election day after
No doubt, a Democrat sweep. At this point the 'crats have a 40 seat lead in the House and the Senate is tied 49-49 awaiting results of Montana and Virginia. The 'crats added 6 Governorships as well as winning many state governments.
Here in Michigan, D-Gov. Granholm retained and so did D-Senator Stabenow. Granholm's opponent Dick DeVos spent $35 million of his own money and lost fairly big. I was happy, she was the best of the candidates including the Green candidate, sorry. DeVos was a stealth religious right millionaire, born with a spoon in his mouth as the son of Amway mogul. He accidently tipped voters when he mentioned that he believed intelligent design should be taught in schools. Behind the scences Dick funds a number of religious right causes and group with his millions.
As far as proposals on the ballot here in Michigan, the dove hunting was resounding defeated, this was to allow mourning dove hunting after a 99 year ban, so it will be banned for many more years. We had proposal 2, which was to end affirmative action at the state colleges and it passed which meant that affirmative action was to be abolished. This was a difficult worded proposal where if you were FOR affirmative action you voted NO, if you're ANTI affirmative action then vote YES. I suspect this wording may have actually meant that too many mistaken voters voted the wrong way and it should have rightly failed. The vote yes side received money in the last weeks from Nazi sources, which both scares me if true and makes me angry for a late contribution that won't get released to the public until after election day. So, we shall see where the money came from for that proposal supporters of yes.
Across the nation, I was glad for Sherrod Brown-D, Ohio Senator knocking out =====. who was a Bush clone on every issue, Brown is a progressive. I was somewhat dsappointed about Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee for Senate who got hit with a nearly libelous attack add that made Ford seem a womanizer of whites, Ford should have won just because of that dirty attack. Bernie Sanders won Senate in Vermont, he's an independent who's a self proclaimed socialist. He was one of my favorites in the House, now moving to the Senate. So, that's two independents in the Senate including Connecticut's Joe Leiberman, who had to give up being a Democrat after losing the primary to Ned Lamont who then lost to Leiberman last night. I was pulling for Iraq War vet D-Tammy Duckworth, but she lost a close one.
The Dems swept up New Hampshire, and smoked Ohio. They even had successes in the Red West. Nearly every moderate Republican was voted out, leaving mostly hard core Republicans. Many of the Democratic winners were moderate or even conservative-Democrat, which may give power to those type of Dems, a caucus known as the Blue Dogs. And now of course what is Bush to do.
I'm generally happy, I wish more progressives won seats. On the other hand, the Dems have all sorts of problems to deal with. Ethics, the Iraq War, the Afghan War (which was barely discussed during campaign season), and investigations of the Bush wars and administration. The investigations will probably be slow in order not to be anxious, or maybe the investigations won't even be real in order to plan for 2008 elections. The Iraq War needs to be addressed, we need to begin withdrawal plans in some sort of way, "slow at first" is at least a step in the right direction.
Anyway, I have many other thoughts but with no more time to write them.
Here in Michigan, D-Gov. Granholm retained and so did D-Senator Stabenow. Granholm's opponent Dick DeVos spent $35 million of his own money and lost fairly big. I was happy, she was the best of the candidates including the Green candidate, sorry. DeVos was a stealth religious right millionaire, born with a spoon in his mouth as the son of Amway mogul. He accidently tipped voters when he mentioned that he believed intelligent design should be taught in schools. Behind the scences Dick funds a number of religious right causes and group with his millions.
As far as proposals on the ballot here in Michigan, the dove hunting was resounding defeated, this was to allow mourning dove hunting after a 99 year ban, so it will be banned for many more years. We had proposal 2, which was to end affirmative action at the state colleges and it passed which meant that affirmative action was to be abolished. This was a difficult worded proposal where if you were FOR affirmative action you voted NO, if you're ANTI affirmative action then vote YES. I suspect this wording may have actually meant that too many mistaken voters voted the wrong way and it should have rightly failed. The vote yes side received money in the last weeks from Nazi sources, which both scares me if true and makes me angry for a late contribution that won't get released to the public until after election day. So, we shall see where the money came from for that proposal supporters of yes.
Across the nation, I was glad for Sherrod Brown-D, Ohio Senator knocking out =====. who was a Bush clone on every issue, Brown is a progressive. I was somewhat dsappointed about Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee for Senate who got hit with a nearly libelous attack add that made Ford seem a womanizer of whites, Ford should have won just because of that dirty attack. Bernie Sanders won Senate in Vermont, he's an independent who's a self proclaimed socialist. He was one of my favorites in the House, now moving to the Senate. So, that's two independents in the Senate including Connecticut's Joe Leiberman, who had to give up being a Democrat after losing the primary to Ned Lamont who then lost to Leiberman last night. I was pulling for Iraq War vet D-Tammy Duckworth, but she lost a close one.
The Dems swept up New Hampshire, and smoked Ohio. They even had successes in the Red West. Nearly every moderate Republican was voted out, leaving mostly hard core Republicans. Many of the Democratic winners were moderate or even conservative-Democrat, which may give power to those type of Dems, a caucus known as the Blue Dogs. And now of course what is Bush to do.
I'm generally happy, I wish more progressives won seats. On the other hand, the Dems have all sorts of problems to deal with. Ethics, the Iraq War, the Afghan War (which was barely discussed during campaign season), and investigations of the Bush wars and administration. The investigations will probably be slow in order not to be anxious, or maybe the investigations won't even be real in order to plan for 2008 elections. The Iraq War needs to be addressed, we need to begin withdrawal plans in some sort of way, "slow at first" is at least a step in the right direction.
Anyway, I have many other thoughts but with no more time to write them.
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