The Buie Knife

2006 Congressional Election and Party Turnover Have Already Made Big Difference

Looks like Congressional Democrats are coming together on a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq by August 2008. Surely if President Bush can't finish the job and end the occupation by then, Congress must end U.S. involvement in a war he stubbornly refuses to end. Certainly, the vast majority of the American people favor withdrawal NOW. Click.

"The 2006 election replaced a do-nothing Congress with the kind of Congress that our Founding Fathers intended: an equal branch of government that takes seriously its responsibility to exercise oversight over the executive branch and to legislate in the public interest. The progress of the past few months only underscores how much our country has needed an active and alert Congress." -- Senator Edward Kennedy in The Washington Post.

A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives ...by Michael Moore

Click.

Predictions for Congress, 2007-8

Predictions:

• Led by Democrats, Congress will support legislation to increase the minimum wage and make college tuition tax deductible.
   
• Led by Democrats, Congress will be more skeptical of trade agreements that incoming freshman Heath Shuler says have led to a 78 percent loss in textile industry jobs in North Carolina.
• Democrats will be more interested in stimulating rural economies hit hardest by the loss of manufacturing and agricultural jobs.
• Democrats will be more interested in addressing the growing inequality in income, whereby the the middle class is increasingly at risk.
• Democrats will be more interested in addressing health care access, but they won't be able to do much until they get a Democratic president.
• When the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) comes up for renewal in 2007, Democrats will try to increase access for the eight million children who currently do not have health insurance coverage.
• Democrats will cede ground to Republicans on gun control. As the Democrats who won election to the Senate and House tended to be against gun control legislation, Democrats won't bring the issue up.
• Democrats will look for "common ground" on abortion, as Hillary Clinton has already started to do.

For 40 Out of 56 Years, American Voters Have Chosen Divided Government: 'Protect Us From the Other Party's Excesses'

I heard Rep. Tom Davis (R-Northern Virginia) on NPR's Weekend Edition this am. He was insightful. In 1994, he said, the voters elected a Republican Congress to protect them from the excesses of a Democratic President and Democratic Congress. In 1996, they re-elected a Democratic President to protect them from the excesses of a Republican Congress. In 2006, the voters elected a Democratic Congress to protect them from the excesses of a Republican president and Republican Congress. He noted that the Republicans misread the results of the 1994 elections as a mandate for their anti-government fervor. They gained 50 seats in 1994, but lost all but a handful of those seats in 1996, and probably would have lost the House in 1996 but for a few fundraising scandals on the Democratic side in the final weeks of the 1996 campaign. He said it's unlikely the Democrats will be so filled with hubris that they will misinterpret the message of the mid-term elections this year the way that the Republicans did in 1994.

For 56 years, from 1952 to 2008, the American electorate has chosen DIVIDED GOVERNMENT -- a Congress of one party, a presidency of a different party -- more often than not, for 40 years. Republican Eisenhower during his Presidency had to deal with a Democratic Congress. During the eight years of Kennedy-Johnson, there was strong Democratic rule, but that was followed by eight years of divided government under Nixon-Ford, four years of frustrating Democratic rule when Jimmy Carter and Congress often disagreed; divided government under Reagan and Bush 41, two years of Democratic rule with Clinton, six years of divided government under Clinton, six years of Republican government under Bush (except for brief, narrow Democratic control of the Senate), and now divided government under Bush.

Related:

• How GOP Became the Majority Party
• Epitaph for the GOP Congress, 1994-2006, by the Associated Press. Accomplishments? Welfare reforms under Clinton, five years of balanced budgets under Clinton, Children's Health Insurance Program under Clinton, numerous tax cuts, restrictions on abortion, Medicare prescription drug legislation, bankruptcy legislation, cuts in social programs, and lots of pork, according to the AP.

If Democrats Play Cards Right, They Could Regain Standing They Had Prior to 1994 Debacle

So Democrats gained at least 30 seats in the U.S. House (they are projected to win at least two more of the eight that remain undecided), and will control the House by approximately the same margin the Republicans controlled it after their 1994 "Gingrich revolution." But they don't seem to be so intoxicated with victory that they view their gains as "a revolution." Democrats realize the 2006 congressional elections, at least in the House, from a national perspective were more of a reaction AGAINST Republicans than an AFFIRMATION of Democratic vision and ideas. The Democratic leadership in Congress recognizes that "the new Democratic majority was elected, in large part, from Republican-leaning districts and states," as The New York Times reports. "If those new members vote in a purely partisan way, they — and the majority — will quickly be put at risk."

Democrats will, by a hair's breadth, control the Senate, 51-49. If they play their cards right, Democrats will have the opportunity to gain more Senate seats in 2008, when, as the AP reports,  "there are 21 Republican Senate seats up for election and only 12 Democratic seats. Eight of the Republicans in those seats won their last election with 55 percent or less of the vote."

As I predicted, Democrats haven't regained the standing they had prior to the 1994 elections, when they had such a lock on the House majority going back to 1948 that they became arrogant with power and scandal-ridden. In 2006, they didn't make the huge 52-seat gain the Republicans did in 1994, though public discontent with President Bush and the Republicans was greater in 2006 than it was against President Clinton and the Democrats in 1994. That year, Democrats lost 52 House seats and 8 Senate seats.  It will be VERY VERY HARD for Democrats to build on these House gains in 2008. They were lucky to take some conservative districts this year because of scandals and resignations, such as Mark Foley's district in Florida and Tom DeLay's district in Texas.

Before the election, I was skeptical that the Democrats could take back the House. I argued that congressional elections, through gerrymandering, are rigged in favor of incumbents. As a political consultant focused on House races between 2000 and 2004, I saw the number of competitive races dwindle from 40 to less than 20. I was shocked to see the Democrats take more than 30 seats this year. My guess is that without the GOP gerrymandering, they would have taken 40 or 50 seats. On the other hand, Jeanne Cummings in The Wall Street Journal argues that Republicans over-reached and their gerry-mandering efforts backfired.   

The successful messages and campaigns of Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Jon Tester in Montana, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota, Sheldon Whitehouse in Rhode Island and Jim Webb in Virginia should be studied for future Democratic strategies and gains in those states and others in the presidential campaigns of 2008.

Though it was a generally good day for progressives, there were disappointments. The victory of Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, despite his strong support for the war in Iraq, seems to point to the limitations of passionately liberal "netroots" activists persuading a majority of voters. Internet activism is not a silver bullet, though in primaries it sure is an advantage to have passionate onlie activists on your side. (Daily Kos has an interesting discussion about online activism in the 2006 election.) And despite national anti-Republican trends, Tennessee, once a swing state, seems to be solidly Republican now. Bob Corker, whose slogan was "the real Tennessean," beat Harold Ford Jr, a black congressman who had lived part of his life in Washington, for the Senate.

Greer Beaty for the North Carolina Legislature

It's great to see a spunky working mom, Greer Beaty, take on an incumbent legislator and professional political consultant, Nelson Dollar, in a district (Cary-Apex) previously viewed as solidly conservative Republican, and win the endorsement of The News and Observer, which calls her a "dynamo." The testimonials on Greer's blog from people who know her are far more persuasive than Dollar's negative ads. He opposed raises for NC's poorly-paid teachers. She supports them. Rest of her platform.

Muslim Poised to Win Congressional Election in Minnesota

A moderate Muslim, Keith Ellison, has emerged as the front-runner for Congress in Minnesota, The New York Times reports. Ellision is a supporter of Israel's right to exist, and yet he also publicly observes the Muslim holy day of Ramadan.

Jumping From A Sinking Ship?

Resign, Mr. Speaker, declares The Washington Times, a flagship conservative newspaper. Brian Miniter, columnist for The Wall Street Journal, says House Republicans have done a lousy job of policing themselves. Conservative bloggers join in. Kowalski of RedState Blog says he feels such shame that he's quitting the blog, no longer willing to carry water for the Republicans..."I'm deeply ashamed of being part of this movement."

But some conservative bloggers are defending the GOP leadership. Matt Drudge blames the kids for exposing Congressman Foley.

Senator George Allen: Racially Hostile?

Update on previous post: As a college student, Senator George Allen of Virginia "frequently used the 'N word'," according to a college associate, now a radiologist in North Carolina. He "shot a deer while hunting,...cut the deer's head off, asked directions to the home of the nearest black person, and shoved the head into that person's oversized mailbox." So reports The Washington Post and Salon. Three members of Allen's college football team remember "a man with racist attitudes at ease with racial slurs." Allen denies the charges.

When I previously questioned whether it was fair to ask if Allen is racially hostile because of his recent actions, Ron Moore on this blog quickly came to Allen's defense. It's not surprising that Ron defended him because Ron on this blog has defended the rights of racists and segregationists to discriminate, equated the NAACP with the KKK, opposed a Martin Luther King holiday, called King a "pygmy" in comparison with the founding fathers, and criticized King for working only to expand the rights of one race, black people (missing a key part of King's ministry, to liberate whites from racism).

Of course George Allen could have changed or grown to become far more enlightened on racial issues since college. But given that as an adult, Allen:

Netroots Help to Oust Lieberman in CT's Democratic Primary

Senator Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic primary to a political novice, thanks in part to "people-powered politics," as Dailykos calls it, otherwise known as the power of the Internet. "Activists, bloggers and groups like MoveOn.org unleashed an army of volunteers who went house-to-house in Connecticut for months and made 80,000 phone calls in the days before the primary vote," Reuters reports. "What you're witnessing is the democratization of democracy and don't expect it to be pretty," Carol Darr, director of George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, told Reuters. "The candidates and the parties are about to see that they are no longer in control of politics," Darr said.

Lieberman is still favored to win in November, according to ABC News: "A July 20 poll found that among Connecticut voters across the political spectrum, 51 percent supported Lieberman, 27 percent supported Lamont, and 9 percent supported Republican Alan Schlesinger."

Lieberman probably would have won the primary if he hadn't been so aloof from the voters the last few years, and if he had paid more attention to constituent services, The Washington Post reported. Many felt a disconnect from their senator. Attentive personal contact with voters can forgive a multitude of sins. And they were frustrated as hell with a war Lieberman cheered on from the beginning, and saw an opportunity to punish him or hold him accountable for his miscalculations on Iraq.

So the question now is whether Ned Lamont can successfully make the case that he's not just a protest candidate, prove that he is well-acquainted with a wide range of issues and prove that he can sustain the momentum of his primary victory. He ran a real grassroots campaign. As a millionaire, he invested a lot of his own money in the campaign, $4 million to be exact, according to The New York Times. In addition to early support from progressive blogs like the Dailykos.com that gave Lamont name recogntion and credibility among Democratic diehards, three factors built momentum in Lamont's favor during the primary campaign, The Washington Post reports. Lamont succeeded in generating enthusiasm at the CT state Democratic convention; and he held his own in a debate with Lieberman. That, combined with the senator's announcement in July that he would run as an independent if he lost the primary, caused resentment among Democrats.

NPR: Net Activists Helped Decide Connecticut's Primary (Listen)

Previous:

• Senator Joe Lieberman Reports Real Progress in Iraq.
• More on the Development of Electronic Democracy.