Posted on 11/08/2006 10:14:18 AM PST by SmithL
THE MESSAGE from American voters in Tuesday's midterm elections was ... change the course.
That national mood was evident from the earliest returns. Americans were angry about the war in Iraq and the corruption and scandals that have enveloped Capitol Hill.
As a result, the Democrats regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time since 1994 and, as the counting went on late into the night, were inching within striking distance of claiming a majority in the U.S. Senate.
It was a historic night for the House and one of pride and elevated clout for San Francisco. "Speaker Nancy Pelosi" is about to become a reality. After two decades in Congress, the nation's first female speaker has all the qualities for the job -- the right blend of toughness and compassion, the knack for building and rewarding loyalties. Last night, she set the right tone by promising to bring "civility and bipartisanship" to Washington and to lead with integrity and honesty.
On Tuesday, exit polls showed the depth of public anxiety with the Republican leadership in Washington. The question is whether the Bush White House will hear the chorus of the electorate.
Vice President Dick Cheney suggested in an interview with ABC News last week that the outcome of the election would not cause the administration to change direction on Iraq.
"It may not be popular with the public," Cheney said of the war. "It doesn't matter, in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office."
Unfortunately for Bush and Cheney, many of their pro-war allies who were running for office were defeated Tuesday night.
A freshly invigorated partisan counterweight will be healthy for Washington.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Anyone know what that ticking sound is?....BOOM!!!
San Fran Nan healthy? The diseases she will spread are not yet catalogued by science.
Somebody ought to check Alaska. Although an R Governor was elected, wife of twice Iron Dog winner, it is getting definitely bluish up here.
Perhaps the Chronicle can explain, then, why an anti-war democrat lost to a pro-war independent in Connecticut.
I think two years of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, raising taxes and coddling illegal immigrants will put real Conservatives back into the House.
Correction, "RED" wave of change. There's nothing 'true blue' about the democrats, and their idiological leanings are definately "RED".
I refuse to buy into the idea that Republicans should be represented by red. And yes, it is a big deal.
Communism is not dead folks. It's alive and well and the Republican party is NOT the party of communist leanings.
""civility and bipartisanship"
Cue spew! And projectile vomiting!
So-called global warming is a masquerade. We will all perish from a new blue state ice age.
Yesterday's NY Times crossword puzzle had some fun with this yesterday. Certain words had clues "red state" or "blue state." The "red state" words included INSOLVENCY and COMMUNISM, while the "blue state" words included MELANCHOLY and BAWDINESS.
Anyone know what the actual vote counts were in house races?
Who's moving to AK to cause the tide?
Approx 1/3 the population is new each year; has been this way forever. A lot come up here because of the adventure, get a taste of it and leave with lifetime memories and tall tales. They are coming up from blue states now and bringing their blueness with them.
Not sure how the vote will break down vis-a-vis urban vs rural, but one of those stupid, old white Europeans who gave up much of his life to TRY to leave us a free and prosperous nation had a few things to say about the differences between the two, to wit:
"The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIX, 1782. ME 2:230
I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442
"I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173
"Our cities... exhibit specimens of London only; our country is a different nation." --Thomas Jefferson to Andre de Daschkoff, 1809. ME 12:304
"Everyone, by his property or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs and a degree of freedom which, in the hands of the canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:401
"An insurrection... of science, talents, and courage, against rank and birth... has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty, and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will recover from the panic of this first catastrophe." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:402
"I fear nothing for our liberty from the assaults of force; but I have seen and felt much, and fear more from English books, English prejudices, English manners, and the apes, the dupes, and designs among our professional crafts. When I look around me for security against these seductions, I find it in the wide spread of our agricultural citizens, in their unsophisticated minds, their independence and their power, if called on, to crush the Humists of our cities, and to maintain the principles which severed us from England." --Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:120
Whatever the break-down, America as they and many of us older citizens knew it is largely over.
Life moves on and the American experiment continues.
"Stabbing the troops in the back is good for America."
They are. I saw them on tour this year.
On a more serious note, the Blue/Red key to election maps only recently changed. I still see them as Red Commies.
Something that evidently has been forgotten around here and, needless to say, by the MSM.
To see Pelosi, et al., standing up and saying it's time for bipartisanship is an amazing site; one wonder why she was struck dead by lightning on the spot.
Thanks for the submission. Good one...
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