The Morning After
I must say I do like being able to quantify things. So like, now when people ask me, “just how backwards and bigoted is Tennessee?”, I can just point to a recent poll and say “oh… about 80%”.
I hope you all do realize you’ve just turned Arizona into an Oasis of Enlightenment.
Meanwhile I’d like to thank HFJ for proving once again that Democrats do not win by co-opting the wrongheaded ideas that you should be running to defeat. Social conservatives don’t swing. As Bredesen and Cooper have both proven again, fiscal conservatives do. In other words, when you go to the middle, go north.
(hopefully) Final Update:I think Bruce is scratching the same itch as me. The center-north moderate-libertarian block is home to a whole lot of those independants for whom he’s looking. Though as I concede to Gandalf in the comments, I don’t think Ford could court that block. It’s the block most inclined to hold his family against him — (understandable) fear of political dynasties and all. But it’s a block that dems have to win if they want to go statewide here.
- Good news items
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Steve Cohen (arguably the state’s only true principled social liberal) wins handily despite the independant challenge from the Ford machine. John Duncan, our state’s other libertarian-leaning* house rep keeps his seat. In the Senate race, “None of the Above” Gatchell beats pro-war immigrant basher Heyward (not surprisinlgy, Lugo comes in last — dude: a shave & a shower will do wonders). Oh, I nearly forgot — while I’ve no love for Ben West, I was glad to see immgrant-basher / race-traitor Juan “El Protector” Borges go down in flames.
Nationally, Pennsylvania washed its ass of the the lube & fecal matter mix named Santorum. And Michael J. Fox beats Rush Limbaugh in Missouri — or something like that. Update: And now apparently Jon Tester — another dem with at least some libertarian sympathies — wins Montana. Yet another update: the libertarian-leaning* Webb apparently does take out that Virginia racist.
- Disappointing but respectable
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Brent Benedict, a blue-dog Democrat who ran as a libertarian last time, gets 34% against Bushlicker Wamp. Even better, in Florida House District 21, near my old stomping grounds, true Libertarian Democrat Frank Gonzales got 41% against an entrenched incumbant.
Another Update: legal marijuana lost again in Nevada, but approval was up 5 points, up from 39% last time to 44% this year. We’re getting there, slowly. C’mon Vegas, stop playing around and pass this thing already. It’s coming. Everyone knows it. You can’t credibly keep this prohibition up in the land of gambling and prostitution.
- You-Get-What-You-Ask-For Department
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In a move apparently deliberately designed to further alienate itself from the rest of the country, the LP has been hyping Bob Smither for Tom Delay’s old seat, trying to get votes by promising to caucus with the Republicans and vote for their speaker. I can only guess the LP was completely deaf to the sound of the entire country screaming to take away GOP control of the House. He got 6%.
- When-will-they-learn
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LP members nationally dumped a few hundred thousand into Michael Badnarik’s campaign for Texas House District 10, and were rewarded with a whopping 4%, proving once again that getting the ~300K party-core votes for president does not a celebrity candidate make.
Of course, in the end, The Onion gives us the real scoop:
WASHINGTON, DC—After months of aggressive campaigning and with nearly 99 percent of ballots counted, politicians were the big winners in Tuesday’s midterm election, taking all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, retaining a majority with 100 out of 100 seats in the Senate, and pushing political candidates to victory in each of the 36 gubernatorial races up for grabs.
* Duncan and Webb both fall into that gray area between right-libertarian and paleo-conservative. Not my preferred region on the map, I like the northwest more than the northeast, but you take what you can get.
Social conservatives do swing. 1/3 of them this time around to be exact.
Yeah, but those are protest votes, not swing votes, it’s a little different. It wouldn’t have happened without the specific GOP scandals, and was of limited effect where the GOP candidate was not implicated and not incumbent. As Ford learned.
I forget, do we count swing votes and not protest votes? If you break down the exit polls that revealed the switching, you’d find a 1/3 angry at scandals, however you’d also find other reasons why they switched (Iraq, etc).
Ford did better than expected in the GOP districts, better than most expected, and nearly matched Clinton’s 96 peformance there. Only Ned and Phil could have done better. The man got nearly 50%, those votes had to come from somewhere, not just the base.
Protest votes are no good for long-term success is all I’m saying. They’re votes *against* the Republican, not *for* the Democrat. Those are votes that want to go “home” to the Republicans, and will go back if the Republicans reform themselves.
And again I’m not saying Ford should have run a liberal campaign ala Steve Cohen, I’m saying he should have run more like Tester or Webb, more center-north than center-south. But *could* he run like them, having already voted for the war, and being in a state demanding gay & immigrant bashing, and trying to overcome his family and all? Probably not. I’m not criticizing Ford’s campaign so much as warning other dems not to use it as a model.
[...] mushin no shin: …now when people ask me, “just how backwards and bigoted is Tennessee?”, I can just point to a recent poll and say “oh… about 80%”. [...]