Posted on 11/06/2002 9:16:47 PM PST by Dems_R_Losers
President Bush's show of strength in Tuesday's election shook up Washington yesterday-shifting the balance of power, resetting the legislative agenda and ending the eight-year reign of House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).
Gephardt plans to announce today that he will not seek another term as party leader. Elected in the aftermath of the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, Gephardt steadily chipped away at the GOP's margin until he seemed in striking distance of becoming speaker. Instead, his party lost seats in the House on Tuesday as control of the Senate slipped away in a rare triumph by a president in a midterm election.
Fueled by the fundraising prowess and vigorous campaigning of the president, Republicans captured the Senate with at least 51 seats-one seat, in Louisiana, will not be decided until a Dec. 7 run off. The GOP added at least four seats to its majority in the House (the count stood last night at 227 Republicans to 205 Democrats, with one independent and two undecided races). And Republicans thwarted Democratic hopes of gaining a majority among the nation's governors.
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A preliminary analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures found that the GOP tide ran even deeper than that. For the first time on record, a president's party gained state legislative seats in a midterm election. As a result of Tuesday's voting, the conference found, Republicans will take over the Texas House for the first time since 1870 and the Missouri House for the first time since 1955.
"Republicans could end up with a majority of all seats for the first time since 1954," said conference analyst Tim Storey.
Contrary to gloomy predictions, voter turnout was not quite as bad as it was in the last midterm election, according to analyst Curtis Gans of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. Roughly 40 percent of voting-age citizens cast ballots, Gans estimates-a total of 77 million-compared with less than 38 percent in 1998.
Turnout was strong in such places as Florida (up 6 percent over 1998), New Hampshire (up 12 percent), Missouri (up 6 percent) and Massachusetts (up 5 percent). Gans credited competitive races and strong voter-mobilization efforts-and gave a nod to the president's personal popularity.
"The Republicans nationalized the campaign, and the Democrats did not," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Thank the theif George Ryan and the coward Jim Ryan.
"This is what is good in life -- to vanquish your enemies and see them driven before you, to hear the lamentations of their women.."
gunho, gunho, gunho!
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