<p>The hearings are the best part. C-SPAN has been boring beyond all recognition for the last few years. Congressmen lob softballs at administration officials who shuck and jive before doing a little softshoe.</p>
<p>It’ll be great to get back to some attack dog congressional hearings. Those are a lot more fun.</p>
<p>And, honestly, I can’t think of an administration that is more deserving of a good ol’ fashioned congressional grilling.</p>
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<p>Better positioned than George Allen, that’s for sure.</p>
<p>Note to presidential hopefuls: racial slurs at campaign stops probably aren’t a great idea.</p>
<p>Even if Allen wins a recount, he is toast as far as any Presdiential aspirations are concerned.</p>
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<p>On the order of Saint Lawrence, I’m a thinking.</p>
<p>Oh, and Webb wins any recount. Otoh, I’m nervous about Montana. Tester is leading by about 2,700 votes with 90 percent counted but I don’t like the trends from Yellowstone and Fergus counties.</p>
<p>Anyone want to start a pool on when Driver surfaces? Swann, Rendell, PA-04, PA-07, PA-08, and PA-10 all gone. I’m sorry that we left PA-06 behind as a consolation prize. Next time.</p>
<p>GA-08 looks to be in hand but GA-12 could still get pretty dicey given where the outstanding votes are coming from. I look for Barrow to eke out a victory by about 1 percent.</p>
<p>If so, the Democrats will have done something never done before: pitched a shutout on the Governors/Senate/House seats. This election was a war fought on Republican-held territory and the results show it.</p>
<p>Driver is licking her wounds.</p>
<p>We’ll see her in a couple of weeks.</p>
<p>I think Montana is going to be verrrry close… maybe within 300 votes. There will definitely be a recount. Anyway, that’s what is keeping me up right now.</p>
<p>Karl “driver” Rove, where are you? </p>
<p>The good news is the dems won. </p>
<p>The bad news is the dems won.</p>
<p>We now have two years for the tired old liberal warhorse committee chairs to remind centrist voters why they threw the dems out 12 years ago. I sure hope the house dem leadership has learned something the past decade, but I worry they have not, and will spend two years giving the RNC and centrist voters every reason to put a republican in the white house in two years.</p>
<p>We’ll see.</p>
<p>Gotta give props to TheDad: This was a much bigger Dem vote than I could have imagined. </p>
<p>But, speaking of PA-06, what happened? In the midst of a Democratic wave nationally and statewide, the vote was almost unchanged from the last election (when Kerry won the district but Gerlach squeaked by with a 1.5% margin). This year, slightly lower turnout (but huge for a nonpresidential year), and the margin is almost identical, with really significant shifts to the Dems in the adjacent districts. (And if you know anything about the 6th, one of the most gerrymandered districts in the country, you know that you can walk a mile in parts of the Philly suburbs and pass through 3 congressional districts. “Adjacent” means your neighbors.) Probably some of the nastiest negative ads in the country, too, which this year should have blown up in Gerlach’s face but seem not to have.</p>
<p>OK, 99% precincts reported in Montana, and, Tester’s held the lead, though by the slimmest of margins (less than 1600 votes). There will most likely be a recount, but that lead is also probably big enough to hold. So right now… my money is on Tester & Webb.</p>
<p>I’m actually not tootoo disappointed with the outcome. Most of the Democrats who took Republican seats are actually pretty sane, ‘conservative’ Democrats which makes the medicine go down a little better. 
But the truth be told, the Republicans ousted weren’t that bad either. They are paying the price for the Iraq, and in Missouri, that idiot Limbaugh. (Yes, I’m a conservative who rejects Rush…he is useless imho.) </p>
<p>Can’t say we didn’t have it coming to us. Oh welllll…pressure’s off a little (jk).</p>
<p>the ad’s here in PA have been horrible. I’m sick and tired of seeing the ad’s that state “my opponent is against this this this and this. oh, and he voted against this last year.” Please, just tell me whta YOU stand for and what YOU voted for. because then the very next ad is the opponent saying the EXACT same thing.</p>
<p>Did anyone notice Nancy Pelosi’s lavender suit and purple necklace? </p>
<p>Get it ?</p>
<p>Bi-partisanship.</p>
<p>Pelosi as Speaker is really the only bitter pill in this for me. But I hear that she and George W. Bush have a few things in common. Both want no border fence and a guest worker program. So I guess we may be kissing the 700 mile fence buh-bye. (little tear)</p>
<p>Two years ago Bush said “I have political capital and intend to use it.”</p>
<p>Hope the Democrats paid attention. Moderation may serve them well in two years.</p>
<p>Idmom,
What is with the dislike of Nancy Pelosi? It seems partisan and quite frankly symptomatic of how the Republicans treat any leader of the democratic party. I didn’t vote for Bush but when he was granted the election in 2000, I at least gave him the benefit of the doubt. I can remember saying to my H that “maybe he won’t be so bad”.</p>
<p>Tide’s turn. The voting public was tired of being hoodwinked.</p>
<p>Props to us all.</p>
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<p>Whether it is Nancy or Hillary, nothing frightens the Right like the thought of a woman who holds both power and progessive ideas.</p>
<p>I guess Pelosi jumped on my radar when she voted FOR the Patriot Act and then decided she now OPPOSES it…very vocally and viciously at that.</p>
<p>No different that John Kerry. Elitist millionairess who flipflops.</p>
<p>Btw…that accusation doesn’t wash Coureur. I’ve been riding with a Condi bumper sticker for a year now. Not that I think I can convince her…lol!</p>
<p>^^I said both power AND progessive ideas. Ms. Rice has an abundance of the former and a dearth of the latter.</p>