Here is an interesting email commenting on Rep. William Jefferson's victory in the runoff for Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District.

William Jefferson's victory is a bit more complicated than you may know. It involves Hurricane Katrina and the longtime Jefferson Parish Sheriff. Bear with me - this is the type of stuff that only happens in Louisiana.

While his district is largely comprised of New Orleans (predominantly black voters), a portion of Dollar Bill's district includes neighboring Jefferson Parish. As you may know, Jefferson Parish is one of the metropolitan parishes which received most of the "white flight" from Orleans Parish following the 1960's. Today, Jefferson Parish is mostly white, though all socio-economic classes are well represented.

What put Dollar Bill over the top was Jefferson Parish voters! How could this be? During Katrina, a group of (mostly black) people from New Orleans attempted to walk across the downtown Mississippi River Bridge into a town in Jefferson Parish known as Gretna. Jefferson Parish deputies allegedly fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd, as Gretna was evacuated and the deputies left behind were unable/unwilling to handle refugees from New Orleans. Dollar Bill's opponent in this race, Karen Carter, has been claiming racism on the part of Jefferson Parish deputies since that time. Accordingly, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee came out against Carter the week before the runoff, asking the rhetorical question, "Does she think I'm crazy?" (He also stated that he was not supporting Dollar Bill.)

You may recall, Harry Lee has made headlines over his several decades-long career, for attempting to stop black pedestrians in certain Jefferson Parish neighborhoods to ask what business brings them to such addresses. Recently, he has been very vocal in discussing black-on-black crime, and has drawn the ire of the NAACP on several occasions. Regardless of how one views his policies, Jefferson Parish voters generally like Harry Lee for his blunt, no holds barred honesty and his efforts to hold back the worst elements from "the City." So it seems many Jefferson Parish voters heeded his call to refrain from voting for Carter.

As this is Louisiana, the tale is even stranger than these facts would indicate. Harry Lee is: (1) a life long Democrat who continues to be re-elected in the most Republican parish in Louisiana: (2) an old hunting buddy of former Democratic Governor, now convict, Edwin Edwards; and (3) fancies himself a cowboy, despite his Chinese heritage.

NPR's All Things Considered had a good write up on Sheriff Lee the other day that lends support to the idea that Henry Lee may have enough clout in Jefferson Parrish to have made a difference in last weekend's runoff:

There's nobody quite like Harry Lee. He's the flamboyant and outspoken sheriff of Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, a sprawling suburb that borders New Orleans. The Chinese-American lawman, now in his seventh term in office, has a penchant for putting his foot in his mouth, but it only seems to increase his popularity. The 74-year-old, 300-pound sheriff -- down from 400 pounds, he proudly points out -- sits at his desk surrounded by his large gun collection.

"I'm still as full of piss and vinegar as I was 20 years ago," he says.

For 26 years, Lee has been the top cop and chief taxing authority of the booming jurisdiction of nearly half a million people, and because of peculiar state law, there's little oversight.

"The sheriff of [Jefferson Parish] is the closest thing there is to being a king in the U.S. I have no unions, I don't have civil service, I hire and fire at will. I don't have to go to council and propose a budget. I approve the budget. I'm the head of the law-enforcement district, and the law-enforcement district only has one vote, which is me," he says.
"We know where the problem areas are. If we see some black guys on the corner milling around, we would confront them," he said.

The president of the regional NAACP, Donatus King, wasn't buying it.

"Confronting a group of black people on the street corner merely because they're black and milling around is a form of racial profiling. The NAACP opposes that tactic," King said.

Under pressure, the sheriff said his deputies would not be indiscriminately frisking African-American males.
A few days later, the Times-Picayune ran an unscientific poll. The phone calls ran 22 for the NAACP, 789 for Harry Lee.

Jefferson Parrish elected David Duke its state representative in 1989.

Posted by John McIntyre at 10:38 AM | Email Author | Permalink

From today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Dayna Klein had only her unborn baby in mind when she instinctively covered her belly after a gunman stormed a Seattle Jewish center last summer.

Tuesday, she finally got to meet the son she saved.

Klein, who survived the rampage July 28 at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle that killed a colleague, gave birth to Charley Paz Klein at a Seattle hospital Tuesday night, her spokesman, Howard Bragman, said. The baby weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces. [snip]

When the gunman pointed his weapon at her and squeezed the trigger, Klein swung her left hand over her belly to protect her fetus. A bullet went through her arm and grazed her thigh before lodging in the carpet.

"It was a split second that I was able to think. I don't know how, but I was," she told the Seattle P-I after the shootings. "The only thing that occurred to me was, how I was going to save my baby? That was my one shot, my one chance of saving my baby."

Even as she was wounded and bleeding, Klein managed to crawl to her desk and call 911. When the shooter pointed his gun to her head, she handed the phone to him and persuaded him to talk to the police dispatcher. He eventually put his gun down and gave up.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 07:25 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Yesterday USA Today carried a story titled "Democratic Gains in Suburbs Spell Trouble for GOP."

Democrats carried nearly 60% of the U.S. House vote in inner suburbs in the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas, up from about 53% in 2002, according to the analysis by the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.

This isn't surprising, and it comports with other data showing Republicans lost Independent voters. Over the next several months there will be considerable debate about whether the '06 mid-terms foreshadow the beginning of a more significant realignment away from the GOP towards the Democratic Party.

I think it is wise to be careful not to draw too many sweeping conclusions from the mid-term results, because of Iraq's dominating influence over the election. There is no doubt that Republicans lost Independent and moderate voters, and that they lost voters in the suburbs. The real question is whether this is a one-time event or the beginning of a trend. Was 2006 more of a vote of no-confidence on U.S. Iraq policy, or was it the early stages of a real and sustained move among swing voters to the Democrats?

Independent voters are becoming a more significant slice of the voting public, and to the degree these voters break solidly toward one party - as they did this year - they have the ability to produce dramatic swings in the final election results. However, both parties would be foolish to think that they have an easy "in" with this swing block. Democrats would be naive to think these voters are now solidly behind a Nancy Pelosi agenda and Republicans would be equally naive to assume recent Republican-leaning Independents who deserted them this year are going to automatically return to the fold in 2008.

After the 2000 election Michael Barone referred to America as "The 49% Nation" in the Almanac for American Politics:

In 1996 Bill Clinton was re-elected with 49.2% of the vote. That same year Republicans held the House when their candidates led Democrats by a 48.9% to 48.5% margin. In 1998 Republicans held onto the House when their candidates led in the popular vote by 48.9% to 47.8%. On November 7, 2000 George W. Bush won 47.9% of the vote and Al Gore 48.4%. The same day House Republican candidates led Democrats by a 49.2% to 47.9% margin. Round off these numbers and you have 49%, 49%, 49%, 49%, 48%, 48%, 48% 49%, 48% - essentially the same number over and over.

In the 2004 presidential election 47 out of 50 states voted exactly the same way they did in 2000, with Kerry coming within a tenth, 48.3% of Gore's 48.4%. The favorable political winds from 9/11 and the War allowed President Bush and House Republicans to break out of the 48/49 deadlock with Bush drawing 51% against Kerry, and House Republicans 51% in 2002 and 50% in 2004.

But this year the mess in Iraq and the lack of any clean solution to the conflict destroyed the GOP advantage on national security and provided the catalyst for the Democrats' 52%-53% victory in the House vote.

The size of the Democratic victory is significant, though I think it speaks more to an increase in election volatility rather than a longer-term directional move toward the Democratic Party.

Volatility is retuning to American politics. The "49% Nation" stasis of the last decade is poised to be cracked wide open. This means great opportunity and great risk for both parties. Real world events and the respective leadership we see from each side, along with the choice of nominees for 2008 and the platforms they run on will have massive influence over the voters in the middle who determine the majority.

Depending on the path the parties choose over the next two years, the potential for either an electoral blowout or a significant third party candidate in 2008 is very real.

Posted by John McIntyre at 09:22 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Incumbent Republican Deborah Pryce is declared the winner in Ohio 15 by 1,055 votes. The race will now go into a mandatory recount.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 03:59 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Curt Weldon lost his seat three weeks ago, but the FBI investigation into dealings between Weldon, his daughter's consulting firm, and businessman John Gallagher continues apace. The Philadelphia Inquirer has the details - and they aren't pretty. Here's one example involving Weldon's daughter's consulting firm Solutions Worldwide and the Russian natural-gas giant Itera International Energy:

Weldon set up a Library of Congress dinner for Itera in 2002 and, on the floor of Congress, pushed for a federal grant to the firm. A month later, Itera hired Solutions for $500,000 a year.

Whether or not this meets the legal standard of a quid pro quo, it sure seems like an obvious bit of influence peddling. Even more apparent, it's a grotesque violation of common sense for a Congressman to be in any way involved with a party - or even the process - that may result in the awarding of business to a family member.

Weldon isn't alone. One of the consequences of spawning a professional legislative class in this country is the development of family connections in government-related businesses. Tom Daschle's wife was a high-powered lobbyist engaging in business while he was setting the agenda for the minority in the Senate. John Murtha's brother currently works for a firm that lobbies the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee (which Murtha will Chair in the new Congress) on behalf of defense contractors. John Doolittle's wife banked a bunch of money from Brent Wilkes as a "campaign consultant" for her husband. Tom DeLay's wife and daughter made a half-million in salary and consulting fees between 2001 and 2006 for helping run his campaigns and political action committees.

These are just a few examples that come to mind, though with a bit of investigation I'll bet the list of spouses, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters who are in government-related business and/or on a political payroll would run another few pages at least. That doesn't make all these relationships illegal or unethical, mind you, but it certainly does raise concern - especially when the concept of a "conflict of interest" appears to be so foreign to many publicly elected officials.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:08 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Incumbent Republicans Heather Wilson (NM-1) and Jean Schmidt (OH-2) both clinch wins in their respective races.

Races still outstanding:

* NC-8: Incumbent Republican Robin Hayes is clinging to a 339-vote lead.
* OH-15: Incumbent Republican Deb Pryce holds a lead of 3,717 votes over Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy. Thousands of provisional ballots are in the process of being verified and/or counted.
* FL-13: Democrat Christine Jennings is challenging the result in this race, a 369 vote loss to Republican Vern Buchanan.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:31 AM | Email Author | Permalink

A few interesting emails commenting on my post-election analysis from a couple of days ago.

Read your commentary related to why the GOP lost the recent election. For the most part you "Hit the nail on the head". Run away spending, failure to stand up and get things done, immigration, sleaze, and of course Iraq all were major factors. In my opinion, the American people want less government interference in their daily life, are sick of unnecessary spending, i.e. Bridge to nowhere, are discussed that the GOP'ers seemingly couldn't get anything done, i.e. immigration reform, and a sense that Iraq was really a mess. Too bad the press is so slanted on Iraq, but they have been that way since Vietnam. I was in Vietnam, and the war I saw was certainly a different war than that depicted by Time Magazine. Unfortunately, to date it appears that the GOP simply doesn't get it as to why they failed in the recent election. So what the heck let the Dem's give it a shot. Really too bad that our political system is so polarized. I personally have thought for sometime that the parliamentary system of government is much more representative of the people who vote for someone to represent them. If there were 5 or 6 different candidates with their beliefs available to vote for, it would be interesting to see what type of representation the American people would elect to represent them. Now it either or, with little choice. It certainly is no longer government for and by the people. Too bad. Well, enough said, your thought which closely mirror mine are in my opinion right on, but unfortunately, it probably going to be too bad the GOP isn't going to get it as it is appearing its "Business as usual". Guess it will be at matter of time before the general somewhat uninformed public gets tired of the Dem's and their ways, and will again turn to the GOP.

**********

I predicted to you last year that the harsh anti illegal immigration rhetoric would alienate otherwise pro LEGAL immigration Hispanics. The GOP will not survive if it is not competitive among Hispanics like it is not competitive among blacks, Jews, the Northeast, far-West and now increasingly in the Midwest. Losing Hispanics will sooner or later make it very difficult to hold on to Texas and Florida. I doubt it can get the majority of Hispanics anytime soon but anywhere between 40-50% should be within reach considering the historic and socioeconomic diversity of the components of the Hispanic community. The GOP needs to come to terms also with the fact that there is real economic anxiety in the Midwest and purist pro globalization policies and attitudes pose real threat to those people "here and now" needs, from healthcare to retirement. These are the people demagogues like Lou Dobbs talk to every day. The pursue of a pro life, traditional values agenda is noble and good for America but if it is seen as a threat to personal freedoms and choices it will not go anywhere. The GOP also has no make people understand better the real threats of Islamic extremism and the potential consequences of leaving behind a failed state in Iraq.
I really think McCain can fill this void. I am just concerned about his age, S/L involvement, marriages, inconsistencies regarding the Religious Right and his plan to MORE troops for Iraq.

**********

May I make several brief comments on this column?

1. Although the Democrats will be running Congress, they are not directly running the war effort, and I think that they will not vote to cut off funding, because their majorities are thin and the leadership will know that some Democrats from more conservative states would side with the Republicans on this issue.

So if the President's efforts to end the war honorably fail, it will be his fault. If he succeeds, the Democrats will be able to take some credit by claiming to have forced him to change tack. It's a win-win for the Democrats.

2. Likewise the '9/11 effect'. If America is lucky enough to escape a further attack before the next election, memories of 9/11 will have faded even more. If there is another attack, the Republicans, who have taken credit for preventing further attacks, will have to take responsibility for not preventing it; they can't have it both ways. Either way, the Republicans lose.

3. Whatever Mr Bush does about Iran, it will be a horrible mess, unless he gets very, very lucky. For all our sakes, I hope he does get lucky, but above all his Presidency has been one distinguished by an unremitting lack of good fortune.

4. Like the Republicans in 1994, the Democrats are hungry. They managed to outsmart the Republicans in the 2006 elections, and you can bet they don't want to mess up their chances in 2008. They know the pitfalls that await over the next 2 years and they don't have to accomplish much to look better than the Republican Congress has since 2000. What a tragic frittering away of opportunity for the Republican Party, and for America, these years have been.

For his part, if Mr Bush wants any kind of domestic legacy, he will have to work with the Democrats. Considering how he was abandoned by Republican candidates during the late election, he might even relish the prospect.

**********

One point I would like to make in terms of a recommendation for the Democrats: it is important to educate the voters that the situation we find ourselves in internationally with regard to Iraq, Iran, North Korea and the general proliferation of nuclear weapons world wide are, after six years in control of all parts of the federal government, the Republicans to own and wear. These should now be considered concrete examples of the failures of the Bush team's approach to international threats and coalition building.

With the exception of the section on Schiavo, this was a solid analysis. Your conclusions about the factors that drove the election were accurate and your prognostications about future democratic opportunities seem spot on.

On Schiavo, MSM manipulation of the issue affected perceptions of middle-ground voters. The facts are these:

1. State government entities prevented the biological parents from providing for their daughter.
2. The law as written was on the side of the husband.
3. The husband behaved in a poor fashion in my opinion.
4. The law as written is generally good.
5. This case was an extreme example that tested the limits of existing statues.

Posted by John McIntyre at 05:17 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Jim Webb and Jon Tester's extremely narrow wins in Virginia and Montana two weeks ago were obviously huge for the Democrats in that they delivered them the six seats they needed to win control of the Senate. Maybe more important in the long-run than control in the Senate these next two years (which may turn out to me more of a nightmare than a blessing) is Webb and Tester put a new and attractive face on the Democratic party.

Both come from regions of the country where Democrats have struggled for the last quarter century. With the departure of Zell Miller the Democratic party had just about completely lost their Jacksonian heritage which Jim Webb, could perhaps, be the beginning of turning that trend around. Democrats will need more Jim Webbs and less John Edwards if they hope to make real headway in the solidly Republican south. Tester's populism (if he doesn't stray too far to the redistributionist left) will sell well in a libertarian-leaning West that is fed up with out of control federal spending and the mess in Iraq.

Both looked good on Meet the Press yesterday speaking on Iraq and the middle class, but at some point they are going to have to confront many issues where the voters in their conservative-leaning states simply split with the Schumer's, Levin's and Kennedy's who will retain the real power in the new Democratic Senate. Taxes, judges and national security will be where the rubber hits the road with these two.

I suspect Webb has a considerably brighter future than Tester, who if he isn't careful with his votes and alliances may end up like Rod Grams in Minnesota who got swept in with 49% in the 1994 wave and then got chucked out six years later losing to they very underwhelming Mark Dayton.

Posted by John McIntyre at 10:00 AM | Email Author | Permalink

I'm not sensing much enthusiasm from conservatives over the election of John Boehner and Roy Blunt to the top two GOP leadership posts.

Mary Katherine Ham:

Hey guys? Want more of the same? Isn't that what you meant when you voted Republicans out of office?

Good news. The Republican Party delivers!

Paul Mirengoff's take over at Powerline is about as good as it gets for Boehner and Blunt: "I don't know whether this was the right choice, but it seems like a reasonable one."

Mike Krempasky at Red State fires off a good shot at Roy Blunt: "Congratulations to Represenative Roy Blunt on his re-election to the Whip post. May he be as effective in stopping bad Democratic bills as he was in pushing bad Republican ones."

Meanwhile, Rep. Blunt released a statement that reads, in part:

As a party, we learned some hard lessons last week. But our ideas didn't lose -- we did. Today begins the rebirth of House Republicans' common sense agenda with a leadership team that is more unified than ever, ready to regain the trust of the American people, and ready to restore faith in our ideals.

The "rebirth" of a "common sense agenda." Sounds good, but I suspect most conservatives have a two word response for Blunt and Boehner: "Prove it."

Posted by Tom Bevan at 11:27 AM | Email Author | Permalink

My take on the election in today's Chicago Sun-Times.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:49 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Revising an extending from the post below, I forgot to highlight this delicious nugget on Murtha from the WaPo story which, on the heels of his "ethics reform is crap" exchange with Chris Matthews the other night (dissected and derided by Kaus and Maguire), should raise even more questions about Murtha's integrity:

In a phone call initiated by Murtha that same day, the lawmaker told the longtime politician that he had already signed a letter of support for Hoyer. The congressman said he was stunned when Murtha told him, "Letters don't mean anything."

Ethics reform is crap. Letters of commitment don't mean anything. Very inspiring stuff.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:43 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Jonathan Weisman and Lois Romano set the stage in the Washington Post this morning:

A showdown over the House majority leader's post today has Democrats bitterly divided only a week after their party took control of Congress and has prompted numerous complaints that Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and her allies are using strong-arm tactics and threats to try to elect Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.) to the job.

Jules Crittenden writes on his new blog that he's going to 'sit back and enjoy' the fight:

Today offers the kind of spectacle that is a small consolation prize for a party out of power: the victors pummeling each other over the spoils. The election having been lost, today's majority leadership race is a win-win.

Michael Barone looks at why Pelosi is so determined to support Murtha before concluding:

The word from Capitol Hill has been that Steny Hoyer, the current minority whip who ran against Pelosi for that job in 2001, has the votes. Hoyer is an experienced and competent politician who is respected and well liked on both sides of the aisle, and I suspect that many House Democrats are miffed that Pelosi is opposing him.

Murtha is telling people he's got the votes, so today's vote should be very interesting - and potentially surprising, too, since it's a secret ballot.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:18 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Lou Dobbs declares, "I'm a damn proud populist" in the midst of this tirade against his critics on both the left and the right who've been using the term "Lou Dobbs Democrats." He's kinda angry.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 04:29 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Ruth Marcus lays the wood to Nancy Pelosi this morning, calling Murtha "unfit" to be Majority Leader. Suprisingly, Joe Conason isn't happy either:

By siding openly with her friend and ally, Mr. Murtha, in a letter to her colleagues, however, Ms. Pelosi has also ensured that the outcome will render an instant judgment on her authority in her new role. She has sent a clear signal that what she values most is loyalty--and that she is willing to risk embarrassment to enforce discipline. For Democrats who have too often failed to act with any semblance of cohesion or coherence, the Pelosi approach is refreshingly tough and free of timidity.

But as a national leader who vowed to clean up Washington's dirty politics during the 2006 campaign, she may yet come to regret her endorsement of Mr. Murtha. After promising to "drain the swamp," she immediately adopted one of the swamp's hungriest alligators as her pet.

What irony. One of the left's main knocks on President Bush over the years is that he's been too blinded by loyalty and that his administration has suffered from cronyism. Yet here you have the new Speaker of the House, whose drapes haven't even been measured or hung yet, pulling out all the stops to install an ethically-challenged pal for Majority Leader out of blind loyalty and passing over another perfectly competent member (Jane Harman) out of pure pique to turn over the Chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee to a man who was impeached for taking bribes. Not the most auspicious of beginnings, I'd say.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:59 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The final margin of victory for Democrat Joe Courtney over Rob Simmons in CT-2? Ninety-one votes.

No word on whether the results will be challenged. Simmons will hold a press conference today at 3:30 eastern.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:51 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The Hotline's Chuck Todd says there is "plenty of evidence" that President Bush was the deciding factor that cost Republicans control of the Senate:

There's plenty of evidence to suggest that President Bush may have been the deciding factor that killed the GOP's momentum in some key Senate races over the last week. One Republican consultant is convinced that Bush's last-minute visit to Missouri on behalf of ousted GOP Sen. Jim Talent did the incumbent in. According to the network exit polls, Democrat Claire McCaskill crushed Talent among those late-breaking voters who decided in the final three days (a full 11 percent of the electorate). Bush also made a last-minute trip to Montana, where anecdotal evidence indicates the president's rally for Republican Conrad Burns stopped the incumbent's momentum in Billings.

Todd cites the exit polls for Missouri, which do indeed show late breakers going to McCaskill, though it's impossible to say that had anything to do with Bush's visit. The data is, at best, inconclusive: Bush had a 45% job approval rating in Missouri, and close to half of those who voted (46%) said Bush did not play a role in how they cast they're vote.

With regard to Montana, Todd cites "anecdotal evidence" to support his argument that Bush somehow stopped Burns' momentum, when in fact those very same exit polls in Montana show just the opposite:

It looks like the "rule" that undecideds always break disproportionately for the challenger proved true Missouri, but not in Montana. In any case, it's impossible to say how much Bush's last-minute visits had to do with the outcome in either of these races.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 01:53 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Incumbent Republican Deborah Pryce leads Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy by 3,536 votes. But there are more than 10,000 provisional ballots left to be counted, and the Columbus Dispatch reports the Kilroy campaign is still hard at work:

Kilroy's campaign called about 70,000 voters last weekend and aired television and radio ads asking people who cast provisional ballots to contact the campaign and county boards of elections to make sure their votes in the 15 th Congressional District are counted.

According to the article, "95 percent of people who voted provisionally in Franklin County were able to provide a Social Security card or driver's license number that can be used to establish residency." If you assume 95% of provisional ballots end up being verified and counted, a down and dirty sketch of the math shows that Kilroy would have to win 70% of them to flip the seat. Furthermore, if the addition of the provisional ballots brings Kilroy within 998 votes of Pryce (either ahead or behind) - it will trigger a mandatory recount in all three counties.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 09:55 AM | Email Author | Permalink

In New Mexico 1, County Clerks are in the process of counting of the 2,698 provisional ballots and 1,058 "in lieu of" ballots still outstanding. Each ballot has to be scrutinized to determine whether it's valid or not before being added the candidate's final tally. By law, the count has to be done by Friday.

Right now, incumbent Republican Heather Wilson has a 1,487-vote lead over Democrat Patricia Madrid.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:44 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The Hartford Courant reports on the back and forth of the recount in CT-2:

The roller coaster recount in the 2nd Congressional District took a sharp turn Monday afternoon when officials in one small eastern Connecticut town discovered an error that had given Democrat Joe Courtney 100 extra votes.

By nightfall, though, Courtney had gained back 40 of those votes due to the discovery of another error in another small town that had inflated the vote totals of his opponent, Republican incumbent Rob Simmons.

Later the same evening, a computation error in yet a third town gave Republicans an additional 31 votes, according to the state party chairman.

The stomach-churning ride is expected to screech to a halt late tonight, when every community in the sprawling, 65-town district will have completed its mandated recount. By law, the municipalities have until midnight Wednesday to report their revised tallies to the secretary of the state's office, but 56 had completed the process by Monday night and the final nine will do so today.

As of late Monday, Courtney, a lawyer from Vernon, continued to hold a narrow lead over Simmons, a three-term incumbent from Stonington. That margin stood at 82 votes, according to State GOP Chairman George Gallo after Simmons picked up 31 votes in Waterford. On election night, preliminary results gave Courtney a 167-vote advantage, but the margin was tiny enough to trigger a recount.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:33 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The AP has called the race in WA-8 for incumbent Republican Dave Reichert.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:29 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The Washington Post editorializes against Jack Murtha for Majority Leader this morning, citing his views on Iraq ("his descriptions of the stakes there have been consistently unrealistic, and his solutions irresponsible") and his ethics baggage ("Mr. Murtha has been a force against stronger ethics and lobbying rules.").

The WaPo editorial reads as one would expect: an earnest, sober piece of advice from a left-leaning paper urging Democrats not to follow up a big victory by committing a tactical error.

On the other hand, the liberal editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has no such reservations about wanting Mr. Murtha to take the number two slot in the House:

The American people want change, but it's a fair bet they also want leaders who are credible and responsible. Ms. Pelosi, whom Republicans like to paint as a San Francisco liberal, needs a plain-speaking warrior Democrat like Mr. Murtha at her side. The nation does too.

Lastly, we come to the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review which also backs Mr. Murtha as Majority Leader in what might accurately be described as a thinly-veiled piece of reverse psychology:

If Democrats are smart, and truly want to show the American people that they can put internal party politics aside for the benefit of the nation, they'll line up behind Jack Murtha.

Maybe the Trib-Review ed board honestly supports Jack Murtha as the best choice for Democrats, but I doubt it. As a general rule of thumb in politics, when people who consistently oppose the views of your party start advising you to do something, it's a good idea to do the opposite.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:20 AM | Email Author | Permalink

David Corn has an interesting blog post on Pelosi's support of Jack Murtha for Majority Leader:

This morning, I called Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, to ask about the potential congressional reforms House Speaker-To-Be Nancy Pelosi is expected to push on Day One. But before we got to that, Sloan teed off on Pelosi for having endorsed Representative Jack Murtha, the hawk turned Iraq war critic, in his fight against Representative Steny Hoyer to be the House Democratic majority leader, the powerful number-two job in the body. "Murtha has lots of ethics issues," Sloan exclaimed. "What the hell is she thinking? Corruption turns out to be a major issue in the campaign, and you endorse the guy with the more ethics problems?"

Posted by Tom Bevan at 02:58 PM | Email Author | Permalink

The town clerk of Lebanon just announced that human error caused a machine to record an extra 100 votes for Joe Courtney.

Courtney's lead over Rob Simmons is now down to just 65 votes. Thirty-five towns in the second district are recanvassing today. Final results should be known by the end of the week.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 01:19 PM | Email Author | Permalink

In one closely watched Congressional race (Sodrel v Hill, IN-9) and two critical Senate races (Missouri and Montana), the Republican candidate was defeated by fewer votes than the Libertarian candidate received.

[Note: the last data I could find on the Missouri race still had two of the 3746 precincts to report, so it is possible that statement isn't true for Missouri, but if it is not true it is still very close and does not diminish my point.]

In other words, in these two critical Senate races and if the Republican had gotten the Libertarian's votes, the Republican would have won.

For the rest of this article, please recognize that I am speaking of the small-"l" libertarian, and not the Libertarian Party of the candidates mentioned above. A "libertarian", in the shortest definition I can muster, is someone who is fiscally conservative and socially liberal. In other words, it is someone who wants the government to perform a very small set of legitimate functions and otherwise leave us alone.

I can hardly contain my glee at seeing this happen after years of hoping it would. And in such dramatic fashion, with such important results. I did not hope it would because I wanted Republicans to lose, but because the Republicans had become corrupted (by which I do not mean corrupt in the typical sense.) They became enamored of power, and believed that they could get away with expanding the size, intrusiveness, and cost of government as long as they had government aim for "conservative" goals rather than liberal ones. This loss, and the way it happened, was the best thing that could have happened for Americans who care about a government focused on limited government and liberty.

No, the Democrats are not that government. They believe in anything but limited government, and they only believe in liberty in one's personal life, but not in one's economic life. In a sense, Democrats believe that the citizens work for the government.

Republicans on the other hand have acted in just the opposite way: they believe in economic liberty and they know we do not work for government. But they do not believe in personal liberty. The failure of the strategery of the Republicans, to focus on "the base" by trotting out social issues such as the South Dakota no-exception abortion ban (which lost, I'm pleased to say) demonstrated two things: First, social issues do not have long coat-tails. Second, the GOP base is fiscal conservatives more than it is social conservatives.

Fiscal conservatives, even more than social conservatives, were the demotivated voting block. Fiscal conservatives who are not socially conservative, i.e. voters who are libertarian even if they don't know it or wouldn't identify themselves that way, were the key swing vote in this election and were the reason that the GOP lost Congress...the Senate in particular.

In a recent study called "The Libertarian Vote", David Boaz (Cato Institute) and David Kirby (America's Future Foundation) discuss the growing number of American libertarians, the growing dissatisfaction among them (including me) with the GOP, and the continuing shift in voting patterns caused by that dissatisfaction. Tuesday held the obvious conclusion of this shift.

The party which went from reforming welfare to banning internet gambling by sticking the ban inside a port security bill, the party which went from Social Security reform to trying to amend the Federal Constitution to prevent gay marriage, the party which went from controlling the size and scope of government to banning horse meat became a party which libertarians and Republicans alike could not stomach.

The Democrats are a disaster, though they probably realize they need to move to the center. The Republicans have just been taught a brutal lesson that they also need to move to the center (on social issues) and back to fundamental principles of our Founders on issues of economics and basic liberties. No party can rely on the unappealing nature of their opponent to be a strong enough motivation to win elections, nor should we let them win if being just a bit better than the other guys is all they aspire to.

What I love about libertarian voters is that they vote on principle, not on party. The GOP might not like it, but politics should not be about blind loyalty if your party has lost its way. So, I disagree with suggestions that libertarians are fickle and unreliable voters. Instead the Republicans became an unreliable party. The Democrats on the other hand are extremely reliable -- they will always raise spending and taxes, get government involved where it doesn't belong. But other than the tax cuts of several years ago, the Republicans have been no different other than choosing different areas of our lived to intrude upon.

I hope that the result of the Libertarian Effect, particularly on the GOP, will be that the next election may provide us an opportunity to replace this batch of Democrat placeholders with Congressmen who not only have read the Constitution, but respect it. Congressmen who understand that Republican voters do not elect politicians to have them impose their (or our) morality on the people, but rather to keep government from interfering in our lives and leaving us, in the immortal words of Milton Friedman, "Free to Choose".

Posted by Ross Kaminsky at 12:07 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Russ Feingold says he won't run for President in 2008 because "I believe I can best advance that progressive agenda as a senator with significant seniority in the new Senate serving on the Foreign Relations, Intelligence, Judiciary and Budget Committees."

Similarly, Jesse Jackson, Jr. recently abandoned a long-expected challenge to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley by saying:

"More than any time since I took my initial oath-of-office, I am excited, eager and downright giddy about the prospects in Washington," Jackson said. "So, I will not be a candidate for the mayor of the city of Chicago in 2007. Instead, I hope to make my seventh term in Congress my best yet." [snip]

"The prospects of being in the majority, on a key committee, with reasonable seniority, is very exciting to me," he said.

Question: how else might the lure of the majority change the political landscape for 2008? Will Hillary Clinton be affected? Or is even the possibility of a Committee Chairmanship too small to appease her appetite for political power? What about Barack Obama? Might his decision to run be influenced by the prospect of spending another eight years in the majority as opposed to the minority?

And what about the opposite effect on Republicans? Are there any Senators who might be induced to enter the '08 fray out of the prospect of facing time in the dreaded minority? None spring to mind, but that doesn't mean we may not see a possible surprise or two.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:56 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Substantively speaking, there probably won't be a whole lot of difference between a Majority Leader Murtha and a Majority Leader Hoyer But there's a rather significant difference between the two from a public relations standpoint, and it'll be interesting to see if the Democrats choose Jack Murtha to be their second most prominent spokesperson in the House.

As to the Democrats' agenda, "phased withdrawal" from Iraq is tops on the list. Other items include getting the government to take over negotiating drug prices for Medicare, changing rules to make earmarking more transparent, raising the minimum wage, and revisiting federal funding for stem cells.

There had been talk of Democrats taking up comprehensive immigration reform, but the Washington Post suggests this morning that it's "not a priority." However, Mickey quotes a source who says the Dems are indeed planning to move "full speed ahead" on immigration reform.

Regardless, don't look for much of anything to get done in the lame duck session that starts today. The President wanted Congress to take up the legislation on the NSA surveillance program, but it is not going to happen. It also looks like John Bolton's days as UN Ambassador are numbered. Whatever real action is going to take place in Congress isn't going to start until after the New Year.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:23 AM | Email Author | Permalink

A monster profile of Rahm Emanuel in the Sunday Chicago Tribune that only adds to the "Rahmbo" mystique:

In a world where congressmen refer to each other as "my distinguished colleague," Emanuel, 46, is sometimes unable to get through a single sentence without several obscenities. His politics are centrist, but his style is extremist. The top of his right middle finger was severed when he was a teenager, adding to his aura of toughness--especially when he extends that middle finger, which he does with some regularity.

Set aside at least 20 minutes if you plan on reading the whole thing.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:58 AM | Email Author | Permalink