Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital
I, personally, think that with some of the more recalcitrant Teabaggers, the real, secret reason that party leader's assistants are called Whips will come out.Elfdart wrote:Am I the only one disturbed the the thought of the nation being tea-bagged by Speaker Boner?
On the other hand, consider that the Republicans now have to work with the Democrats or face crucifixion in the 2012 elections. Meanwhile, people tend to credit the President, rather than Congress, for economic recovery, so if the economy starts to pick up in the next year or two, Obama will reap the credit.Stravo wrote:As I try to swallow back the vomit rising as I listen to Boehner's speech (God he's actually fucking crying) I simultaneously can't help thinking the Democrats earned every bit of this beat down. Thanks for two years of a complete and utter failure of leadership and vision and thanks for two years of Tea Party insanity that will hold your agenda hostage for the next two years and likely render Obama into a black Jimmy Crater. Bravo assholes. Bravo.
I've been disturbed since I left the polling place. On the topic of the midterms . . . son of a goddamned motherfucking whore, I wish I hadn't looked up the early returns for my state. Teabaggers are winning from top to bottom, except maybe, hopefully, Congressional District 8, where it's looking like we'll send our local Blue Dog back to Congress. Propositions "KILL OBAMACARE!" and "OPPRESS DEM DAMN UPPITY NEGROES" (i.e. ban state affirmative action) are passing handily, to name the most egregiously, offensively, stupid propositions on a ballot generally filled with offensively stupid propositions. Medical marijuana is failing. John "I'm so old, I remember when Saint Ronald was an actor" McCain is crushing his opponent, and that crazy old hag Brewer known for such insanities as SB1070 and giving all jackasses the right to concealed-carry when and wherever the fuck they want without training, is winning re-election.Elfdart wrote:Am I the only one disturbed the the thought of the nation being tea-bagged by Speaker Boner?
Makes me almost happy I moved to Texas. Almost.GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:I've been disturbed since I left the polling place. On the topic of the midterms . . . son of a goddamned motherfucking whore, I wish I hadn't looked up the early returns for my state. Teabaggers are winning from top to bottom, except maybe, hopefully, Congressional District 8, where it's looking like we'll send our local Blue Dog back to Congress. Propositions "KILL OBAMACARE!" and "OPPRESS DEM DAMN UPPITY NEGROES" (i.e. ban state affirmative action) are passing handily, to name the most egregiously, offensively, stupid propositions on a ballot generally filled with offensively stupid propositions. Medical marijuana is failing. John "I'm so old, I remember when Saint Ronald was an actor" McCain is crushing his opponent, and that crazy old hag Brewer known for such insanities as SB1070 and giving all jackasses the right to concealed-carry when and wherever the fuck they want without training, is winning re-election.Elfdart wrote:Am I the only one disturbed the the thought of the nation being tea-bagged by Speaker Boner?
. Damn glad I voted rather than sitting on my ass thinking Northern VA is safe.
Posted on Tue, Nov. 2, 2010
Toomey beats Sestak
By Thomas Fitzgerald
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Republican Pat Toomey beat Democrat Joe Sestak to win Pennsylvania's open U.S. Senate seat Tuesday, according to unofficial returns.
With over 98 percent of the districts counted, Toomey had nearly 51 percent of the vote, to Sestak's 49 percent.
The Senate race presented voters with a clear ideological choice between a Democrat occupying his party's left flank and a conservative Republican leader.
Sestak, a former Navy admiral and second-term member of the U.S. House from Delaware County, has been a loyal ally of President Obama, backing the financial-system bailouts begun under President George W. Bush, the federal stimulus package, and the overhaul of the health-care insurance system.
Toomey, who began his career as a Wall Street investment banker and later helped start a family chain of sports bars, is a staunch conservative who represented a Lehigh Valley district in the House from 1999 to 2005. After that, Toomey was head of the Club for Growth, a Wall Street-backed free-market advocacy group that campaigns for lower taxes and less regulation on business
As befits a state with a strong pragmatic street, Sestak and Toomey fought over the middle ground, each claiming to be the voice of moderation while painting his opponent as a flaming extremist.
An estimated $39 million has been spent on the race, according to Federal Election Commission reports tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.
At least $25 million of that came from the two parties' national Senate campaign committees, who invested heavily in Pennsylvania, along with a slew of third-party interest groups freed by a recent Supreme Court decision to use corporate and union money to directly influence elections.
Overall, Toomey had about a $6 million spending edge on his Democratic rival.
Most of the cash went into negative ads on television aimed at state voters who had been trending Democratic blue in national races for more than a decade but lurched toward the Republicans this year, in response to the angst over the economy that has also swept much of the country.
The campaign was quirky from its inception.
First, the incumbent, five-term Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, jumped parties to avoid a GOP primary challenge from the more conservative Toomey.
When he made the move in April 2009, Specter said bluntly that polls showed he could not win as a Republican; the party's base had howled for his blood after his vote secured passage of Obama's stimulus.
In 2004, Toomey had come within 17,000 votes out of more than one million cast of beating Specter in the GOP primary.
It turned out Specter couldn't win as a Democrat either. Obama, Vice President Biden and the entire Democratic establishment backed the veteran lawmaker, and few believed that Sestak could win. Some officials tried to get him to drop his challenge.
He went on to crush Specter in the primary. Even so, many figured Toomey was the general election front-runner, and the Republican led clearly in much of the polling, until a few weeks ago, when the polls started tightening.
California Voters Give Brown Another Turn as Governor
Published November 02, 2010
Democrat Jerry Brown has capped a political journey in California that began the year man landed on the moon, defying an era of term limits to return to the office he held 28 years ago.
The 72-year-old state attorney general will take the helm of a state mired in recession and high unemployment after defeating Republican Meg Whitman, a billionaire former chief executive of eBay who spent $142 million of her personal fortune on her campaign.
Brown's victory Tuesday will return the governor's office in the nation's most populous state to Democratic control. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger leaves office in January after a little more than seven years in office.
Brown, the son of a former two-term governor, has spent a lifetime in and out of politics that began when he was seated on the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees in 1969.
Brown was California's 34th governor during his previous tenure from 1975 to 1983, and now becomes its 39th.
He told voters they could count on his government "know-how" to work with lawmakers in an attempt to fix the many problems plaguing the nation's most populous state.
"I know where all the bodies are buried over there at the Capitol, where all the skeletons are buried," he joked at a campaign rally over the weekend. "In fact, I created some of them."
As the campaign entered its final days, Brown promoted his deep ties in California, with family roots stretching to the Gold Rush era, presenting an image of a native son deeply connected to the place he will oversee for a second time.
His win over Whitman in a governor's race that set a campaign spending record came in a year when Republicans appeared to have the edge and were expected to win a majority of governor's seats across the country.
Brown, who has run for president three times and lost a run for U.S. Senate, returns to the governor's office as a more mature but still unconventional politician, one who often speaks his mind and rarely relies on a script or notes when he goes before a crowd.
The race between Brown and Whitman turned increasingly negative in the final weeks, when the airwaves were filled with attack ads.
Whitman's campaign was knocked off message when it was revealed that she had employed an illegal immigrant housekeeper for nine years, undermining her warnings that employers should be held responsible and fined if they hire illegal workers.
Brown faced his own controversy after a Los Angeles police union released an audio tape of a private conservation between Brown and his campaign staffers. A female aide was overheard calling Whitman a "whore" for currying favor with the union to win its endorsement.
The controversies at times overshadowed debates on more substantive issues such as job creation, the budget deficit, college costs and public education.
Brown's prize for returning to the Capitol is trying to lead the troubled state out of high unemployment, a stagnant economy and political gridlock. He is expected to face a multibillion dollar budget deficit and has said he will start meeting with lawmakers as soon as December to find solutions.
Successive years of steep deficits have left the state's general fund with $15 billion less than it had just three years ago, leading to severe cuts in many state programs and higher costs for college and university students.
Neither Brown nor Whitman offered specifics about how to solve California's budget gridlock. Brown campaigned on a moderate platform, saying he would not raise taxes without voter approval and would try to control labor and pension costs by bucking the powerful public employee unions that spent $26 million to support his campaign.
Brown told voters that after decades of public service he was uniquely qualified to bring lawmakers together to turn the state around. He compared Whitman's lack of experience to that of Schwarzenegger, who stepped into the governor's office with no previous experience as an elected official.
When he is sworn in this January, Brown will be the second oldest governor to hold the office, after Gov. Frank Merriam, who turned 74 during his final weeks in office in 1939. Brown will be 76 at the end of his term in 2014.
Brown was eligible to run because his previous stint as governor came before voters enacted term limits. Only one other California governor has served three terms, Republican Earl Warren, who became the 14th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Warren resigned the governor's office with a little more than a year left in his final term.
Brown's father, Gov. Pat Brown, lost his 1966 re-election attempt for a third term to Ronald Reagan.
LMSx wrote:NBC News declares Harry Reid beats Sharron Angle.
Another blown pickup opportunity. If the Dems keep Lieberman in the caucus and maintain a 1 or 2 seat margin, I wonder how many Tea Partiers will second guess this?
That's assumes the Republicans are still capable of that sort of reasoning. Two electoral defeats only taught them that they lost because they weren't "conservative" enough. They started out 2009 with the express mission to wreck the Obama presidency. Now, enough of these teabagger freaks managed to win office to ensure that there will be no cooperation with Democrats on anything. Not only will the Republicans not consider the possibility of defeat in 2012, they will act as if they've got 2012 in the bag already.Bakustra wrote:On the other hand, consider that the Republicans now have to work with the Democrats or face crucifixion in the 2012 elections.
2004 completely destroyed my faith in the American people to vote intelligently; I'm felling grim satisfaction right now at having been proven right again.Flagg wrote:Fuck me. Never underestimate the sheer, jawdroppingly immense stupidity of the American people.
Damn. I actually voted FOR that. I'm not surprised though, Prop 19 made an incredibly weak attempt at campaigning.eion wrote:Looks like California will not be legalizing marijuana this time around.
I noticed a lot of the major newspapers came out against it, even papers that are nominally liberal (SJ Mercury News, SF Chronicle).CaptainChewbacca wrote:Damn. I actually voted FOR that. I'm not surprised though, Prop 19 made an incredibly weak attempt at campaigning.eion wrote:Looks like California will not be legalizing marijuana this time around.
