And Then There Were Two

Anchorage, Alaska mayor Mark Begich has pulled far enough ahead in the race for Senate that he is being declared the winner. By a narrow margin, he has defeated six-term senator (and seven-count convicted felon) Ted Stevens.

What Begich's victory means is that the Democrats now have 58 seats in the Senate, with two races still to be decided. I would give Al Franken a slightly better than 50% chance of winning the Minnesota seat after the recount. In Georgia, the run-off election between incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin will take place at the beginning of December. At this point, whichever party can persuade more people to turn out will most likely win that one.

Why is it so important for the Democrats to hit that magic number of 60 senators? Normally, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but thanks to the scorched-earth policy of the win-at-all-costs Republican party, it matters a great deal. In the curent session of Congress, which started in January of '07 and ends next month, the Republican minority has become little more than obstructionists, which may explain their crushing defeat on November 4th.

Here is an example:

(Image borrowed from OpenCongress.org. I hope they don't mind.)

A cloture vote is a procedural tactic that requires 60 votes in order to end, thus allowing a bill to move forward. The current obstructionist Republicans have used the cloture vote almost twice as many times as any previous Senate. This is the main reason that the Democrats so desperately want to have 60 senators. It's also why Harry Reed and company wussed out and allowed Lieberman to retain his cherished chairmanships, even after he endorsed McCain, spoke at the RNC convention, and expressed doubt as to whether Obama is ready to be president.

The fringe benefit of Begich's victory is that Stevens won't be expelled from the Senate by his colleagues, and Sarah Palin won't have an opportunity to take over his seat. Whether the Democrats hit the magic 60 or not, at least we have that to be thankful for.
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Maybe Nancy Pelosi Shouldn't Resign As Speaker... Yet.

Over this past summer, Congress has enjoyed some of the lowest approval ratings ever. At one point, they sunk even lower than Dick Cheney's. (Now that's low!) The cries from the right were that this was clear and ample evidence of the citizens' dissatisfaction with the Democratic majority. Seeing as the Democrats held control of the Senate by the slimmest of margins (so slim, in fact, that they let Joe Lieberman caucus with them,) and the entire House was up for reelection as well, November 4th provided the perfect opportunity for the voters to send a clear message to Congress.

And they did.

There are still, as I write this, three Senate races that have yet to be called. Nonetheless, the Democrats have gained six seats, giving them a strong majority of 57 to only 40 for the Republicans. In the House, the Democrats increased their majority from 236 to 254 (with eight still up in the air.)

Apparently, the voters have decided that not only do they approve of the Democrats being in charge, but want them to have more power, so they can start pushing forward with a Democratic agenda. (Why else give them a larger majority? If the voters wanted more "compromise," they would have left the margins as they were.) Plus, a Democrat won the presidential election by a landslide, so there goes the veto threat.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi had the following reaction:

"I don't know what the final number will be," Pelosi said during a Wednesday afternoon news conference on Capitol Hill. "But it will be well over 250. It's a signal of the change that the American people want."

So she understands the significance of the increased majority that the voters have given her. She can finally dust off that Liberal Agenda that's been stuffed in her desk drawer for the past almost two years. Will she have the guts to lead, actually lead, with this vote of confidence from the American people?

It would be a break from recent Democratic behavior, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

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Election Reflection

At 8:25pm last night (Central time,) ABC News projected that Obama would win Ohio's electoral votes. It was at that moment that I knew he would be our next president. As George Stephanopoulos remarked, the McCain camp didn't have a road map to victory that didn't include Ohio. Since they had called Pennsylvania for Obama early in the night, I knew that McCain was sunk.

As the night wore on, I watched with the world as the electoral map shifted. Here is what it looked like after the 2004 election:



Wow, that's a mighty sea of red, isn't it?

Once Ohio flipped to blue, the cards started falling. All told, nine stated shifted. (I'm giving Obama North Carolina, even though it may not be "official" yet.) These are the states Obama won that were Bush states in '04:



The final map looks like this:



Notice how the blue wave has spread out from the northeast and from the west coast. Another pattern of interest is that in several of the red states that remained red, the margin of victory for McCain was considerably smaller than that of Bush in 2004. For example, in Montana, Bush won by a margin of 21%, but McCain scraped by with 3.5%. In North Dakota, Bush enjoyed a 27.8% victory; McCain managed just under 9%. Back in June, I predicted (incorrectly) that Texas would flip over to blue in this election. That was wishful thinking, I guess. I still think it will, though, as the demographic shifts and the population becomes more urban (which is an overall trend that does not bode well for the republican party.) Bush won Texas by 23% back in 2004; Obama closed that gap to just under 12%.

Back then, my electoral map looked like this:



I was wrong on a few states, but I was only off by 10 electoral votes, giving Obama 354, so that's pretty good, I think. (If I do say so myself.)

So ultimately, does this election represent a fundamental shift in the voting pattern of America, or is it simply a reaction to Bush fatigue? It's difficult to say, but I have a feeling it's more of the former than the latter. The talk has already started about what the GOP needs to do to start winning national elections again. My advice to conservatives would be to use this opportunity to realign the party with its conservative roots, abandoning the radical neocon influence that has permeated it in recent years.

But then, I'm a liberal, so what do I know?

The Blue Wave

Last Thursday, Bob Beckel over at Real Clear Politics had an article about how the election this fall will be a blowout in Obama's favor. He makes a strong argument, starting with the results of the 2004 election, which looked like this:



He gave McCain New Hampshire, which seems fair. Then he gave Obama Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Ohio. He took Montana, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida away from McCain since they are all too close to call. His map looks like this:



Which would result in a nice big win for Obama, no matter which way the four swing states fell.
I think that Beckel missed one important state, though. There is one state that has been a Republican stronghold recently, and in most scenarios is considered a gimme for the GOP. Let me put a picture of it here, so you all can start to get used to seeing it.



The latest poll I can find shows McCain leading Obama in Texas by only 5 percent, 48 to 43, with 9% undecided. I think that as McCain tries to play tough on illegal immigration and border fences in order to placate the GOP base, a lot of hispanics are going to shift over to the Democratic camp. Add to that the quarter-million blacks displaced from New Orleans who now call Texas home and the emergence of Bob Barr as a Libertarian alternative for Ron Paul's supporters, and I think that the Lone Star State will tip back to blue, as it was in almost every election through 1976. This is what my electoral map looks like:



Isn't that nice? I left Florida as undecided because it's too hard to say how that one's going to fall. I think it will be blue, but I'm not confident in that prediction. I also gave North Dakota to Obama because he's currently leading McCain in that state as well.

So, will McCain get wiped out this November or is it just wishful thinking? We'll find out in five months. Stay tuned.

NOTE: All of the maps here were created on my new favorite web site: 270toWin.com. Go check it out.
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