Heh, well I agree :
since Im pretty sure the Dems won’t take the White House in 2006 
Probably true, but holding the majority has more import than just winning votes – the majority controls committee chairmanships. So if the Repubs hang on by a single member, we won’t see any Congressional investigations in this term. Conversely, if the Dems manage to eke out a one-member majority in either House or Senate…it may very well turn out to be a fun 2 years.
You put such a negative spin on it. I prefer to say, “Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia, and Justice Alito will not receive the mandate of the voters in 2006.” Nobody can argue with that.
I can. I think the decisions reached by those 3 are more mainstream than those of the so-called liberal justices. If we elected SCOTUS justices, either of them would beat Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a landslide. Well, maybe not Scalia, but that’'s because of his persnality, not his jurisprudence.
Ahem. Such Justices will not receive a mandate from the voters because they don’t appear on ballots. I was merely ridiculing HCG’s grasp of civics.
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You are oh, so wrong in this case.
Can you say ‘hearings’, children? I knew you could.
If I were the Dems and I got a majority in either house I’d get the hearings going at such a fever pitch it would make 1998 look like a high school election. I’d hammer Bush and his entire team (and any likely successor) until people were whispering that maybe HE was in league with the terrorists. Keep up the skeer as long as possibly and see if Bush melts down when subpeona’s start flying.
I ain’t even particularly partisan. But in that situation that’s sure as shit what I’d be planning. It might not be enough of a majority to do much but it’s sure enough to cause the other side endless grief.
I hadn’t thought of that, but the ability to hole hearings could be a double-edged sword. If the Democrats do find themselves in control of the House then they’ll need to resist the urge to impeach Bush. Unless they can prove he planned 9/11 there’s no chance they’d get 2/3rds of the Senate to remove him. I agree that it would be a good idea to make everyone who’s had contact with him to look like slime.
All of that is simply politically uninformed. As you note: how various candidates perform election to election cannot simply be matched up year to year as if all elections are the same, and yet that’s basically what it comes down to for your case. If such simplistic judgements were possible, then the huge multi-million dollar statistical consulting firms employed by both parties would be out of a job. Some elections have weak unknown unfunded candidates vs. powerful incumbents while others have powerful challengers. You have to control for all of that. You also cannot confuse the switch from Democrats to Republicans that happened as racial politics shifted. What you need to look at are the relative concerns and party affiliations of people in the state. Virginia is significantly more Republican and conservative than the opposite, end of story.
You can’t just look at races in isolation of the different factors at play swinging the race one way or the other, as you have done. Look at the Kilgore AG race in 2001. He CRUSHED his opponent. But Republican strength isn’t actually that strong. His opponent simply was terrible and supported gun control too much, a big no no.
The fact is very simple. Republicans control the state of Virginia politically. Both parties, who make it their business to know these things, know this and treat it as a fact of life, which I think makes your feelings somewhat irrelevant. Democrats have an uphill battle to win, and have done so in large part to a number of special factors (fair disclosure: I’ve worked for the Virginia Democratic Party).
Republican domination is clearly true in the state house, and because there will simply not be enough competative races for Dems to win things back over the next couple of years no matter how well they do. This is a state in which the anti-gay marriage iniative will pass handily, where gun control is still a death knell, where eliminating parole was the winning issue for George Allen, taes are a huge issue, and the death penalty is near invoilable. It’s narrowly on the cusp over choice.
Granted: Virginia is not an ultra-conservative state, and it isn’t a bunch of racist hicks who would cheer Allen’s past racism as some here have implied. But it also isn’t a Democratic state. Not yet.
Democrats normally do not bother to spend almost any money at all in Virginia for national races, and Republicans follow suit because of it. There’s just no disputing this. Had Allen not starting the whole macaca ball rolling, Jim Webb would not have had any chance at all, despite being far more moderate than most Democrats.
Nevertheless, you are correct: the state is becoming much more moderate over time, largely because of rapid growth in urban areas and powerful persusion gains in exurban areas that Republicans have traditionally dominated.
All of that is simply politically uninformed. As you note: how various candidates perform election to election cannot simply be matched up year to year as if all elections are the same, and yet that’s basically what it comes down to for your case. If such simplistic judgements were possible, then the huge multi-million dollar statistical consulting firms employed by both parties would be out of a job. Some elections have weak unknown unfunded candidates vs. powerful incumbents while others have powerful challengers. You have to control for all of that. You also cannot confuse the switch from Democrats to Republicans that happened as racial politics shifted. What you need to look at are the relative concerns and party affiliations of people in the state. Virginia is significantly more Republican and conservative than the opposite, end of story.
You can’t just look at races in isolation of the different factors at play swinging the race one way or the other, as you have done. Look at the Kilgore AG race in 2001. He CRUSHED his opponent. But Republican strength isn’t actually that strong. His opponent simply was terrible and supported gun control too much, a big no no.
The fact is very simple. Republicans control the state of Virginia politically. Both parties, who make it their business to know these things, know this and treat it as a fact of life, which I think makes your feelings somewhat irrelevant. Democrats have an uphill battle to win, and have done so in large part to a number of special factors (fair disclosure: I’ve worked for the Virginia Democratic Party).
Republican domination is clearly true in the state house, and because there will simply not be enough competative races for Dems to win things back over the next couple of years no matter how well they do. This is a state in which the anti-gay marriage iniative will pass handily, where gun control is still a death knell, where eliminating parole was the winning issue for George Allen, taes are a huge issue, and the death penalty is near invoilable. It’s narrowly on the cusp over choice.
Granted: Virginia is not an ultra-conservative state, and it isn’t a bunch of racist hicks who would cheer Allen’s past racism as some here have implied. But it also isn’t a Democratic state. Not yet.
Democrats normally do not bother to spend almost any money at all in Virginia for national races, and Republicans follow suit because of it. There’s just no disputing this. Had Allen not starting the whole macaca ball rolling, Jim Webb would not have had any chance at all, despite being far more moderate than most Democrats.
Nevertheless, you are correct: the state is becoming much more moderate over time, largely because of rapid growth in urban areas and powerful persusion gains in exurban areas that Republicans have traditionally dominated.
This is indeed the key point in this election.
Seems like Allen just exploded even further. In addition to the classmate with the “I came to VA where they know their place” and “deer in mailbox” stories, we now have:
- a named (not anon) guy who came to Allen’s house who says Allen told him that “only the n***ers eat turtles”
- a named (not anon) Republican activist who says that Allen used the word all the time, particularly in cahoots with Republican Senator Conrad Burns. This includes stating that even though Doug Wilder had won the governorship that, don’t worry, the n***ers aren’t taking over VA.
- Larry Sabato, a nationally reknowned political commentator (often described as centrist or even somewhat conservative) says that he knows that Allen is lying when he says he’s never used the n word.
Again, this stuff is just getting to the point where there are too many uncoordinated people, both named and anonymous confirming not only Allen’s choice of language, but his attitude, which is more damning than anything else.
Can Webb and his band of merry goofballs manage to screw this once in a lifetime chance anyway? Only time will tell. However, put VA back in the running for a Dem pickup.
Oh. Never mind!
No, here I disagree. They do need to Impeach Bush, even though we all know the Senate won’t vote to convict/remove GWB. When it can be seen that anytime the House can it will “impeach” the opposition no matter what (and IMHO, the Dems got a much better case against GWB than the GOP had against Clinton), then Congress will have to tighten up and get back to what the Founders likely meant by “Impeach” = “High Crime”= which means a crime for which the Death Penalty is in consideration. Yes, I know they wrote “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” but it’s unlikely they meant that the President could get removed for minor crimes.
How do you know that?
By earlier request, Lieberman’s lead in CT Senate Race at 10 points, according to recent poll. (Hartford Courant website, AP article, registration not required when this was posted).
I disagree that we should be impeaching Bush. To do so would make the Democrats look as vindictive and petty as the Republicans. If the Democrats get into power, they need to work to do good work so they might stick around for a while.
The Times site now shows 47 safe Republican Senate seats and 2 leaning Republican seats. The tossups are RI, OH, MO, NJ, and TN. Now I’m thinking that the Dems will sweep all of these plus snag VA, making a Democratic control of 52-48.
Should it come down to Lieberman’s vote being decisive to force a Democratic majority or force a tie for Cheney to break, which way would he go? I’m thinking he would come down on the Republican side.
Disappointed that I missed out on the action with Bricker, I’ll lay a wager of any amount you wish that should this situation arise, Lieberman would absolutely vote Democratic. In fact, I’d suggest a wager of any amount you wish, the bigger the better, and I’ll even lay ten to one odds that Lieberman votes Democratic.
Unfortunately, there’s almost no chance that Dems will reach 51 seats, so it is surely a moot bet.
I want in on that action, too! Maybe **Bob **can clarify if he was talking only about impeachment wrt Lienerman’s vote, or if he meant “in general”. Let’s remember that JL’s history is that he votes 90% of the time with the majority of Democracts. Of course, impeachment comes from the House, not the Senate, so any vote by JL would be for conviction, not impeachment itself.