The Oregonian has just called the Oregon senate race for Jeff Merkley. So, that makes it a pick up of six seats with three more (Minnesota, Alaska, and Georgia) still in dispute. The three best senate candidates we had this year were Merkley, Begich, and Franken. I am relieved that at least one of them has prevailed. Merkley will be one the Senate’s most progressive senators, and he will be excellent for Labor and on the environment.
Al Franken is going to need some luck but his race is close enough that a win is at least a 45% possibility. It all depends on how the recount goes and how many provisional votes he has. Mark Begich is a little farther from victory. Begich needs to win pretty decisively with the absentee ballots. One good sign is that Begich won quite decisively on Alaska’s three large military bases. A lot of those absentee ballots are from military families living abroad, or in the lower forty-eight. Jim Martin is going to have a second shot at Chambliss during an early December runoff election.
We’d have to be very lucky to run the table on all three, but if we can somehow pull it off we’ll be very glad we did. Begich, Franken, and Martin would be better senators than Warner, Shaheen, and Hagan. Plus, if they all win, we’ll have 58 Democratic senators, plus Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman. It would be very hard to carry out a filibuster in a caucus that is that strongly blue.
In any case, congratulations to Jeff Merkley. I know he’s going to be great.
I’m a Dem and a resident of Minnesota and you’re wrong about Franken. He is/was a very flawed candidate. Unfortunately, the Dem bench is and was pretty weak.
I didn’t mean to imply he ran a great campaign. I meant, he’s a progressive. Shaheen, Warner, and Hagan are certainly not progressives.
Since we won’t reach 60 in the Senate, can we recall the line the Repug’s used back in 04-06 we we tried to fillibuster. I recall it was something about how all issues deserved an up or down vote?? Perhaps we need to dust that one off and polish it up a bit.
sounds good to me.
Personally, I like the idea of appointing Olympia Snowe to a Cabinet post. Moderate Republican, won’t do much harm, and we can get a Democrat appointed in her place.
I just really hope we get some kind of Democrat as SecDef. I was initially open to Hagel, but after seeing the monopoly the GOP has had on the position, I think it’s time for a change.
Olympia Snowe, George Voinivich – are there any other Republican Senators who aren’t completely insane that have Democratic governors? That would be a good way to make some bi-partisan appointments and shake the Senate up a bit. Though I’d want to be careful where Voinivich is concerned – he has no spine and he’s one who’s reflexes go to cutting spending instead of asking for more money when budgets get tight. Not a total wingnut, but not exactly a courageous politician either.
That’s why I don’t particularly like the idea of moving Lugar out – he’s actually fairly reasonable on a lot of things, but Mitch Daniels would probably appoint a total wingnut if Lugar moved out of the Senate.
No Hagel on SecDef. Absolutely not. The only Republican who should even have an inkling of consideration for that post is Gates, and only because he seems to be really, really well-regarded by both the troops and the officer corps. Obama needs to put someone in that post who isn’t going to stab him in the back but who the officer corps is going to respect (Clinton had problems with the military in ’92 and Obama doesn’t have time for a repeat of that mess). I’m not sure that Gates can be trusted, but he does have the respect thing down. If Obama moves Gates out he has got to replace him with someone that is equally competent (at a minimum) and that doesn’t have to prove his bonafides with the military. I don’t have any idea who that might be on the Dem side, though I’m sure such a person exists.
Still, I’m glad to see that Dole’s godless crap was given an appropriate result.
what is the SOURCE of this disease??
Abject cowardice – sometimes I think it’s a part of Democrats DNA…