God Bless America

I was beginning to wonder if America had the ability to see. I don't now. I stayed up until 2pm eastern last night just to make sure. The american public has seen what's really going on and they have sent a message to washington.

Democrats + 27 (maybe more) in the House and take control
Democrats + 6 (I know VA is a recount) in the Senate and take control
Democrats +6 in statehouses and set the stage for 2008

But more importantly, we have a new kind of Democrat emerging. Jim Webb, former Secretary of the Navy. Claire McCaskill, tough pragmatic midwestern woman. Bob Casey and Joe Lieberman.

The Democrats are moving to the center, occupying the vacuum left by the disappearance of the moderate Republican.

For me the hero of this election is Claire McCaskill. We bet early and often on Claire and she delivered. The Republican party threw everything they had at Claire and she took it and gave it right back. Claire's for balanced budgets, stem cell research, a choice for women, a realistic foriegn policy, and a host of other sensible things.

We are going to see more women in government and that's a good thing. We are going to see a balanced government with congress in the hands of one party and the white house in the hands of another. And that's a really good thing.

But the best thing is that america has woken up from it's tilt right. We are back in centerville. Thank God.

Comments (32) | Posted November 8, 2006 in Politics

Comments

Thanks Fred. I went to bed allot earlier than you did. I new the House was in safe hands, but I wasn't sure about the Senate.
The first place I went to find out was your Blog, you answered all my questions. No need to look any ware else.

Posted by: Rod Wilson | Nov 8, 2006 7:01:19 AM

the cynic in me had given up all hope. thank god i was wrong.

the victory of the year, quite possibly for the world.

Posted by: kid mercury | Nov 8, 2006 7:24:06 AM

Never thought I'd find myself quoting a Reagan ad: It's morning in America.
You were right and early for Claire. Good for you and the Gotham Gal.

Posted by: Jerry | Nov 8, 2006 7:31:14 AM

Fred, it truly was an exciting and ultimately rewarding night. The late surges / comebacks in VA and MO were thrilling. You should feel a real sense of pride and accomplishment stemming from the support you provided and the awareness you generated for Claire McCaskill, Sherrod Brown and, more generally, the issues facing our country. Thanks for your efforts.
One comment: I am not sure the voters have really moved from the right as demonstrated by the results of some important ballot measures around the country, but we should be pleased with the gains achieved.
One other comment: TV remains the best way to follow the action on election night. Maybe for the last time - I bet election night 2008 will be different - but watching Chris Matthews on MSNBC and the Carville, Begala, Watts, Bennett panel on CNN was better than anything presented online.

Posted by: Rich | Nov 8, 2006 7:32:33 AM

I don't mean to be the dark cloud on an otherwise beautiful day, but I don't think Democrats moving toward the center is a triumph. Depends upon your point of view I guess, but I still look back on the death of nationalized healthcare during the Clinton era with grave disappointment. Dems moving to the center takes us further from where we want to be IMHO. That being said, if every Democrat in office was like Claire McCaskill, I'd jump for joy.

Posted by: Andrew Parker | Nov 8, 2006 8:39:12 AM

Fred is right. In Southern Indiana, where I'm from, the Democrats gained 2 seats. Both were pro-life, pro-gun Democrats that could not get futher from Pelosi types if they tried (and believe me they tried).

Bottom line---congrats to Democrats for winning, and congrats to the USA for showing an unwillingness to put up with any one party in total power. We have a legislative branch that is now very close to the center, despite its leadership. Gridlock will be a wonderful thing!

Oh---and 2008 looks like Guiliani or McCain or Clinton if she can continue right enough.

Posted by: Andy | Nov 8, 2006 8:53:56 AM

The most outrageous thing I heard last night was early in the evening from GOP strategist Ed Rollins on CNN.

He said:

"We thought with re-apportionment that we were election proof, we were wrong".

The fact that a party would even TRY to become election proof is proof of their lack of belief in democracy.

Posted by: Erik Schwartz | Nov 8, 2006 9:14:28 AM

As a GOP backer, last night was a wake up call. But I also see the light (and have for a while). The far-left and the far-right are dominating the party philosophy. We need to move to the center, to a more moderate way of thinking.
While I would rather see the moderate GOP in control, rather than the moderate Dems, I guess this isn't as bad as a President Howard Dean ;)

But can Nancy Peolsi get out of the San Francisco liberal mindset she has had and let the center of her party set the policy.
Somehow I see the old liberal Dems (Ted, Kerry, Pelosi, Conyers) fighting to hold onto power while the new moderate blood (Webb, McCaskill, Casey) tries to take over.
It should be an interesting fight.

Onward to 2008.

Posted by: JB | Nov 8, 2006 9:44:45 AM

"and congrats to the USA for showing an unwillingness to put up with any one party in total power".

I have never voted for a Republican or a Democrat in my entire voting life precisely because they function as one party in total power. Little has changed and this exuberance is hardly warranted.

The voting exercise has become an illusory ritual that obscures how revolutionary the necessary changes are to right the sinking ship of the good ole USA. Even if corporations hadn't already selected our two choices many months ago reasonable people who have done there homework have gi-normous doubts about the legitimacy of such charades from a tabulation perspective.

What would be exciting would be the rule of law returning and people going to jail for the 2000 coup de tat. What would be exciting would be more choices outside of the 2 party monopoly that has crippled this democracy. What would be exciting would be people going to jail for removing millions of blacks and hispanics from the voter rolls for being black, hispanic and statistically likely to be dems. What would be exciting would be if John Kerry had the balls to not concede until the controversy in Ohio was investigated. What would be exciting is people going to jail for negligence during the Katrina disaster. Of course NONE of these are even topics in the public discourse (at least not in the mainstream).

Hey, change is good, and even with the above mentioned fundamental issues yesterday's results FEEL better than no change for certain. But only if we have raised our standards, our expectations and our willingness to continually demand more. It is quite possible that if we find this reshuffling of corporate prostitutes a cathartic end itself; an overblown overhyped illusion that we voters still run the show, then yesterday's result might do more harm than good. Back to work everyone! You've contributed your 2 hours per 2 years to democracy and you can return to consumptive apathy now. After all, this is the greatest country on earth and we've just shown it! blah blah blah. How about a revoked corporate charter? How about a prolonged public discourse on genuine issues? On top of the midterms maybe this would be a pulse in this withering experiment in representative government, but in the meantime let's remember that the media whipping up this frenzy over new representatives for wealthy corporations is hardly cause for celebration just yet. We are still one helluva mess and our entire empire rests on very very shaky foundations. Sorry to be another 'dark cloud' but let's just say I'll wait for us to clean up even one of our many corrupt murderous debacles from the Beltway to Baghdad before I'll start proclaiming heroes of the millionaires club on Capitol Hill.

Posted by: michael | Nov 8, 2006 9:45:12 AM

Fred --

I think you have the single most cogent analysis of last night -- congratulations for being part of an outcome you wanted to happen!

--Alan

Posted by: AlFromChicago | Nov 8, 2006 9:46:28 AM

I wish people would be more careful in framing the stem-cell research issue. There is stem cell research and then there is embryonic stem cell issue.... The debate is not whether there should be stem cell research- most everyone agress that there is much to be learned. The debate is embryonic vs. adult stem cells. Big difference.

Posted by: Dave | Nov 8, 2006 10:20:38 AM

I believe all the candidates you highlighted won. CNN is calling.

Posted by: Rick | Nov 8, 2006 10:27:11 AM

Great results. A really promising one for international policy.

But, let me ask one question: I live in Brazil, and here they use automatic voting systems. In the Presidential election (held 2 weeks ago), votes from every district, every state and every city were counted in 3-4 hours. At 10 PM, all the races were called.

Why in Brazil it always works flawlessy like that, and in the US there can´t be an election without a recount, and uncertainty that sometimes drags for weeks? What´s wrong?

Cheers,
Giordano

Posted by: Giordano | Nov 8, 2006 10:28:18 AM

Good point Dave, the debate over "stem cell research" was fascinating to watch (I live in Missouri). It's amazing the backers of Amendment 2 were able to redefine words in the english language . . . and we bought it, as they say in MO, "hook, line, and sinker". The ballot language makes a false claim to:
"ban human cloning or attempted cloning".
The full text (which most voters don't bother to read apparently) goes on to say that the definition of cloning, is to to "implant in a uterus or attempt to implant in a uterus . . ."

Unbelievable. But you can read it here: http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/2006petitions/ppStemCell.asp

If this is an example of being "moderate" and Dems "moving to the center". It's obviously been a very slippery sliding scale.

Posted by: Aventi | Nov 8, 2006 10:59:44 AM

Giordano,

Because here, when we use automatic systems the losers claim cheating by the other side for 6-8 years regardless of the facts. I mean, we're talking about a group of people that don't want voters to have to show ID here.

Good for Brazil!

Posted by: Andy | Nov 8, 2006 11:01:45 AM

There is one thing Democrats must be VERY careful about. It boils down to the primary system they use. On NATIONAL elections, they simply cannot afford a Kerry or Lamont type of liberal, yet they seem to continually nominate them in the primary.

I think that if you look at the results, the GAINS that democrats made came with conservative/middle of the road democrats from areas where those types of people win the primary.

If Democrats want to win the White House, they MUST get away from New England and start using the South, Missouri and Indiana in their primary push. You just can't let looney libs put a guy like Lamont get on the ticket and expect to win the real deal. (Flipside is true for GOP, but they have that in place because they use States they don't ALWAYS win as early primaries)

Posted by: Andy | Nov 8, 2006 11:07:02 AM

Congrats to the Dems. As a conservative Republican, I'm not as bitter as I would be otherwise because mixed government = gridlock = less government interference which is what true conservatives want anyway. It will be an interesting couple of years...

Posted by: Rockwell | Nov 8, 2006 11:13:51 AM

I think the best part about this is not the result -- I hope things will get better soon, but I am not confident they will.

I thought the best part about it was that Democracy isn't broken -- the election wasn't stolen by broken polling machines, and aggressive gerrymandering didn't prevent a disenchanted electorate from making the changes it wanted. In 2004 I had an "OJ verdict moment" -- I was fairly stunned that most Americans didn't see Bush and his war the way I did and began to wonder whether our democracy was truly intact--or whether we were on some slippery slope to some reactionary extremes. In that sense, this election was a huge relief for me, and probably most of the world as well.

However, I have to call you out on trumpeting the new moderate Democrat -- I recall you were pretty strongly anti-Lieberman just a few months ago "because he was too close to Bush".

Posted by: KidCroesus | Nov 8, 2006 11:23:43 AM

Wow:

Illinois politics were on fire last night. Tammy Duckworth (D) running against Peter Roskam (R) narrowly lost. Tammy is a female Iraqi war vet who lost both her legs when her chopper was shot down.

Local politics were fantastic to watch here last night.

I'm definitely going to launch deadvoter.com after the events from last night.

Democrat Machine Politics were alive and well in Illinois. The Ghost of Mayor Daley shined down on Illinois last night.

1. Illinois Governor race. Rod Blagojevich (D) remains as Governor. Associate Press projected his victory before the polls even closed, setting off a firestorm.

2. Alexi Giannoulias (D) won as State Treasurer. Alexi's family owns a bank and is under investigation for laundering money for organized crime.

3. Cook County is the County Chicago is located in. The race for County Board President had fireworks. Tony Peraica (R) ran against Todd Stroger (D) Son of Board President John Stroger who had a stroke.

This is where it gets good. Stroger was winning by 10% with 65% of the votes coming in. Most of these votes were from the City of Chicago. They were waiting for the suburb votes to come in.

All of a sudden the votes stopped being counted. The County Board of elections said there was a problem counting the votes in that the equipment used to transmit the votes from the suburbs was not working properly. The County Board of Elections had the votes hand delivered to be counted.

These hand delivered votes were not delivered by County Sheriffs as required. Instead the election judges delivered them to the city.

At 1:00am Tony Peraica refused to concede as it was expected a 7 to 1 vote swing in his favor from the missing suburban vote. Charges of Democratic election stealing were thrown. Tony asked his followers to follow him to the Board of Election to demand answers.

It was like a horror movie where the angry villagers with pitchforks march on the haunted castle. Tony Peraica was refused entry to the county election board offices.

I am suprised this one did not make national news. Chicago is located in Cook County and is the 3rd largest city in the US. I can't believe the national news isn't reporting this. Republican or Democrat the story is incredible.

The Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune are all over this story.

Posted by: JEiden | Nov 8, 2006 11:26:00 AM

Hooray!

Posted by: Jill | Nov 8, 2006 1:24:11 PM

But can Nancy Peolsi get out of the San Francisco liberal mindset she has had and let the center of her party set the policy.

As someone who lived in San Francisco for 10 years, I can say with confidence that Nancy is hardly representative of SF values. please put that particular canard away.

Posted by: fishbane | Nov 8, 2006 1:54:59 PM

"I thought the best part about it was that Democracy isn't broken -- the election wasn't stolen by broken polling machines, and aggressive gerrymandering didn't prevent a disenchanted electorate from making the changes it wanted."

Don't kid yourself - if the Republicans had won we'd be in for two more years of conspiracy theories about "stolen elections."

Posted by: Rockwell | Nov 8, 2006 2:38:53 PM

I love it that now that Dems win on ULTRA close margins and all of a sudden the voting machines are fine! The system works!

10,000 people in MT and VA change their minds last night and we'd be hearing the same old diebold song and dance for another 2 years.

Amazing.

Posted by: Andy | Nov 8, 2006 3:30:50 PM

Another thing I dont understand: in every country were I lived, elections are held on a Sunday. This increases turnout, naturally. It just makes sense. So, why voting on a workday? What s the rationale?

Posted by: Giordano | Nov 8, 2006 4:19:07 PM

Now we know why the Dow is at an all-time high :) .

Posted by: howard Lindzon | Nov 8, 2006 4:19:34 PM

A VC

Musings of a VC in NYC