It looks to me like the Dems will pick up about 30 seats in the House, which means it changes hands. The Senate looks closer, and it will probably stay narrowly in Republican hands. The Senate doesn’t matter that much because you need 60 votes to do anything important, and neither party is close to that mark.
Nationally, the Dems will pick up several governorships, but California will buck the trend. Not only will Arnie be re-elected, but we’re going to get one or two more Republican statewide office holders, probably Tom McClintock and either an insurance commissioner, a treasurer or a controller. Democrat Debbie Bowen will win the Sec. of State’s race, and that’s a good thing because she’s a real geek.
If the Repubs are paying attention, they’ll learn from California to shut up about the gays, the Christians, the guns, and the unborn babies, and worry more about stuff like the environment, infrastructure, low taxes, and health care.
Even though the Dems are going to pick up the House, I doubt Nancy Pelosi will be elected speaker. She’s a dimwit, and they can do a lot better. Steny Hoyer came second in their last contest, and he’s a much better man than Frisco loony Pelosi.
UPDATE: The Dems did even better than I thought, taking the Senate as well as the House, and it looks like they intend to give Pelosi a shot at speaker after all. Hopefully, her cat-fight with Jane Harman will stop. Sadly, Tom McClintock won’t get to entertain us from the ceremonial position of Lt. Governor, but the Republican Steve Poizner won Insurance Commissioner over the corrupt Cruz Bustamante. The only Congressional seat to change columns here was Pombo’s, which he lost because of his radical opposition to the Endangered Species Act.
Nancy Pelosi is a bug-eyed muppet, perfect for the Speaker of the House, as she will not be able to assert any true leadership and will have to go along with whatever compromises are worked out. That’s assuming there isn’t total gridlock, with Bush using his veto power to thwart any Democratic Party initiatives, and the House unable to get the supermajority together to override the veto.
I’m sure Pelosi scares the hell out of the neocons out there, who’s worst nightmare is that the Presidency may fall to her in the event that Bush and Cheney are taken out. They have lots of apocalyptic fantasies, and that would really rock their little imaginary worlds.
She’d probably be good for Repubs in 2008.
You missed a couple things here. First, it looks like the Dems will go with Pelosi. Second, the Dems are the ones who’ve dropped gun control – they’ve realized that it’s the same level of loser as attempting to force abortion bans.
Finally, I expect the Dems to have some real unity problems. Conyers is going to go full bore for impeachment hearings, and that will work out just as well for the Dems as the Republican windmill tilts at Clinton went.
Ultimately, the next two years will probably see something like this:
— a ton of pointless investigations, just like 1996-1998
— IF the Dems force a withdrawal from Iraq, you’ll see a bloodbath across the middle east of epic proportions. The nascent Shia/Sunni conflict that is mostly contained now (due to our presence) will explode and Iran (Shia) and the Sunni powers (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, et. al.) vie for influence in Iraq. Watch Turkey take advantage of the chaos by leveling the Kurds in northern Iraq, in order to silence their own restive Kurds.
In short, a withdrawal will look like Cambodia after Vietnam, but with the true joys of nuclear weapons and religious zealotry added to the mix. Look at the history of the 30 years war in Central Europe for a notion as to how that will go. Mind you, while that’s happening, oil prices won’t drop.
The next two years will likely be legislative gridlock and fairly nasty foreign issues. I seriously doubt the ability of the Democrats to deal rationally with the foreign issues.
Do you honestly think the Democrats won on issues like:
“stuff like the environment, infrastructure, low taxes, and health care.”
It’s the war, stupid, to paraphrase the Clinton team….
It seems to be more a question of corruption, incompetence, and hypocrisy. We’re just not interested in a lot of fear-mongering from Rummy and gay-hating from the likes of Pastor Haggard.
Republicans did well in California running on the issues I outlined.
1) California is not the rest of the US
2) I don’t recall guns coming up much at all in California
3) Either way, I’d like to see your response to my initial comment
California’s born-agains tried to pass a parental notification for abortion initiative, which failed on the same ballot that re-elected Gov. Schwarzenegger by a wide margin. There was no real gun rights or gun control on the ballot anywhere this year, but there was a huge package of bond measures – 37 billion worth – that passed in California.
I don’t doubt that more trouble is looming in Iraq, and that will certainly be the case until there’s a political solution. I didn’t see any progress toward that in the last three years, so it’s not like “stay the course” has any credibility left. Bush has no clue, let alone a plan.
California is pretty much a microcosm of the US, with everything from the richest stretch of farmland in the Central Valley to conservative San Diego and Orange County to liberal Frisco and LA. Two recent presidents have hailed from the Golden State, both were Republican, and neither was a religious nut. California voters legalized medical marijuana and decriminalized other drugs, banned gay marriage and affirmative action, and refused to raise taxes on cigarettes and oil. What a great state it is.