'Fraid you're wrong about all of this, bud, because
your argument is built on the faulty foundation that people can safely predict the outcomes of elections a year before they happen according to a simplistic categorization of "red states" and "blue states", and using "projections" that don't take into account retirements of safe incumbents, or even whom the candidates are going to be. Those were the same "projections" that told us Harry Reid was in trouble, Lisa Murkowski was a goner, the Republicans in Louisiana would be carved up in the primary, and Jim Bunning was cruising to an easy re-election with a comfortable victory margin.
Anyone who really paid attention to the individual races knows that control of the Senate was in doubt right through the summer, until the GOP candidates in key races like LA, OK, and NC started pulling away. And as for whatever Specter said.... why should we start putting stock into anything Specter says? An open race between Toomey and Hoeffel would have been a 50/50 proposition, not a fait accompli simply because we would have wished it to be so.
You want a Democratic Senate? You're welcome to it, though I don't particularly appreciate your wishing to impose one on me. But I wouldn't want to hear a single member of the Pat Toomey Brigade complaining about Majority Leader Reid if Specter's seat had made the difference. Toomey lost, people. It's been a year since he lost. Get over it, deal with the situation as it exists, and stop acting like post-election Democrat crybabies who spend their time whining about how they coulda been contenders.
-Dan
Dan, I'm not whining about Toomey's loss. I'm whining about Santorum's support of Specter. He let us conservatives down. And we can no longer support him with the same zeal we once had for him. The stark truth is that by supporting Specter, Santorum whored himself for the Republican party. And if another pro-life, pro-2nd amendment conservative faces Santorum in the primary, I'll probably vote for the challenger. That's how much Santorum's support of Scottish law Specter hurt. I think Bush, Rove and Santorum were blindsided by Toomey's razor thin loss. They sorely underestimated the level of distaste PA conservatives have for Specter.
We'll see how Specter does when Bush finally does appoint a Supreme Court justice. I honestly believe Santorum's reelection is riding on it.
You claim that it is faulty and I will agree that it is not fool proof, but it was accurate this time.
Are you gonna believe party or candidate propaganda that cries out that this seat or that is in jeopardy and then wins by 20 percentage points? That is just as unreliable and has the added 'quality' of being less than honest.
Fear is a powerful motivator and both parties are masters at stoking the emotions of their base with this technigue. I didn't (and don't) like Bush most of the time, but even I fell for the line that Kerry might end up winning and that repulsed me -- repulsed, not scared -- and I voted for Bush.
I would never vote for Kerry, but I would love to rescind my vote for Bush.
I have always tried to vote simply on principle. That is the only way that you don't really lose. But I have voted for the lesser of two evils. I won't do that anymore.
As to 'getting over it' - - -
Why? We are faced daily with the results of you people who think that supporting any "R" is a good plan. It doesn't take courage to vote for a party whose proclaimed prinicples are so broad as to be meaningless. Your plan will continue to bring us men such as Specter. Now he is in a postion to do the damage that no democrat senator could possibly have done.
Thanks for nothing.