New at Reason

David Weigel | November 8, 2006

David Weigel, fresh from election celebrations in D.C., reports on how the Republicans became the new sucker's party.

Reason needs your support. Please donate today!

Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied.

← From the Confetti Room Floor | Main | The Green Felt Revolution: Fizzle or… →

See all 59 comments | Leave a comment

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment or disable your ability to comment for any reason at any time.

|11.8.06 @ 8:05AM|#

FYI, the post is missing the link for instant readification.

|11.8.06 @ 8:07AM|#

[In Gilda Radner voice] Nevermind.

The indigo link must have disappeared amongst the black for my weak eyes.

thoreau|11.8.06 @ 8:22AM|#

Glad to hear that the LP spoiled a few Republicans. That's a lesson that the GOP richly needs to learn.

|11.8.06 @ 8:38AM|#

. . . before the Senate broke for the Democrats.

Have we already decided that the Dems got the Senate? (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

|11.8.06 @ 8:38AM|#

Why is David Weigel calling MT and VA for the dems? I thought those were still up in the air, with Tester and Webb leading by the smallest of margins?

|11.8.06 @ 8:48AM|#

"mentally taxing job of U.S. Senator."

Dave I sooo know you couldn't write that with a straight face.

|11.8.06 @ 8:49AM|#

It was a good night for libertarians. A divided government is never as effective as a unified one (a good thing if you don't like government). The Republicans actually lost some seats in the house because of Libertarian candidates taking votes in close races. Republicans are going to have to pay some attention to their base. Not their bible thumping base but their real base, working and middle class people who want the government to leave them the hell alone and stop wasting their money.

It is interesting how supposedly gerrymandering ended democracy in America by making all Congressional seats uncompetetive, yet since 1994, the Republicans took both houses, only to loose the Senate in 2000, get it back in 2002 and now loose both houses by a narrow majority in 2006. Two things people can shut up about after tonight, gerrymandering and Rovian plots to steal elections. Thank God!!

|11.8.06 @ 9:03AM|#

Well, I was thinking about the whole gerrymandering thing, and I believe the Republicans got just a little too greedy, and ended up screwing themselves.

They moved things around such that more Democratic districts were strongly Democratic, while making more Republican districts more evenly split. This gave them control of more districts, but also put way more of their districts in danger should they piss off the electorate.

So it turns out, they made have ended up giving the Dems a huge advantage in the coming years. Of course, I'm sure the Dems will not learn this lesson, and in 2010 will move everything around again in exactly the same way.

|11.8.06 @ 9:07AM|#

It was good to see that both parties made Iraq so central to their campaigns, because there is no way the hawks can claim that the Republicans' defeat was not about Iraq, and there is no way the Democratic Washington establishment can continue to argue that their party needs to change the subject and go along with Bush's foreign policy.

|11.8.06 @ 9:13AM|#

Joseph M.,

Some of the populations that the Republicans assumed were safely in their corner turned out not to be. It was insane of Delay and Rove to believe that the "rally 'round the flag" effect after 9/11, particularly among middle class women and working class men, represented a meaningful shift in political allegiance.

Note to John: as good as the Republican gerrymandering efforts were, the outcome of Senate elections have nothing to do with them.

|11.8.06 @ 9:13AM|#

joe,

The exit polls (or at least some of them) state that corruption and scandals may have been the most important single factor in the election. What that says about the war I can't say.

|11.8.06 @ 9:20AM|#

Not that I don't think the war is unpopular, but I doubt seriously that most voters cast ballots based on their feelings about the war. I heard very little Iraq discussion in the elections down here, for instance. Of course, the election will be spun to mean all sorts of things--as these victories always are. The fact is, this iteration of the GOP has been worse than unimpressive on a variety of fronts and deserved to lose some of its power. Too bad that people just go back and forth between these parties that have proven their corruption, lack of principle, and ineptitude time, after time, after time again. At moments like this, voting for the wacky LP seems to make much more sense. Stop the cycle of insanity!

|11.8.06 @ 9:22AM|#

Joe,

If the election was about Iraq, why did Joe Lieberman, the most public of supporters of the Iraq war running in a very liberal anti-war state kill Ned Lamont, a guy who beat him in the primary solely on the issue of the war? I am dying to see the intellectual backflips you pull on that one. Zeno is right, this election was rightly about Republican Congressional malfeasance and arrogance as much as anything. Poll after poll shows that a majority of people do not, regardless of what they thought about starting the war, do not want to quit and surrender now.

|11.8.06 @ 9:23AM|#

there is no way the Democratic Washington establishment can continue to argue that their party needs to change the subject and go along with Bush's foreign policy.

But they can continue to argue that a withdrawal needs to be slow and measured. The national leadership made no effort to define a clear withdrawal plan. As John Stewart said, they acted like the big brother who slowly backs away and ignores the problem as the little brother lights the garage on fire. This fiasco will continue to be dragged out, much to my dismay.

sigh...

|11.8.06 @ 9:26AM|#

"It was insane of Delay and Rove to believe that the "rally 'round the flag" effect after 9/11, particularly among middle class women and working class men, represented a meaningful shift in political allegiance."

Yeah Joe, I guess that is why Republicans did so poorly in elections before 2001. Gee its not like they didn't sweep to power in Congress in 1994 and no Democrat had won a majority Presidential vote since 1964 or anything. Nope, the Republicans never won anything, it was all just 9-11. Interesting that even you think people when they are feeling patriotic automatically vote Republican. A little defensive about Democratic patriotism or something?

|11.8.06 @ 9:29AM|#

|11.8.06 @ 9:34AM|#

John,

"If the election was about Iraq, why did Joe Lieberman, the most public of supporters of the Iraq war running in a very liberal anti-war state kill Ned Lamont, a guy who beat him in the primary solely on the issue of the war?" Because Joe Lieberman has spent the last 18 years building up support among his states' elderly, unions, and other longtime stalwarts of the Democratic coalition. Did you see his speech, with the Firefighters Union president next to him? That, combined with his dramatic rhetorical flip-flops over the past two months (on whether Rumsfeld should stay, or whether Democrats criticize the President "at their peril") meant that 22% of voters who oppose the war (from a poll I saw) voted for him.

Ever been to Connecticut? Lieberman Highway, Lieberman Bridge...prior to the Iraq War, he was one of the most popular Senators in the country, based on local issues and constituent services.

"Zeno is right, this election was rightly about Republican Congressional malfeasance and arrogance as much as anything." It was about a lot of things - I'm not saying this was a one-issue election, just that the war was one of the biggest issues, it played a large role in the campaigns of both sides, and it not onlly failed to deliver for the Republicans, but it actually worked in the Democrats' favor.

"Poll after poll shows that a majority of people do not, regardless of what they thought about starting the war, do not want to quit and surrender now." You just pulled that out of your ass. 55-60% of the public supports withdrawing from Iraq, and has for months. Will you admit your mistake gracefully, or would you like me to post some links?

Jennifer|11.8.06 @ 9:35AM|#

John, why are you so defensive about Joe's suggestion that 9/11 didn't make the country shift permanently to a more Republican stance? And if Joe is wrong, then how did the Republicans lose control of the House, and four (so far) seats in the Senate, last night?

As for the Lieberman victory, that's a good question. Based on all the political ads I've been subjected to as a Connecticut resident, it may well have had something to do with the idea "let's not dump a guy who has seniority in the Senate, in favor of a newbie."

|11.8.06 @ 9:36AM|#

From the story: "Democrats spent the years after the 2000 defeat obsessed with defeating Jeb Bush."

Am I missing some multilayered joke, or is this just a basic error?

|11.8.06 @ 9:37AM|#

Did anyone see Howard Dean's post election comments that "even if we take both houses, there's not much we can do on Iraq."

Wow. Well, that's handy to say now, Howard. I wonder if any of the stooges who came out to vote for a big change in Iraq policy clued in on that.

Shrug.

|11.8.06 @ 9:38AM|#

John,

I didn't write anything about patriotism. I wrote about support for the war, support for the Republicans' handling of the war, and support for withdrawal. Where did "patriotism" come from? You seem a little defensive yourself.

As for the rest of your post, I can't even imagine a connection between your yammerings and what I wrote about the failure of the "permanent majority" that the Republicans spent so much effort trying to build up.

|11.8.06 @ 9:39AM|#

joe & John,

Well, the exit polls could be way off the mark.

|11.8.06 @ 9:41AM|#

damon,

Did you see Dean's answer to Matthews' question on Iraq?

|11.8.06 @ 9:45AM|#

"And if Joe is wrong, then how did the Republicans lose control of the House, and four (so far) seats in the Senate, last night?"

Because they spent like drunken sailors, put the budget up for sale to Abramhoff and his gang, aided and abetted a gay pervert to cruise for young men, Let people like Arlong Spector and Lincoln Chaffee sellout every principle their base had and were committed one unforced error after another. That is why they lost and rightfully so. The Republicans were winning elections long before 9-11 and to say the only reason they won 02 and 04 is because of it is not true. They lost their majority in the House and Senate due to their own bungling. Also, I think people are more engaged in politics than they have been for a long time and wanted to give the Democrats a shot at at least some power. No one stays in the majority forever.

|11.8.06 @ 9:52AM|#

As far as the slow withdrawl types, there is at least one person in the world who understands what it means to allow people like Pelosi and the Democrats into power. Or at least this is the perception around the world.

"The Americans will gather their belongings and leave this region - the entire region. They have no future whatsoever in our region. They will leave the Middle East, and the Arab and Islamic worlds, like they left Vietnam. I advise all those who place their trust in the Americans to learn the lesson of Vietnam, and to learn the lesson of the South Lebanese Army with the Israelis, and to know that when the Americans lose this war-and lose it they will, Allah willing-they will abandon them to their fate, just like they did to all those who placed their trust in them throughout history."

Why didn't you put that statement in context? I'll do it for you. That statement was made before yesterday's election results, and never once did Nasrallah mention the Democrats or the American elections. If you look at the transcript, it's obvious that he was simply predicting an American military defeat, not the ascension of Pelosi and the Dems. Unlike you, I even have the dignity to provide a link: http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1309.

Please try to mix a little bit of honesty with your partisanship. Thanks.

|11.8.06 @ 9:53AM|#

I'd like to think Republicans lost on stem cell research, gay marriage, and corruption.

That would mean the Democrats would feel obligated to deliver on opening up stem cell research, allowing gay marriage, and passing anti-corruption bills aimed at the House & Senate.

Unfortunately, they probably actually lost because Americans are tired of the Iraq war.

The bad news is that Americans quickly forget who their real enemy is and who their real allies are.

Equally bad news is that guys like Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nassrallah (quoted above), bin Laden, Kim Jong Il and the rest know their enemy really well.

Like I've said before...

With Democrats in charge you can hope for some sanity regarding domestic civil rights issues but their foreign policy is outright dangerous to the nation.

With Republicans in charge you can expect some ruthless and rational self-interest in foreign policy, but you have to watch your back on civil rights issues.

You'd think a moderate politician: for stem cell research and legalizing gay marriage, pro-choice, pro-Bill of Rights (1st AND 2nd, even!) who is a hawk when it comes to GWOT would be a shoe-in as the next president.

But what do I know? I'm the guy who thinks that both Democrats and Republicans are parties of blind, harmful faiths - one of the wacky Christian sort, the other of the enviro-socialist sort.

|11.8.06 @ 9:55AM|#

"Wow. Well, that's handy to say now, Howard."

Damon: President Bush is still in the White House, right? I mean, Howard Dean didn't tell me that Bush was still in the White House. I thought Nancy Pelosi was going to be the new President!! The troops are in Iraq based on an executive decision, not a congressional declaration of war. I wish Howard Dean would have told me that!!

John: you react to Joe's suggestion (that 9/11 temporarily strengthened the GOP) by asserting that the GOP had won many races prior to 9/11 and therefore 9/11 had nothing to do with GOP success in 2002. I should point out that the GOP lost seats in both the 1998 and 2000 elections, and the GOP lost the popular vote in the 2000 prez election. The GOP was faltering in the two elections prior to 9/11. The GOP got an extension on life by 9/11, and they might still be enjoying that power if they didn't drink from the kill 'em all neocon teat. Iraq: stupid, stupid and more stupid. I actually had a GOPer friend tell me that he doesn't care who wins as long as we "walk tall and carry a big stick." It's this very attitude (and butchering of T.Roosevelt) that was smacked down last night.

|11.8.06 @ 9:55AM|#

"The Republicans were winning elections long before 9-11 and to say the only reason they won 02 and 04 is because of it is not true."

Good thing I didn't say that.

What I wrote is that the prediction of a permanent Republican majority arising from post-9/11 politics proved to be about as accurate as Dick Cheney's satements about Iraq's nuke program.

I'm not making an affimative point that the Democrats have created a majority based on the Iraqi position(s). I'm rebutting the point which has been made so arrogantly and triumpantly by people like Karl Rove, Tom Delay, Bill Kristol and Rich Lowry that the post-9/11 focus on security was a meaningful realignment akin to that the Republicans enjoyed at the beginning of the 20th century, or the Democrats enjoyed at the beginning of the 1930s.

There was a brief period of insanity and Repbulican domination, and now it's over. The very things the Republicans did to try to cement that domination - the K Street Project and the use of War on Terror/Iraq as wedge issues - ended up destroying that majority. We're back to the 50/50 nation that we heard about during the first 3/4 of 2001.

|11.8.06 @ 9:57AM|#

Zeno,

Yep. I did see Dean's response. It's going to be an interesting 2 years. What I'm interested in:

-Will the Republicans lose their minds and become as insane and twisted as the Democrats have been for the last 6 years, accusing everyone and everything of voter fraud, corruption, and alignment with the Devil?

-How will Democrats react when they realize that their own party isn't going to have the ability to get us out of Iraq as quickly as expected. Will the faithful who ligned up to vote for "big change in Iraq" be surprised and will the Dems continue to try to pin that on Republicans?

-Will the Dems pretend they have a mandate when many of their major gains have come from -very- conservative Democrat newcomers? And how will that play in the House, where the leadership will be extremely liberal? Most of the freshman dems are more conservative than some of the East-Coast Republicans.

-Will the Republicans get the message and return to the ideas that gave them power: smaller government, fiscal responsibility, free markets / free minds? Will they fight to get back Libertarian voters, who for the first time had a -huge- impact by witholding their votes from traditional GOP allies?

-Does this mean I won't have to deal with my liberal friends comming up with new space aliean / enron conspiracy theories every few days?

|11.8.06 @ 10:01AM|#

Lamar,

You're really missing the point of what I am saying. We know that the executive branch makes those decisions. Politically active people do. But you can't refute that the Dems were appealing to voters on the idea of a "new direction" and were not eager to point out that a congressional win would do little to change things. Most of my friends are liberal, and more than a few actually think that now, with this new win, we'll be out of Iraq. Those kinds of people, folks who aren't fully aware of how the system works, are a factor, and the Dems captured a lot of their votes this time. I'm just marvelling over Dean's audacity, that's all.

|11.8.06 @ 10:10AM|#

"-Will the Republicans lose their minds and become as insane and twisted as the Democrats have been for the last 6 years, accusing everyone and everything of voter fraud, corruption, and alignment with the Devil?"

No. This is where having a liberal media helps the Republicans. The mass media will not aide and abed Republican nuerosis the way it does Democratic nuerosis. The Republicans won't get mad, they will get even.

"-Does this mean I won't have to deal with my liberal friends comming up with new space aliean / enron conspiracy theories every few days?"

God, I hope so. Jesus, they won, have fun. Take your shot at trying to do something productive. If the results of this election will shut some of those people up and make them go away, it might be worth it. People need to stop it with the conspiracy and the stolen election charges. Those types of things do nothing but destroy the democracy. I will say this after my side lost an election. If any Republican whines the election was stolen, they need to be shot on site. The Democrats were pathetic self-centered loosers in 2000 and 2004, the Republicans need to be better than that.

|11.8.06 @ 10:11AM|#

Lamar,

The troops are in Iraq based on an executive decision, not a congressional declaration of war.

That's not true. Most legal scholars view the authorization of the war in Iraq as, in effect, a declaration of war (albeit a conditional one). I prefer my declarations to be more formal, too, but it really is hard to argue the difference.

I don't think Dean's comment is all that weird. Even in Vietnam, Congress didn't do the one thing it could have done to stop the war--shut off funding. Still, with both houses, the Democrats could apply quite a bit of pressure on the White House. Unfortunately, I don't think the Democrats are unified around any particular course of action in Iraq--something they would need to establish before pushing the president in one direction or the other.

Here's my free advice to the Democrats. Lay low, spend the next two years rebuilding and figuring out what the party stands for, and attempt to gain firm control of Congress in 2008. Naturally, they'll do no such thing, and, equally naturally, I hope they act openly like crazy buffoons. Eventually, even we dense Americans will get the message that "same as it ever was" is not a good way to run our government.

|11.8.06 @ 10:19AM|#

damon -

Your questions sound like the soap opera the federal gov't really is. (It helps to imagine reading the questions in the voice of the Movie Preview Announcer Guy.)

"There was a brief period of insanity and Repbulican domination, and now it's over." - joe

Funny, when I look at the Dem candidates who won "upsets" they look more like Republicans than some Republicans...

That makes me tend to think there probably has been a shift in the Democratic Party farther and farther away from left-wing Democratic Party platform planks and towards more traditionally Republican territory(starting with joe's hero Bill Clinton - maybe farther back).

As a guy who thinks that a long-term shift towards the right is as bad as a long-term shift to the left this is not good news other than that it would be a bit of a poke in the eye for joe.

R C Dean|11.8.06 @ 10:19AM|#

there is no way the Democratic Washington establishment can continue to argue that their party needs to change the subject and go along with Bush's foreign policy

Except that most of the Dem pickups are, shall we say, "moderate" on Iraq, and you would hard-pressed to find a meaningful difference between the Bush policy and what they say they want. For a taste of how the candidates break down in Iraq, try:

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/milblogs/

|11.8.06 @ 10:20AM|#

Rob,

Heheh. That's what I was going for. So thanks.

-D

|11.8.06 @ 10:21AM|#

-Will the Republicans get the message and return to the ideas that gave them power: smaller government, fiscal responsibility, free markets / free minds? Will they fight to get back Libertarian voters, who for the first time had a -huge- impact by witholding their votes from traditional GOP allies?

Sadly, I don't think that free market ideals gained much traction during this election. You're right that the newly elected Dems are fairly conservative, but they're socially conservative rather than economically conservative (see e.g., Bob Casey, who busted Santorum's chops - thank god - but he probably won't ever help libertarians).

Will the Republicans fight to get back the libertarian vote? I doubt it. They're likely to fight to get back the socially conservative vote. Will Democrats fight for the libertarian vote? Again, that's highly unlikely. It looks like their current strategy involves merging social conservatism and labor -- the worst of both worlds.

Maybe I'm a pessimist, but I imagine that I'll be voting for a split government for the rest of my days, if only to slow down the beast.

|11.8.06 @ 10:23AM|#

R.C. Dean,

Is there really that much we can do in Iraq now anyway?

Mussolini|11.8.06 @ 10:28AM|#

the worst of both worlds

That's just unkind.

|11.8.06 @ 10:29AM|#

The Republicans need to look hard at what happened in places like Kansas, where the Attorney General and a Congressional Seat (Ryun's) were won by "Democrats" who were Republicans less than 5 years ago. Same thing may happen in the Virginia Senate race. The Democrats didn't win this round of elections--the Republicans committed suicide.

|11.8.06 @ 10:30AM|#

Here is an election law blog y'all might find of interest: http://www.electionlawblog.org/

|11.8.06 @ 10:33AM|#

"Same thing may happen in the Virginia Senate race. The Democrats didn't win this round of elections--the Republicans committed suicide."

That is the absolute truth. If the Republicans can get their act together, they can pick off Democrats who ran as moderates from normally Republican districts and actually get a few things done besides cruising for minors in hopes of hot gay sex and sticking in huge spending earmarks as payoffs to lobbyists.

|11.8.06 @ 10:41AM|#

John: I don't think it will be that easy. In Kansas, the Republican Party was taken over by the bible-thumpers, and moderates are leaving the party in droves. That may work out for them in Georgia, but will never fly in the midwest. Until the Republicans figure out a way to tone down the influence of the religious right, they are going to continue to have problems everywhere but the deep South.

|11.8.06 @ 10:43AM|#

If any Republican whines the election was stolen, they need to be shot on site.

We're not about to let corporate America steal our democracy and outsource assassinations, gosh durn it!

|11.8.06 @ 10:56AM|#

Ron,

I grew up in Kansas and most people I know there are to the right of Barry Goldwater, but they are not bible thumpers. I think the bible thumpers are a vocal miniority who have taken over the party. You are right, they need to get them to tone it down or kick them out. I don't think you need to be a moderate to win in Kansas, I think you just need to be sane. Run on small government, individual freedom, cutting taxes and kicking the shit out of our enemies overseas and stop trying to rehash the Scopes Monkey trial and a Republican will win in Kansas every time.

|11.8.06 @ 10:57AM|#

"If any Republican whines the election was stolen, they need to be shot on site."

I predict that John will flip-flop on this, in a public manner, on this very site, as soon as Burns and/or Allen begins fighting to overturn the election results.

RC Dean,

"Except that most of the Dem pickups are, shall we say, "moderate" on Iraq, and you would hard-pressed to find a meaningful difference between the Bush policy and what they say they want." Being moderate on Iraq puts you several miles to the left of the administration. Only by believing your own propaganda about "cut and run" could you view the opinions of Tester as dramatically different from those of Kerry.

rob, "Funny, when I look at the Dem candidates who won "upsets" they look more like Republicans than some Republicans..." And when I look at Lincoln Chafee and the outgoing Reps in Connecticut, they look more like Democrats than some Democrats. I was writing about partisan alignment, not left/right. Though you are probably right, the Democrats now have a bigger tent (on some issues) than they did yesterday. I wouldn't equate this with a "longterm shift to the right," however. Is Tester more conservative than Burns? Webb more conservative than Allen? Brown than Dewine? None of them are even remotely conservative on the minimum wage or Social Security.

"joe's hero Bill Clinton" LOL. You amaze me with capacity to believe what you want to believe.

|11.8.06 @ 11:03AM|#

"I predict that John will flip-flop on this, in a public manner, on this very site, as soon as Burns and/or Allen begins fighting to overturn the election results."

Joe,

I predict you are an idiot and I have no doubt whatsoever that you would whine and cry foul over any election your side lost and would raise a single word in protest of any malfeasance on the part of any Democrat in any election. You have absolutely no principles and would condone anything if you thought it would get your side in power. If Burns looses, absent real evidence of fraud, he needs to shut the hell up, just like his opponent needs to do the same if the result is the other way. I have no doubt that Maria Cantwell stole her Senate seat in Washington a few years ago, but the time to do something about that is before the election not afterward. Making every close election into a law suit is just horrible for the country. The solution is to go after corrupt groups like ACORN (who were recently the subject of numerous indictments for vote fraud), clean up the voter rolls and pass ID laws before the election, not sue afterwards.

|11.8.06 @ 11:06AM|#

John: Where are you from? I grew up in Lakin, but lived in Johnson County from 1985-2000. From what I could tell back then, the bible thumpers all lived in Olathe. But there is no doubt they rule the party in the state. How else can Dennis Moore keep getting re-elected in a district with nothing but upper-income white people as far as the eye can see? I may be wrong, but I believe this ideological divide is going to plague the Republican Party nationally for a long time to come. It's almost a mirror image of the problems the Democrats had with "Dixiecrats", until they all became Republicans.

|11.8.06 @ 11:11AM|#

I am from Western Kansas. Born in Dodge City, but then grew up in Kansas City. My family still lives out there. They are not bible thumpers but there is no way they would support crap like creationism in schools. What scares the crap out of me is the thought that one of these days all of those bible thumpers in those huge Churches out in Olathe are going to decide that capitalism is unbiblical and team up with the nanny-state liberals. God help us all if that ever happens. Our best hope is that all of them render unto Ceaser and stay the hell out of politics.

|11.8.06 @ 11:16AM|#

John,

Making every close election into a law suit is just horrible for the country. The solution is to go after corrupt groups like ACORN (who were recently the subject of numerous indictments for vote fraud), clean up the voter rolls and pass ID laws before the election, not sue afterwards.

One small thing: passing anti voting fraud laws and ID laws isn't very useful if you don't plan on seriously enforcing those laws, which often means post election lawsuits.

You can't love the laws but hate the enforcement. As far as I'm concerned, the lawsuits are a sign of progress. We've always had voting fraud. Were we better of when voters and candidates had no legal means to combat this fraud?

|11.8.06 @ 11:18AM|#

John: You may not be far-off on the "capitalism is unbiblical" point. Jonathan Edwards, arguably the intellectual father of Evangelic Protestant Christianity in America said exactly that in the 1740's.

One request. I am familiar with your ongoing "dialogue" with Joe. Can you do the rest of us a favor and dispense with the epithets? Tell you what, anytime I read anything addressed between the two of you, I will just assume the additional sentence "John/Joe is a nutcase idiotic brainless wonder", is in the message, and you two can save the time it would take to type it.

|11.8.06 @ 11:29AM|#

True enough Chris,

You do have to enforce the laws. But I also think that you have to have some judgment about law suits. Nixon could have sued in 1960 and it would have been a mess. I suppose you are right when it comes to Congressional races. The lawsuits don't hurt when it is this or that district but a repeast 2000 would be horrible. I think that, yes lawsuits should be brought in some circumstances, but we have to guard against there being litgation in every close election and suing and cyring fould being the default response to every close loss. That is what disturbs me.

|11.8.06 @ 11:30AM|#

John,

So, then, you are one of the few who literally got the hell out of Dodge?

|11.8.06 @ 11:36AM|#

Pro Libertate: Dennis Hopper was from Dodge. A sobering thought for us all.

|11.8.06 @ 11:45AM|#

Yes Pro,

I got out and stayed out. I will defend my home, but I couldn't live there. It is also not the same as it was when I was a child. It went from being a pretty nice little small American town out in the middle of nowhere to a giant cattle slaughterhouse and all of the low paid workers and social problems to go with it.

ChrisO|11.8.06 @ 11:46AM|#

You can't love the laws but hate the enforcement. As far as I'm concerned, the lawsuits are a sign of progress. We've always had voting fraud. Were we better of when voters and candidates had no legal means to combat this fraud?

In theory, I agree. In practice, no. What constitutes "fraud" in the mind of a losing candidate or party seems to be expanding at a humorous rate. Fraud is not when there is a glitch in procedures or voting becomes slightly inconvenient.

In the end, all states have set procedures for handling close races, and the candidates need to shut the hell up and live by those procedures. I believed that in 2000 and still do. Look at Virginia--out of over 2 million votes cast, the difference is only about 8,000 votes. The state has provisions for an automatic recount in such a case, and then things are final. Period. To me, any losing politician who turns into a whining infant in such an instance is automatically unworthy of the office they were running for.

|11.8.06 @ 11:47AM|#

The "housecleaning" the Republicans would have to do to win back their majority would involved, among other things, renouncing neoconservatism, the Bush Doctrine, and the Iraq War. People like a muscular foreign policy, but they have come to hate the Iraq War and the policies that brought it about.

Unless they do that, any effort to portray themselves as "kicking the shit out of our enemies overseas" is going to be met with charges of "getting us into another Iraq," an even minimally muscular Democratic foreign policy that renounces "more Iraqs" is going to beat any Republican foreign policy that isn't clearly distinguished from the Iraq Debacle.

|11.8.06 @ 12:21PM|#

joe,

You know, my trick knee is thinking that we might see another one of those mysterious changes in the two parties, where what was once "Republican" is now "Democrat" and vice versa. I definitely smell a moderation at the national level with the Democrats. Interesting to see how this plays out. I could even see a pro-war movement of sorts evolving on the left side of the aisle if a serious alternative strategy were to be formulated. That would be positively surreal.

|11.8.06 @ 12:33PM|#

In theory, I agree. In practice, no. What constitutes "fraud" in the mind of a losing candidate or party seems to be expanding at a humorous rate. Fraud is not when there is a glitch in procedures or voting becomes slightly inconvenient.

ChrisO,

As far as close races are concerned, I agree that candidates ought to simply follow the state recount procedures, as I anticipate will happen here in Va.

I also agree that disappointed candidates may be tempted to scream "fraud" without any serious evidence. However, along with the bogus assertions of fraud, there will always be some bona fide cases of fraud and other election related malfeasances. We shouldn't have to ignore these cases just because some candidates act like spoiled babies when they lose an election. One answer might be to shift attorneys fees in such cases, thereby discouraging frivolous suits. We could also tweak civil sanction rules (a super Rule 11 for election related frivolous suits?).

On a completely different note, libertarian Virginians named Chris who comment at Reason.com should not disagree with one another -- it throws the universe into serious imbalance.

|11.8.06 @ 12:40PM|#

"LOL. You amaze me with capacity to believe what you want to believe." - joe

LOL indeed. You claiming not to be a defender of former President Clinton is like your claims that I'm a Republican - flat-out funny! I'm willing to bet that a stroll through the HNR archives would demonstrate repeated protestations that you don't defend Clinton followed by examples of exactly the behavior you doth protest so much...

"And when I look at Lincoln Chafee and the outgoing Reps in Connecticut, they look more like Democrats than some Democrats." - joe

No argument there. I'd say this supports my point that the parties have become nearly indistinguishable.

"I was writing about partisan alignment, not left/right." - joe

Yeah, it used to be a lot simpler, when Dem = left and Repub = right. But that's just another example of what I'm talking about.

"Though you are probably right, the Democrats now have a bigger tent (on some issues) than they did yesterday." - joe

No doubt about it whatsoever.

"I wouldn't equate this with a 'longterm shift to the right,' however." - joe

Would you be more comfortable with 'a gradual shift to the center'? I mean, if it'll make you feel better about what is actually a Dem shift to the right just like Repubs have gradually shifted to the left.

The reality is that both sides have come to a murky center and neither would really do anything differently - it's different faces but near-identical policies.

While I think Clinton's campaing and presidency is a good example of this, I also think that the similarity was most pronounced in the Bush v. Gore debates that sounded like they were reading from the same script...

Bush: "My favorite flavor of yogurt is vanilla, though I prefer ice cream."

Gore: "My favorite flavor of ice cream is vanilla, though I prefer yogurt."

How else can you explain a Republican foreign policy built on the Dems old position of the U.S. military as a world police force for fighting democracy-spreading, nation-building wars, while Democrats have steadily become pro-gun and anti-choice?