Posted on 11/12/2008 6:44:18 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
But now, in its current configuration, President Obama doesn't have a vote to spare, which means Arkansas' own Sen. Blanche Lincoln will be forced to cast some very unpopular votes. She will no longer be able to straddle the ideological fence between a Republican administration and her own party. Lincoln would have been vulnerable heading into 2010 regardless of the outcome of the presidential contest, but with her party taking a decidedly left-of-center approach, many state and national Republicans believe Arkansas could be a GOP pick-up.
With respect to the other chamber of Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's majority is a three-legged stool comprised of liberals, DLC-types and newer moderate-to-conservative members. The latter will find it hard to embrace the Democrats' leftist agenda with the prospect of re-election looming in 2010. Had the Democrats captured 30-plus seats they could have allowed those members to walk on all the tough votes, but by only picking up 19 additional seats, the votes may be close and a lot more contentious.
Closer to home, the state GOP stopped the bleeding by picking up legislative seats after losing numbers for two consecutive election cycles. In fact, of the four major races in which Gov. Mike Beebe openly campaigned for Democratic candidates, the Republican won. Greenwood's Republican Terry Rice defeated Democrat Bill Walters for Walters' wife's old House seat. In Russellville, after being outspent by her Beebe-backed Democratic opponent, Andrea Lea won her House race, and North Little Rock Republican Jane English won despite the governor openly appearing in her opponent's political advertisements. And, in the state's highest profile political race, Conway's incumbent Republican state Sen. Gilbert Baker was re-elected despite Beebe's aggressive campaign for his Democratic opponent.
All was not lost for Republicans Tuesday night.
(Excerpt) Read more at arkansasnews.com ...
What happened last week was this. The American people took away our hockey pucks and told us to sit the penalty box. The public is excited to watch the Communist Organizer play. The only things we can do now is clean house and hope the economy sinks Obama’s approval ratings. (We won’t be seeing signs of that until next fall.)
McCain winning GOP nomination is a sign of how disorganized conservatives are. Back in August 2007, McCain was declared finished. In trade had McCain below 10 for winning the GOP nomination. With McCain a non-factor, Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, and Giuliani teared each other apart. This dragged the approval ratings of the 4 GOP contenders and allowed McCain to slip thru. Conservatives need to get their act together if they are to clean house.
The American public doesn’t even know which party is in control of Congress. They still think it’s Republican. A large segment doesn’t even know who Pelosi/Reid is. We didn’t forcefully educate them. Even if our nominee had lost the Presidency, there was no reason for our not making gains in Congress (reference 1960 after the disastrous 1958 elections).
Another fact is that we did not have our best leaders even running. Our best Governors, current or former, didn’t run (yet we got two of the most unsuccessful, disastrous RINOs acting as though they were remotely qualified). Our best Senators didn’t run (though we had a fairly decent ex-Senator, and the only remotely serious actual Conservative). Our best Congressmembers didn’t run (aside from Duncan Hunter, but he wasn’t that well-known to the public aside from us). The VP didn’t have a go, nor Cabinet members, nor business leaders. Did have NYC’s best Mayor in a century, but aside from law enforcement issues, he’s effectively a liberal Democrat, and that wasn’t going to work.
I derided these terrible choices nearly a year ago as a Felliniesque sideshow. Fred was the giant and virtually the rest were midgets. We deserved a large selection of giants, all of whom capable to obliterate the Dem nominee. This was literally the worst set of choices for President, especially from a Conservative standpoint, for the Republican party in the modern era.
When was it the rats first won the legislature? As far as I can surmise it was 1986.
Weird stuff it Vermont with the supposed strict ladder of succession to office working your way up to US Senator.
I talked online to this guy allegedly the scion of rich Vermont family, he said his family knew Jeffwhores. He was thrilled with party switch.
The polls indicated PA was a long shot before the Wright ad. McCain simply was never actually competitive there despite out performing Bush in southwest PA.
Not true. M-D and Ras both showed McCain had closed it to 4 points just before the Wright ads aired.
That’s because Bush never highlighted it.
“And remember, Norm. It’s not like I didn’t warn you what would happen.”
Hardly means anything. Like I said McCain would’ve won had the economy not melted. Once it did melt it didn’t take a sage to admit the very likely outcome.
Elections are affected by environment. It’s silly to suggest that 2008 is comparable to 2004. McCain would’ve outrun Bush mostly across the board in 2008 and in some regions in 2004. No it’s not a fact - because we cannot run two alternate realities, but I’m sure of it - so let’s stop arguing it.
The fact is McCain won the nomination. If Fred Thompson couldn’t beat McCain he wasn’t going to beat Obama. I can say that with confidence about Fred because he is very similar in style and somewhat similar in philosophy to McCain (and *NO* I am not going to argue this with you). Giuliani and Romney would’ve done better probably in the last analysis but the former ran a horrible abortive end run for the nod and Romney’s steam was upset by Huckabee.
Palin did help, Dick Morris noted McCain losses from Bush’s numbers were much worse amongst white men than white women. That wasn’t because of her thighness.
Watching McCain run was painful, even given unfavorable circumstances he could easily have won.
Imagine an old man getting mugged swinging an umbrella and yelling “Maverick!” rather than go for the loaded pistol in his pocket and yelling “police” (or “fire” which they say works better). At least he didn’t try to “go left” that would have ****ed turnout while hardly effecting squishy “independents” and “moderates”.
It’s perfect ironic punishment for McCain, the media that loved him so much quickly and completely turned on him for the guy they really wanted. They used him, I wonder if he even gets that.
The Arkansas Legislative Session will take place in 2009. Bills such as in-state tuition for illegal aliens and allowing homosexuals to adopt kids will likely be debated. Conservatives will need to be on the phones, computer and at the State Capitol as usual.
Ron Paul would have been crushed into a fine paste.
Nobody was weaker or more bungling than McCain. He couldn’t even understand some of the questions during the debates. IMHO, he was chosen to help elect Hillary.
You must mean Obama, the media didn’t want Hillary!
That was only after Obama started winning and especially by NBC/MSNBC. Initially, Hillary was considered to be the final choice.
Going by the elected leadership (Speaker in the House, President Pro Tempore in the Senate), the Democrats first won the VT House in the modern era in 1974. The GOP took it back in 1980, but ironically lost it in 1984. They didn’t get it back until 2000 (due to the unpopularity of Dean) and lost control in 2004.
In the Senate, they got control in 1984 for the first time in the modern era, lost it in 1992 (go figure), reclaimed it in 1996, and have never lost it since. The first Dem President Pro Tempore in the modern era was Peter Welch, now the Congressman.
More than any source of date I wish state historical legislative data was more available.
Hmm my source on VT was a NYTimes article from 1987 that said they had “last fall” won the VT Senate and reelected a rat house speaker “despite a GOP majoirty in the chamber”.
A blurb in their archives (need to pay to read the whole article) mentions the VT senate as going rat in 1986, doesn’t mention the house.
An article from 2000 claims the GOP majoirty in the house was the “first outright majority in 14 years”.
“They didn’t get it back until 2000 (due to the unpopularity of Dean)”
Because of civil unions right? In liberal Vermont. The GOP guv candidate should have done better than a 50-38 loss. She must have been weak.
“and lost control in 2004.”
Yeah, but they only won a plurality in 2002. I remember Doug Racine was expected to win and rats worried a GOP edge in the legislature would elect Douglas. Instead Douglas won and the GOP lost in the legislative giving rats the edge with their increased state senate majority.
Hee he. Illinois would have over 600 state senators if each seat has the population of a Vermont district.
In contrast Arkansas it’s cousin West VA was a LOSS of GOP seats in the legislative. Clusterf***.
World Almanacs actually listed the legislative numbers in many editions. I did recall that the Dems had a Speaker at one point when they were in the minority, but couldn’t recall when.
Apparently the Republicans did retain a majority in the VT House in the 1984 elections, but it didn’t prevent the Dems joining with RINOs to elect a Speaker. These were the numbers in the three given sessions (from the Almanacs):
1984 - 65D-84R
1985 - 72D-77R
1987 - 76D-74R
We didn’t even put up any serious candidate for Governor and lost the only statewide office we did hold (had Betty Ireland ran again, might’ve held it, but Minimah got screwed not getting any money from the party). The heartbreaking loss was failure to dislodge the AG by the narrowest of margins.
Whoops, forgot to answer the latter part. I did not expect Racine to win, actually, in ‘02. I did think Douglas would pick it up for us, and he did. The drastic decline of our numbers in the State Senate was pretty surprising, though.
Yeah, the Civil Unions issues was one that propelled us to more seats, but there was another burning issue at the time, I remember the novelist John Irving getting all up in arms about it, Act 60.
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