@Malintex_Terek:
Luck.
Yes, it has to be luck rather than the Democrats making vast improvements to the way they go about politics.
The conservative voting blocs we've seen over the past six years; politics has become extremely partisan and outside of the "swing" voters I really couldn't see people from either voting block who would vote for an opposing party.
Actually, there were quite a few conservatives that probably would have traditionally voted Republican that voted Democratic this time. That's no in small part due to the wholesale abandonment of traditional conservative principles by the GOP over the past few years.
I'm not sure who you're talking about; Santorum? If so, he's a very unpopular extreme conservative from a moderately liberal state; his defeat was almost guaranteed.
Yes, he was the number three man for the Republican party, which certainly didn't concede the state as they poured vast amounts of time, money, and effort into keeping him.
I meant the voting block, sorry.
And the voting block isn't going to be affected by the collapse of the party leadership?
Those are either internet polls or they have a small or skewed sampling size; of the middle class that matters (the voters), we've seen fairly close elections with the Dems barely scratching their way to the top.
I haven't really seen the total ballots cast for both parties yet, but I would be surprised if the totals didn't bear at least some resemblance to polls that said that the average voter preferred Democrats on a generic ballot.
I don't think attempts will do much, and even if the Dems do succeed that raises the question; WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR IT?
Oh, I don't know. EMPLOYERS MAYBE? Who the hell else pays wages in this country?
At any rate, raising money to fund initiatives is simple. Kill the various tax cuts that Bush has already passed; they don't benefit the vast majority of Americans. After that, restrain unnecessary spending. Simply having actual, honest-to-God oversight on spending in Iraq would make a vast difference.
Most likely in states where voting Democratic didn't matter, like the south and Deep South.
Possibly, but any crack in the Republican base will benefit Democrats. If nothing else, it's another sign that the evangelical crowd is starting to realize that they were being used.
Beyond that, there's a significant percentage of Hispanic voters moving over into the Democratic camp that would have voted for Republicans prior to this year. If they can hold onto those voters and expand on them, then the Democratic party's future is bright.
Highly unlikely. As I said earlier, the overhwhelming majority of the "competitive" races were razor thin for each individual race, where Democrats just barely prevailed over their Republican challengers.
MOST OF THESE RACES WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO EVEN BE COMPETITIVE.
Conrad Burns was a very powerful Republican, he lost anyway. Allen was planning to coast through this election while warming up his Presidential campaign, he lost.
What part of that very basic idea don't you understand?
If any pundit had stated that the Democrats would win both the House and the Senate even last year or even early this year, he would have been laughed off television. Hell, even them winning the Senate was considered a very long shot on Tuesday.
The amazing part of this election, as you noted earlier, was that no incumbent seats were lost and that so many independent victories occured that greated the perception that the Democrats were strongly supported by the United States, which just isn't the case.
Considering that the narrowest margin of victory for a incumbent President in almost nine decades was widely acclaimed as a popular mandate back in 2004, it's not the least bit surprising that this perception exists.
I wish I wasn't busy with class and could have seen that; it would have been glorious to behold.
I happened to enjoy that one reporter reading off a list of Nancy Pelosi's slams to Bush before asking him how he plans to work with her myself. That and Begala calling Rush Limbaugh a pill-popping gasbag that is self-discrediting.
Yeah, it sure seems that way; the Rumsfeld resignation looked timed in response to the Dems getting the House, but winning the Senate seemed to be quite the shocker and that derailed the weight of the resignation quite easily.
I'm not really sure how effective such a resignation would have been even if the Senate hadn't fallen to the Democrats. The average response to his resignation among Democrats, Independents, and many Republicans is that of jubilation. Even
I find that surprising, since I was told my professors that winning the House was a longshot but winning the Senate was a "maybe"; instead the Dems managed to grab both.
The vast majority of the predictions I saw prior to the election pretty much conceded the House to Democrats. Even conservatives agreed on that. The Senate was the longshot; largely because the sheer amount of resources that both sides could pour into those campaigns. Senatorial races tend to be much more high profile than House races.
The GOP designated a handful of states as a firewall that they must hold to maintain control of the Senate. They held onto one in Tennessee and even that was a lot closer that polls indicated that it would be. And that's in spite of a gay marriage ban proposal designed to bring out their core constituency.
I remember one instance he was comparing his Harvard education to Arnold's at UWS and implied only Ivy-League educated people were deserving of political office.
Well, that's kind of my point. Things like that clearly show that he didn't know what he was doing.