Thinking Fool

TF,

I didn't see the Harold Ford ad although I heard it on the radio. I therefore have no personal opinion. It seems to me, however, that the "racism" played on by the ad is argued to have been geared toward voters, i.e. voters who are racist and would be disgusted by the idea of a black man together with a white woman; and therefore vote against Harold Ford.

I miss Peter Jennings too. I always felt like he just "got it," you know?

Now the Dems have to actually come up with ideas. People will get to see what having them in charge really means. And if taxes go up, the stock market falls and there's another terrorist attack... who will get the heat? As one commentator said this morning, it's easier to toss a grenade than to catch one. the Dems have delighted in the tossing over the last 6 years... This could be the best thing for the Republicans.

Chris Matthews was definitely drunk. And to celebrate Rumsfeld's resignation, I will be drunk tonight too. Also, if you watched any of CNN, why the hell did they bring on Bill Bennett?? I assume for comic relief when he made comments such as "This isn't the last of Rick Santorum. I believe you will see him drafted into a presidential run." Ummm..whaaa?

Losing both the Senate and House this election is the best thing that could have happened to the Republicans. The Democrats peaked 2 years too early and they're making an ENORMOUS mistake putting the most hatable congressperson in the house majority seat.

Fermanator, Good Point.
LisaB, I do know and know quite well. It's worth buying ABC's tribute to Peter Jennings on DVD if you haven't seen it.
Lois and Philosofer, I think this is exactly what the Republicans (and people who are centrists) needed.
Chloe, It wasn't just Bennett who was touting Santorum's presidential qualities. Last night, Matthews also said that once upon a time, Santorum was one of the frontrunners to win the GOP presidential nomination. In the words of Willis, "Say what?!?" I don't care if Santorum had won by fifty percentage points in Pennsylvania yesterday. The only way that man was ever going to be president was if he somehow was next in line in the succession list and everyone in front of him died.

CNN's coverage mentioned Santorum as a possible candidate for president, as well (right around the time he was giving his concession speech on Tuesday night). Leads me to believe it was a stock PR release by his campaign to all the networks ("Look for him in '08!!!") Riiiiiiight.

Remember, the last times the Dems took control of the House they held onto it for 40 years...

That is the power of incumbancy, they are going to have to f-up a LOT of sh-t to pry their hands off the levers of power. Don't fool yourself kids, the Dems are going to be there for a long, long time. (And remember Dems LOVE the popular entitlement programs that constituents love, of course its going to be hard for them to shovel more pork than the Republicans have over the past 6 years).

For the next 2 years whenever something heads south they are just going to blame W. With the way the country feels about him right now I wouldn't be suprised if folks believe he roasts babies on the White House lawn.

The idea that this is "bad for the democrats" is a conservative pipe dream, if there is one thing that the historically (barring the past decade aberration) that Dems know how to do is cut deals to maintain their own power.

Well now we know how it all turned out :( I wish Northern VA could have overpowered the rests of the hicks/Virginians and not changed our State's constitution :(

I think over educated is quite mistaken on this. This election wasn't the Dem's taking power from the Republicans, it was a market correction, in which certain corrupt and ineffective republicans were removed from office. It was bad for republicans to lose their majority, but this election certainly wasn't a sign of a sweeping change to Democratic power. The Democrats who did win over previously republican seats were largely social conservatives (at least, relatively), and in 2 years our nation won't be able to vote against Bush again, so Democrats won't have that advantage - and that advantage was the ONLY reason they won this time.

I completely agree with Philosofer, over_educated. I don't think this is "good" for Republicans, but I don't think it's THAT bad. In any event, because there will presumably be more gridlock, hopefully less money will get spent! I favor the current House's approach to immigration - secure the border first, then we can start talking about stuff. But oh well, Bush was never going to go for that anyway.

Time will tell... I will stand by my belief that it is very difficult to remove entrenched incumbents.

Incumbency has a myriad of advantage, and while low Congressional approval may seem to hurt, most folks tend to approve of THEIR representative. They want other people to throw the other bums out. The reason why Republicans lost this election was major dissatisfaction with the war and President bush. Just because those issues disappear doesn't make it any easier to dislodge incumbents. You need a headwind in the opposite direction, especially now that Dems have a 15 seat cushion.

Over the next few motnhs you will see Dems and the White House cutting a lot of deals to get popular legislation through (like a minimum wage hike and revision of the prescription health care legislation). That way the President can salvage something of his legacy and the Dems can build a record to run on. Barring Nancy Pelosi roasting children in an open spit in front of Congress I don't see enough anger being generated toward the democrats for them to lose the House. (The Senate is a different beast entirely, being it will only take one race to swing the thing.)

The irony is that the Republicans gerrymandered most of the house seats so that there are very few competative races. This was great for them when they were in power, but now, not so much.

I thought the ad was racist, in the great willie hayes tradition of "If-people-happen-to-put-some-sort-of-INTERPRETATION -on-this-and-get-ALARMED-because-they-are-ALREADY-racist-then- that's-their-own-business."

Balanced budgets are overrated because there are two ways to balance a budget: lower spending or higher taxes. I'm not interested in a balanced budget. What I'm interested in is large tax cuts and large spending cuts. That's conservatism.

In this country politicians argue over taking certain tax rates from 39% to 38.4% when what they should be talking about is taking the 39% tax bracket to 22%. Tax policy in this country is absurd because politicians are addicted to spending for special interests and other causes and government programs that threaten to socialize the country. Socialism must be resisted at every turn.

Harold: Call me.