Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Random Notes from a Very Good Evening

...many candidates for most annoying narrative of the evening, but here is one: "the Dems are succeeding by moving to the right, by becoming in effect, more like moderate Republicans." It is true that some of the Dems who were successful in conservative areas are to the right of the quote-unquote center of the Democratic party. (For instance Bob Casey, who defeated Rick Santorum, is anti-choice and anti-gun control. OTOH, he's... not Rick Santorum.) But the broad spectrum of Dems didn't owe their victories to having co-opted Republican positions. If anything, they owe it to the Republican's abandoning reality and moving ever further to the right fringes (and doing so on first-class tickets paid for by Jack Abramoff).

... there wasn't any one state that had me saying "WTF?" last night. I was pleasantly surprised that South Dakota voted down a draconian anti-abortion law. I was not surprised to see many anti-gay marriage amendments pass, though I was happy to see my home state of Arizona buck the trend.

... who I was happiest to see thrown out: Richard Pombo in CA, Santorum, Ken Blackwell in OH. Katherine "Kabuki" Harris in FL. I was happy to see Arizona turn out blow-dried blow-hard JD Hayworth, who caused the conservative Arizona Republic to endorse his opponent and label him a "bully."

... person I was most hoping to see thrown out on their ass who wasn't: "Mean" Jean Schmidt (R-OH), who called Jack Murtha a coward on the floor of the House.

... expecting/dreading the new narrative, that Karl Rove somehow managed to "save" this election, make this disaster better than it otherwise might have been. How? How much worse could this have been for Bush and Co.? Short of a mob with torches and pitchforks showing up at the White House?

...very happy to watch Pombo go down in California, but this race also provided my personal highlight of the evening: Pombo held his post-election celebration at a restaurant called "Waterloo." I assume that's because "the Disastrous Failure Bay of Pigs Cantina" was booked.

... I wrote a new fake news piece: "Cheney Hears What Voters Are Saying: "Keep Up the Good Work"

2 Comments:

Blogger cuznate said...

that's just downright funny shit. the post and your fake news.

on the "dems succeeded because they embraced conservative dem candidates" point...the thing that's killing me is that no one is pointing out that if you're a conservative democrat that more or less means you're a moderate centrist who leans a bit left on some issues, and perhaps a bit right on a few others. a conservative democrat DOES NOT equal a conservative. but many pundits are just trying to sell the "it's still a good outcome for conservatives" angle, which is just plain dumb.

i agree that it's a victory that can should be attributed in no small measure to the inroads more conservative democrats were able to make, but that's a move to the middle, not a move to the right. let's not go overboard here mr. hume.

not as funny as your post, i know, but i'm not all that funny.

11:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with you on Jean Schmidt--she is Ann Coulter's slightly nicer twin. But they are still counting votes in her race. It is that close. Also J. D. Haworth is waiting for a miracle in the form of absentee and provisional ballots 80% in his favor. Not gonna happen. So you can add Sore Loser to Blow Hard Bully as his titles.

3:51 PM  

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