how many doctors are substance abusers, but they drug test bus drivers so why not drug test doctors too? And adjusting malpractice for inflation? Not THAT bad of an idea...inflation does happen and $250k if a doctor fucks up your life isn't much nowadays.

Prop 47 - Reduces certain non-violent drug and property offenses from felony status to misdemeanor and allocates savings due to lesser prison time to rehab and education programs. Passed with 58%. Good. Save prison space for those people who are actually violent.

Prop 48 - Allows a local Indian tribe to build a new casino. Failed with 61%.

So...people don't want the jobs created by the construction and operation of this casino, they don't want the tax revenue and fees from the gaming tables, they don't want the secondary economic benefit from tourists spending in the area, and they don't want to help a local Indian tribe get more funds to help their own citizens. Again, sometimes we can be really fucking stupid.

[Raw Shark]

Right-leaning mixed results in Colorado.

We got all of the Amendments and Propositions that I wanted (except Amendment 68: why the fuck not allow slot machines at racetracks that already allow betting on horses, with most of the resulting profits going to public schools? Because big advertising money from the mountain casinos afraid of losing their monopoly, and because people are thoughtless whores, that's why), which is good because 67 was a very deceptive and seductive abortion-banning Trojan horse ("Do you want to protect pregnant women by making it illegal to harm a fetus?" with pictures of 9-months pregnant women being dragged into an alley by a ski-masked rapist in the ad campaign), but we took it in the ass in the legislature, with the only bright spot being the retention of my district's Congresswoman (Diana DeGette), who played a major role in telling Wal-Mart to go fuck themselves when they demanded a significant tax break for operating in my neighborhood.

[Lord MJ]

Dems are in serious trouble. And I if were them I would redouble on standing for policies that are overwhelmingly supported by Americans, but the Dems were afraid to stand for because of fear of being labeled to liberal.

I would also support efforts to get a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics. No more Koch money. Now, the Dems take corporate donations too... but here's the thing, those corporations want conservative policies. Which means that the Dems would pursue conservative policies to please the donor base. Who will conservative people vote for again? Republicans! Dems are literally trying to appeal to a pool of voters that the Republicans have on lock, because their money people want policies that only appeal to conservatives, WHO WILL NOT VOTE DEMOCRAT!

We're not going back to the old days where the Democratic party had a large percentage of conservative America in it's ranks. They have LOST that base.

Barring the GOP doing something massively stupid, they are not getting it back anytime soon. And given that the GOP has already done things that are massively stupid, and they won last night. It should be clear that GOP stupidity is not going make conservatives look at the Democratic party as a better alternative

[Borgholio]

GOP is always doing something stupid. They're getting so right-wing crazy that the Dems often look moderate by comparison. Dems are not in any serious trouble unless this trend continues and they keep losing house seats. Losing a handful of seats is not a catastrophe.

[Elheru Aran]

As previously mentioned, this will almost certainly backfire on the GOP in '16 unless they look like they're actually doing something. This gives the GOP two years to obfuscate, whine, act truculently, and do nothing in general in Congress with the occasional marvelous display of assholery/idiocy.

IIRC, there are still enough Democrats in Congress that the GOP doesn't have enough of a majority to override a Presidential veto. The downside of that is now they can more directly blame Obama for nothing getting done... but it's not really important as he's going out of office anyway.

We just have to make it through the next couple years or so...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Somehow, I'm cynical enough to believe that these days, Americans are conservative enough that they'd forgive anything the Republicans do, however stupid it is. This board is not representative of the population at large.

[Lord MJ]

The GOP strategy would almost certainly pass legislation that is designed to fail with either the Dems fillibuster, or Obama pulls out the veto pen. So they can turn around and blame Democrats for being obstructionist.

[Borgholio]

So they can turn around and blame Democrats for being obstructionist.

So? Better to be labeled obstructionist than let Tea-Party bullshit get passed. Plus if anybody throws a stink we can always show them the government shutdown and tell them that payback is a bitch.

[Thanas]

Liberals do not have the balls for that.

[Borgholio]

Liberals do not have the balls for that.

Well, "I" do. But sadly, a number of liberal leaders don't.

[Raw Shark]

Liberals do not have the balls for that.

Well, "I" do. But sadly, a number of liberal leaders don't.

+1. I would rather play chicken with the liberal leadership than let them reap my vote but pussy out at every turn, at this point. I no longer see a compromise benefit in letting Democrats who don't support my agenda lead the state on the executive level. Legislatively, I still support the left, but in the general sense they have fucked themselves through being completely ineffective here.

[Borgholio]

Yeah I dunno how I'm going to vote when Feinstein is up for re-election. She's a fucking idiot...but it'd leave a bad taste in my mouth to vote GOP. I'll probably have to show up to the polling booth drunk. Or hope there's a viable Democratic contender...

[Thanas]

Lol, Dianne "I don't care about civil liberties limitless NSA is just fine....WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY READ MY OWN EMAILS?" Feinstein.

[Borgholio]

Lol, Dianne "I don't care about civil liberties limitless NSA is just fine....WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY READ MY OWN EMAILS?" Feinstein.

Yes indeed, that would be the one. She's usually the person that Tea-Partiers point to when trying to make an example of how Liberals are evil. Funny thing is, even WE think she's a moron...so it's like saying Fred Phelps represents all Conservatives.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Dems are in serious trouble. And I if were them I would redouble on standing for policies that are overwhelmingly supported by Americans, but the Dems were afraid to stand for because of fear of being labeled to liberal.

Ugh. No. The Democrats aren't in serious trouble. The party of the President always takes a beating during midterms. On top of that, we're in a time of global insecurity and economic pessimism ... So a GOP takeover of the Senate was, essentially, a given.

However, the shoe will be on the other foot in 2016 ... the sorts of voters that put the President over the top in 2012 will be back out for the Presidential election. Also, the GOP has a bunch of very vulnerable seats in the Senate that they will have to defend in 2016 ... so they'll probably lose control of the Senate then.

Also, there are some non-trivial divisions between the 'mainstream' GOP, and the lunatic right; and you can expect those cracks to really start showing over the next two years, thanks to the fact that the Republicans in Congress will almost certainly let their ambitions get the better of them (which is to say, we can look forward to two more years of hopeless gridlock.)

[TheHammer]

This was an anti-incumbent vote in many areas, except for those where they have been long entrenched. It's also the result of the gerrymandered districts we were stuck with after the last census.

As noted Dems still hold the trump card of the un-overidable Veto. Republicans will have to compromise, because if nothing improves its going to be the Republicans who catch the blame this time and you'll see the pendulum swing back the other way next cycle.

[Borgholio]

Yeah they need 2/3 of both houses of Congresses to override a Presidential Veto...which ain't happening. So they'll probably use their majority to try and pass a shitload of new anti-liberal bills...and Obama will come down with writer's cramp from vetoing them all.