The Republicans took over at least 59 house seats and now the Democrats are in the one hundreds with only 194 or less while the Republicans are well in excess of two hundred. The Republican gains will probably exceed sixty seats. In the Senate Harry Reid hung on to his majority seat and defeated Angler by 50% to 45% beating out the latest polls there. In late news Michael Bennet just won for Senate in Colorado. So the West is putting up resistance to the Republican tide. Marco Rubio won in Florida handily by more than his two opponents combined, including former governor Charlie Crist. The democrats hung on to the West Virginia senate race but lost in Illinois, Michigan and in Pennsylvania, so Joe Sestak lost. Joe Miller appears headed for defeat in Alaska as Lisa Marcoski with her write in campaign appears to be winning but they’re going to hold that one up for days. In the senate they say it’s 49 democrats to 46 republicans and two independents. The math doesn’t quite add up there. John Boehner began to cry as he gave his speech this morning on the Today show. In the thing I saw on the internet he was straightforward. Meanwhile in state races Jerry Brown won 52% to 43% to Meg Whitman and Barbra Boxer defeated Carley Feurina 50% to 45% or something though Feurina hasn’t conceded yet. Cooley gave a victory speech for Attorney General even though the San Francisco Chronicle yanked it’s victory call a half hour after it was given and Harris appears to be the next Attorney General. In the propositions proposition 19 lost, and there were all these allusions to “going up in smoke” but even if just 44% of the people voted for it that’s still a sizable minority. Proposition 20 passed and so we will take redistricting away from the legislature. The state parks initiative lost as did proposition 24 so say Hello to a giveaway to the rich taking money from school teachers and others. Proposition 25 won so the legislature is on notice now for no late budgets or they get the axe. Proposition 22 won to preserve local funds. And the dirty air initiate lost- - as Californians rejected this scheme by oil billionaires. Proposition 27 lost.
I wasn’t pleased with the coverage on seven last night because they didn’t keep us updated on key senate races enough. They kept talking about how tea baggers feel about taking over the House but in hard numbers the last figure I heard was 19 out of a needed 39. I switched to channel nine at eight. I stayed up relatively late by my current standards but I decided not to wait till after ten for victory speeches because they might have delays in those. KNBC in the morning was more obsessed with traffic and weather than they were the election results. Stephanie Miller wasn’t much better as far as giving anybody hard numbers. I had to go to the internet before breakfast for that.
President Obama is having a press conference at ten. I believe he will have to make a dramatic break with his usual pattern if people are going to care what he says. Just the usual lines about “Putting politics aside and working together” won’t cut it this year. Not if people don’t really feel the President has “gotten the message”. Senator Mitch Mc Conell has said his job is to massively obstruct everything and make Obama a one term President. Rand Paul won the senate seat in Kentucky, and that was hardly any surprise. People have been pronouncing him the winner for months already. As I say, this country now is going to slip back down into the depths of recession, which tea baggers like Judy appear to want. Facts are tricky things and the fact is our nation was more in debt after W W II after twelve years of Roosevelt spending than we are now, and we came out of that crisis just fine. As far as I know federal spending was not even a campaign issue back in that era. The “War” we are facing now is the war on massive recession and we have to continually be vigilant in that area.
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