Low standards are easy to meet.

Max B. Sawicky

http://maxspeak.org/mt

max@maxspeak.org

Things have changed below the surface, for example in NY-25 (Syracuse) it was R=92% D=9% in 2004, this time it was R=51% D=49%. That's a pretty big swing in a region that has been Republican for decades.

If the Dems had expected to win they could have devoted more effort to races like this. The same thing may be true on the state level. The pols in NY have had a split the graft deal for decades, the Republicans control the state senate and the Dems the house. However if the NY Dem party had been willing to do some leg work they might have turned things around riding on Spitzer's tailcoat.

Another thing to consider is that the house chairmen will be those who have been around the longest, that is old time progressive Dems like Charlie Rangel. These are the people who will set the tone for the new congress. Freshman don't get much say in any case.

The Republicans have a vested interest in minimizing the degree of shift in voter sentiment. The same is true for the conservative or centrist Dems. We will see what happens when the horses are saddled up.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

While I do believe the Democrats won, even against the odds of jerrymandering and voter suppression in some areas, how do you call what we have a MANDATE?

That word is over-used to the point of absurdiity these days. Bush used it when he LOST the popular vote, and again when he squeaked out a questionable win in 2004.

Be realistic. A mandate is when you win by a landslide. We won. We should be very happy about that, but a mandate? No.

Jan Knaus

Maybe we have a mandate, maybe we do not. What was clear though was that Americans are sick of the course in Iraq, I among them. However I did not vote for a timed withdrawl of the troops. I voted for a change and what is best for the peace and stability of the world. Getting out of Iraq without bringing peace and stability to the people is not the solution. Nor was staying the course. We need more troops for the short term. Secure the peace, then leave. Nobody is talking about what is best for the people. We do not need to have another Vietnam. If that is the case, the Democrats will wasted a well earned victory and will be returned to the minority in a hurry in 08.

We got 55% of the House votes in the country after the whole country was gerrymandered against us. In that context, it was a landslide.

Can't Dems just be happy for a week?

MJ

The voters did vote AGAINST the Republicans. Nobody is denying that the Democrats might provide the nation with a fresh perspective and get things turned around. If they can do that, great; we'd all be better for it.

But when so many Republican incumbents are defeated by 'new' politicians, many of whom were virtually unknown to the general public six months ago, you simply cannot spin this to appear as if Americans have turned to the Democrats for salvation.

They have turned to the Democrats because they are tired of corrupt and inept Republican leadership.

"Low standards are easy to meet."

LOL. That's pretty funny! When I tell people I voted "straight D," no pun intended, I did so because I didn't want to encourage Bush.

Good point, I guess.  Perhaps we shouldn't leave Iraq until we cure cancer and develop a truly portable, and long lasting artificial heart.  We might as well stay there until we develop thermonuclear power too, or at least find a way to make all automobiles get 200 miles per gallon.  But, just for me personally, I don't want us to leave Iraq until I have my retirement income doubled - I suppose that puts me on the side of the Halliburton execs. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

It is a mandate by the American people that the D's can't be any worse the the R's...and in that regard they are correct.

But other than saying "stay the course" is no longer an option and sending the message of "we don't like corrupt politicians"...what did the voters "mandate"?

You nailed it. Superb job except for this quibble:

The big GOP victory in 1994 was not pro-Republican. It was anti-Clinton, especially anti-Hillary (following months of GOP lying about her health care plan).

Hillary's Frankenstein monster that would have fed the monsters instead of destroying them was killed by the lesser monsters.

After Hillary, a majority of Democrats were against the "single-payer" plan that had been the platform standard since it was proposed by Harry Truman. Nevermind that most health care expense is now shouldered by the government and our massive bureaucracy eats up a huge chunk of revenues in order to maintain high living for insurance company executives.

Hillary Clinton has the patented Republican touch of converting a festering problem into a malignancy. How long will it be before she proposes privatizing Social Security?

Best, Terry

I think the mandate is this:
transparency
oversight (as in watch over, not overlook)
rule of law
out of Iraq
control spending

A recent FBI search warrant reveals Republicans refer to themselves as the Corrupt Bastards Club!

I'll make the case:

In American history there have also been quite a few "false dawns" i.e. when one party wins convincingly but doesn't last that long in power.  I'm thinking of the GOP congress of the early 1950's as an example.  They were voted in as a repudiation of the Democrats in 1952 but then voted out again in four years later.  They were a blip in the long-term trend of Democratic control.  You could argue that the same was true of the 1986 election, which saw Democrats regain the Senate after six years of Republican dominance.  That mandate didn't last too long either.

Time will tell if the 2006 election is truly a watershed year or a temporary aberration in a period of conservative dominance.  MJR pretends he knows the answer to this, but in truth nobody knows.

Maybe you are depressed because you realize just how hard cleaning up the mess is going to be? Or maybe you are depressed because you realize we can't depend on our representatives to do the right thing for us regular citizens unless we stay right on top of them.

I think such an attitude is healthy. The election isn't the end of anything. It is the beginning of a lot of hard work.

Ron Byers

All I know is that a WIN is a WIN the republicans need to get over it

The irony here, of course, is that the Democrats have picked their two worst candidates to lead the Congress.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are no improvement over Hastert and Frist. I'm confident that Congress, as a whole, will become more responsible and progressive over the next two years, but it is a shame that the Democrats stooped so low in annointing their Congressional leaders.

If the Republicans won the electins of 2000 and 2004 then Democrats won this election. There is a tendency of partisans for both sides to deny their closely held views were rejected. Bush being the worst president in our history no doubt helped the Democratic victory. However, so did the feeling that Working and Middle Class people have been ignored.

Part of the problem is the American keeping voting for politics and keep pretending that Washington can be run without politics. It would be a really good thing if on a host of issues someone would speak to the sovereigns of America, the People, some of the hard truths. Politicians work for us and "us" disagree over fundamental things.

If the Democrats can enact legislation that makes lives better and work with Bush enough as to get credit for things that go right they will be in a good position to win more seats and the presidency in 2008. However 1964 did not obliderate the Republcans so It is unlikely that this year did either.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Care to support that assertion?

Reid is automatically an improvement over Frist by being an overtly rational actor, while Frist was overtly irrational about Terry Schiavo, for starters. Frist was the water-carrier for the "constitutional" option, too.

Pelosi automatically is lacking Hastert's baggage.

Both have Democratic policy positions, by default.

So how are they no improvement? 

I agree that the agenda will, thankfully, be more progressive Gettysburg.  But my main worry is that the way they run the Congress will be more "business as usual".  Both Murtha and Hoyer, for example, have been very comfortable dealing with K Street in the past.  Which is very problematic in terms of the voter's "mandate" of "we don't like corrupt politicians".  Not that dealing with K Street in and of itself is "corrupt" but it certainly does increase the chances that the D's might go down the same path that the R's did.

As far as the "drama" of the D's working out how their hierarchy will be set-up, it is a non-issue for me right now.  The only thing that will matter is how they will govern after it is all sorted out.  But if the governing part of it goes wrong we can all look at who is leading the dems at that point and talk about the D's squandering their "mandate"...and seriously damaging their prospects for being "the majority party" for the long term.

I agree for the most part.  I think most everything you state is either covered by "not staying the course" and "corrupt politicians are unacceptable".

I did forget to mention, and it was a glaring omission, that the "mandate" was one against "governmental ineptitude".  Because in the voter's collective consciousness on election day were the images of NOLA drowning as our republican led government did nothing... 

I just wish that after the elections we could become Americans again. It seems to be so senseless and unpatriotic to keep up all this partisianship when we need to get on with the governance of the country. It just seems so utterly useless to keep up all this squabbling between parties when all the American public wants is for their elected officials to govern based on the recognized powers of each branch of government.

Can't we just be Americans and look out for the interest of America?

This partisan bickering is old and accomplishes nothing.

We can wish for total agreement. We can also hope that it will never, ever happen again. We've seen what a one-sided Congress can bring us when they also are in total agreement with the President. When we think about our wishes, we realize how much of a nightmare, not a fantasy, they are.

Your wishes are mine also, but I believe that we both need to be more rational than our wishes. In a democracy (or a republic as we actually are, not a complete democracy) there should be and will be disagreements. There will be splits and diversity. That's what we all just voted about - along the lines of our own beliefs while our neighbors voted along the lines of theirs.

A Congress that at least attempts to work with everyone who will work well with most is all I would ever ask. The Congress which is thankfully leaving us has been a one-sided, no agreements ever sadness and has been non-inclusive. Our new Congress will do better. This have we been promised. This do we expect and will be watching for.

Reid certainly appears to be much more corrupt than Frist.

http://www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2003-06/8306315.pdf

Then there's the work he and his sons did at Coyote Springs

He'll be rooting out that culture of corruption

********************************************
One of the most inhospitable places in the country, Coyote Springs Valley is so barren that, until recently, its best use was thought to be as a weapons test range.
Yet the valley — an hour northeast of Las Vegas — is on its way to becoming a real estate development of historic proportions, with as many as 159,000 homes, 16 golf courses and a full complement of stores and service facilities. At nearly 43,000 acres, Coyote Springs covers almost twice as much space as the next-largest development in a state famous for outsized building projects. ...

Over the last four years, Reid has used his influence in Washington to help the developer, Nevada super-lobbyist [Harvey] Whittemore, clear obstacles from Coyote Springs' path.

At one point, Reid proposed opening the way for Whittemore to develop part of the site for free — something for which the developer later agreed to pay the government $10 million.

As the project advanced, Reid received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Whittemore. The contributions not only went to Reid's Senate campaigns, but also to his leadership fund, which he used to help bankroll the campaigns of Democratic colleagues.

Whittemore also helped advance the legal careers of two of Reid's four sons. One of the two, Leif Reid, who is Whittemore's personal lawyer, has represented the developer throughout the Coyote Springs project, including in negotiations with federal officials.

The story of Coyote Springs sounds like a Horatio Alger story. The land Whittemore bought in 1998 from a defense contractor who intended on using it for target practice had a number of restrictions on its use. A quarter of it was subject to a federal power-line right of way. Another quarter had federal protection for the desert tortoise, an endangered species that also is Nevada's official state reptile. The land had a fragile series of streams and washes that required special permission on which to build without ruining the desert's ecosystem.

None of these obstacles proved too difficult for Whittemore, at least not while he had his friend Harry Reid running interference in Congress. Interior refused to relocate the tortoises for over five years, until the Bureau of Land Management agreed to swap the land for another parcel abutting a federal preserve elsewhere. No one ever did an analysis to determine whether the deal was fair to either party, nor did the BLM go to Congress for approval on the changes to a project that Congress had explicitly legislated.

In 2002, Reid worked on the power corridor. He inserted obscure provisions into a land management bill that relocated the power corridor, freeing Whittemore to build on the 10,500 acres that Congress had previously held -- which means that someone else now had to lose property value for Whittemore's benefit, and for no cost whatsoever. That bald move caused raised eyebrows at the BLM and the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Reid backed away -- for the moment. Less than two years later, Reid tried again to give Whittemore the land for a song ($160,000), but Congress balked again. He finally settled for freeing the land for development and allowing Whittemore to buy it at a fair market rate, and forcing the government to relocate the power corridor.

In 2005, Reid and fellow Nevada Senator John Ensign conducted a series of interventions with the EPA to eliminate the final obstacle -- the environmental impact on the fragile ecosystem in Coyote Springs Valley. When the agency blocked Whittemore's efforts, Reid and Ensign held several meetings with EPA officials to pressure them into submission. Whittemore used another Reid son, Lief, to lobby his father's office for assistance. In the end, the pressure paid off, as the EPA backed down from its opposition after winning a few concessions on the development plan.

What did Reid get in exchange for all of this support? According to the Times, Whittemore contributed $45,000 to Reid and his PACs since 2000. He also gave the DSCC $20,000 in 2000, when it pushed Reid as a leader for the party in the Senate. Reid's son Josh got $5,000 for his unsuccessful campaign for a city council seat; his other sone Rory got $5,000 for his successful effort to win a spot on the Clark County Board of Commissioners.

That's a bunch of good info. Reid should be under spotlight.

Let's remember, though, that the previous majority is the one that established the K St. Project. While Reid was exploiting his connections the ruling majority was giving him cover.

My beef with the GOP includes corruption only as a sour to offset the saccharine-sweet moralizing of the self-styled social conservatives of the GOP. My main beef is the wrong-headed legislative program, the mindless support for Bush, and the absolute lack of oversight.

I don't care a whole lot about Frist enriching his family, but to talk about burdensome taxes while doing so burns me up.  Any hypocrisy by the Democratic leadership is dwarfed by the incompetence and sleaziness of the Republicans in Congress.

This week a New York Times poll said 55% of Americans wanted more troops sent to Iraq to help stabilize the situation.  

Well, not exactly. 

Question 62:  From what you have seen or heard about the situation in Iraq, what should the United States do NOW -- should the U.S. increase the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, keep the same number of U.S. troops in Iraq as there are now, decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, or remove all its troops from Iraq?

Increase - 16%
Keep same - 27%
Decrease - 26%
Remove all - 24%
DK/NA - 6%

Question 66: Would you favor or oppose sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, if that would help the U.S. to gain control of the Iraqi capital of Bagdad and stabilize the country?

Favor - 55%
Oppose - 37%
DK/NA - 7%

That's a very big "IF" in Q66.  Q62 is the "what do you think we should do" question, while Q66 gets at the reasoning behind people's opinions about what troop levels should be.

What is the source for this information? I know that Reid banned family members from lobbying his office, so I'm not sure that anything else here is accurate. I do know that the GOP has gone to extrordinary length's to smear Reid, and they have not been successful. The latest being that he "tipped" workers in his building from campaign funds at Christmas time for the extra work they had to do while he was campaignig. It was a few hundred dollars.

Yeah, next to Frist that sort of thing looks so....

[insert word of choice]

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gregd24: "If the Democrats could have found 10, or even six, things that 80% of them agreed on, and that polled well with a majority of Americans, they would have had a "Contract" this year. They didn't, because the only things the Democrats stand for aren't very popular."

Gee, guess you didn't hear about the "Six in '06". Here's Rahm Emanuel on a June "Journal Editorial Report", for just one of countless times it was discussed during the campaign:

Emanuel: In the opening you mentioned the new direction. What we call it is the "Six in '06": increase in the minimum wage; direct negotiations for lower prescription drug prices; a vote on the 9/11 Commission recommendations to make America safe; take the $15 billion in corporate subsidies to big oil and put it towards energy independence; seventh, or rather fifth, is take--restore the cuts in college education, that were 12 1/2 billion dollars in cuts, and make those go back towards opening the doors of college education, and then the pay-go rules as it relates to budget, to put our fiscal house in order and put us on a path to balancing the budget--Six in '06. Those will be the six commitments, and they're all original down payments on putting our fiscal house in order and investing in the long-term economic growth of America by investing on our education, health care and technology futures that would make us more secure on the home front.

And I guess you don't remember all the Dem-Congressperson-X-morphing-into-Clinton ads in '94, or the fact that polls showed most people pretty ignorant of the Contract (unlike today, actually, where the support for Democrats' positions is polling pretty much as high as the aversion to continued Republican control).