The 2006 American Midterm Election Day Thread

xp

As is the case with the American people overall, the majority of ordinary Democrats want US forces leave to quit Iraq in the immediate or relatively near future. This was not the posture of Democratic candidates approved by [Rahm] Emanuel, particularly in tight races. Most of them have talked about withdrawal as a matter of many months. The Democratic leadership would sign onto a McCain beef-up plan in minutes, flailing away at Bush for the next two years for losing the war...

Campaign 2006 has shown us clearly enough that about the outer limit of popular sanction is the ability to lodge a formal protest on Election Day. ...The fact that this protest is purely formal is attested by the adamant refusal of the Democrats to offer anything by way of a substantive alternative, beyond saying Bush is an incompetent fellow. Indeed, the substantive effect of Campaign 2006 has been to state in terms plain enough for a simpleton to understand, that resistance is futile, since both Republicans and Democrats agree that the Bill of Rights is a dead letter and that wars must go on, and jobs to disappear, despite overwhelming popular disagreement with such policies.

Pick a topic--the war, the economy, a two million-plus prison population, the environment, the condition of organized labor, the Bill of Rights--and can you recall any Democrat this fall having said anything suggesting that in the event Democrats recapture either the House or the Senate or both anything of consequence might occur?

...As things stand in organized politics today a purely formal protest is the most we can hope for, and the significance of this fall's campaign is that no one has pretended otherwise.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11062006.html

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/homepage/hp11-7-06c.jpg

http://www.fingerforcongress.org

for guv and Senate, voted Green (Party, not Mark).

But I'm in New York, and I'm really rallying for John Spencer by default.

Orange was a pretty good album, after all.

This is the last chance, really, by getting some new chairpersons to head committees in the House ... to have a clean sweep, which, in normal times, if we’d ever enjoyed them, would have happened by now. Now it has got to happen, or welcome to the Third Reich.

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20061105_gore_vidal_the_most_important_election_in_my_lifetime/

(video interview in full)

you know, I think Harold Ford just might pull this off

I think today might be the first day in history in which Bernie Sanders has been described as a "bloke." Perhaps it will not be the last.

Some talk radio shows in San Diego are getting lots of callers from San Diego reporting major problems in voting: long lines, electronic voting machines that don't work, people leaving because they have to go to work.

Some voters have reportedly asked for paper ballots and are filling them out. A judge reportedly has said paper ballots don't have to be counted until Thursday.

Apparently the complaints are coming from voters on the right and on the left. Several callers on one station said they have voted at the same precincts for years and have never seen it so chaotic.

The question that will be debated if reports like this come from throughout the country today will be whether this is due to incompetence or political design. That'll depend on the number of reports such as this and if there is a pattern.

If the Democrats fail to capture the House and the Senate, it would provide a psychic boost for the White House and some political vindication for Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser. But given the intramural Republican squabbling of the past two years, it seems fair to say that nothing much could be expected out of Congress for the next two.

here in st louis there are some reports of polls opening late, long lines, but I don't think anything's truly dire. The ballot is kind of long, I hope people don't get tired of waiting. local news said that mccaskill had to wait a half hour to vote and talent had to wait an hour--they both live in republican areas.

e.g. www.intrade.com (everything quoted as percentage probabilities)

http://specials.slate.com/futures

The shocking thing was, I went right before work, at 7:15am... just 15 minutes after polls started.

I live in a relatively quiet part of Seattle city proper. For this year's primary, I came in at 7:45am and i was the first person to appear at my stationed voting venue.

This morning? I barely got a booth! The people behind me either had to wait, or they had to set up *cardboard on the floor* to respect their privacy and had them vote on the floor! The poll workers only did this because the voter asked for this, because she had to go to work, but the voter did NOT complain!

This is 10 times more active than what I saw at the same place *later* that morning in 2004.

This may just be an isolated incident, but if I'm wrong, this at least could disprove that voter apathy has caused attrition in this country. Just maybe.

That's the only flicker of hope I'm going to offer. I'm going to just try and ignore the news the rest of the day if possible.

But please, my American friends who can vote, please do so if you haven't already.

This makes me think of how I've just been waiting for the day after voting two weeks back -- I'm all, "Gah, can it just HAPPEN, please?"

This morning it was broken, so they just had people slide the ballots into the manual slot, which was designed in case the machine broke down. For some reason, I feel more relieved that I inserted my ballot manually. Wonder why.

that, and his early voting edge, and Clinton's masterful appearance last week, and two polls in the last two days showing Ford within the margin. I still think Corker's probably got it by about 4, though.

and if they're going to insist on an election day and not an election week, why does it always have to be on a tuesday? why not a saturday when people AREN'T working?

and when are people going to start demanding Instant Runoff Voting so voters don't have to worry about sacrificing their vote for the sake of strategy?

when are people going to start demanding that their votes - absentee, paper, digital, whatever - all be counted, fairly and accurately?

By law, at least in NY, you have two hours off work to vote.

Oh, on this point I'll fully agree.

I'd ask for your definition of "elite," but who am I kidding. (The non-elites obv include the legless female Iraq vet who IS STILL PROWAR, but I guess her non-elite potential constituents found the Republican winner not quite that fucking stupid, which is plausible.)

Tammy Duckworth is more 'elite' than 'non-elite' because she's Thai (and has an Intl Affairs masters from GW and was working toward a doctorate), but so were her intended constituents because they are Chicago suburbanites. i'm talking about many of the Dem candidates in less metropolitan areas.

great moments in journalism...

Ohio Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt, who called Democratic Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record) a coward, is ahead of her challenger by 2,862 votes. Rep. Barbara Cubin (news, bio, voting record), who threatened to slap her wheelchair-bound Libertarian opponent after a debate, is ahead by fewer than a thousand votes in her Wyoming contest.

Aside from a disastrous war, unpopular President, populace with little confidence in the economy, boy-touching Republicans, cover-ups for boy-touching Republicans and just a few ethics scandals?

John Oliver OTM

This was the guy that Michael Medved was railing against in his rant I linked on the schadenfreude thread. For causing that alone, Stan Jones, I salute you -- blue skin and all.

He was hurtling down an asphalt road in upstate New York on the 47th trip of his ferocious campaign to win back the House. A lecture, even from political consultant James Carville, was the last thing he needed.

In just 12 days, his campaign would end in a historic victory--a triumph that almost no one believed possible when he took the job nearly two years ago--or in colossal failure.

And here were Carville and pollster Stan Greenberg telling him he had to make each of his handpicked candidates shift from attack mode and strike a conciliatory note in their final campaign ads.

"James. No James, YOU LISTEN," Emanuel barked into a cell phone, about to release a string of profane invectives more intense than usual. "Can you listen for one [expletive] minute?

You tell em for me the next time you hit Walter Reed with all the Dems who are gonna sign on to McCain's troop-level boost.

"Since my kids are gone, I can say it: They can go ---- themselves!"

dude, where have the santorum.jpg pictures gone?