Politics { 2006 Minnesota Election
In Minnesota:
Klobuchar takes the Senate.
Keith Ellison wins in the 5th. Tim Walz is looking strong in the 1st. Okay so far.
Michelle Bachmann in the 6th. I need a drink.
Pawlenty and Hatch are within a breath of each other. Pawlenty will probably pull ahead for a bit. Hopefully Hatch will pick up some late wind from the Iron Range.
Bye-bye Mary Kiffmeyer. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. No need to show Mark Ritchie how to do the job, since he's already pretty much been doing your job for you.
Rebecca Otto gets Auditor. Lori Swanson takes the AG slot.
Nationwide:
Dems pick up the House. Senate is iffy at best. No surprises there. Hello Speaker Pelosi.
Holy Joe beats Ned.
Looks like the Virginia senate race is so close that we might have recounts into next week.
Not hopeful for the Dems in that nasty nasty Tennessee senate race.
Dems pick up some Governorships.
The anti-abortion amendment in SoDak looks like a no-go.
Voters in a number of states don't seem to be down with letting Gay people have the same rights as straight people.
More tomorrow.
UPDATE 00:03
Looks like that is gonna be Congressman Walz! Bye Gil! Go Rochester Democrats!
UPDATE 01:15
Control down to two Senate races, Webb in Virginia and Tester in Montana. If both win, the Dems own the Senate too. If either one loses, the GOP retains control.
92% Precincts reporting and it is still within a percent for the MN Gov race.
UPDATE 01:40
Looks like Webb won. Control of the U.S. Senate all comes down to Montana.
UPDATE 01:46
By my math, Hatch would need to maintain about 65% of the late counted votes (Iron Range, etc.) to beat Pawlenty. I'm not optimistic.
UPDATE 01:48
KSTP is calling it for Pawlenty. WCCO too. And KMSP. And KARE.
UPDATE 01:55
StarTribune calls it for Pawlenty too.
UPDATE 02:25 FINAL
Bleary eyed and going to sleep. CNN has Tester up by 2% with 76% of precincts in for the Montana senate race. If Webb's victory in Virginia survives the inevitable recount and electoral shenanigans, the Dems might have the US Senate too.
It was a sound victory in the House, a not so sound victory in the senate, and overall a pretty good night for Democrats nationwide.
But I'm not happy.
It wasn't a complete victory. I wanted a thorough overtake of the Senate by the Dems. Thorough as in 'the impeachment of the entire Bush administration will begin immediately, and we aren't going to have any nonsense about it, oi'
Sorry, that was incoherent.
Also, much of the results just reinforce my feeling that our electoral system, with its winner take all single candidate vote crap is just stupid. I should be able to put my full weight behind the Green party or really progressive folks, without it potentially giving the vote away to the candidate I want least. A prefferential balloting system would be a better, more democratic idea.
Also, the US Senate is, in the words of someone I spoke with yesterday, "The House of Lords...a complete joke". I love Vermont, but Vermont has two Senators and a population of less than San Fransisco, and California is stuck with the same two senators. Representation should be based on number of citizens, not arbitrary lines on a map. I'm not interested in your terrain getting a Senator.
America's statewide constitutional amendments and referrenda choices tell me that most people still don't get it. Stop moralizing and start worrying about things that matter, such as: our economy is a joke, our democracy is being eroded, our civil rights are being crushed, we're destroying the ecosystem, we're out of cheap, reliable fossil fuel energy, our infrastructure is a crumbling mess, our people are uneducated bumpkins, and we're putting war-mongering FUD spreading religious nutjob chickenhawks in control of policy.
I'm hopeful that things are better than they were yesterday, but we still have a long, long path ahead of us.
3 comments:
I am happy. Satisfied? No. But happy. Why? Well my district was a flush of the GOP old guard. People are pissed. I am also happy that the GOP no longer controls most of the institutions that affect my life.
But the shit is just hitting the fan. The democrats now are saddled with all the problems and issues the GOP either made or refused to faced. I hope to start seeing subpoena power being used. I want flashlights shined into the darkest corners of our gov't and see what scurries out.
AllThings, I think the state constitutional amendments being on the ballot are a good thing. At least that way the issue is taken out of the office races, right? If you can go and vote for an amendment that blocks gay marriage then you are less likely to base your decisions about candidates on that issue, or that issue alone. I think we need to put more initiatives like that on the ballot for hot button issues so that we can get those highly emotional and divisive issues out of the way when we vote for office holders. Office holders should not be focusing on issues like abortion and gay marriage they should be focusing on policy issues.
I have issues when constitutional amendments are used for funding issues. This was a game played by the GOP House and Govenor so that taxes could be raised without it looking like they raised taxes. Part of our elected official's responsibility is to fund gov't services, this means from time to time having to levy taxes.
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