{"id":9001,"date":"2006-11-08T09:25:49","date_gmt":"2006-11-08T14:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9001.html"},"modified":"2006-11-08T09:25:49","modified_gmt":"2006-11-08T14:25:49","slug":"making-the-worlds-most-deliberative-body-a-little-more-deliberate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/making-the-worlds-most-deliberative-body-a-little-more-deliberate\/","title":{"rendered":"Making the world’s most deliberative body a little more deliberate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than a month ago, the Republican establishment recognized the precarious future of their Senate majority. They decided to throw a few incumbents overboard, and count on a “firewall<\/a>” strategy that would prevent a Democratic takeover. They’d invest most of their energy and resources in three red states<\/a> — Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee — which would prevent a Dem majority, even if it meant giving up on incumbents like Santorum and Chafee.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the wave was too big. Dems won two of those three.<\/p>\n

One of the things that stands out for me was just how easily<\/i> Dems won key contests. Among Dem-held seats, Republicans made a lot of noise about New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan, and Washington. Dems not only won all of them, they won these races by an average of more than 13 points.<\/p>\n

In Minnesota, Republicans saw Mark Kennedy as a “rising star.” He lost by 20 points. DeWine was part of the “firewall,” until he lost by 12. Jim Talent couldn’t lose in Missouri, right up until Claire McCaskill won by three points, which is more than some Dem optimists had even expected.<\/p>\n

So, where are we now? In a hurry-up-and-wait position.
\n
\nIn Montana, Sen. Conrad Burns (R) trails challenger Jon Tester (D) by about a 1-point margin<\/a> with just about all of the precincts reporting. A recount now seems likely.<\/p>\n

And speaking of recounts, there’s still the matter of Virginia<\/a> to consider.<\/p>\n

Democratic challenger James Webb held a slim lead over Republican Sen. George Allen early today in Virginia’s U.S. Senate race, a dramatic and nasty battle that almost certainly will be decided by a recount next month.<\/p>\n

With more than 99 percent of the votes tallied by about 2 a.m. today, Webb claimed victory with a lead of about 7,800 votes among the more than 2.3 million cast — a difference of three-tenths of a percent. Some absentee ballots in Loudoun County, Richmond and Virginia Beach were still being counted in the early morning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Webb declared victory shortly after 1 a.m., but Allen will keep fighting. Apparently, after provisional and absentee ballots are counted, the vote gets certified on November 27. Then there’s a recount, which could take a while. “I guess I know how I’ll be spending my Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations,” joked Jean Jensen, the secretary of the State Board of Elections.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the only thing that hangs in the balance is control of the United States Senate. As of this morning, it’s 49-49. If you’ll excuse me for stating the obvious, if Dems win both of the remaining races — and we’re ahead right now in both — you’ll be able to congratulate Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. If the parties split them, we’ll have a very interesting 50-50 chamber.<\/p>\n

One more thought about the Senate: a Democratic majority was supposed to be a pipe-dream. The House was supposed to be the chamber in play, but the Senate was a real long-shot, at least as far as the conventional wisdom was concerned. I lost count of how many times I heard a pundit say the Dems would have to “pull an inside straight” to even come close.<\/p>\n

And yet, he were are. It’s frustrating that we probably won’t know the outcome for a few weeks, at the earliest, but let’s not lose sight of just how tremendous a victory this is in a chamber that was allegedly out of reach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Less than a month ago, the Republican establishment recognized the precarious future of their Senate majority. They decided to throw a few incumbents overboard, and count on a “firewall” strategy that would prevent a Democratic takeover. They’d invest most of their energy and resources in three red states — Missouri, Ohio, and Tennessee — which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}