As of 5:37 am. Click here for actual interactive map.
I must seem an entire nerd to be typing at 5:08 am but there is this course I am on tomorrow which means there is this train I am on tomorrow. And that train leaves town at 5:25 am. Last time I took it I felt like a wet shoe box for two days and learned nothing. The US election just happens to fall conveniently within my time shifting. Yah, that's it.
But what to make of all this? I think I may have won my own pool and if I didn't I think I can now at least claim a small bit of a Karl Rove-like aura, a tiny political seer...if only because the swing to the left I have been seeing for decades has finally shown up. And we can likely each make the same claim to that aura as it has pretty much been shattered and left around the place in bits and pieces here and there. Remember this?:
ROVE: I'm looking at all of these Robert and adding them up. I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math but you are entitled to your math and I'm entitled to THE math.Everyone has their inner dope that shines through sooner or laster.SIEGEL: I don't know if we're entitled to a different math but your...
ROVE: I said THE math.
So the House is lost to the right and there is a very good chance that with the last two Senate seats (Virginia and Montana) splitting, the whole might be equally shared. If they both go as they look now to the Democrats, Bush stands alone. What does that mean? One thing it might mean is that newly renewed New Yorker Gary is hungover and/or under arrest for dancing nude. Perhaps Ian as well. Another is, frankly, that the current Canadian minority Conservative government may never reach majority or even a second term. The shine may be off to that degree. But that is a bit triumphalist and unattractive in its dopery.
As of 5:58 am - click for a bigger version. Click here for the actual interactive map.
Maybe it will be the end to this sort of ding-battery in the comments over at Ian's place:
But one really doesn't need to read it in a paper to know that Democrat victories in the election are also victories for jihadists in the WoT. That's common sense. Democrats want us to surren-, er, "redeploy the troops" (a turn of phrase similar to describing a tax hike as a "temporary refund adjustment") from Iraq, which the terrorists will interpret (justifiably) as a win for them.Why? Because many of the new members of the House on the Democratic side are conservatives and maybe because it is simply one of the stupidest positions one can take but one which has received some validity from otherwise rational people. With any luck, people will regain the awareness that compromise in decision making does not need to mean compromise in outcome.
Comments
gorthos - November 8, 2006 6:37 AM
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I'm going to feel like crap all day..
Hooray for deomcracy...! zzzzzzzzzzzz
Alan - November 8, 2006 6:39 AM
Did you stay up all night? I snoozed from 7:00 to 8:30 and then 10:15 to 4:45 thanks to nighttime cold medication.
ry - November 8, 2006 6:46 AM
And now we return the days of gridlock of my youth. Yay. Gov't that does nothing from friction. Wasn't all bad.
gr - November 8, 2006 7:08 AM
I AM DANCING NUDE, but thankfully, in the privacy of my own house with the curtains drawn. Arcuri won the NY 24th, by a pretty good margin, but look at my old state of New Hampshire!!! Two Republican incumbents down in flames! probably the first democrats in those seats in generations, if ever.
ry, there won't be any gridlock if the president sensibly goes along with the democratic leadership in the house..... ;^)
Alan - November 8, 2006 7:10 AM
I think I heard that Arcuri is the first Democrat to be a Republican...maybe it is another seat nearby...as prior to the Republicans it was held by Whigs.
Alan - November 8, 2006 7:42 AM
BTW, the "no donuts" challenger for Jefferson County Sheriff lost.
Flea - November 8, 2006 10:09 AM
Trying to believe every impossible thing claimed by this post. Nope, must have breakfast first.
Alan - November 8, 2006 10:16 AM
Find a cereal with anti-fear powers and then try again. And do be good enough to indicate how impossibility occurs or we would be left to consider how you have "<i>the</i> math" as well.
gorthos - November 8, 2006 10:24 AM
Went to bed at 10:00, couldnt sleep, went running, back in bed at 11:00. back checking results at 11:45, back to bet at 12:15, up at 2:45 for a check, up at 4:45 for a check, up for good at 5:40....
zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Flea - November 8, 2006 10:34 AM
Well that's great, that's just f*ckin' great man. Now what the f*ck are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty sh*t now man... That's it man, game over man, game over! What the f*ck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?
Gordo - November 8, 2006 11:56 AM
We're going to sit back see if Bush takes it like a man or "stays the course" in heavy denial mode.
Alan - November 8, 2006 12:33 PM
Oh dear. I did put that strongly. I was hoping to have balanced with a tune from my new Jake Thackray box set but I am having issues with my IT skills. Nothing helps me face the fear of a pending armageddon like a listen to "Isabel Makes Love Upon National Monuments".
Flea - November 8, 2006 12:53 PM
Maybe we could build a fire, sing a couple of songs, huh? Why don't we try that?
Ben (The Tiger) - November 8, 2006 1:03 PM
I take it that Flea believes in the '<i>No last minute retraction giving us that glorious moment of "We Threw The Bums Out!!!" followed by an rather more extended period of "Good Lord What Have We Done?!?"</i>' option that was offered yesterday.
I wonder. My early optimism may fade.
Alan - November 8, 2006 1:05 PM
You are young. This statement:<blockquote class="smalltext"><i>I wonder. My early optimism may fade.</i></blockquote>Can and should apply to everything.
Flea - November 8, 2006 1:11 PM
You maybe haven't been keeping up on current events but we just got our asses kicked, pal!
Alan - November 8, 2006 1:11 PM
Here is that tune I was mentioning: [3.3 MB, .wma file] It seems to be ok as an email attachment but not under the link.<p>Try dropping in the link manually: http://www.genx40.com/images/music/25 Track 25.wma<p>That seems to work.
Ben (The Tiger) - November 8, 2006 1:13 PM
Darn it all.
Now I'm actually feeling quite bad about the results last night.
Good Lord, what have we done?
Flea - November 8, 2006 2:04 PM
Man, I'm telling you, I got a bad feeling about this drop.
gorthos - November 8, 2006 2:05 PM
I win, I saw it first:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/08/rumsfeld.ap/index.html
David Janes - November 8, 2006 2:23 PM
Yes, but he phone me to ask my advice. I think it was him anyway.
gr - November 8, 2006 2:40 PM
HOLY CARP! MONTANA SENATE SEAT GOES DEM AND WEBB LEADS IN VA, but like I said in the pool, VA may be headed for a recount
gr - November 8, 2006 2:41 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061108/ap_on_el_ge/eln_election_rdp
Flea - November 8, 2006 3:07 PM
Well, there goes our salvage, guys.
Alan - November 8, 2006 3:15 PM
You sound like you think Superman has eaten kryptonite, that there were a handful of leaders able to do this despite all their terrible gaffs and despite there being many others quite capable of leading the WoT - including the same administration for the next two years. Where is the pain coming from? Recollection of the Kerry campaign team? Are you not losing a battle of yesteryear? Will you miss the condescending yet error-ridden ways of David Frum being a majoritarian voice?<p>Let me be plain. Regardless of my watching of <i>The Unit</i>, I am quite certain there is more than one group of the Ghurkas roaming the world doing the nasty work and many more teams of others. No one hauls them back in. Heck, maybe there will be another 100,000 soldiers added now to the cause in order to extract and reassign within the WoT. Whatever happens all that is gone is the bootstep falling into line behind "Stay the Course" blindly into that other end of time we may as easily have been being led into.
David Janes - November 8, 2006 3:18 PM
(1) I have more readers here than I do on my own blog these days;
(2) I'm sure I read more right-wing blogs than the rest of you
so just observing ...
if the fate of the world depends on the US electing Republicans every single election from here to eternity, well, we're all fecking doomed.
Alan - November 8, 2006 3:33 PM
Exactly. Isn't the whole point of democracy that the rocks and stone themselves will speak out and fight in defense of the cause?
Chris Taylor - November 8, 2006 3:40 PM
All right, people, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? Another glorious day in the legislature! A day in the Democratic Congress is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade! I LOVE the Congress!
Flea - November 8, 2006 3:49 PM
They ain't paying us enough for this, man.
Chris Taylor - November 8, 2006 3:54 PM
What do you want me to do, fetch your slippers for you?
Flea - November 8, 2006 3:56 PM
Let's just bug out and call it even, OK? What are we talking about this for?
Chris Taylor - November 8, 2006 4:00 PM
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Flea - November 8, 2006 4:03 PM
Hold on one second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it.
Chris Taylor - November 8, 2006 4:13 PM
They can <i>bill</i> me.
Alan - November 8, 2006 4:13 PM
That is what the voices tell me when I check the stats each noon hour.
ry - November 8, 2006 7:03 PM
Aff-firmative.