Put your money where your mouth is

Please try again. glitterbag, if you would like to pick beyond Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Re: Put your money where your mouth is



The names in blue are the folks on my wish list, in other words these are the candidate I hope win. In the states where I didn't make a pick it's because I haven't been keeping up as I should with all of the races. Maryland is in the process of voting for Gov, Senator, my county is electing a new County Exec and I'm losing sleep over these local elections. I even started a blog where Marylanders can express their displeasure with some of the duds running. Its actually open to everybody, you don't have to live here to express opinions about media coverage or candidates in your area......I'm just sick of reading crap in the local papers (I have 3 in mind) that looks like reporters are just sharing copy and not doing any research. But Maryland especially the area I live in just lives and breaths local and national politics. I live in Annapolis, the Capital of the State, close to Baltimore and DC. Many people in the County are Federal workers, or city or county workers and then there are all the federal contractors and defense industries around. Can't forget the Naval Academy, around here politics is a blood sport.

Just got off the phone with Mom in Missouri. She said Talent is gonna win over McGaskill, but stem cell will pass.

Thanks for the invitation, but beyond knowing that the Dems won't win a majority, I have no clue on the individual races.

By the way, I just read an article by the Ombudsman of the WAPO, wherein she apologized to Republicans for her paper's unfair bias towards Democrats in this election. Heh. Kind of a "Sorry, but tough luck".

Hence my new mantra.

Annoy the media. Vote Republican.

Thanks for joning in, Glitterbag. Your picks, albeit picks from the heart and only in a few races, have been duly recorded.
Maryland could be interesting. In the Senate race (correct me if I am wrong here) the republican (Steele) is black and the incumbent democrat (Cardin) is white. There is some discussion about whether black voters will vote on the basis of color or ideology. I probably phrased that poorly, but it is getting late.

During the Democrat Primary, I voted for Kwesi Mfume over Cardin. Mfume has held office in Maryland for many terms before he left to head the NAACP. I like Mfume and Cardin, and I had a hunch Cardin would carry the primary if only because he has been a mainstay in MD politics and Mfume had left temporarily to assume other activities. They are both good, honest men, but Steele (who is black) had harsh things to say about Mfume and it was messy. I happen to be white, and MD elections tend to favor moderate to conservative Democrats. I am not even going to suggest that Maryland is free of racism, but being a black candidate in Maryland is not as divisive as some might think. Steele is busy trying to distance himself from Bush and the Republican Party, his ads don't even mention the party he belongs to. He has been receiving a great deal of help from the Bush and Cheney families in the form of big fund raising dinners. He is probably a nice enough guy, but other than his support of the war in Iraq, opposing women's rights, opposition to stem cell research, and all this during his 4 years in the only elected office he has held, Lt. Gov. to Bob Ehrlich. Steele hasn't accomplished anything he can hang his hat on. I don't know if Maryland's African American voters will find him all that compelling if they compare his record with Cardin. But the Gov. is urging folks to file absentee ballots because he claims we can't trust the voting machines, which by the way he was instrumental in bringing to Maryland. The Current Gov was also in the House of delegates and voted in favor of non-regulation of fuel prices and now sits in the Gov chair as BG&E increased the cost of fuel to homeowners by 74%. I hear that there is a huge pile of ballots waiting to be counted after the polls close, so I don't know when Maryland will learn who is or is not in office.

The rather small state of Maryland has the 3rd highest cost of living of any State in the Union. These fuel hikes are not going to be easy to swallow for many families.

I am waiting for my husband to get home so we can vote together. My son lives in Queen Anne County and he said he was in line for 40 minutes waiting to cast his vote. My friend Diane who lives here in AA County said the polls at Broadneck were mobbed. I think this is pretty exciting, and I wish every election had a big turnout. The Gov of Maryland scared people to cast absentee ballots because he didn't trust the voting machines. Close to 200,000 ballots have sent out and as of yesterday, many people still didn't have the absentee ballot they requested. I'm hoping that the turnout is heavy enough to give us an idea who actually won because it's going to take some time to count all those absentee ballots.

The elections were yesterday, right? What happened?

Who called it right?

I called it wrong. I said the Dems wouldn't take the Senate--and they will.

No, they won't. People continue to ignore that control of the Senate requires at least 60 seats. The Republicans did not have it, and the Democrats won't get it.

Ha, ha. I did. I got all 13 races correct. Ha, ha. I moved Virginia from Allen to Webb in, as I recall, the weekend before election day. I had the luxury or being a Virginian with, perhaps, a little bit of a better finger on the pulse of the last minute changes going on here.

All right?



Seems you were pretty close with this one exception...

Cycloptichorn

You are arguing over the definition of the word "control". Arguments over the definitions of words are rarely fruitful.

The Democrats will probably assign the commitee chairs (there may be a compromise, but I doubt it). They will also have a greater platform and a greater ability to set the agenda. You are, of course, right that they won't be able to stop a filibuster.

But the Democrats certainly have more power in the Senate than they did two days ago.

I think the ability of the minority party in the Senate to force a compromise is a good thing. The majority party (even a 51-49 majority) certainly has an advantage-- although clearly it is not the advantage enjoyed in the House.

If it will make you happier, we can change the word "control" to "majority" (although I guess you could say that with the independents who have both promised to caucus with the Democrats) that this isn't even true this time...

I will admit I would feel much better about this had Lieberman lost.

But even without the 60 votes needed for complete power, the party with the majority has advantages. The way the Republicans have gotten through Bush's judicial picks in the past two years should be evidence of this.

I was off by one, but I'm glad...

This is an absolute term, it's not the same as that old hippie debating dodge of saying "it's just semantics." Without 60% of any quorum, neither party can close debate and force a floor vote, except with the "Byrd option," re-christened the "nuclear option" in 2005. That means the filibuster is alive and well, and that means the Republicans can do it to the Democrats just as it has been done to the Republicans by the Democrats. One can probably reasonably assume that Lieberman will vote with the Democrats, but that still leaves a situation in which the putative majority party needs to play nice with the opposition to get things done.

I may have been misinformed, but i have understood that it will be 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and two Independents. Even if the Independents intend to caucus with the Democrats, it won't a walk in the park even to assign committee chairs, and the committe chairmanship means a good deal less when there is no sure majority on a committe, or in the committe of the whole (can you say quorum?). People are so intoxicated by this victory (and who can blame the hopeful for celebrating the consumation of their hopes), that they are fogetting what pragmatic politics are all about. Both parties have to play nice with each other, and that means that there is no absolute control of the Senate, and that is not a matter simply of the definition of "control."

Seems all rather irrelevant to the topic of this thread and that of Thomas's post.

Is this like bladder control? A majority gets some controlling positions, which tend to have an effect. Real control doesn't happen until 60. The achievement of majority is a psychological boost for the achieving party, however long that lasts. Best not to waste time wallowing in it, but okay to enjoy for a bit.

Yes, it certainly is reasonable to enjoy it, and i don't want to spoil anyone's enjoyment. However, it is a pipe dream to act as though the Democrats can have it all their own way.

The definition of Whip at Answers-dot-com is:

In the United States Congress or state legislatures, an assistant to the majority leader or minority leader responsible for stirring up party support on issues, keeping track of party members' votes, and acting as a general liaison between the majority leader or minority leader and other party members.

A good floor manager will use the Whip to negotiate favors and "markers" to get the vote he or she wants, but the Whip has another important job, and that is to assure attendance on important votes. At any such time as the Minority Leader can steal a march on the Majority Leader, he or she can pack either a committee or the committee of the whole (all the Senators present for a floor vote) to pass, defeat or obstruct a measure. We can party all we want, but you can bet the party leaders are already making plans to make the Senate and the House work effectively.

The last time any party had floor control of the Senate was the 95th Congress (1977-79) when the Democrats had 61 seats. The last time any party had absolute control of the Senate (as i pointed out earlier, either in this or another thread) was in Lyndon Johnson's second term, in the 89th Congress (1965-67), when the Democrats had 68 seats. The Republicans have not had absolute control of the Seanate since the 67th Congress (1921-23). (I just checked with the web site of the Secretary of the Senate to be sure of all of this; the equivalent web site for the House of Representatives is the Clerk of the House of Representatives.)

Absolute control of the Senate is extremely rare in U.S. history, and even floor control is relatively uncommon. It is very important to keep this in mind, because the Democrats will be judged in 2008 based on their performance over the next two years, and they will need to move very carefully if they are to avoid the traps the Republicans will be able to set for them. Pundits keep talking about "grid-lock," but there never is grid-lock in practical politics, and that is the kind of politics which competent floor managers (the Majority and Minority Leaders and Whips) practice.

We can get as ecstatic as we like, but the pols are no doubt even now making their plans to promote their own agendas, and the Democrats need to be careful not to serve a Republican agenda to make them look foolish or irresponsible or ineffective. That is a policy objective of both parties at all times.

Understand.

Actually, Cyclop, I changed my pick in TN back on page 6, (Saturday), a post or two before I changed my pick in VA.